How were horses loaded?

[Harlequin]

There’s some useful info in Atkins, GWR Goods Train Working Vol 2 .

On p. 253 photo of horse in cattle dock at Paddington. Caption describes how tarps were pulled over the roof of cattle wagons when carrying horses to prevent them being spooked.

On p. 255 photo of many horses in and around cattle pens at Brent after a horse sale.

 

I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere, or maybe @The Stationmaster told us somewhere, that valuable creatures would sometimes be loaded/unloaded on the passenger platform.

[Andy Hayter]

4 hours ago, Rivercider said:

I don't know how long the working life of a horse is, but I would imagine once bought and trained  a horse would be kept for most of its life. Whereas cattle would get moved, and slaughtered, much sooner.

 

I just looked in a random edition of my Middleton Press collection for traffic figures.

 

In 1928 here are figures for two random stations, Crediton and Umberleigh.

 

Crediton        - horses forwarded 37,  livestock trucks forwarded 409, livestock trucks received 207.

Umberleigh  - horses forwarded  20,  livestock trucks forwarded 162, livestock trucks received 13.

 

cheers

 

 

I wonder whether "horses" refers to the number of beasts or to the number of horse boxes.  As already discussed many horses would be shipped in cattle wagons.

 

I still cannot believe that for example the London cab industry could be self sustaining in horses or any way close.  So importation of horses would be needed.  That is one city and one industry.

[Nearholmer]

59 minutes ago, Ian Smeeton said:

where there were much more extensive cattle facilities

Or, were the facilities for pigs, on their way to a pastry casket?

[MR Chuffer]

5 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

upper classes trying to get their prized horses up those stairs to the street at Quorn & Woodhouse

Think Sileby and Barrow on Soar on the MR, hunting was there a long time before the Great Central interlopers.

 

Oops, just seen other people have basically commented the same, I used to live near Quorn...

Edited April 12, 2021 by MR Chuffer

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, fezza said:

Sorry Compound2632 I was scrolling on my phone and missed your post. 

My apologies - I was being inappropriately grumpy and snarky. Deleted.

[eastglosmog]

6 hours ago, Rivercider said:

I don't know how long the working life of a horse is, but I would imagine once bought and trained  a horse would be kept for most of its life. Whereas cattle would get moved, and slaughtered, much sooner.

 

I just looked in a random edition of my Middleton Press collection for traffic figures.

 

In 1928 here are figures for two random stations, Crediton and Umberleigh.

 

Crediton        - horses forwarded 37,  livestock trucks forwarded 409, livestock trucks received 207.

Umberleigh  - horses forwarded  20,  livestock trucks forwarded 162, livestock trucks received 13.

 

cheers

Just looked up Bryan Holden's "The Long Haul".  Seems like a railway cartage horse would be taken on when 2.5 to 3 years old and their working life would only be about 5 years, after which they would be sold out of service for a few more years of light work before being sent to the knackers yard, presumably at about 10 years of age.  Surprised as  I had thought their working lives were much longer than that.

[Mikkel]

Well, someone has to bring up Lambourn.

 

Various photos of the railcar and Pacos on the LVR site, including a nice one on this page. 

 

I like the horse loading scene on Dartford MRG's 4mm Lambourn layout here.

  

Until road transport took over, bah humbug.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Mikkel
Tidied up links

[The Johnster]

Story I heard many years ago, not about horses but there may be some relevance, about difficulty persuading a bull into a cattle wagon.  Mr Bull wasn't being agressive but stubborn, and manfully (bullfully) resisted the goods depot staff's attempts to push him up the ramp.  Then an old hand, who'd done it before, turned up, looked at everyone with undisguised scorn and contempt, and led a cow into the wagon.  Mr Bull immediately followed of his own accord.

[Michael Hodgson]

Wasn't the cattle wagon marked "Not to be hump shunted" then?

[MyRule1]

36 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Wasn't the cattle wagon marked "Not to be hump shunted" then?

Isn't that for camel wagons.

[Steamport Southport]

Easy to load them later on.

 

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/434489/oxford_diecast_76acc012_pack_of_4_pallets_with_loads_kennomeat_/stockdetail.aspx

 

I can't find Findus Lasagne vans....

[DCB]

I used to load a horse into my Hornby Dublo mail coach by hanging it on the hook.  I guess that was cruel in some peoples eyes. 

 

The higher platforms of loading docks may have helped with loading horse boxes compared to passenge platforms, that is if you can get the ramp down.

Edited April 13, 2021 by DavidCBroad

[33C]

On 11/04/2021 at 20:53, ITG said:

Just occurred to me I don’t know the answer to how horses were loaded onto railway horse boxes. We’ve all seen model stations/goods yards with the obligatory cattle dock, but did horses use this facility? If so, how come one never sees a dock with horses in it? If they didn’t, how did they get into the box?

Although possibly not wholly prototypical, I think my cattle dock will be located on a spur, slightly apart from the goods yard, partly due to space considerations (planning not quite spot on!) but also because it will make shunting more interesting to have to break up arriving mixed goods to appropriate sidings. So, just wondering whether to buy a horse box or two, as well as the couple of cattle trucks already on the layout.

thanks

Ian

Fodder in the front and it shoots out the back.........

[Nick Holliday]

I'm sure the topic has been tackled here before, but I think this discussion has underestimated the demand for working horses in the big cities, especially London. Before electric trams arrived, I understand there were at least 55,000 horses employed in hauling buses and trams, and possibly cabs.  In addition there was a similar number of horses employed in haulage, and one source says 25,000 horses owned by individuals.  The working lives of those working on the buses and trams was tragically short, and, apparently, seeing dead and dying horses was relatively commonplace.  To put it in perspective, one of the largest slaughterhouses in London dealt with over 25,000 horses a year!  With little breeding of horses on that scale close to London, these unfortunate animals would have been sourced from far and wide, even from Ireland, and rail transport would have played a key role in getting them to London.

[Steamport Southport]

41 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

I'm sure the topic has been tackled here before, but I think this discussion has underestimated the demand for working horses in the big cities, especially London. Before electric trams arrived, I understand there were at least 55,000 horses employed in hauling buses and trams, and possibly cabs.  In addition there was a similar number of horses employed in haulage, and one source says 25,000 horses owned by individuals.  The working lives of those working on the buses and trams was tragically short, and, apparently, seeing dead and dying horses was relatively commonplace.  To put it in perspective, one of the largest slaughterhouses in London dealt with over 25,000 horses a year!  With little breeding of horses on that scale close to London, these unfortunate animals would have been sourced from far and wide, even from Ireland, and rail transport would have played a key role in getting them to London.

 

But would those horses be sourced locally or transported far distances? East Anglia, Essex and Kent are just down the road. 

 

Worth remembering that prior to the 1930s urban sprawl London was very compact. You could be in the countryside in minutes with those new fangled electric trains. 

 

Look at the film Metroland. This is London.

 

 

 

 

Jason

[Ian Smeeton]

On 12/04/2021 at 20:48, Nearholmer said:

Or, were the facilities for pigs, on their way to a pastry casket?

 

Melton and the Vale of Belvoir is Dairy country.

 

Stilton cheese being a product of that industry.

 

The whey, a by-product of Stilton production, was used as pig food so the pigs would have been fairly local to Melton and the Vale. That doesn't stop them being shifted by rail, but a fair few would just have been driven to market.

 

Apparently, the pastry case was only used to keep the cooked pork fresh, and, at least initially, was only the carrying case rather than part of the meal.

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

 

[MR Chuffer]

20 minutes ago, Ian Smeeton said:

the pastry case was only used to keep the cooked pork fresh

If we're talking Melton Mowbray pork pies, they were designed to be eaten "on the go" by hunts people, the jelly providing a forgiving cushion to keep the meat together and the pastry to contain the whole.

[Nearholmer]

28 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Look at the film Metroland. This is London.

 

Strangely, both true, and untrue, in that Metroland, as in really serious sprawl, actually never got all that far out, and the route beyond Sandy Lodge (Moor Park) is still surprisingly green, even now, hence huge angst about HS2 being built in parallel with it.

 

The Met had ambitions to push development much further out, and I'm convinced that they built "suburban" stations at Qauinton Road, Granborough Road, Winslow Road, and Verney Junction with the idea of suburbanising that area - thankfully they didn't succeed.

 

None of which detracts from your general point about where horses came from. My point is more that Metroland is often cited as the great case example of sprawl, whereas what happened to Kent, Surrey, and the Western Avenue corridor might actually make better examples.

 

BTW, there's an 'uncut' version of that cab ride somewhere on Youtube, which is much better for railway detail. I think it might have been a Met training film - a very early "cab simulator".

[Nick Holliday]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

But would those horses be sourced locally or transported far distances? East Anglia, Essex and Kent are just down the road. 

 

Maybe, but the major horse breeding areas were Yorkshire and Durham, and Ireland, and Norfolk and Kent were hardly just down the road!

[The Johnster]

I don't think that by and large horses were transported by rail much, certainly not in regard to the number of them used in working roles right up to the late 50s.  Take high value items like racehorses, hunters, and the cavalry out of the loop and there was little demand to carry horses around the place, because as a rule they could be hired or bought when you got there.  The difference is probably in wartime, especially the Great War, when millions of horses were requistioned and exported to France and Belgium by the BEF; most never came back and the supply of beasts to the front was continual to replace losses to enemy action.  These horses would have been transported in ordinary covered vans.  Conflict in the Crimea and the Boer War must have required large numbers as well.

 

The UK never had an equivalent of the '6/40' van used on mainland Europe, a general purpose long wheelbase general goods van that had ventilators, drop ramp doors, and slats in the floors so that it could be used in time of war to carry either 6 horses or 40 troops.  These were sadly and infamously abused to carry more than 40 people on one way journeys by the Nazis.  The Russians had Tepulshka, much the same sort of thing but with a big pot bellied stove in the centre on which a samovar was usually placed.  This was the normal way that peasants and the lower orders, and in Soviet times prisoners heading for the Gulags, were carried; the trains would stop at intervals in layby sidings to allow more important traffic, which was all other traffic, to pass, and the hapless passengers would be let off to forage for firewood, fresh water, and food for a few hours, being responsible for their own supplies and survival during the journeys.  In the huge wastes of Siberia, there was no point in absconding as you would die of starvation or hypothermia if you did.

[Compound2632]

It seems to be a rule of thumb that c. 1900 - 1910 railway companies had twice as many horses as locomotives - chiefly for cartage. So around 6,000 for each of the pre-grouping big four. That seems to be a surprisingly small fraction of the total population.

 

Even now the horse population of the UK is surprisingly large - somewhere in the region of three quarters of a million. I gather that there was something called the NED - National Equine Database - but it got renamed by someone without a sense of humour as the Central Equine Database. 

[Nearholmer]

Irish railways had a fair number of multi-purpose vehicles, vans with ventilators in the sides, some of which had that very old-fashioned open section in the middle of the roof that was made weatherproof with boards and a sheet when needed. They also had non-roofed cattle wagons long after they were outlawed in Britain.

[The Johnster]

Railway goods depots usually had stables attached to them, quite large ones in the bigger depots.  Railways employed vets and stable grooms to look after them, and blacksmiths to shoe them, again centred on the goods depots to be locally available.  The life of a working horse was hard and not long; they were sold on after their performance began to deteriorate, and after a few more years work were knackered, literally, rendered down for glue.  Black Beauty, the full book which describes the entire life of a horse and not just the period when it was owned by a little girl who loved it as concentrated on in the tv series of my childhood with the stirring theme music, is a pretty accurate, and grim. 

 

Horses owned by the military and large companies who were in the public eye were fairly well looked after; cavalry horses especially of course but the majority of military horses were draught animals used for supply work and hauling gun carriages, but their lives deteriorated when they were sold on, and the final indignity of the glue pot beckoned.

 

Pit ponies had a pretty rough existence as well, especially in pre-nationalisation days. 

[Andy Hayter]

The Johnster

In France at least 6/40 was 8/40 - smaller horses?

Your view that horses would be available locally does not seem to fit well with the demands for horses in large cities where tens of thousands would be required each year, but the ability to rear that number of horses locally would be limited in the extreme.  

 

If as suggested before London had 55000 horses for cabs and they lasted in service for 5 years that implies 11000 new horse per year for just this one use.  Gestation for a horse is just over 11 months and most horses produce a single foal, so that implies a constant stock of 11000 mares just to produce foals - foals which would sit around unproductive for 18-24 months before being put to work.  Then you need more mares to produce foals to replace the breeding mares.  You can see where this is going.   To keep 55000 cab horses is going to need the best part of 100000 horses and foals.  

 

Regarding your later post and military horses, I think it is coloured by todays military horses which are much closer to the officers' horses of the past - the ones that ended up in the horse boxes on the railway not in the cattle wagons.   The ones in the cattle wagons were put under the bums of other ranks, hauled gun carriages, limbers and supply wagons.

[Mikkel]

Horse market day, Brent 1910

 

 

 

Lampeter, no date.