Appleby milk depot

[Guest Phil]

Just had to post this for those who havn't seen it, simply because it is so inspirational, at least to me !!!!

 

www.flickr.com/photos/64215236@NO3/6988550541/sizes/l/in/photostream/

[pH]

Is it this one? - http://www.flickr.com/photos/64215236@N03/6988550541/

[edcayton]

Thank you, that is superb.

 

Ed

[Karhedron]

Brilliant shot. Milk on the rails seems to have been an under-covered subject so more material is always welcome. I have one of Mr Robinson's books but I did not realise he was so polific online.

[Thomas]

Great picture, just wondering were they put the brake van.

[Karhedron]

Great picture, just wondering were they put the brake van.

Good question. For milk trains this was almost always a passenger brake van as these trains needed to un fast in order to get the milk to the bottling plants before it curdled.

[brossard]

I had the same question about the brake van. I think it was quite a bit later before fully fitted trains could dispense with a brake.

 

John

[macgeordie]

What an excellent photograph. I have often wondered myself how they attached or detached the wagons from the passenger train which usually took them down to Leeds or brought the empties back. Logically it has to be by using the train engine, but what happens to the passengers in the train coaches while this is going on? I was told that special milk trains ran through the night from Appleby down to London but I have never seen any documentary evidence for this, hgowever if the train ran overnight, there wouldn't be many photographs of them anyway. Can anybody shed any light on this? A seperate milk train would make a nice change on my S&C layout Kirkby Stephen West so if anyone has any knowledge of these trains I'd like to hear it.

 

Ian

[Guest stuartp]

Great picture, just wondering were they put the brake van.

 

It's possibly still in Appleby station (about 100 yds to the left of that pic), the wagons standing on the up main may be the empties waiting to be shunted in once they've extracted the full(s). A lot of Dave Larkin's milk tank pics were taken in Appleby North yard and from conversations years ago with signalmen who used to work there there was a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing between the two.

[ELTEL]

This may be a wild goose chase

 

Was there a milk depot at Utoxeter station in the 50/60s

 

Anybody got any photographs?

 

Terry

[pH]

This may be a wild goose chase

 

Was there a milk depot at Utoxeter station in the 50/60s

 

Anybody got any photographs?

 

Terry

 

One here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/11136647@N05/7101969475/

[davefrk]

As I understand it, at this time the three coaches of the train were left at the station and the train loco took the empty tanks the hundred yards to the depot, swapped them round for fulls then reversed to the coaches and continued on the journey. There are photos of this and other locos with the milk tanks behind the engine in my S&C books

 

HTH

Dave Franks

[macgeordie]

As I understand it, at this time the three coaches of the train were left at the station and the train loco took the empty tanks the hundred yards to the depot, swapped them round for fulls then reversed to the coaches and continued on the journey. There are photos of this and other locos with the milk tanks behind the engine in my S&C books

 

HTH

Dave Franks

 

Hi Dave

 

Thanks for the information, I have loads of S&C books but I havn't come accross the pictures you mention above. Can you tell me which book(s) they are in and I'll do a search on Ebay for them. I didn't realise the dairy was so close to the station, I thought it was half a mile or so away.

 

Cheers

Ian

[Guest stuartp]

As I understand it, at this time the three coaches of the train were left at the station and the train loco took the empty tanks the hundred yards to the depot, swapped them round for fulls then reversed to the coaches and continued on the journey. There are photos of this and other locos with the milk tanks behind the engine in my S&C books

 

I did wonder whether there were passenger coaches rather than a brake van out of shot. However, the loco is carrying the Class 9 headcode (pick up goods) and if those are the empties, I couldn't think why a southbound train would be carrying empty tanks from further north.

Edited May 15, 2012 by stuartp

[ELTEL]

 

 

One here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/11136647@N05/7101969475/

 

Many thanks

[Oldddudders]

I did wonder whether there were passenger coaches rather than a brake van out of shot. However, the loco is carrying the Class 9 headcode (pick up goods) and if those are the empties, I couldn't think why a southbound train would be carrying empty tanks from further north.

Elsewhere on RMweb there is a thread about kickback sidings. I do wonder whether this Class 9 is actually bringing empty tanks that have some from the South, berthed locally elsewhere as suggested, and are now being delivered by the South-facing trip? In a similar fashion, Morden South dairy could only be served by a down train from Wimbledon, and the empty tanks would taken further Down to St Helier, where a runround was available to get onto the Up line, and hence back to Wimbledon.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Another thread revival. I went on to Google for info about the Appleby - London milk train and, as so often, it redirected me here!

 

The photo signposted at the beginning of the thread has seemingly been lost on Flickr. I don't necessarily need a photo but I would like to have some idea of how many tank wagons I would need to replicate this train. I think that I am right in thinking that they should all be 6-wheel.

 

I don't have timings either but I assume that it would leave Appleby early evening and so be in West Yorkshire late evening for an early morning arrival at Cricklewood.

[Karhedron]

The photo in question had 4 tankers on the mainline, 1 being shunted and 2 parked on the dairy siding. You are correct that they are all 6-wheelers. Appleby opened in 1931, the same year the 6-wheeled tankers were introduced and I have seen a photo from that year of a 6-wheeled Express Diary tanker at Cricklewood which may well have come from Appleby. 4 wheeled tankers were all rebuilt as 6-wheelers by 1937 so it is possible that some worked to Appleby but I have not seen any photos of this. 6-wheelers were the norm for the bulk of its working life.

 

I have seen a note from 1960 that the regular milk train originated in Carlisle at 7.15 pm each weekday, picking up additional tankers at Appleby, getting to Skipton just before 10pm, and then on to Cricklewood so your assumption looks to be correct.

 

Also, Appleby was a major cheese factory so some of the photos you see of it may actually show excess milk arriving from other areas of the country (particularly the south west) for processing. This is pretty difficult to deduce from photos alone. I would guess that the original photograph actually shows milk arriving at Appleby since it is dated 1965. I believe that Appleby stopped dispatching milk to London at the end of 1963 as part of the "Western agreement" between BRB and the MMB. After this milk into London was focussed on the 3 principle flows from south Wales and the south west.

 

There is another photo of the Dairy here with a much longer train passing (with what looks like an ex-LMS Stove-R for the guard in the middle of the formation). Milk production varied considerably depending on the time of year. I believe this photo is older as the large drying tower has not been built yet and so probably does show a milk train bound for London. Actually, given the length of the train, it might even be empties being returned for filling. Milk tanks weighed 28 tons when full so a train of 14 of them would be taxing, even for a large engine.

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Karhedron