“WASHBOURNE”

[wagonman]

Well, it was worth coming here today just to learn that, as a lecturer at college used to say.

 

I am amazed by these horse box quantities, but probably oughtn’t to be, given how many horses were ‘in traffic’ pre-WW1. C3.25M working hors es in Britain in 1900, of which c0.3M were in London. Numbers began to fall as motor buses, then lorries, then tractors, began to appear.

 

 

There is a tale, possibly apocryphal, about a Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner in the 1880s who was concerned about the growth of traffic (what's new?) in London, and who predicted that by the 1980s Londoners would be knee-deep in horse muck. Then along came Herr Daimler...

Edited March 24, 2018 by wagonman

[Regularity]

...and we are knee-deep in gaseous waste products instead.

[James Harrison]

There is a tale, possibly apocryphal, about a Metropolitan Traffic Commissioner in the 1880s who was concerned about the growth of traffic (what's new?) in London, and who predicted that by the 1980s Londoners would be knee-deep in horse muck. Then along came Herr Daimler...

 

Nope, that did actually happen.... http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/

[Northroader]

This picture appeared on another thread only a few days ago, but hey... Tattenham Corner, and a few SECR Pullmans thrown in as a special offer for Alex.

[sem34090]

Not only SECR Pullmans, but an SECR loco too!

[Annie]

Are those all horseboxes in the siding behind the passenger train?

[sem34090]

Yes! The combination of those and the off-region pullman train tells me it's a race day!

[Donw]

It is very difficult for us to know quite how things were in those days presumably the horses used for local delivery carts etc. were obtained locally and never saw the inside of a railway horse box or maybe the railways would dispatch one to be used for local deliveries and perhaps the odd shunt to rural stations. If Lord Elpus visited his brother the Earl of Nowhere would he take his own carriage and pair by train, his favourite hunter and perhaps his daughters pony or would he just expect his brother's stable to meet his needs. I assume the Duke of elsewhere had a town hose in the smoke and a country estate the question then is could he afford to keep sufficient horses in both places or would he transport them between the two. 

The Army may have been a source of traffic in Victorian times officers had their own horses so probably had to arrange transport if going home or on leave and wanted their horse. Hunts. Point to Point meetings etc. may also have added so traffic in addition to race meetings.

 

Don

[wagonman]

Nope, that did actually happen.... http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/

 

 

Thanks for that. Nice to know my memory is at least half functioning!

[wagonman]

It is very difficult for us to know quite how things were in those days presumably the horses used for local delivery carts etc. were obtained locally and never saw the inside of a railway horse box or maybe the railways would dispatch one to be used for local deliveries and perhaps the odd shunt to rural stations. If Lord Elpus visited his brother the Earl of Nowhere would he take his own carriage and pair by train, his favourite hunter and perhaps his daughters pony or would he just expect his brother's stable to meet his needs. I assume the Duke of elsewhere had a town hose in the smoke and a country estate the question then is could he afford to keep sufficient horses in both places or would he transport them between the two. 

The Army may have been a source of traffic in Victorian times officers had their own horses so probably had to arrange transport if going home or on leave and wanted their horse. Hunts. Point to Point meetings etc. may also have added so traffic in addition to race meetings.

 

Don

 

As you surmise most horses never saw the inside of a horse box – at least not more than once or twice. Local shunting and delivery work out in the sticks would be done by heavy horses hired from local farmers and the local carting agent respectively. The very rich might keep carriage horses in town, or even a hack for the morning parade on Rotten Row, but most horses would be at their country seat. It was not unknown for the very rich to travel with their carriage and horses especially in the early days of the railways – if very rich they might hire their own train. If the Duke of Sutherland they might own their own train...

https://transportsofdelight.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/RALWAYS-EXCLUDED-FROM-THE-1923-GROUPING/RAILWAYS-EXCLUDED-FROM-THE-1923-GROUPING/i-Qrxm264/A

Edited March 25, 2018 by wagonman

[Nearholmer]

Sem

 

What makes you think they are 'off region' pullmans?

 

The SECR and Pullman seem regularly to have made sure that every car was available for Derby Day, which is what I'm betting this is, and run specials. And, apart from the two on the Met, weren't all non-SECR allocated one painted umber and cream ...... these look single colour to me.

 

Kevin

 

PS: just dawned on me ....... you're not thinking Tattenham Corner was. Brighton station are you?

Edited March 25, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

Another use for horsebox traffic, and a nice, bright, lively poster as well:

[Compound2632]

Another use for horsebox traffic, and a nice, bright, lively poster as well:

0669BD32-57F4-430E-BF88-504E2D32EA2B.jpeg

 

I believe this is a traffic that the Great Central worked hard to promote and capture from its neighbours too, the London Extension serving some prime hunting country. Earlier, in Anthony Trollope's political novels and I think some of the stand-alone ones too, spendthrift young men are often taking the train down from London for the weekend to join the hunt - though I think most of them would be out to scrounge a horse off a less indebted friend. Trollope's novels were set in his contemporary world of the 1860s and 70s.

[Nearholmer]

It would be quite interesting to have a horse embarkation scene on a layout, to show the interior of the box. There is a BR preserved at Quainton Road, and the interior has a good deal of buttoned-leather upholstery to cushion the expensive incumbent, and the grooms’ compartment is quite a home-from-home, with a loo and a tiny kitchenette. I’m guessing that pre-grouping ones were more ‘lidded pail’ and ‘bring your own spirit stove’.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

PS.. it’s just dawned on me, too, you don’t think this thread is about the Brighton Line? We try to be a bit interdenominational as well. Thinking about the Pullman specials, presumably they run from one of the main London termini, and a very pleasant way of doing it, but hardly time for a meal, suppose it was how fast you could neck the drinks served up by the steward.

Anyway, Tattenham Corner looks the poor relation, despite the Pullmans, compared with next door at Epsom Downs, although no horseboxes in sight here.

[Compound2632]

Epsom Downs station is a mile from the racecourse whereas Tattenham Corner is right by - so presumably the latter was preferred for dealing with the horses, whereas the location of the former made it easier to deal with the crowds of punters.

[Donw]

It would be quite interesting to have a horse embarkation scene on a layout, to show the interior of the box. There is a BR preserved at Quainton Road, and the interior has a good deal of buttoned-leather upholstery to cushion the expensive incumbent, and the grooms’ compartment is quite a home-from-home, with a loo and a tiny kitchenette. I’m guessing that pre-grouping ones were more ‘lidded pail’ and ‘bring your own spirit stove’.

 

I have seen one in a magazine with a fully detailed interior possibly the Gazette.

 

Don

[Tom Burnham]

Siegfried Sassoon's "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man" frequently refer to the hero taking his horse by train to attend various hunts.  His local station is a thinly fictionalised Paddock Wood, and on an least one occasion he goes with the horse to somewhere on the LB&SC.  My impression from a casual perusal of Edwardian timetables is that horse boxes would be kept on hand at larger stations and you could send a horse at relatively short notice.  Presumably if you wanted to put one on rail somewhere else you'd need to give a day or two's notice so that they could bring a horse box from the junction for your mount.

Another major user of horse boxes in the last half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries would have been army manouevres both for regular and Volunteer units.  Special traffic notices for such movements usually referred to officers' "chargers", while other ranks had to make do with mere horses...

[corneliuslundie]

And of course the GWR WTT Appendices had warnings about not running over packs of hounds - or the horses and riders presumably.

Jonathan

[Annie]

Another use for horsebox traffic, and a nice, bright, lively poster as well:

0669BD32-57F4-430E-BF88-504E2D32EA2B.jpeg

Nice, that's going on my GWR station  

[Compound2632]

My impression from a casual perusal of Edwardian timetables is that horse boxes would be kept on hand at larger stations and you could send a horse at relatively short notice.  Presumably if you wanted to put one on rail somewhere else you'd need to give a day or two's notice so that they could bring a horse box from the junction for your mount.

 

Midland Railway Timetables, July, August and September 1903 (Ian Allan reprint) p. 178:

 

"Carriage trucks and horse boxes are kept at all the principal stations on the Line; but to prevent the possibility of disappointment, it is recommended that one day's notice be given at the stations when they are required."

 

And also:

 

"Horses and private carriages should, in all cases, be at the station from which they are to be forwarded at least twenty minutes prior to the departure of the train by which it is intended to send them."

Edited March 26, 2018 by Compound2632

[Nearholmer]

That is pretty nippy. If you catch the wrong moment, it can take longer than that to buy a ticket.

[Northroader]

Bonjour, c’est la fete du Paques, and I find zere ees in festival du cyclisme at le Chateau d ‘Aking to wheech I must go,

 

ton ami, Routier du Nord

 

[Edwardian]

Bonjour, c’est la fete du Paques, and I find zere ees in festival du cyclisme at le Chateau d ‘Aking to wheech I must go,

 

ton ami, Routier du Nord

 

941AACDD-7F33-488F-9009-DC68F286F5BD.jpeg

 

Oh dear.

 

"Security isn't a dirty word, Blackadder. Crevice is a dirty word, but security isn't."

 

General Melchett, Blackadder Goes Forth

[Nearholmer]

That sort of cycling tends to lead to trouble due to melolontha melolontha.