How were horses loaded?

[ITG]

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

[Steamport Southport]

Horse boxes were mostly for racehorses and occasionally military horses.

 

That's why they had a grooms compartment. You weren't leaving them in a cattle dock.

 

The subject has come up a few times.

 

 

 

Jason

[MR Chuffer]

Depending on period, there are photos in other threads where cattle wagons have been used for horse transportation - MR where I've seen it.

[eastglosmog]

I've seen a film of army horses being loaded into cattle wagons.  As I recall, they were loaded from the passenger platform, generally by a couple of privates pushing them, with varying amounts of difficulty.

[Steamport Southport]

Not the higher class of horse though. You're not putting the cavalry horses in a cattle wagon unless it's absolutely necessary.

 

There is film somewhere of BR Horseboxes being unloaded with military horses going to Kensington Olympia for the Horse Of The Year Show.

 

Some photos of the interior here.

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcattle

 

Some details of horse traffic here.

 

https://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/129-horse-race-traffic

 

 

Jason

[Nearholmer]

A lot depends upon date. Until probably the 1930s, there was traffic in "ordinary" horses, as well as very posh ones, and over fairly short distances too.

 

A few places had specific "horse landing platforms", but very many places had a small dock for side and end loading, which suited a carriage truck and a horsebox together.

 

In a book, I've got a superb photo of a pre-WW1 scene, with a GWR Victoria to Windsor service climbing up out of Victoria station, a Metro tank, horsebox, some sort of small horse-drawn delivery van on a carriage truck, plus a rake of 4W/6W coaches. The horse and van were the equivalent of a Ford Transit, so not very posh really.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Horse boxes were mostly for racehorses and occasionally military horses.

 

That's why they had a grooms compartment. You weren't leaving them in a cattle dock.

 

Carriage horses (with the carriage in an open or covered carriage truck), hunters (going down to Leicestershire for the day), etc. 

[phil_sutters]

2 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

I've seen a film of army horses being loaded into cattle wagons.  As I recall, they were loaded from the passenger platform, generally by a couple of privates pushing them, with varying amounts of difficulty.

This photo shows one method of entraining a military horse. There is a photo online of the Hampshire Carabiniers in 1909 with a train of horse boxes and cattle wagons. It is likely that the boxes were for officers' mounts and the wagons were for the rank and file's horses.  http://www.swindonsotherrailway.co.uk/mike208.html

When carriages were conveyed by train with their accompanying horses, if possible an end-loading bay would be used for the carriages and the horses would probably have been detrained on the platform beside. Platform 2* to the right of the train at Highbridge SDJR station would be an example, with road access directly from the far side of the station building. (*The numbering seems to have been slightly odd - that is no.2, the train is between 1 & 3, with 4 nearer the camera and the down platform - for trains to Burnham where the photograph was taken from.)

Edited April 11, 2021 by phil_sutters

[Clive Mortimore]

2 hours ago, 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

 

2 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

I've seen a film of army horses being loaded into cattle wagons.  As I recall, they were loaded from the passenger platform, generally by a couple of privates pushing them, with varying amounts of difficulty.

Hi ITG

 

As eastglosmog says with difficulty, especially if they are like Mrs M's three.

 

Most stations had an end loading dock, most modellers call the parcels platform or bay platform, where the carriages (horse drawn) would be loaded on to the OCT or CCT as noted by Jason.

 

Hi eastglosmog,

 

The men loading the army beast are unlikely to be privates, if from a cavalry regiment they would have the rank of Trooper, if from a Royal Artillery or Royal Horse Artillery battery they would be either Gunner or more likely Driver (both ranks were in use when the RA and RHA had horses) or Driver if in the RASC (Run away someone's coming). The rank of Private was used in many infantry regiments, and the RAOC. Having said all that when I was with 10 Field Workshops  REME some of our officers had horses (they rode in army sport events) and their grooms came from the workshop and mainly held the rank of Craftsman.

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Carriage horses (with the carriage in an open or covered carriage truck), hunters (going down to Leicestershire for the day), etc. 

 

Yes. Good quality horses worth a lot of money.

 

They weren't putting Albert Steptoe's old carthorse in one. They would go in the cattle wagon.

[Michael Hodgson]

40 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

In a book, I've got a superb photo of a pre-WW1 scene, with a GWR Victoria to Windsor service climbing up out of Victoria station, a Metro tank, horsebox, some sort of small horse-drawn delivery van on a carriage truck, plus a rake of 4W/6W coaches. The horse and van were the equivalent of a Ford Transit, so not very posh really.

The horse was no doubt uncoupled from the delivery van while in transit  

 

Before WW2 horses were still being used for all sorts of work, farmers for ploughing, carters for deliveries, the milkman and the coalman for their daily rounds.  Not just in rural areas either - my father said of the Newcastle Corporation's marvellous new trolleybuses how quiet and clean they were - they pulled up beside the footpath so you didn't have to wade through all the horse dung as you did to board clanking old trams in the middle of the street.  Some places used horses for shunting wagons.  So it wasn't only them in Windsor Castle or the Cavalry who knew how to handle horses, and that one end was for tying the cart to and it was the other end where you were supposed to put the oats in, all that sort of thing.

[Michael Hodgson]

4 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

They weren't putting Albert Steptoe's old carthorse in one. They would go in the cattle wagon.

 I'm sure they sold that to the glue factory!

[phil_sutters]

5 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Yes. Good quality horses worth a lot of money.

 

They weren't putting Albert Steptoe's old carthorse in one. They would go in the cattle wagon.

The chances are that horses owned by other than the gentry would not get to travel by train. The military and circuses are the only ones who would need to transport horses in quantity over a long distance. Horses would cover local distances on foot. If one needed a horse when visiting a more distant location ones were readily available for hire.

Edited April 11, 2021 by phil_sutters

[Steamport Southport]

1 minute ago, Michael Hodgson said:

The horse was no doubt uncoupled from the delivery van while in transit  

 

Before WW2 horses were still being used for all sorts of work, farmers for ploughing, carters for deliveries, the milkman and the coalman for their daily rounds.  Not just in rural areas either - my father said of the Newcastle Corporation's marvellous new trolleybuses how quiet and clean they were - they pulled up beside the footpath so you didn't have to wade through all the horse dung as you did to board clanking old trams in the middle of the street.  Some places used horses for shunting wagons.  So it wasn't only them in Windsor Castle or the Cavalry who knew how to handle horses, and that one end was for tying the cart to and it was the other end where you were supposed to put the oats in, all that sort of thing.

 

Well into the 1960s.

 

The last ex NCB ones in use was the 1990s.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_pony

 

The last BR horse was Charlie. Used for shunting horses (I kid you not) at Newmarket. Retired 1967.

 

 

Jason

[Nearholmer]

Just now, phil_sutters said:

The chances are that horses owned by other than the gentry would not get to travel by train.

 

I think that depends upon where in the social hierarchy you define "the gentry" to start and finish. Prosperous farmers would certainly travel to hunt, and to enter 'hunt races'. Maybe not the great excursions across several counties to join The Quorn or whatever, but within maybe a twenty or thirty mile radius, and some traders took horse and van on trips. And, there were horses on their way to and from county markets where they were sold.

 

 

Given that virtually every station in the country had facilities for this traffic, and every decent railway a fair number of horseboxes, I think it was commoner "years back" than we might credit now.

[Guy Rixon]

13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I think that depends upon where in the social hierarchy you define "the gentry" to start and finish. Prosperous farmers would certainly travel to hunt, and to enter 'hunt races'. Maybe not the great excursions across several counties to join The Quorn or whatever, but within maybe a twenty or thirty mile radius, and some traders took horse and van on trips. And, there were horses on their way to and from county markets where they were sold.

 

 

Given that virtually every station in the country had facilities for this traffic, and every decent railway a fair number of horseboxes, I think it was commoner "years back" than we might credit now.

Re gentry, the territorial cavalry regiments were often called "yeomanry" --- we still have a Royal Yeomanry regiment who are now light armour --- and a yeoman was once a specific rank of gentry. AFAICS, a yeomanry regiment was code for "they're rich enough to provide their own horses".

[phil_sutters]

I think that I was trying to suggest that one would rarely find working horses travelling en-masse, as one would with cattle, sheep and pigs, for which cattle wagons would be used. I suppose if one was selling a quantity of working horses at market one might need to transport them in wagons. But in general it would be those who could afford to hire a horse-box whose mounts would travel by train. Do we have any examples of horse 'fares'?

Edited April 11, 2021 by phil_sutters

[Andy Hayter]

Appleby is the obvious example and is still going in this century.  Originated probably in 1685.

 

Wellingborough also has one I believe.

 

Today they are the festival for travellers but horses would have been traded just like other animals in the 19th century with traders buying and shipping horses from markets and fairs to large cities and towns, where the local farmer would not have enough beast to satisfy demand.

[eastglosmog]

7 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

 

Hi ITG

 

As eastglosmog says with difficulty, especially if they are like Mrs M's three.

 

Most stations had an end loading dock, most modellers call the parcels platform or bay platform, where the carriages (horse drawn) would be loaded on to the OCT or CCT as noted by Jason.

 

Hi eastglosmog,

 

The men loading the army beast are unlikely to be privates, if from a cavalry regiment they would have the rank of Trooper, if from a Royal Artillery or Royal Horse Artillery battery they would be either Gunner or more likely Driver (both ranks were in use when the RA and RHA had horses) or Driver if in the RASC (Run away someone's coming). The rank of Private was used in many infantry regiments, and the RAOC. Having said all that when I was with 10 Field Workshops  REME some of our officers had horses (they rode in army sport events) and their grooms came from the workshop and mainly held the rank of Craftsman.

Hi Clive

I bow to your superior knowledge of Army ranks!  This lot were RHA, if I remember the film correctly.  It was also in the 2nd WW so could well be atypical of peace time.

[ITG]

Wow, so much info. Thanks.

[MR Chuffer]

Nice picture here, June 1909 and horses are being unloaded from a train that is comprised of LNWR rolling stock at Knott End on the Garstang and Knott End Railway.

[Nearholmer]

6 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

think that I was trying to suggest that one would rarely find working horses travelling en-masse, as one would with cattle, sheep and pigs

Definitely the case.

[phil_sutters]

8 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

Appleby is the obvious example and is still going in this century.  Originated probably in 1685.

 

Wellingborough also has one I believe.

 

Today they are the festival for travellers but horses would have been traded just like other animals in the 19th century with traders buying and shipping horses from markets and fairs to large cities and towns, where the local farmer would not have enough beast to satisfy demand.

When I said fares I meant fares - charges for carrying horses. I would think that even when rail transport for horses was more commonplace, that the travelling community would have their own methods of getting their steeds to Appleby fairs etc. Horses generally seem less happy about travelling in groups in wagons.

I just wondered how expensive it was to move your nag by rail.

[Rivercider]

What would be the proportion of horse traffic to cattle traffic? It might not necessarily equate to the proportion of horse boxes to cattle wagons, though it would be interesting to know the figures.

 

cheers

 

[fezza]

Horses easily get upset and/or go lame in transit. That's the reason why expensive animals are transported in separate compartments and led in individually. 

 

There was a horse landing siding on the WCML at Nuneaton (Down side) until the recent modernisation in the 2000s. In later years it was used for engineering trains