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Horse Boxes


melmerby

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As we have two new horseboxes in 4mm (GWR and Mk1) I was wondering if they were ever used in anything other than passenger trains? - That is apart from "specials" e.g. Bertram Mills circus train etc.

 

Also were horses (the less valuable type!) ever transported in cattle trucks or similar vehicles?

 

Keith

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Also were horses (the less valuable type!) ever transported in cattle trucks or similar vehicles?

 

Yes to that - the frontispiece to Hendry's 'BR Wagons in Colour for the Modeller and Historian' has a pic of a freight (at Banbury IIRC) with a horse-laden cattle van at the head. The caption surmises they may be on their last journey :(

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Also were horses (the less valuable type!) ever transported in cattle trucks or similar vehicles?

See Great Western Railway Journal no 76 - GWR Horse Traffic and Horse Boxes, by John Lewis.

An instance is quoted from 1903, where officers' horses were transported in horseboxes but cattle wagons were used for the mounts of rank and file (approximately 6 horses per cattle wagon, or 3 per horse box).

 

Also according to A History of GWR Goods Wagons, by Atkins et al, during World War I some 400 7-plank wagons were converted for transport of horses, despite this contravening 1904 Board of Trade regulations.

 

David

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Also according to A History of GWR Goods Wagons, by Atkins et al, during World War I some 400 7-plank wagons were converted for transport of horses, despite this contravening 1904 Board of Trade regulations.

 

David

I managed to find that reference. Must have been a bit draughty for the poor beasts!

 

Keith

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Maybe this is an opportunity to remind Mike the Stationmaster that he once hinted that he might write something for us on tail traffic?

Nick

 

Thank you for that Nick. As the gardening (civil engineering version thereof) season comes to an end I shall try to fit something in between the various Instructions and a Rule Book I need to get finished for several 1:1 railways - in fact it might make a pleasant 'change as good as a rest' from having to write stuff in the contemporary dumbed down idiom so beloved of an organisation which shall go nameless.

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Thank you for that Nick. As the gardening (civil engineering version thereof) season comes to an end I shall try to fit something in between the various Instructions and a Rule Book I need to get finished for several 1:1 railways - in fact it might make a pleasant 'change as good as a rest' from having to write stuff in the contemporary dumbed down idiom so beloved of an organisation which shall go nameless.

 

I will look forward to that with interest as I've got several horsebox kits to build for my new layout and it has a horse dock marked on the track plan so I want to try and make use of it in the correct pattern.

 

Jamie

 

PS I t will make me get on with building the things.

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As we have two new horseboxes in 4mm (GWR and Mk1) I was wondering if they were ever used in anything other than passenger trains? - That is apart from "specials" e.g. Bertram Mills circus train etc.

 

Also were horses (the less valuable type!) ever transported in cattle trucks or similar vehicles?

 

Keith

 

 

 

Never knew that. Did they go directly behind the locomotive followed by the passenger coaches? When were they retired from service?

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in the 1972 general appendix, the only note i can see is regarding 4- and 6-wheeled stock in passenger trains (p.101):

"4- and 6-wheeled vehicles may be intermixed, but when so intermixed and conveyed on passenger trains they must be marshalled at the front of all bogie vehicles or behind all bogie vehicles."

the mk1 HBs were XP rated and vac brake/steam heat, so if in front of the coaches there was still brake/heat continuity.

 

as to horses being conveyed in other types of vehicles or types of train, the rule before that above concerns parcels/livestock trains conveying passengers:

"when conveying passengers (inc. grooms or attendants) parcels trains, fully fitted freight trains, livestock specials, horsebox specials, military specials conveying horses in cattle wagons and showmen's trains must be signalled and dealt with as passenger trains"

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