Dairy operations

[Karhedron]

I stumbled across a couple of interesting shots of Torrington. The quality is not the best but it looks like loading took place inside the shed rather than outside. Perhaps the gantry and pipework outside was used for cleaning. It also confirms top-loading of the milk tankers.

 

[Cofga]

I Found this on the disued-stations.org.uk website so it seems there must have been a time when loading was done on the extension outside the goods shed. There also is a very good description of the Torrington milk operation here (Torrington milk). The article begins about half way down the page.

Quote

 

Milk traffic in churns had been handled at Torrington for many years, but in the late 1940's, milk was transferred to 6-wheel tank wagons - which ran to Vauxhall in London; this continued until 1978. Milk was loaded into three wagons at a time in the depot yard on the goods shed road but beyond the goods shed, which operationally must have been a nightmare. 

This continued until the mid-1970s when a new longer loading facility - which could load seven wagons at a time - was built on the former up platform.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Cofga

[andy stroud]

On 07/07/2019 at 21:56, Karhedron said:

 It also confirms top-loading of the milk tankers.

 

 

I'm not sure that it confirms anything.  I think  there is a good chance that those handful of churns are involved in some form of cleaning process, possibly collecting waste product or cleaning fluid.  It would take a long time to load a single wagon from individual churns.