More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

"Though I am wondering if I've made a transcription error"

You have my sympathy. Trying to identify numbers from handwriting can be very difficult, especially 5, 6 and 8 in some handwriting, and then there are those entries which have been altered . . .

 

I find initial capitals in 19th century handwriting can be difficult to distinguish - J, T, S, and F especially - which makes transcribing names tricky. The Skipton Minerals Inwards Ledger has a customer whom I have as Z. Sandall - perfectly plausible as nonconformist parents made free use of the more obscure Old Testament names - but in the ledger what I have interpreted as Z looks most like the medieval yogh - something like a 3. 

[Buhar]

I suspect goats could contribute to the miscellaneous animals quite a bit.

Alan

[Worsdell forever]

7 minutes ago, Buhar said:

I suspect goats could contribute to the miscellaneous animals quite a bit.

Alan

 

Also rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese etc? or would these be mostly crated and in a passenger guards van?

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, jwealleans said:

Would calves going by passenger train be counted separately, for example?   The phrasing suggests they might.

 

Yes, the numbers quoted are for cattle by goods train. So although horses and calves are enumerated, those travelling passenger-rated are not included. (Hence my comment on circus animals.) There is a sample of the Reports and Accounts downloadable on the Midland Railway Study Centre website, item 17916: 

https://www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk/documents/RFB17916.pdf.

The relevant section is No. 9, Revenue Account, on p.7. I think livestock by passenger train would be included under "Parcels, Horses, Carriages, &c."

 

You can also see that livestock traffic accounted for only 1.4% of the Midland's revenue from goods traffic - though it was seasonal, with the revenue in the second half of each year being typically 20% greater than that in the first half. At this date, cattle wagons formed 1.6% of the Midland's wagon fleet, so, roughly proportional to the revenue they were earning, though one has to be careful about interpreting that as even with the large-scale purchase of PO wagons, not all the mineral traffic was carried in the company's own wagons.

 

The information included in the Reports and Accounts was required by statute (various of the Regulation of Railways acts) so I think the reports produced by other railway companies will be in the same format. They're all at Kew in the series RAIL 1110, so there's nothing special about the data I've got, it's all there for examination for any railway company you're interested in.

[billbedford]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

That's a lot of sheep.

 

All the more remarkable as the majority would have been shipped in a 2-3 week period in the early autumn. This was when lambs born on hill farms earlier in the year were moved to lowland farms for fattening. 

 

There is a description in one of George Ewart Evans' books* of a sheep fair in a market town in East Anglia where the place is just inundated with sheep. 

 

*Don't ask me which one, I've long forgotten. 

[Aire Head]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Haworth Station, 1935 [Embedded link to Telegraph & Argus website].

 

That's Oxenhope 🙂.

 

[Buhar]

1 hour ago, Worsdell forever said:

 

Also rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese etc? or would these be mostly crated and in a passenger guards van?

There must be either a size cut-off or a point where the animal is not packaged in some way that determines whether it's counted as a head. Otherwise enumerating pigeons for races, day old chicks and similar would get silly.

Alan

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Aire Head said:

That's Oxenhope 🙂.

 

Which is what the Telegraph & Argus caption said. Doh. Corrected in post.

[jamie92208]

The late Derek Soames was one of the last signalman at Long Preston.  There was a cattle dock with 6 pens there with a larger pen behind the and space for many more sheep in the loo g fenced driveway.  He told me how, on market day in the autumn they could despatch as many as 4 or 5 trains.  Apparently managing  them with the limited sidi g capacity was an interesting experience with the first loco that brought a lot of empties in in the morning, staying to work as station pilot.  If it needed water it would have had to go to Hellifield, Settle or Giggleswick for water then come back. All this was done whilst keeping normal traffic moving.  I vaguely remember that at least one train lived on the main line being shunted backwards and forwards over the crossover when necessary. 

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Buhar said:

I suspect goats could contribute to the miscellaneous animals quite a bit.

 

2 hours ago, Worsdell forever said:

Also rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese etc? or would these be mostly crated and in a passenger guards van?

 

32 minutes ago, Buhar said:

There must be either a size cut-off or a point where the animal is not packaged in some way that determines whether it's counted as a head. Otherwise enumerating pigeons for races, day old chicks and similar would get silly.

 

I'm fairly sure that all these smaller animals and birds would travel packaged in some way in a passenger guards van. My 1903 MR Timetable reprint has pages of rates for such things; also search for Superintendent's circulars on the MRSC web catalogue. 

 

 

I've not found much about goats and what I have doesn't relate to conveyance thereof. But I am intrigued by MRSC 15234-114:

Date: 14 January 1926
Category: Agreement Inter-Company

Agreement / licence No. 114 in bound volume " L.M.& S.R. District Engineer's Office Copies of Agreements Skipton Section No 4 ".
London Midland & Scottish Railway and Robert Jas Barnes
Date of agreement / licence: 14 January, 16 March and 1 December 1926
Location: Armathwaite
Subject: Goat on railway bank
Plan attached

 

I want to see the plan!

 

Also:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of MRSC 99-0226, "Grafham Signal Box with a pair of goats grazing on the roadside in the foregorund." Undated.]

 

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

There was a cattle dock with 6 pens there with a larger pen behind the and space for many more sheep in the loo g fenced driveway.

 

While researching cattle traffic I have been introduced to the word "lairage" - a large field or pasturage for cattle to rest in in the course of transit, principally at ports (such as Heysham) and final destinations (abatoirs) but also at those stations designated as stopping-places for cattle trains, where the animals could be got out, fed and watered, etc. These facilities had to be provided or much improved under Rules made by the Board of Agriculture under powers granted by the various Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts, principally that of 1869; these also regulated the transport of cattle generally.

[MrWolf]

That's a whole lot more organised and official than some other railways. When a traveller enquired about the lack of timetables at Eaton on the Bishop's Castle Railway, the station master apologised and said that her goats had eaten them all.

[jamie92208]

The pens were laid out at the same centres asacattle wagon train.  Thus a wagon load would be marshaller into each pen.  I did some kicking around in the moss etc and each pen was cobbled with a drain hole in the centre.  The main area ran behind the pens so would hold another 6 wagon loads. The driveway would have held many more.  One bit of trivia that stood out in my research was that animal pens always seemed to have their own entrance from the road.  Strangely enough Green Ayre only had two pens with a common area behind them.  Presumably because there was little or no outgoing g traffic, just inbound for slaughter.  Horses were handled from a dock sidings alongside the main line. 

 

Jamie

10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, billbedford said:

All the more remarkable as the majority would have been shipped in a 2-3 week period in the early autumn. This was when lambs born on hill farms earlier in the year were moved to lowland farms for fattening. 

 

As I noted, revenue from livestock traffic was consistently higher in the second six months of each year; I had supposed something like that would be the reason, but didn't know exactly what. The Midland's revenue from livestock traffic increased by 30% following the opening of the Settle & Carlisle; this might be attributable to an increased share of the Scotch cattle traffic but I have no doubt the hill farms of craven and the Eden Valley made their contribution.

 

Having spent a fortnight on a hill farm in Lunesdale this August, my observation is that this happens a bit earlier now, possibly because lambing is earlier.

[magmouse]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

And what were those 1,393 miscellaneous animals by goods train?

 

Geese, turkeys or the like?

 

My mum, who grew up in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s, recalled a family joke that was told if the Christmas goose was tough: "it must have walked all the way from Poland!" Presumably at least some Christmas and other birds travelled by train - though I would have expected larger numbers than those in your 'miscellaneous' category.

 

Nick.

 

EDIT: I failed to refresh the page and didn't see this possibility had already been discussed. D'oh.

Edited September 8, 2023 by magmouse

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

The pens were laid out at the same centres asacattle wagon train.  Thus a wagon load would be marshaller into each pen.

 

That's a thing. At the time these pens were built - 1870s? - there were still three lengths of cattle wagon in use, which would have created difficulties.

 

7 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I did some kicking around in the moss etc and each pen was cobbled with a drain hole in the centre. 

 

There's a reproduction of a 1908 official drawing of a cattle pen in V.R. Anderson and G.K. Fox, Midland Railway Architecture; (OPC, 1985) which shows this arrangement. The pen is 19 ft x 15 ft inside, with three sets of 6 ft-wide double gates facing the railway line, presumably allowing for trucks of various lengths?  A large cattle wagon was about 22 ft long over buffers, so a misalignment would soon build up!

 

Derby St Mary's had a similar arrangement, but with single gates facing the railway:

 

 

[DY 9162, Embedded link to Derby Registers at MRS website.]

 

 

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Geese, turkeys or the like?

 

though I would have expected larger numbers than those in your 'miscellaneous' category.

 

I'm confident all these birds, if alive (and a good proportion when dead) went by passenger train - speed being important, as well as size of consignment. At the very least, not counted as livestock by goods train.

 

I'm reminded of two things:

 

An item seem in a German newspaper about the number of geese available for Martinmas - upwards of a million - illustrated with a charming photo of a flock of geese waddling along a country lane, in blissful ignorance of their fate.

 

A flyer protesting against the building of a battery farm near a Chiltern village: "Say no to 5,000 chickens on your doorstep" - which I'm afraid conjured up the image of opening one's front door to a great crowd of hens and having to say "no" to each one individually...  

Edited September 8, 2023 by Compound2632

[corneliuslundie]

Part of the Special Train notice for a Kerry Sheep Fair attached. Not sure of the year as it was sent to me by a friend, but obviously September.

This is the Welsh Kerry of course, not the Irish one.

Jonathan

Kerry sheep sales timetable_20180808_0001.pdf

[Rail-Online]

Yet another 'corner of a neg' image reveals a MR wagon number..........

 

Cricklewood 1931. A nice Caley van as well (is that a number on the end?)

 

Tony

[MrWolf]

Is that a Midland Railway 10 ton van with the fresh looking light grey paint in the background?

[Andy Hayter]

Given the detail of listing of animals, I wonder whether Others would include ponies, mules and donkeys and possibly other draught animals.  If you add in the farm moves where the whole farm would be transported - animals and all and not necessarily split by species - I think you might begin to understand where the number comes from.

 

As already pointed out, chicken farming was on a miniscule scale compared with today.  Rabbits might be more likely at this time but even here it would need a lot of cages - that could easily be conveyed in passenger traffic - to fill even one wagon.  Geese for Xmas (a la Sankt Martin for Germany) might just have demanded a few wagons, but (like the Polish geese) I have seen accounts of ducks and geese being herded long distances over the course of a week or more.  (Norfolk to London is one example I remember.)

 

I was surprised that the number of horses was so small since this was the standard means of transport within local areas - but then given the omnipresence of horses, the need to transport one a long distance by rail would be limited to rare occasions.  

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

Yet another 'corner of a neg' image reveals a MR wagon number..........

 

Cricklewood 1931. A nice Caley van as well (is that a number on the end?)

 

Yes. No. 113566 looks to be a 10 or 12-ton open to D663A - not the wider top and bottom planks as well as the vertical strap on the side. Not the corner plates - re-used from scrapped D299s but with an extension piece added at the top. Not unusual for these wagons.

 

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

Is that a Midland Railway 10 ton van with the fresh looking light grey paint in the background?

 

Either a D362 8-ton van or D363 10-ton van - I don't think one can decide the size of the journals at this distance!

 

Also an LMS 12-ton open, D1666, and on the right a Cheshire Lines 3-plank dropside. How long did the CLC's separate wagon fleet survive? It was a bit over 4,000 vehicles at the grouping, if I've recalled the figures in Tatlow, LNER Wagons Vol. 1 correctly.

[jwealleans]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

How long did the CLC's separate wagon fleet survive?

 

Split between the two owning companies in 1930, if I recall correctly.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, jwealleans said:

Split between the two owning companies in 1930, if I recall correctly.

 

Thanks. That fits - coinciding with the demise of the S&DJR's independent locomotive and carriage fleet - revenue wagons having been divided up in 1914. But the M&GN held out until 1936. 

[Compound2632]

Inbetween whiles, some modelling. The D299 has had its full complement of nuts and bolts, using the Railtec transfers:

 

 

Locations are: on the end straps, on the brake vee-hanger, and towards the bottom of the solebar directly below the bottom bolt on each J-shaped strap (on the real thing, these are the ends of an iron tie-rod that runs the width of the wagon, helping clamp the middle bearers between the solebars), and also just above and inwards of those (these being bolts that on the inside of the solebar form the hinges holding the bottom door catch).

 

it had took me two goes to find the right size of Railtec transfer; the first ones I bought were too big but they do quite nicely as representations of the sheet tie cleats, three each side: one above each axlebox and one in the centre.

 

I've also had a go at representing the lever of the bottom door catch, with a bit of bent-up 0.45 mm diameter brass wire, glued in a hole in the floor, and a representation of the bracket, made from some painfully small scraps of microstrip:

 

 

I've baulked at attempting the locking pin on its chain.

 

The Midland wagon general arrangement drawings are a bit sketchy on the bottom door catch - it's drawn in but not dimensioned. The best drawing I have is the RCH drawing in A.J. Watts' Ince book, p. 16. This is pretty well identical to the Midland design, since it was drawn under Clayton's direction, almost certainly by the derby C&W Drawing Office staff.

 

If I am going to make this a standard feature of my models, I'll want to find an easier way of making the bracket - perhaps some suitable plastic section.

Edited September 8, 2023 by Compound2632
inserted missing bracket