GWR Provender wagon loads

[MikeOxon]

I have a Coopercraft provender wagon and am unsure about how to model its load.

 

 

My Atkins 'History of GWR Wagons' states that there seem to be no photos, so my question is - does anyone know how hay was 'packaged' at the turn of the19th/20th century? 

 

I'm guessing that they were not the neat rectangular bales we now see on farm lorries or, perhaps, they were?  Any thoughts will be welcome.

 

Mike

[Fat Controller]

I believe hay was stacked, then cut into manageable bales with sharp knives. The wagon would probably be sheeted, anyway, as damp hay has an unfortunate habit of spontaneously combusting; in the last decade, after dry summers, SNCF and the French farmers' union arranged block trains of both hay and straw to afflicted areas, and at least a couple went up in smoke.

[buffalo]

There is a photo showing at least two of these wagons at the Didcot provender store (plate 562 in Vaughan's Pictorial History of GW Architecture). They are shown together with a wide range of other open wagons from three planks upwards, all of which appear to be carrying similar loads, either hand-cut bales or sacks. Judging by the liveries of the wagons, the photo was taken not long after 1904 as only a couple of wagons carry GW letters, most having earlier styles.One of the provender wagons is almost certainly the Q1 type of 1903 depicted by your kit, the other may be one of the 1884 9T types.

 

In each case, the bales are stacked well above the sides of the wagons and would have been sheeted and roped before movement.  The load on the provender wagons looks to be a good 2-3 feet above the sides. Russell's wagon loads book shows several examples with lower sided wagons (figs 5-9), and describes how he learned the process as a lad. The photos shown by Russell were mostly intended to demonstrate how loads should be fixed and many of these appear in various editions of the General Appendix. My 1936 copy does not include any photos for hay and straw, but does have a detailed section on how they should be sheeted and roped (hay and straw required two different patterns of roping).

 

Nick

[MikeOxon]

Thank you for the very helpful response, Buffalo.  Your description of the photo in Vaughan jogged my memory and I realised that what is probably the same photo appears in Janet Russell's book on GW Horse Power - Fig.267. 

 

There's even a chapter about the Provender Stores that I had completely forgotten!  That's always my problem with books - having them on the shelf does not mean that I know everything that's in them

 

Mike

[MikeOxon]

As a result of Buffalo's information, I have now been able to examine a photograph of two provender wagons outside the Didcot stores.  This photo appears to be associated with an article from the Great Western Magazine, October 1906, by W.H.Stanier.  i agree that the left-hand wagon is probably the diagram Q1 as the DC1 type brake is visible.  The other wagon may well be from the earlier 1884 batch.

 

I have enhanced a small section of the photograph for research purposes and it would appear that the lettering does not conform to the usually accepted layout of the time. 

 

 

Nothing is very clear, so my thoughts are speculative.  It looks to me that the letters G.W.R are on the bottom plank at the R.H.end   The lettering on the visible end of the wagon is almost certainly not the number but looks to me as though it may well be the Tare weight.  At the bottom left of the side, there is probably the number but above that, it seems to me that it may state "To Carry", with the weight at the opposite (R.H.) end, so avoiding the diagonal bracing.  in addition, there is writing higher on the side, each side of the doors, which I think may be "Return to" on the left and "Didcot GWR" on the right (both in two lines).

 

I am well aware that's all very speculative, though the details are just a little clearer on the original.  'd welcome any further thoughts or comments.

 

Mike

 

 

[buffalo]

Hi Mike,

 

You may be right about the "Return to..." or "Empty to...", but I really can't see any reason to doubt that the rest of the lettering is quite normal for the 1903 build date. Right hand "G.W.R" with italic "Tare" and weight above, left hand number with italic "To Carry 10 Tons" above, maybe spaced to avoid the bracing, and number on end.

 

Nick

[MikeOxon]

Thanks again, Buffalo.  I'm still not sure about the number on the end. Compared with other wagons shown in the same (complete) photo, it doesn't look like them and there seem to be spaces in the writing, which looked to me more like a tare listing.

 

Having read the Stanier article, it seems that provender was mixed (hay, oats, beans, etc.) and then bagged for distribution to the various depots so, presumably, these wagons are carrying raw materials for delivery to the stores.  Or it might be bedding straw? 

 

The way the load is heaped high above the wagon sides is what I wanted to know about when I first posted.

 

Mike

[MikeOxon]

Thanks, Mickey.  I agree that it does look like hay.

 

Mike

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks again, Buffalo.  I'm still not sure about the number on the end. Compared with other wagons shown in the same (complete) photo, it doesn't look like them and there seem to be spaces in the writing, which looked to me more like a tare listing.

 

Having read the Stanier article, it seems that provender was mixed (hay, oats, beans, etc.) and then bagged for distribution to the various depots so, presumably, these wagons are carrying raw materials for delivery to the stores.  Or it might be bedding straw? 

 

The way the load is heaped high above the wagon sides is what I wanted to know about when I first posted.

 

Mike

 

In older farming practice there was a crop called 'Mixture' (in Berkshire at any rate) which was specifically grown for fodder and it consisted of oats, peas and beans - it was harvested like a normal grain crop and threshed in the same way as other grain crops and bagged.  My grandfather stopped growing it when he finally got rid of the farm's horses so presumably it was grown as fodder for them.

 

Incidentally the original 1936 General Appendic Instructions for loading hay & straw were unchanged from the 1920 Instruction and probably date back to before the Great War.  The instructions were subsequently altered, probably in 1944 although the new Instruction regarding the loading of bales was further altered in 1947, but these changes did not affect the methods of sheeting and roping hay and straw.  

[buffalo]

...Incidentally the original 1936 General Appendic Instructions for loading hay & straw were unchanged from the 1920 Instruction and probably date back to before the Great War...

Thanks for confirming that, Mike. I thought that was probably the case given the antiquity of some of the waggons in Russell's loading photos, and the presence of several pre-1904 examples in the 1936 Appendix. There's even one case of the mid-1890s left-hand G.W.R livery (diagram 3 in the Deals, Battens, etc section).

 

Nick

[Armstrong440]

 

My Atkins 'History of GWR Wagons' states that there seem to be no photos...

 

 

The combined and expanded edition (mine's the 1998 edition and it's just been reprinted) has a very similar extract from the same photo at Didcot provender yard as reproduced by MikeOxon above, although Atkins' is smaller and grainier.

 

It would seem that the right-hand wagon is from the earlier lot, as it clearly has a lever brake and no diagonal strapping.  These earlier wagons were slightly different from the Coopercraft model, with an 11'6" wheelbase.  But hey (pun intended)... if I shave off the diagonals then who's going to measure the wheelbase as the train rattles past?

 

But yes: there were only twelve of these wagons in total so it's little surprise that they were camera-shy.

[Fat Controller]

A related point; I have heard that the reason the railways of the various countries that were to become Germany were built to such a generous loading gauge is because the Prussian military wanted wagons to be able to carry as large a stack of forage as possible.

[wagonbasher]

The combined and expanded edition (mine's the 1998 edition and it's just been reprinted) has a very similar extract from the same photo at Didcot provender yard as reproduced by MikeOxon above, although Atkins' is smaller and grainier.

 

It would seem that the right-hand wagon is from the earlier lot, as it clearly has a lever brake and no diagonal strapping.  These earlier wagons were slightly different from the Coopercraft model, with an 11'6" wheelbase.  But hey (pun intended)... if I shave off the diagonals then who's going to measure the wheelbase as the train rattles past?

 

But yes: there were only twelve of these wagons in total so it's little surprise that they were camera-shy.

 

I realise that I am adding, querying a 4 year old thread but I have a coopercraft Provender wagon to build as my current project Tackeroo (UK trading camp WW1) had a rail accessed Forage store. And clearly lots of horses.

 

are you saying that there were only 12 of these high capacity wagons in total ever built or just the older batch without the strapping.

 

If I am reading correctly above I can use just about any reasonably high sided wagon, sheeted with the load extending above the wagon probably shaped foam or polystyrene etc.

 

Thought anyone?

 

Andy

[Miss Prism]

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97672-pragmatic-pre-grouping-mikkels-workbench/&do=findComment&comment=2621839

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Miss Prism
updating url

[wagonbasher]

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97672-pragmatic-pre-grouping-mikkels-workbench/?p=2621839

 

Thank you.

 

Who needs high sides....

 

Andy

[Mikkel]

On 24/09/2017 at 08:31, Miss Prism said:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97672-pragmatic-pre-grouping-mikkels-workbench/?p=2621839

 

Just updating this link as the old one now just leads to thread start (after the software change I assume): 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97672-pragmatic-pre-grouping-mikkels-workbench/&do=findComment&comment=2621839

 

Edited April 21, 2019 by Mikkel

[Mikkel]

Here's some information on GWR provender from Tony Atkins' recent book, GWR Goods Cartage Vol 1, Crecy Publishing, 2018. The book is, as usual, excellent. Page 77 says:

 

'Feeding was an important feature of the daily routine at all stables across the system. When the stud at Hockley was the biggest, provender was obtained from Handsworth — a few miles along the main line from Hockley towards Wolverhampton; the Horse Committee in 1882 approved spending £3/10/0 to seed two fields belonging to the company near Hatton station for grazing and £10 for repairing fences and cleaning ditches around those fields. 

 

But once the GW determined to do its own cartage in large towns, a Provender store with the latest steam-driven equipment for cutting hay into chaff and so on was opened at Didcot in 1884, from where fodder was dispatched by train all over the system. Electricity was installed in 1901 to drive the machinery (it also provided current for point motors and signals at Didcot).

 

The standard feed mixture made up at Didcot for country horses consisted of 22½ % oats, 10 % beans, 20 % maize, 41 % hay and 6 % oat-straw (chaff). For London horses, a slightly different mixture containing 2½ % more oats and 2½ % less hay was issued. The daily allowance of mixed provender varied between 27 lbs to 32 Ibs, depending on the individual horse. On Saturdays and Sundays bran and long hay were additionally fed to all GW horses. 

 

Six thousand sacks were required for each weekly supply across the whole GW territory, and altogether there were 14,000 provender sacks in circulation. Every week in the years before WW 1, Paddington alone received about 1,000 sacks of oats, 220 sacks of beans, 480 sacks of maize, 110 tons of hay, 16 tons of oat-straw and 18 tons of bran, to which should be added 40-50 tons of straw for bedding. Enough fodder for about a week was kept in reserve at most GW stables.

 

According to the well-known article on the Didcot Provender Store written by WH Stanier in the 1906 GW Magazine,over 9,000 acres of farmland were required to grow all the hay, oats and beans distributed over the GW system. In order to encourage home production at that time, the GWR Directors made it the practice that all provender should be British-produced. In 1909 it cost about £70,000 to feed all the GW horses. Complaints were made in the 1935 Goods Department Report that the cost of provender had risen in price so much that savings, which should have accrued from improved operational practices by the cartage department, were not being achieved'.

 

The book also contains instructions from the horse department, including the daily provender allowances for horses.

 

[MikeOxon]

On 21/04/2019 at 07:11, Mikkel said:

 

Just updating this link as the old one now just leads to thread start (after the software change I assume): 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97672-pragmatic-pre-grouping-mikkels-workbench/&do=findComment&comment=2621839

 

Thank you for updating the link - another thing lost in the new site.  It was fascinating to re-read this thread and see all the comments I made and had completely forgotten

[Compound2632]

I've never seen anything about how other companies fed their horses - since the number of horses seems typically to have been twice the number of locomotives, it's a significant aspect of railway operation. I suspect other lines were less centralised than the Great Western in this although I can well imagine that Crewe made all the horseshoes for LNWR horses and the brasses for their harness too! (Probably bred their own horses as well - were they all black?)

[Miss Prism]

I've always been surprised how centralised the GWR provender system was. Seems to me to be a rather inefficient way of getting feed to the many horses based on the network. One could argue however It goes some way to explain how many hay loads in opens there were trundling around in goods trains, which I suppose is a plus from a modeller's point of view.

 

[Mikkel]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I've never seen anything about how other companies fed their horses - since the number of horses seems typically to have been twice the number of locomotives, it's a significant aspect of railway operation. I suspect other lines were less centralised than the Great Western in this although I can well imagine that Crewe made all the horseshoes for LNWR horses and the brasses for their harness too! (Probably bred their own horses as well - were they all black?)

According to Tony Atkins, in 1869 the GWR compared the costs of its horses at Hockley (then the main hub of GWR horsepower) to other Birmingham carriers. It was found that the GWR fed their horses 44½ lbs of fodder per day, while the MR fed theirs only 34 lbs. Pickfords and Crowley's spent 41½ and 41 lbs respectively. Cue joke about Midland small engine policy  

 

The LNWR did not at that time have horses of their own in Birmingham, but the year before it had been found that the GW was also feeding horses more than the LNWR on the joint Birkenhead line.

 

These findings led the GWR to further investigate the condition of their horses and those of the other carriers. No difference was found, and so the GWR reduced the daily rations for their horses and substituted maize for oats. Fuel economy was clearly not just  a loco issue!

[Mikkel]

8 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I've always been surprised how centralised the GWR provender system was. Seems to me to be a rather inefficient way of getting feed to the many horses based on the network. One could argue however It goes some way to explain how many hay loads in opens there were trundling around in goods trains, which I suppose is a plus from a modeller's point of view.

 

 

That's what I've been thinking, but it does seem as if the GWR looked quite closely at the costs of their horses, so I assume they had worked out the costs and benefits. The official instructions show that provender was a composite of several carefully measured out ingredients, including cut hay, oats, maize, beans and bran, with planned seasonal differences. So a decentralized or local buy-in approach duplicated at multiple locations may not have been found cost effective.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Mikkel

[Compound2632]

It's intriguing that the Great Western was pursuing standardisation policies for its horses a generation before it got round to doing so for locomotives.