Countryside Industries

[MikeH_83]

Hi all,

 

I am planning on building a countryside set finescale (I hope) branch model railway in 00.  So far I have my ideas for a station and a branch off that to give the appearance of the railway running to multiple directions.  I'll probably end up basing it southern so I could still run some mainline type loco's if I feel like it.  However I am wondering if just having a passing branch station with abit of a goods yard might not be enough and I am wondering if anyone had any good ideas for countryside set industry that I could add in for abit of extra shunting and operational interest.  So far I have Milk.. lol

 

Thanks

[Dava]

Try this, an old site with loads of ideas & drawings

 

http://mike.da2c.org/igg/rail/12-linind/012-index.htm

 

Dava

[Nearholmer]

Whereabouts in the South is it to be?

 

I ask, because "industries" varied: brickworks and sawmills or timber yards across the Weald; cement and lime works on the edges of both sets of downs; shingle extraction, concrete works, and horribly polluting tar distilleries on the coast; Fuller's earth, hearthstone, and gypsum mines at very particular spots where the geology was right; sand pits in several places.

 

Paper making where there was a good steady supply of fresh water. Flour mills at the larger towns. "Everywhere" had a SCATS warehouse or store.

 

Wooden things. All sorts of things were made in the countryside, from brooms upwards, and were sent into London.

 

Beer making!! Most decent-sized towns had a brewery, and some shipped good quantities into London.

 

Fruit growing, with even the odd private siding into the fields.

 

Dumping the rubbish of London in Kent ...... Private sidings in Lambeth to load wagons, and out in the sticks to empty them. Manure, horse and human, went this way too, but onto fields rather than into pits.

 

Basically, the geology set the industries.

 

Military? A good few camps, stores, airfields etc across the south with rail connections.

 

Horse racing. Bit strange to call it an industry, but it was a good traffic generator for the LBSCR and LSWR especially. Ditto asylums and sanatoria.

 

I could go on: the best sources are the SR sectional appendices, which list private sidings, and the industrial Railway Society "county" books, which pick-up nearly every significant industry, because they all used railways, often narrow gauge ones.

 

Kevin

[MikeH_83]

Try this, an old site with loads of ideas & drawings

 

http://mike.da2c.org/igg/rail/12-linind/012-index.htm

 

Dava

Whoa that's a really good site,  Thanks very much for the link, Lot's to study there!

 

Whereabouts in the South is it to be?

 

I ask, because "industries" varied: brickworks and sawmills or timber yards across the Weald; cement and lime works on the edges of both sets of downs; shingle extraction, concrete works, and horribly polluting tar distilleries on the coast; Fuller's earth, hearthstone, and gypsum mines at very particular spots where the geology was right; sand pits in several places.

 

Paper making where there was a good steady supply of fresh water. Flour mills at the larger towns. "Everywhere" had a SCATS warehouse or store.

 

Wooden things. All sorts of things were made in the countryside, from brooms upwards, and were sent into London.

 

Beer making!! Most decent-sized towns had a brewery, and some shipped good quantities into London.

 

Fruit growing, with even the odd private siding into the fields.

 

Dumping the rubbish of London in Kent ...... Private sidings in Lambeth to load wagons, and out in the sticks to empty them. Manure, horse and human, went this way too, but onto fields rather than into pits.

 

Basically, the geology set the industries.

 

Military? A good few camps, stores, airfields etc across the south with rail connections.

 

Horse racing. Bit strange to call it an industry, but it was a good traffic generator for the LBSCR and LSWR especially. Ditto asylums and sanatoria.

 

I could go on: the best sources are the SR sectional appendices, which list private sidings, and the industrial Railway Society "county" books, which pick-up nearly every significant industry, because they all used railways, often narrow gauge ones.

 

Kevin

 

I will have a fictional location most probably so nothing is currently set in stone but there is some great ideas there!  Thanks very much

[Kris]

Almost anything to do with food would be a good industry, that could also include farm feed stock.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Whereabouts in the South is it to be?

 

I ask, because "industries" varied: brickworks and sawmills or timber yards across the Weald; cement and lime works on the edges of both sets of downs; shingle extraction, concrete works, and horribly polluting tar distilleries on the coast; Fuller's earth, hearthstone, and gypsum mines at very particular spots where the geology was right; sand pits in several places.

 

Don't forget the Kent coal field.

 

And there were a handful of engineering works in the South East - Aveling-Porter at Rochester being the main one (until they moved to Lincolnshire in the 1930s). They tended to spring up in rural market towns to service the local farming communities, and then expanded in to larger firms serving the rest of the country. 

 

A couple of interesting books I've got are 'Industrial railways of the South East' from Middleton, and Oakwood Press' 'The cement railways of Kent'. And have a look online for information about the Rye Harbour branch, which is as near to an industrial branchline as you'll get in the South East. 

[Bernard Lamb]

There were several stations where a significant part of the tonnage was in the form of watercress if you want some thing a bit out of the ordinary.

Bernard

[Nearholmer]

Pete

 

the Rye Harbour branch .......... Detailed article about it in the NGRS journal c30 years ago, reprinted in the KESR journal "Tenterden Terrier" c15 years ago. At the time that I wrote it, I had free and easy access to the BR(S) archives during my lunchtimes, so was able to dig out all the pre-construction survey information, private siding agreements, property deeds etc. Also, some of the guys who had worked in the various industries were still with us, so I got some first-hand accounts too; I even corresponded with the retired owner of one of the concrete plants.

 

Since then, I've accumulated a bit more knowledge of the line and the surrounding industries, so would add a few minor corrections.

 

If you are deeply "into" the line, PM me, and in will go deep into the book cave to find a copy of one of the journals and scan the article for you.

 

Kevin

 

PS: which also made me recall this http://cambrianmodels.co.uk/eastsxng.html which is a pretty good summary of the larger industries, those that were rail-served, in East Sussex, which I compiled before the IRS county book was available.

[MikeH_83]

Thanks all,  Some good ideas there.  I like the idea of something food related as I could potentially squeeze a narrow gauge farm track which could sit nicely above the fiddleyard space and come out to meet the big wagons out on the main layout part.  Food for thought if you'll pardon the pun

[bike2steam]

Agricultural contractors, today would be combine harvesters, and other seasonal equipment, 60 years ago or more would be a selection of traction engines, and older farming equipment.

[Happy Hippo]

Don't forget quarries, which are often out in the country.

 

Creigau and Machen in S Wales and Meldon in N Devon are prime examples.

 

Of course we must not forget that the 'countryside' is just a massive industrial unit that produces a wide range of products.

[Bernard Lamb]

Thanks all,  Some good ideas there.  I like the idea of something food related as I could potentially squeeze a narrow gauge farm track which could sit nicely above the fiddleyard space and come out to meet the big wagons out on the main layout part.  Food for thought if you'll pardon the pun

Hill End Hospital in St Albans was served by a standard gauge siding to bring in coal and other supplies.

It also had a narrow gauge line running from outside the kitchens to the farm.

it was used to take waste food to the piggery.

Just an idea for some thing different.

Bernard

[Nearholmer]

Putting Bernard's watercress thoughts together with a desire for a narrow gauge feeder takes us to Sylvasprings in Dorset. http://laurell.today/prototypes/uk/sylvasprings.html

 

But, cress beds are at the bottom of valleys, not the tops of hills, above fiddle yards, so I suggest:

 

- lime kilns, with the narrow gauge at pit level, above the kilns, and standard gauge at the lower level. Oodles of examples, with Amberley and Brockham well covered on the web; or,

 

- timber extraction. There were several Canadian Forestry Corps railways in the south during WW1, with some continuing in use for a while after the war for commercial timber extraction. I'm not aware of any with direct interchange to standard gauge in the south of England, but they did elsewhere. http://www3.nfb.ca/ww1/wartime-film.php?id=531249 Not all these lines are yet catalogued in IRS books etc, because the CFC war diaries,which mention them, have only been easily accessible for a few years, but a couple that I know of in SR territory that I know of for certain! and which aren't in the gazetteer that I linked to earlier, were at Eridge Park and Sunningdale, the latter, IIRC, having had a steam loco. Chris Krupa's book on the Kerry covers one southern-ish CFC railway, and I wrote-up another in NGRS magazine a couple of years back; or,

 

- poultry breeding. One definite poultry railway in East Sussex, and there was a case in the north of England (Bolton?) of a poultry farm so extensive that their 18" gauge railway had a steam loco!; or,

 

- back to lime/chalk, you might want to consider a telpherage rather than a narrow gauge line. The first electric telpher was at Glynde in Sussex c1882, as illustrated below; or,

 

- agricultural "field" railway. They were rare in the south, unlike the east of England, but there were odd ones. Buscot Estates in Oxfordshire was a cracker, with steam locos, and there was a line to serve market gardens on the banks of the Thames near Kew Gardens, just down the road from the LSWR station - it seems to have been linked to an adjacent sewage-works, which probably provided manure!

Kevin

[DLT]

Excellent and very useful thread, 

Thanks very much,

Dave.

[MikeH_83]

Putting Bernard's watercress thoughts together with a desire for a narrow gauge feeder takes us to Sylvasprings in Dorset. http://laurell.today/prototypes/uk/sylvasprings.html

 

But, cress beds are at the bottom of valleys, not the tops of hills, above fiddle yards, so I suggest:

 

- lime kilns, with the narrow gauge at pit level, above the kilns, and standard gauge at the lower level. Oodles of examples, with Amberley and Brockham well covered on the web; or,

 

- timber extraction. There were several Canadian Forestry Corps railways in the south during WW1, with some continuing in use for a while after the war for commercial timber extraction. I'm not aware of any with direct interchange to standard gauge in the south of England, but they did elsewhere. Not all these lines are yet catalogued in IRS books etc, because the CFC war diaries,which mention them, have only been easily accessible for a few years, but a couple that I know of in SR territory that I know of for certain! and which aren't in the gazetteer that I linked to earlier, were at Eridge Park and Sunningdale, the latter, IIRC, having had a steam loco. Chris Krupa's book on the Kerry covers one southern-ish CFC railway, and I wrote-up another in NGRS magazine a couple of years back; or,

 

- poultry breeding. One definite poultry railway in East Sussex, and there was a case in the north of England (Bolton?) of a poultry farm so extensive that their 18" gauge railway had a steam loco!; or,

 

- back to lime/chalk, you might want to consider a telpherage rather than a narrow gauge line. The first electric telpher was at Glynde in Sussex c1882, as illustrated below.

 

Kevin

 

Some great ideas there.  The fiddleyard bit will be slightly off scene from the main layout anyway due to a water tank being annoyingly in the way so I have the possibility to shape it anyway I see fit and it shouldn't clash with the rest of the scenics.  A telpherage could be quite interesting to model though.  Cheers

[Ian Smeeton]

Pete

 

the Rye Harbour branch .......... Detailed article about it in the NGRS journal c30 years ago, reprinted in the KESR journal "Tenterden Terrier" c15 years ago.

 

 

Try this for Narrow/Standard guage transfer.

 

 

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw026246?search=rye%20harbour&ref=5

 

Regards

 

Ian

[runs as required]

I remember the quirky ones:

Carters Seeds passed-by when hurrying off down the Salisbury mainline/my dad always enjoyed pointing out "You are entering the Strong country"/ Epsom Salts/ the neat bijou Ovaltine Farms on the left coming up on the North Western towards the outskirts of London/The Shredded Wheat factory at Welwyn "Britons make it" "We make Britons" - all white and very 'modernistic'.

 

dh

[Nearholmer]

Which makes me think of Walkers "Lion" Joints and Packings, at Woking, which hasn't been in the countryside since well before the Martians landed, and carpet-making, to the west of Salisbury, which was a countryside industry that generated a lot of rail traffic.

 

K

[pete_mcfarlane]

Try this for Narrow/Standard guage transfer.

 

 

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw026246?search=rye%20harbour&ref=5

 

Regards

 

Ian

I'm assuming that the narrow gauge tramway is for shingle extraction? Here's the relevant OS map showing it. http://maps.nls.uk/view/101435001

 

Edit: Wikipedia (other sources of dodgy information are available) calls it the Pett Level Tramway. 

[Nearholmer]

Pete

 

It's complicated!

 

Shingle was extracted for multiple uses locally and there were several works in the area at different times making concrete blocks, concrete pipes, artificial stone, and calcium silicate bricks.

 

Shingle 'en complet' , and individual blue boulders, were exported from the area.

 

And, materials for sea defence works along the Pett Levels, notably a lot of timber and some steelwork for making groynes, were imported.

 

There were nominally separate tramways associated with the different functions, so the Pett Levels tramway was the one for sea defence works, which extended all the way to Cliff End at Fairlight, but they were interconnected at some points, and it all changed quite quickly over time.

 

The standard gauge siding in the photo originally extended way out onto the shingle, then was removed, then reinstated as seen in the photo (which I suspect dates from slightly earlier than 1929), then, during the 1930s, "everything went crazy" as new works and tramways were built - see map below from the late 1930s.

 

There were also structures that either never got onto maps, or did, but a hard to identify, including a large set of "shingle bins" made of timber, with a narrow gauge line climbing onto the top, and discharge through chutes into standard gauge wagons. I have seen one low level snapshot of these bins, but they are also visible in aerial photos taken on the day of the funeral of the crew of the 'Mary Stanford', in 1928.

 

This, later, aerial photo (1949) http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/eaw024813?search=Rye%20harbour&ref=9 shows the situation after Hall & Co took over, and shingle extraction was changed from "beach head" to "lagoon", using pumps on rafts, which were then unloaded by dragline. Some of the Old Mettys that I talked to remembered coming home from the war and helping to lift the earlier tramways in preparation for this new working method, the 2ft gauge locos being put on a lorry and sent to Hall's workshops, which were at The Crumbles ballast pits in Eastbourne. They even remembered sawing-up rails to make fence posts, which they they took me to look at.

 

My gut feel is that what we see in that aerial photo is probably a blue boulder extraction tramway, but I'd need to find what we discussed yesterday to be sure.

 

Kevin

[runs as required]

Which makes me think of Walkers "Lion" Joints and Packings, at Woking, which hasn't been in the countryside since well before the Martians landed....

K

What a Coincidence!

My great uncle Joe was factory manager of "Lion" steam packings - which is why I got to know the LSW line out of Waterloo so well as a child during the war years - usually in the custody of my favourite aunty Hetty who I could usually persuade to miss a train and be dazzled by cartoon shorts in the News theatre by platform 1.

 

Uncle Joe was all things Aunty Hettie was not  (I still picture Francis W Webb in his suit and boots with fob watch rather like Uncle Joe - it was better always to assume he wasn't joking)

 

dh (a very long way OT in an interesting thread)