Horse traffic by sea/ferry

[SteveyDee68]

Having searched 10 pages - over 250 results - for a topic search of "horse", and a good 50% of those being from @Horsetan, I am none the wiser and wonder if the hive mind of RMWeb might be able to enlighten me?

 

Horses were transported by rail up until around 1972 (as best as I have it from reading previous discussions), using horsebox wagons and occasionally cattle trucks (especially for military/cavalry horses).

 

What is not clear (at least to me so far) is how horses were transported abroad, by ship. I've read about livestock ships between Ireland and the UK, but how were horses moved? If transported by rail to port, were they then offloaded from their wagons and put aboard separately? Or were horseboxes ever shipped across to, say, France via the train ferries, lashing the wagons down by their buffer stocks and saving the hassle/stress of transhipping skittish horses? I am, of course, imagining the transportation of racehorses or animals used for other equestrian sporting events, where said animals might be less at risk travelling 'straight through' so to speak.

 

Alternatively, can anyone point me in the direction if useful reference works which might provide me with an answer?

 

It does strike me as odd that after transporting a valuable animal in a purpose built wagon via the railway that the same animal would then need to undergo the stress of being moved from said wagon on board a ship, no matter how well equipped the stabling provision might be once on board.

 

Thanks in advance for any information shed upon this subject!

 

Steve S

Edited May 23, 2021 by SteveyDee68
Typos!

[KeithMacdonald]

Horse-lifting boxes
 

Quote

 

As they set sail for France in 1914 the British Expeditionary Force in France took 165,000 horses, the vast majority of them requisitioned and collected in just twelve days. It was truly a miracle of organisation and co-operation, but one of the greatest challenges of that mobilisation was the ongoing transportation of the horse to the battlefields in France.

The horse lifting boxes were fundamental to getting the horses to France through east London’s dockyards. Unlike soldiers horses don’t walk up steep gangplanks very easily, this sort of lifting box would be hoisted over the gunwales of a ship by crane and lowered into the hold where horses were stabled. Those same boxes were used in 1918 to bring over 60,000 horses back home through those same docks.

 

 

https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/remembrance-day-war-horses-516629

 

[Compound2632]

I can't see horseboxes going by train ferry - certainly not between Great Britain and Ireland (difference of gauge) or between Great Britain and the continent (incompatibility of brakes etc.?) Were passenger stock horseboxes known on the European mainland or where they an idiosyncrasy of the railways of the British Isles?

 

Shipping horses was a well-established thing well before the railway age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_transports_in_the_Middle_Ages.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Compound2632

[SteveyDee68]

I meant to add that my Google searches have brought up various horse-related websites that all say more or less the same thing and don't provide any kind of detail! Almost as if every website is aimed content-wise at the level of a casually interested teenager more interested in pictures of horses per se!

 

Having said that, it seems that the topic has been touched upon previously on RMWeb, with contributions by @jonhall, @jwealleans (who mentioned his ferry archive - intriguing!) and @The Bigbee Line (Ernie Puddick). Perhaps those are the folks most likely to be able to answer my query? Certainly I can't find an answer via Google!

 

In any case, @jonhall and @Corbs on the same thread point me in the direction of the NRM picture archives.

 

HOURS OF FUN!

 

 

[SteveyDee68]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I can't see horseboxes going by train ferry - certainly not between Great Britain and Ireland (difference of gauge) or between Great Britain and the continent (incompatibility of brakes etc.?) Were passenger stock horseboxes known on the European mainland or where they an idiosyncrasy of the railways of the British Isles?

 

Shipping horses was a well-established thing well before the railway age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_transports_in_the_Middle_Ages.

 

Thanks for your reply, Stephen.

 

I know that there were (primarily) cattle ships for transporting livestock from Ireland to the UK, but that no train ferry has ever plied the Irish Sea because of the gauge differences. My query really was about transportation cross-Channel to the continent.

 

In his thread Livestock - photos from the NRM, @jonhall said - 

 

"The caption claims that they were transported via the train ferry, I'm sceptical - thats definitely a horse box, not a conventional van, but the only ferry-horse box I'm aware of is Fench, and there was only one example..."

 

But @jwealleans responds -

 

"Jon, there's a note somewhere in my ferry archive - possibly Ransome-Wallis - of seeing a line of BR horseboxes at Zeebrugge."

 

And @The Bigbee Line also wrote in the same thread -

 

"Regarding wagons on the Train Ferry, I remember seeing a drawing somewhere on the net of a BR cattle wagon, modded for Train Ferry use.  As well as the usual extra handles etc it was fitted with a urine retention tank."

 

So far, that suggests that such workings might have taken place, albeit not commonplace. Photographic evidence would be a bonus, especially of any specially adapted wagons for the purpose!

 

It's all very interesting!

 

HOURS OF FUN!

 

 

 

[SteveyDee68]

57 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Horse-lifting boxes
 

 

https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/remembrance-day-war-horses-516629

 

 

Thank you for that photo - so far I had only found photos of slings, which were noted as being obsolete by the turn of the 20th century. There's enough detail there to be able to build a reasonable replica, although basic dimensions would have been a bonus! It certainly answers the question of getting horses into a ship's hold, but a horse already in a wagon straight onto a train ferry must have been easier?

 

As Port Richborough was built for the army for World War I and had a train ferry link span, I'm surprised I haven't stumbled across more information already!

 

HOURS OF FUN!

[Wickham Green too]

18 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

....... "Regarding wagons on the Train Ferry, I remember seeing a drawing somewhere on the net of a BR cattle wagon, modded for Train Ferry use.  As well as the usual extra handles etc it was fitted with a urine retention tank." ....

"Forty vehicles from diagrams 352 and353 were later modified for use on the Dover-Dunkerque ferry service. Modifications involved re-sheeting of the lower sides to eliminate openings, together with fitting drains in the floor which led to a urine tank. A new diagram, 354, was issued ........" and is reproduced in Don Rowland's 'British Railways Wagons'.

[jonhall]

The French small covered wagon tended to be branded '40 men or 8 horses' from ww1 onwards, its possible that on the continent, a conventional ferry wagon was considered an acceptable horsebox?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-and-eights

 

Jon

Edited May 23, 2021 by jonhall

[KeithMacdonald]

42 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Thank you for that photo - so far I had only found photos of slings, which were noted as being obsolete by the turn of the 20th century. There's enough detail there to be able to build a reasonable replica, although basic dimensions would have been a bonus!

 

Quote

In 2015, two rare horse–lifting boxes that were used to transport the army horses to and from the frontline, were discovered and subsequently displayed at an exhibition by The Horse Trust at its home of rest for horses in Speen, Buckinghamshire.

Quote

 

After some persistence Horse Trust Chief Executive Jeannette Allen tracked down this pair of heavy horse-lifting boxes that appeared to have been used in the monumental mobilisation and de-mobilisation.

These sort of boxes offered a much kinder way of lifting horses that would otherwise be hoisted with slings when tides or unsuitable wharves made gang-planks impossible.

 

 

Perhaps if you contact The Horses Trust, they might know what became of the boxes? With a bit of luck, they might be available for measurement?

 

 

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

 

Perhaps if you contact The Horses Trust, they might know what became of the boxes? With a bit of luck, they might be available for measurement?

 

 

As I remember the boxes used could vary in size and design significantly depending on where built, type of ship etc. 

Those designed for longer sea voyages had roofs and side screens. Some were purpose built for the voyage and then discarded at it's conclusion. As depicted in one of the previous photos the entire box (and horse) would be lifted aboard. 

Normally the box was small enough to limit movement of the horse as much as possible - they were never allowed enough space to lie down as the danger of them injuring themselves was too great, e.g. broken limbs. Usual practice was that once the horse was in the box a large and wide strop was passed underneath the animal and in contact with the body but not done up too tight. The idea being the horse could rest its legs by placing it's weight on the strop.

The animals were always carried on deck and never below, usually down aft and somewhere with a bit of shelter with the open end of the box facing inboard.

As well as a significant quantity of hay and straw a groom usually accompanied the horses with some basic veterinary supplies; in addition some kind of device/pistol was carried should the need arise to despatch the animal.

The above concerns a "deep sea" voyage carrying horses, however short sea crossings e.g. ferries would have done things slightly differently due to the short duration of the voyage with open top horseboxes etc in use but likely still kept in the open air or on some kind of sheltered deck unless it was a ship specially designed for the carriage of livestock.

Wartime changed things entirely of course as peacetime requirements would be relaxed so as to keep things as simple as possible.

The transportation of high value horses still occurs occasionally in modern times. although now generally utilising a dervivative of an ISO 20 foot container. 

Today conventional road horseboxes are permitted to travel on the car decks of ferries with no specalised requirements (unless they are over 3.5T whereupon they're required to have lashing points), although accordingly their carriage is very much weather dependent.

[Michael Hodgson]

12 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

The transportation of high value horses still occurs occasionally in modern times. although now generally utilising a dervivative of an ISO 20 foot container. 

Today conventional road horseboxes are permitted to travel on the car decks of ferries with no specalised requirements (unless they are over 3.5T whereupon they're required to have lashing points), although accordingly their carriage is very much weather dependent.

 

There's a lot of posh horses in foreign places with wealthy Arab owners taking a keen interest in racing.  So I would have thought international travel for high value horses would tend to be by air these days anyway?  And of course the Ancient Greeks had a horse called Pegasus who didn't have to stand in a queue with a boarding card. 

 

I suppose horses on ferries sometimes get seasick and they're too big and clumsy to use the toilets where the human passengers are busy throwing up, so I guess they have to chuck up over the side? 

[Fat Controller]

Just now, Michael Hodgson said:

 

There's a lot of posh horses in foreign places with wealthy Arab owners taking a keen interest in racing.  So I would have thought international travel for high value horses would tend to be by air these days anyway?  And of course the Ancient Greeks had a horse called Pegasus who didn't have to stand in a queue with a boarding card. 

 

I suppose horses on ferries sometimes get seasick and they're too big and clumsy to use the toilets where the human passengers are busy throwing up, so I guess they have to chuck up over the side? 

Eurotunnel carry quite a few horses. The horse-boxes could easily be mistake for luxury coaches, and loaded ones are carried on passenger shuttles. 

 

[SteveyDee68]

Every website I have visited all say the same thing, which is that with improvements in road transport moving horses by rail simply became outdated. Long distance road horse boxes got bigger and more sophisticated, so why load your four legged friends into a trailer to then have to transfer them into an unfamiliar railway wagon, to transfer to ship etc etc etc.

 

Larger horseboxes are allowed on RoRo ferries, and moving very expensive horses or travelling very long distances has long ago taken to the skies. But this is all modern day!

 

My original query was to do with when horses were moved by rail, what happened if then being enshipped? I think the RMWeb hive mind has come up trumps in answering that, from craning horses onto ships in special crates to instances of BR horseboxes being spotted abroad (obviously via train ferries) plus information regarding specially adapted cattle wagons for transporting livestock on train ferries (beyond simply horses) and even indication that there was stock built for the purpose on the other side of the channel.

 

It's another source of traffic for my train ferry project, plus there is the prospect of a side project of modifying some cattle wagons for the purpose, too! (I had absolutely no intention of using cattle wagons, but now I can justify them - suitably modified - on my future layout!)

 

Thank you, one and all for your contributions.

 

HOURS OF FUN!

[keefer]

well, when you get into the Racing World, there will always be a 'premium' service for the horses - we're talking £millions of not just intrinsic value but investment too.

After all, you wouldn't post a rare Fabergé egg in a Jiffy bag by Royal Mail, would you? 

[Wickham Green too]

One other aspect of  the railways' horse movement that I don't recall cropping up above, is that some lines invested in road horseboxes themselves ( probably from the thirties ). That's unlikely to have been worthwhile simply as feeders from trainers / race courses to railhead as it would have entailed huge empty mileage - so road transport must have been seen as 'the way ahead' ( the railways were still common carriers ).