Western milk train

[GWR_Modeller]

Hi,

I presume originally the churn traffic effectively took unpasteurised milk from farm to distributor in one container and the grocer(?) would sell it from high street shops and hand carts.

When pasteurisation became compulsory in the mid 1920s where was it done?  Before or after the milk was put into tankers and transported to cities?

 

Regards,

Paul

[BWsTrains]

1 hour ago, GWR_Modeller said:

Hi,

I presume originally the churn traffic effectively took unpasteurised milk from farm to distributor in one container and the grocer(?) would sell it from high street shops and hand carts.

When pasteurisation became compulsory in the mid 1920s where was it done?  Before or after the milk was put into tankers and transported to cities?

 

Regards,

Paul

 

Answers to this and many other questions here:

 

http://www.igg.org.uk/rail/7-fops/fo-milk.htm

 

 

 

 

 

[GWR_Modeller]

Good site, I came across it years ago and the writer has added alot over time.  Unfortunately in this case it does not provide an answer.

Regards, Paul

 

[BWsTrains]

Reading some more about this, it's interesting that just over 100 years ago milk borne diseases and their prevention was still an active topic of research. How far we've since come with the likes of mRNA vaccines etc. Back then TB acquired via milk was still a serious health worry.

 

This research article gives useful technical background, USA focus but undoubtedly paralleling UK advances, certainly true regarding changes to transportation.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030217310573

 

While there's no direct answer to your question, there is a strong hint it was done at the end point bottling plant, because of the high capital cost of the equipment and presumably because of the greater quality control achievable this way.

Edited August 14, 2021 by BWsTrains

[Karhedron]

The descriptions I have of rail-served creameries all seem to mention pasteurising facilities being included from new (Pont Llanio, 1937 and Felin Fach, 1951). This suggests that milk in tankers was pasteurised before it was sent to London. I am not certain what happened in earlier creameries that were built to dispatch churn traffic. Many of these predated the expectation of milk being pasteurised.

 

The other thing to remember is that pasteurisation was  pursued by the dairy companies to increase confidence in their product rather than being mandated by law. Even after WW2, 30% of the milk consumed in the UK was unpasteurised. In fact it is still legally possible to buy unpasteurised milk today if you know where to go.

[HillsideDepot]

12 hours ago, GWR_Modeller said:

Hi,

I presume originally the churn traffic effectively took unpasteurised milk from farm to distributor in one container and the grocer(?) would sell it from high street shops and hand carts.

When pasteurisation became compulsory in the mid 1920s where was it done?  Before or after the milk was put into tankers and transported to cities?

 

Regards,

Paul

 

Albeit a 1954 film, this shows the process from cow to door-step at Express Dairies

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-daily-round-the-story-of-milk-production-and-distribution-1954-online 

Pasteurisation occurs at the city bottling plant in this example, but the rural depot shown seems quite small, despatching by road tanker. The way the film is edited it implies that the rail borne milk is also pasteurised at the Morden South, but it doesn't specifically say that, and such detail is not really relevant to a publicity film. Maybe larger country dairies, which also had a local market to serve processed it locally, but smaller dairies didn't justify the equipment?

[The Stationmaster]

11 hours ago, BWsTrains said:

 

Answers to this and many other questions here:

 

http://www.igg.org.uk/rail/7-fops/fo-milk.htm

 

 

 

 

 

He's a bit late with the date for road tanker collection from farms as it started much earlier than 1966 - i think my grandparents were putting milk into a bulk storage tank for road collection c.1960 (the dairy company supplied the storage tank).   And of course milk was not freight traffic anyway but was passenger rated and handled traffic.  Although it varied the general situation at farms before bulk collections were introduced was that milk was cooled in the farm's dairy before loading to churns for despatch.

[Karhedron]

10 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

He's a bit late with the date for road tanker collection from farms as it started much earlier than 1966 - i think my grandparents were putting milk into a bulk storage tank for road collection c.1960 (the dairy company supplied the storage tank).

 

You are right. Bulk storage and collection from farms was first trialled in 1953 by the Scottish MMB. Kirkcudbrightshire was chosen as the pilot area due to the sparse farms, often significant distances from the collecting dairies. Although hampered by poor roads in the area and congestion at the dairies, the principle caught on (possibly hastened by the ASLEF strike in 1955).

[Michael Hodgson]

12 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Although it varied the general situation at farms before bulk collections were introduced was that milk was cooled in the farm's dairy before loading to churns for despatch.

I presume there wasn't much in the way of refrigeration available then ,so how would they do that? 

[Karhedron]

7 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I presume there wasn't much in the way of refrigeration available then ,so how would they do that? 

 

Brine refrigeration was invented in the early 19th century IIRC with ammonia absorption systems invented in the 1880s. I don't know how far and how fast these spread though.

[The Stationmaster]

10 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I presume there wasn't much in the way of refrigeration available then ,so how would they do that? 

I suspect that they didn't bother with refrigeration if the milk was only on hand for a couple of days or and simply used water cooling.   I'm fairly sure the milk was cooled anyway as when my grandparents had their new milking parlour and dairy in 1953 the milk was still cooled immediately after milking before being put into churns.  Easy to remember the year as they had to have electricity installed for the new milking arrangements so they also got electricity in the house and that enabled them to get a television in time for the Coronation.

 

BTW don't confuse the way the term 'dairy' was used on a farm with the same word applied to a milk processing establishment.  About all they had once done in the old dairy - for which a mains water tap had been installed years earlier - was cool the milk although at one time there had also been a butter churn there.