Milk Trains To Mordon South 1970s

[Captain Cuttle]

Reading through Railway Observer for Dec 1973 Western Region London Division mentions Cl 52 on the 16.40 St Erth to Mordon South milk.

What facilities were at Mordon South for milk trains?

 

Alan

[Fat Controller]

There was a rail-served bottling plant, having a couple of sidings , with its own diesel shunter. I'm fairly certain it's been covered in the past, someone even contributing photos.

[Mike Storey]

I think you must mean Morden South (in South London)? Mordon is up north somewhere.

 

There was an Express Dairies building there in the 1970's, with a few sidings entering a large corrugated shed. I used to see it when travelling to Wimbledon from friends who lived in Sutton for a while. No idea when it shut, but I think there is a mosque on the site now.

 

[TJ52]

There are a couple of photos in the Middleton Press 'Lines Around Wimbledon'. I've seen at least one that shows the actual milk depot much clearer bit I can't remember where at the moment. It is the site of a mosque now.

 

Terry

[Oldddudders]

The train arrived at Morden South from Wimbledon, although the tanks were worked there from Clapham Junction, I think. On arrival the loads were shunted into the sidings, and empties retrieved. The train then proceeded to St Helier where it ran round and returned to Wimbledon. The line had only opened in 1929, and the huge LCC estates thereabouts were the driver. That and the Southern Railway’s concern about the Northern Line incursion into its suburban hinterland. The dairy was no doubt developed for the former reason.

[adb968008]

The Shunter At Morden Milk dairies would make an ideal Hornby choice...

 

it was a blue Ruston 48DS

 

 

 

Of course some accurate Milk tank wagons would be nice to go with it.

Edited May 7, 2019 by adb968008

[roythebus]

Wouldn't the milk leak through the planks in that wagon??

 

The Milk Train used to run via the West London Line to Clapham Junction Windsor side, then via Point Pleasant to East Putney and Wimbledon where it would cause a lot of lever-pulling. It had to go across all the SW lines to gain the 'wall of death" to get to Morden South.

 

In the mid 1960s it would run in the afternoon. My old school used to use Wimbledon Park for football. I used to hang around by Replingham road bridge to watch the trains; the "milk" had a variety of steam locos and the occasional diesel.

[Karhedron]

This is quite a nice shot of the Express Dairies depot looking into the loading area showing the fascinating selection of pipes and hoses for unloading and cleaning the tanks. Note the different shunter to the one pictured above.

 

 

Here is a photo from the road side. You don't really get a sense of how big it was from the front.

 

 

[Karhedron]

There is a nice sequence of the tanks being shunted at Morden in this 1954 film. The dairy is shown from 7:50 onwards. The black livery of the milk tanks is not one I have seen produced in model form. I am guessing the tankers were specially cleaned for the film as I have never seen them so shiny in post-war photographs.

 

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/daily-round-story-milk-production-and-distribution

 

[Adam]

12 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

There is a nice sequence of the tanks being shunted at Morden in this 1954 film. The dairy is shown from 7:50 onwards. The black livery of the milk tanks is not one I have seen produced in model form. I am guessing the tankers were specially cleaned for the film as I have never seen them so shiny in post-war photographs.

 

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/daily-round-story-milk-production-and-distribution

 

 

Not black but Express Dairy's standard livery of Navy Blue - per the lorries including a very handsome AEC Mk V 8 wheeler seen earlier in the film - which I think Hornby have done. The blue faded, obviously, but was very dark when new hence appearing black in this film. I've never seen the bare metal finish as shiny as that, either so these were presumably nearly new and - obviously - bulled up for the purpose. Very swish.

 

Adam

[Mike Storey]

27 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

There is a nice sequence of the tanks being shunted at Morden in this 1954 film. The dairy is shown from 7:50 onwards. The black livery of the milk tanks is not one I have seen produced in model form. I am guessing the tankers were specially cleaned for the film as I have never seen them so shiny in post-war photographs.

 

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/daily-round-story-milk-production-and-distribution

 

 

Brilliant film, thanks. Good, if brief, shots of the sidings operation.

 

OTT, but.....There are many things in it that I remember as a youngster. "College Farm", near Henley's Corner, Finchley, was near where we first lived in London, and we spent several happy days there on school visits. It is now a trust and has just been saved from developers by a large petition that persuaded Barnet Council to list it as an important local asset. The Ballards Lane distribution site was still there in the 1960's, but United Dairies became the dominant milk float delivery firm in that part of London (judging from the numbers seen at the time).

 

[Karhedron]

I believe that United Dairies/Unigate had a similar (alebit smaller) bottling plant at East Finchley station with trains running from Finsbury Park via the old "Northern Heights" line. I have not managed to find any actual photos of it and the site has been developed into housing. Anyone know of any photos?

[Mike Storey]

5 hours ago, Karhedron said:

I believe that United Dairies/Unigate had a similar (alebit smaller) bottling plant at East Finchley station with trains running from Finsbury Park via the old "Northern Heights" line. I have not managed to find any actual photos of it and the site has been developed into housing. Anyone know of any photos?

 

Unfortunately no. It is incredibly difficult to find any early pictures of the station and yard at East Finchley (prior to the LT re-build). This is the only one I know of:

 

https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/399905641902142686/

 

But I have found a pic of the road frontage of the dairy:

 

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Finchley-Church-End-Manor-Farm-nr-Barnet-Hendon-Photochrom-PC-22221/153473676583?hash=item23bbbe7527:g:q8sAAOSwB09YPf0s

 

All now long gone of course. But an aerial view is available at:

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW016666

 

and a track plan at:

 

https://www.theundergroundmap.com/map.html?id=81919&mode=fullscreen

 

and a brief history at (scroll down to Diploma Road): 

 

http://edithsstreets.blogspot.com/2018/10/east-finchley.html

 

 

[Captain Cuttle]

On 06/05/2019 at 11:30, Mike Storey said:

I think you must mean Morden South (in South London)? Mordon is up north somewhere.

 

There was an Express Dairies building there in the 1970's, with a few sidings entering a large corrugated shed. I used to see it when travelling to Wimbledon from friends who lived in Sutton for a while. No idea when it shut, but I think there is a mosque on the site now.

 

Yes Morden in London.

[Nearholmer]

That Express Dairies film is a real gem.

 

I hadn't see it when I made this, but there are a few similarities ........ although mine isn't by any means as serious.

 

 

 

[adb968008]

Brilliant.

 

I have something more logistically complex...

 

i have a combined Eggs (Bachmanns UD box vans) and Milk from a west country siding, arrives in my Southern central terminus, adds extra milk tanks, reverses as a long dedicated train upto my “clapham junction”. New loco goes on (Q, 3MT etc) into my London terminus, as theres no run rounds, gets released and out to my Milk sidings (think a blend of Morden and the old milk train toVauxhall plat 1) , where a Hornby Polly sitting on an Electrotren 0-6-0 chassis, painted blue with Dinky toy repro “united dairies” shunts it at leisure.

:-)

Takes about 6 hours in my timetable in between other workings.

Edited May 10, 2019 by adb968008

[Oldddudders]

An embarrassing penny has suddenly dropped - it's my age! Something like 62 years ago, my primary skool in Betchworth, Surrey, had an educational excursion - to this very dairy. I can remember the bus driver was father to a girl in my class, the bus was an RF (London Transport Regal IV), but I recall nothing whatever about the dairy. Sigh. 

[Captain Cuttle]

Thanks to you all for the wealth of information, very interesting, especially the BFI film.

 

Does anyone remember at West Ealing there used to be a milk dock, was this separate from the station?

 I have a photo dated January 1976 from a magazine with a Class 31, some tankers and a bit out of shot road milk tanker.

 

Alan

[robertcwp]

Milk tanks in the background here: 4-EPB_5140_MordenSouth_c1971 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

[synthnut]

On 08/05/2019 at 09:56, Karhedron said:

This is quite a nice shot of the Express Dairies depot looking into the loading area showing the fascinating selection of pipes and hoses for unloading and cleaning the tanks. Note the different shunter to the one pictured above.

 

 

 

Here is a photo from the road side. You don't really get a sense of how big it was from the front.

 

 

 

This picture is actually of the Unigate distribution yard,  which is/was a little further up London Road and on the opposite side to the main dairy. Here's what it looks like now on Google Streeview.

Unigate distribution centre site London Rd, Morden Streetview link

The Express bottling pland was adjacent to Morden South station and is now the site of the Mosque. Frustratingly, looking at various old maps on the NLS site, they dont' seem to show any rail connection that ties up with the photos. However, the chimney may well be the same as on this map:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=18&lat=51.3967&lon=-0.1996&layers=170&right=BingHyb

Edited May 13, 2019 by synthnut
addled brain

[synthnut]

There's a video on Youtube showing operations at the dairy. There are shots of road tankers in a shed, which could well be the same shed that's visible in the rail connected era, just converted for road vehicles maybe?

Express Dairies Morden - 1991 - Youtube

There are people connected to the dairy in the posting thread, so they may be able to answer questions.

 

TTFN,

Ben

[roythebus]

It might be worth searching FB for a Morden history group, those sort of groups usually turn u with interesting photos. the Londo RT bus group on FB has had a few pics of RT buses passing the dairy in the last few weeks.

 

[Karhedron]

On 12/05/2019 at 11:28, Captain Cuttle said:

Does anyone remember at West Ealing there used to be a milk dock, was this separate from the station?

 I have a photo dated January 1976 from a magazine with a Class 31, some tankers and a bit out of shot road milk tanker.

 

The milk dock was just west of the station. I believe it was accessed from Manor road but I am not certain.

 

 

You can see the remains of it in this shot of the station today.

 

 

This shot shows the area after the milk doc was closed but before the station was extended for Crossrail trains.

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Karhedron

[roythebus]

Remember too there was another milk depot at Point Pleasant on the Windsor lines out of Waterloo between Wandsworth Town and Putney, on the north side of the lines. I think road access was via Putney Bridge Road.

[synthnut]

Whilst researching a dairy siding on a future project, I found this film from Express Dairies that features South Morden Bottling Plant on the BFI website:

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

It shows that the road tanker turns right just after the rail bridge, into what is now the mosque site.

There's some shots of the sidings at aound 8:00 minutes for those too impatient to watch the journey from udder to tanker!

 

TTFN,

Ben

Edited July 29, 2019 by synthnut
premature hitting of the enter button before collecting thoughts...