"Foreign" wagons - How many would you see?

[Dungrange]

On 06/01/2024 at 22:38, Nick Holliday said:

Although @burgundy has summarised Jonathan Abson's information from Sheffield Park at the end of 1899, here are the main tables.

 

Thanks for reposting this.  Whilst I'm sure that the percentage of foreign vehicles varied a lot by location and I'm not too interested in generalisations, what I note from this is just how short distance a lot of railway traffic must have been in these days.  If we subtract the coal traffic (which may have travelled quite far) and the empty wagons that were brought in for loading, we're left with a sample of 607 wagons conveying inbound (non-coal) goods of which 593 (ie 97%) are LB&SCR wagons.  The LB&SCR served a relatively small and compact territory and looking at a map, it appears as though there was no LB&SCR station more than circa 60 miles away from Sheffield Park.  That therefore means that in trying to derive a typical trip length distribution, I've been overestimating the demand from 'further afield' and need to assume a shorter average trip length.  I hadn't really appreciated how 'local' local was at the dawn of the 20th Century- ie most needs met within a 60 mile radius and little national distribution.

 

By and large the presence of the foreign wagons isn't that interesting, because we know nothing about where they have travelled from - most may have come from somewhere in the Greater London area.  However, I do find the presence of two non-coal NER wagons interesting.  Although they only represent 0.3% of traffic at Sheffield Park, it's clear that they must have travelled in excess of 250 miles to get to Sheffield Park, so there was clearly a small number of consignments that did travel over very large distances.  It's possible that one or more of the MR wagons may have travelled a similar distance, but we can't be sure because the MR seemed to manage to serve most of Great Britain.

[kevinlms]

11 hours ago, Dungrange said:

The Railway Yearbook 1922 gives figures of 58 Goods Train vehicles and 171 Service vehicles for the S&DJR as at 31 December 1921.  The Goods Train figure presumably includes Goods Brakes (don't know how many), so the fleet of retained revenue vehicles was obviously small.

 

 

Yes - me too.  As the M&GNJR operates very close to the W&U tramway, I initially assumed I would need a few M&GN wagons - until I realised how few they had.  I can only assume that they relied quite heavily on the parent companies for wagons for longer distance exports.  That is, for seasonal produce that was to be sent to stations in Midland territory, the MR provided the M&GNJR with a number of empty wagons, with the GNR doing the same for exports to GNR territory.  The small fleet was maybe sufficient for the 'internal' traffic between stations on the M&GNJR serving a very sparse population and outside the seasonal peaks in agricultural produce.

 

The most useful breakdown that I've found of the M&GNJR stock is what is listed in one of the Tatlow books based on a survey as at November 1919:

 

High sided goods - 49

Lime wagons (covered) - 3

Open fish truck - 3

Ventilated covered van (Westinghouse Pipe) - 45

Machinery wagon - 4

Single bolster wagon - 18

Double bolster wagon - 4

Large cattle truck (vacuum pipe) - 135

 

Ballast wagon - 61

Ballast brake van - 8

travelling crane & runners - 4

High sided for lime - 3

Covered packing van - 4

Signal & works van - 2

Signal & works wagon - 1

PW carriage - 1

Telephone wagon - 1

Mess & tool van - 2

stores van - 1

Weights & measures - 1

Dirt wagon - 3

Refuse high sided wagon - 1

Twin gas tank - 2

10T Goods brake van - 16

 

What I note though is that whilst there were allegedly no low sided goods wagons in 1919, the same publication states that 31 low sided goods wagons were transferred to both the LMS and LNER in 1928, implying that they had 62 low sided goods wagons by 2028.

From that list for standard wagons (not departmental) the number of cattle wagons, exceeded that of the rest of the fleet! Sounds rather suspect to me. But perhaps the 'missing' low sided goods might account for it, because they were a very common type, throughout the country at the time. Certainly more common than vans.

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, kevinlms said:

From that list for standard wagons (not departmental) the number of cattle wagons, exceeded that of the rest of the fleet! Sounds rather suspect to me. But perhaps the 'missing' low sided goods might account for it, because they were a very common type, throughout the country at the time. Certainly more common than vans.

 

Although you quote what I wrote about the S&DJR wagon fleet, I think you are commenting on the M&GN wagon fleet. It is possible that the parent companies had been transferring wagons to the M&GN as renewals of worn-out wagons, between the 1921 and 1936; this could account for the change in fleet composition. This happened on the S&DJR, with replacement ballast wagons being obtained from the LMS, and is recorded in the S&DJR minutes (and probably those of the LMS too) as money was involved, so a hunt in the M&GNJR minutes would probably reveal if there were similar transactions. Alternatively, Melton Constable might have done the renewals but I think that's less likeley as, unlike Highbridge, there never seems to have been new C&W building there.

[Compound2632]

7 hours ago, Dungrange said:

a sample of 607 wagons conveying inbound (non-coal) goods of which 593 (ie 97%) are LB&SCR wagons. 

...

It's possible that one or more of the MR wagons may have travelled a similar distance, but we can't be sure because the MR seemed to manage to serve most of Great Britain.

 

I've corresponded with Jonathan Abson; it seems clear that the MR wagons not carrying coal or coke were bringing beer from Burton. Likewise the three SECR vans were bringing beer (probably bottled rather than cask) from Kent.

 

In other words, the main imported commodities for a rural location in the south of England were coal and beer. 

[Andy Hayter]

WRT the M&GN cattle wagons it is important to remember that there was a trade even 100 years ago in taking upland beasts (cattle and sheep) and fattening them up in East Anglia for final sale to the abattoirs. 

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

WRT the M&GN cattle wagons it is important to remember that there was a trade even 100 years ago in taking upland beasts (cattle and sheep) and fattening them up in East Anglia for final sale to the abattoirs. 

 

The Midland's half-yearly Reports and Accounts for the 1870s to 1890s show significantly greater revenue from livestock traffic in the second half of the year to the first, which @billbedford pointed out was due to this traffic, which was concentrated in the late summer / early autumn months. This imbalance seems to diminish in the first decade of the 20th century. 

 

The Midland carried many more sheep than cattle. 

[Andy Hayter]

I wonder why the Midland's traffic dropped off in the early 20s.  The traffic still exists today (by road of course) and is still mainly sheep for the simple reason that sheep are far more likely to be reared on upland farms than cattle. 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

I wonder why the Midland's traffic dropped off in the early 20s.  The traffic still exists today (by road of course) and is still mainly sheep for the simple reason that sheep are far more likely to be reared on upland farms than cattle. 

 

It wasn't the traffic that fell off, simply the difference between the first and second half of the year became less marked. This graph shows reported wagon stock (black line) and cumulative total of cattle wagons built at the Litchurch Lane works (blue line) - left vertical axis, and annual receipts from cattle traffic - right vertical axis:

 

 

Stock totals were not reported for 1917-19; receipts were not reported for the entire period of Government payment in lieu of earnings from 1914 to grouping.

[Andy Hayter]

Thanks for that clarification Stephen but it still leaves open the question of why the H1 versus H2 differential should reduce.

 

Regarding raising beasts on upland areas, this is very much determined by winter weather.  If the animals mate too early, the offspring are born in the depths of winter and die, so mating is timed for mid to late spring birth.  Weaning and initial  grazing on the upland farms, the lambs or calves don't become available for transport before September/October.  

 

So the question is:  Did H2 traffic fall or did H1 traffic increase?

In both cases we should ask why there was a change.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

Thanks for that clarification Stephen but it still leaves open the question of why the H1 versus H2 differential should reduce.

 

I can't answer that question but here's the plot of half-yearly receipts:

 

 

The half-annual differential seems to start c. 1860 and cease around 1894.

 

Another interesting point is that there seems to be only a small increase in cattle traffic receipts following the opening of Heysham Harbour in 1904, despite the investment in 200 additional cattle wagons and provision for cattle on the Belfast boats. 

[Dungrange]

On 08/01/2024 at 07:32, Compound2632 said:

I've corresponded with Jonathan Abson; it seems clear that the MR wagons not carrying coal or coke were bringing beer from Burton. Likewise the three SECR vans were bringing beer (probably bottled rather than cask) from Kent.

 

In other words, the main imported commodities for a rural location in the south of England were coal and beer. 

 

Thanks - I make Burton around 180 miles from Sheffield Park, so if I combine the six Midland Railway wagons, with the two NER wagons, then that equates to about 1.3% of goods being delivered to Sheffield Park having travelled 180 miles or more.

 

That means that in the context of establishing a plausible trip length distribution, it appears that:

97.7% of inbound (non-coal) traffic travelled less than 60 miles (what is conveyed in LB&SCR wagons)

  1.0% of inbound (non-coal) traffic travelled between 60 and 170 miles (what is conveyed in the the foreign (non coal) wagons, excluding the Midland and NER wagons)

  1.3% of inbound (non-coal) traffic travelled greater than 170 miles (ie MR and NER non-coal traffic)

 

I wonder how typical that was of elsewhere.

[magmouse]

38 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

I wonder how typical that was of elsewhere.

 

For places near the boundaries between railway company 'territories', even the local traffic might come in the wagons of more than one company. And of course the country wasn't divided neatly into areas - railway networks crossed over, so there might be alternative routes by different companies that mixed things up. For my fictional Dorset coast setting, I am working on the basis that most local traffic is GWR (I am modelling a GWR line) but there will also be some LSWR traffic, since there are LSWR lines nearby - certainly well within your 60 mile radius.

 

Nick.

[Dungrange]

2 hours ago, magmouse said:

For places near the boundaries between railway company 'territories', even the local traffic might come in the wagons of more than one company.

 

Agreed.  That's why I think it's wrong to look for a general 'rule of thumb' to say 90%+ of wagons should be home company wagons (in the pre-pooling period).  I don't think we can be that simplistic.  That may have been true in NER territory (which was fairy self contained) and appears to be the case at Sheffield Park, which isn't on the periphery of LB&SR territory.  However, elsewhere, I'd expect a higher percentage of foreign wagons (unless modelling a city where different companies had their own goods stations and you're modelling one of those).

 

2 hours ago, magmouse said:

For my fictional Dorset coast setting, I am working on the basis that most local traffic is GWR (I am modelling a GWR line) but there will also be some LSWR traffic, since there are LSWR lines nearby - certainly well within your 60 mile radius.

 

Looking at a map, I'd agree that seems logical.  For your longer distance traffic, I'd assume the Midland Railway would be the most likely conveyor of distant produce owing to their share in the S&DJR.  Are circa 3% of your wagons from companies other than the GWR / LSWR, or are you assuming that most longer distance traffic would primarily still come from these two companies?

 

In my case, I have the following companies that were operating within 60 miles of Upwell: GER, M&GNJR, GNR, LNWR, MR.  These therefore become my 'local' traffic operators, with presumably a very small percentage of traffic coming in from further afield.

 

Creating a graph of cumulative proportions, it would have to look something like is shown below.  This has 1.3% of trips greater than 180 miles (as per the Sheffield Park data), but 92% of trips greater than 60% (so would represent more 'middle distance' traffic than there seems to have been at Sheffield Park).  If Sheffield Park is genuinely typical, then the curve between the steeply sloping line and the nearer horizonal line would have to become tighter (less rounded).

 

 

Presenting the same assumptions as used above, as a trip length distribution graph, would yield the following.  If the Sheffield Park data is really typical, then the curve below is too high in the circa 50 - 120 mile range (as indicated above), which would imply that there should be a less curved transition from the sharp drop at 40-50 miles to the negligible long distance traffic.

 

 

In the above, working from Upwell, the first peak corresponds with Wisbech (6 miles), the second peak with Kings Lynn (22 miles) and Peterborough (28 miles).  Cambridge is 44 miles distant and is the point at which the above curve drops quickly.  Cities like Northampton (72 miles away) and Leicester (80 miles away) appear to be too far away to generate much traffic at Upwell if a 60 mile local trip threshold was typical.  However, central London is only 45 miles from Sheffield Park, so it would seem much easier for all of the needs of Sheffield Park to be met within 60 miles than in a much more remote location, since the choice of services that London offers is much greater than many provincial towns and cities.  I'm wondering how transferable such a trip distribution is between different locations without a similar dataset from elsewhere, since I suspect that the Sheffield Park data may be skewed by its proximity to London.

 

The above corresponds with an average trip length of just 33 miles.

Edited January 9 by Dungrange
Added average trip length

[magmouse]

53 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

Are circa 3% of your wagons from companies other than the GWR / LSWR, or are you assuming that most longer distance traffic would primarily still come from these two companies?

 

I'm working on the basis all traffic is in GWR wagons, unless:

1. it is local traffic that might originate from other nearly railways, specifically agricultural produce (fruit, veg, etc) from LSWR and S&DJR starting points, and brick and clay pipes from the nearest clay pits/brickworks, presumed to be in LSWR territory.
2. it is distant traffic that is specifically identified as prototypical:
   1. beer (MR, LNWR from Burton, possibly SER from Canterbury) and coal (PO, MR from the midlands or S. Wales*) - as discussed above.
   2. materials for the engineering works I am planning - pig iron for casting, plate and rolled sections - could be GWR or other S. Wales railways, or MR/LNWR/others from Midlands and the north.

All this is based on a Dorset coast location, around where the real Bridport is, but a counter-factual in which the town is larger and especially its harbour more developed as a route to Northern France and Paris, and has an engineering works, mainly doing marine engineering but also some architectural and general work. Set in 1908.

 

Wagon stock is based on the above thinking, but there will be more than 3% other companies, on the basis that I don't run all the non-GWR stock at once. Rather, the GWR stock represents the majority, 'every day' traffic, with the occasional 'foreigner' appearing to illustrate different types of more distant traffic. So the stock won't follow a 3% rule, but the operation will (or at least a percentage justified by the back-story).

 

Also to say - I am really enjoying your statistical analysis approach, David. Even allowing for the unknowns, it helps us work through what is realistically justifiable.

 

Nick.

 

* Coal - I need to do some more research and thinking on this. My chosen location is at a point where coal might arrive by rail from e.g. south Wales, the midlands, etc., but also by sea from south Wales or from the north-east. It's not impossible that coal could be both inbound and outbound rail traffic - local coal merchants chasing either to have coal delivered direct by rail for local use, or by sea for distribution to nearby towns by rail.

 

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, magmouse said:

* Coal - I need to do some more research and thinking on this. My chosen location is at a point where coal might arrive by rail from e.g. south Wales, the midlands, etc., but also by sea from south Wales or from the north-east. It's not impossible that coal could be both inbound and outbound rail traffic - local coal merchants chasing either to have coal delivered direct by rail for local use, or by sea for distribution to nearby towns by rail.

 

Today I've been looking in the S&DJR Officers' Minutes, mostly for the 1880s. I didn't take notes on traffic matters but there were rates being set for coal from the Forest of Dean and South Wales landed at Bridgwater or Highbridge being forwarded not just to LSWR stations but also to LBSCR and SER stations as far afield as Kent. Whilst the S&DJR had withdrawn from supplying wagons for coal traffic from the Radstock district (i.e. relying on PO wagons), it continued to supply wagons for coal landed at these two ports. So a S&DJR wagon or two laden with coal is definitely on for a Dorset station, though I can't help feeling that really you are modelling the wrong railway for this.

[Dungrange]

7 hours ago, magmouse said:

* Coal - I need to do some more research and thinking on this. My chosen location is at a point where coal might arrive by rail from e.g. south Wales, the midlands, etc., but also by sea from south Wales or from the north-east. It's not impossible that coal could be both inbound and outbound rail traffic - local coal merchants chasing either to have coal delivered direct by rail for local use, or by sea for distribution to nearby towns by rail.

 

Presumably coal from the port would be exclusively a factor's wagons, whereas coal brought into the area by rail from the midlands would be a mixture of foreign company, colliery and factor wagons, with more colliery wagons than those belonging to coal factor.

 

7 hours ago, magmouse said:

Also to say - I am really enjoying your statistical analysis approach, David. Even allowing for the unknowns, it helps us work through what is realistically justifiable.

 

Great, I'm glad that my ramblings are of some use to someone.  One of my reasons for approaching my 'research' this way is that I'd like to know how many wagons ran along the tramway each year (as well as a breakdown of what types they were and who owned them).  That way, I can provide some focus to my buying / building.  At the moment, my current estimate of 10,000 wagons per annum is ballpark, but no more than that.  Whilst I have details on annual revenues and average revenue per ton, the only way to use that information to estimate demand (in tons and ultimately wagons) is to determine the average end-to-end trip length.  That's why I'm interested in what was meant by 'local', because it's quite different from the modern railway where most flows are 100+ and often 200+ miles.  Back in the pre-grouping period, such long distance trips seem to have been very much the minority.

 

Ultimately, I know that the SECR, GWR and LSWR wagons that I've bought probably wouldn't have been frequent visitors to Upwell (even in the post-pooling period), but all could have visited and I think understanding probabilities helps with establishing a plausible fleet.  Besides, I now know that a delivery of beer from Canterbury is my excuse for owning a SECR wagon (not just because Rapido made one and ready-to-run pre-grouping wagons are rather sparse).  😀  However, it also highlights that I need to find out about more than just GER wagons, but with the exception of the GNR, MR and LNWR, I suspect that the wagons I end up with will be largely just a token representation of each company based on whatever the ready-to-run manufacturers offer to sell us.

Edited January 9 by Dungrange

[burgundy]

As well as just relying on statistical probability, it might be worth doing some analysis of what businesses around Upwell might have required occasional imports. Glass for the glasshouses? Building materials? Agricultural machinery? 

The figures for Sheffield Park suggest that beer was a significant import - slightly surprisingly given that Sussex had perfectly adequate breweries, of which Harvey's of Lewes is still in business. If there were local "big houses" or a middle class community of any size, there might have been supplies of luxury goods. And the local grocer must have obtained his supplies of tea and sugar from somewhere.  

From our modern perspective, it is difficult to imagine the transition from the largely self contained rural community of the pre-railway age to our own highly interdependent supply chains.

Best wishes 

Eric

[Mikkel]

I have been following this thread with interest. As an academic exercise it is fascinating, but I wonder how we turn it into practice. Some of the options have been touched upon by others above, but to summarize as I see it:

 

* Share of total stock. You have 50 wagons, and 3% should be foreign, so you need 1½ foreign wagon. Well that would look odd. A principle of rounding up could be applied, but that means the percentages start shifting, so why do the careful analysis in the first place.

 

* An operation-based approach. I assume this is what Nick refers to above when he says: 

 

17 hours ago, magmouse said:

there will be more than 3% other companies, on the basis that I don't run all the non-GWR stock at once. Rather, the GWR stock represents the majority, 'every day' traffic, with the occasional 'foreigner' appearing to illustrate different types of more distant traffic. So the stock won't follow a 3% rule, but the operation will (or at least a percentage justified by the back-story).

 

That would also be my approach, but one could argue that it is at odds with the careful and complex statistical approach being discussed here, and its attention to multiple factors that may shift the percentage a little one way or the other. For should we not then also consider (i) the time of year, (ii) the day of the week, (iii) the time of day, (iv) the length of the operating/viewing session, etc.

 

In other words, it seems to me that as soon as we turn the stats into practice we have to make quite big compromises. Which is absolutely fine with me but does also suggest that perhaps a quick rough calculation is enough, because we will never be able to honour the finer details in practice - unless we have a very large layout and amount of stock?

 

But there may be options I have missed. My wife says I do that all the time.

 

Edited January 10 by Mikkel
To clarify

[kevinlms]

29 minutes ago, burgundy said:

As well as just relying on statistical probability, it might be worth doing some analysis of what businesses around Upwell might have required occasional imports. Glass for the glasshouses? Building materials? Agricultural machinery? 

The figures for Sheffield Park suggest that beer was a significant import - slightly surprisingly given that Sussex had perfectly adequate breweries, of which Harvey's of Lewes is still in business. If there were local "big houses" or a middle class community of any size, there might have been supplies of luxury goods. And the local grocer must have obtained his supplies of tea and sugar from somewhere.  

From our modern perspective, it is difficult to imagine the transition from the largely self contained rural community of the pre-railway age to our own highly interdependent supply chains.

Best wishes 

Eric

I tend to agree with you Eric. From the 1860s to 1910s, there was a huge growth in the amount of traffic carried on the railways. All sorts of mainlines were extended and/or duplicated. Single lines became double and double lines became quadrupled. I doubt whether the majority of this traffic was as localised as previous posters have suggested.

Many people were becoming more wealthy and they wanted goods from further away, because they weren't available locally.

The railways built many more locomotives, coaches and wagons during this period. I'm sure that many items were now coming from much further away, than ever before. Items were commonly made in factories, specialising in particular products, perhaps in a region, then transported by rail to where the customer lived.

 

Take a look at Figures 13 & 14 here (page 26). https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/onlineatlas/railways.pdf

 

While most of the article is about the effects of PASSENGER movements, Fig 14, shows a significant increase in freight traffic. No way was it all local.

One of the key functions of the RCH, was to ensure that receipts for goods and passengers carried, was distributed in a fair manner, based on proportioning out, using the distance covered by parts of the journey, to determine payments. Only a little of this would occur, if 'most' general traffic stayed on it's home ground.

[Compound2632]

30 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

No way was it all local.

 

It does very much depend on the place. The pace of change was much greater in the towns and cities than in rural areas, which seem to have remained self-sufficient. The consumer economy didn't really start to take off until the 1930s and didn't become universal until the 1960s.

 

What did happen, increasingly, through the 19th century was the displacement of local sources of bulk goods by ones from centralised areas of production: local sources of fuel by coal; local sources of building materials by bricks from colliery areas etc., Welsh slate, imported timber; local breweries or home-brew displaced by beer from Burton; locally-raised meat by American imports. 

 

But the major doublings and relief lines that I can think of - the Midland main line, the GN&GE Joint (a relief line for the GN main line), etc., were driven by the continuous growth in coal traffic, which was the largest source of revenue for most railway companies; certainly those serving coalfields.

[Tom Burnham]

2 hours ago, burgundy said:

As well as just relying on statistical probability, it might be worth doing some analysis of what businesses around Upwell might have required occasional imports. Glass for the glasshouses? Building materials? Agricultural machinery? 

The figures for Sheffield Park suggest that beer was a significant import - slightly surprisingly given that Sussex had perfectly adequate breweries, of which Harvey's of Lewes is still in business. If there were local "big houses" or a middle class community of any size, there might have been supplies of luxury goods. And the local grocer must have obtained his supplies of tea and sugar from somewhere.  

From our modern perspective, it is difficult to imagine the transition from the largely self contained rural community of the pre-railway age to our own highly interdependent supply chains.

Best wishes 

Eric

Although if these consumers required goods in less than wagon load quantities, they wouldn't necessarily arrive in the same wagons they started in.  If you read descriptions of big city goods depots of the period - and indeed well into the 1950s - there was an awful lot of transhipment going on, with assorted crates, boxes and things wrapped in straw being barrowed along platforms.  So a number of smaller consignments for the Wisbech area, might have been unloaded at, say, Bishopsgate and put in a single wagon for there.  I suspect there would probably have been an Upwell road van from there on...

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Tom Burnham said:

Although if these consumers required goods in less than wagon load quantities, they wouldn't necessarily arrive in the same wagons they started in.  

 

Plus higher-value items might well arrive as parcels by passenger train.

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, burgundy said:

The figures for Sheffield Park suggest that beer was a significant import - slightly surprisingly given that Sussex had perfectly adequate breweries, of which Harvey's of Lewes is still in business.

 

It may be that the Big House - probably the only or at least dominant consumer of 'imported' goods - favoured the Burton product over that produced locally; were there any family connections with the big brewing families? 

 

Distribution of locally-produced beer may well have remained by road - Sheffield Park being only ten miles from Lewes. But it will have been struggling to compete with Burton beer on price.

[burgundy]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It does very much depend on the place. The pace of change was much greater in the towns and cities than in rural areas, which seem to have remained self-sufficient. The consumer economy didn't really start to take off until the 1930s and didn't become universal until the 1960s.

As a completely random test, I looked up Huntley and Palmer's biscuits and Kieller's marmalade. Both were founded before the railway age, but seem to have enjoyed significant growth in the Victorian period, not least by benefitting from sales to the Empire. It would be interesting to understand how, and over what period, processed foods of this kind became commonplace in different parts of the UK market.

28 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Distribution of locally-produced beer may well have remained by road - Sheffield Park being only ten miles from Lewes. But it will have been struggling to compete with Burton beer on price.

If I remember correctly, the three SER vans were also filled with beer - from Faversham? Stocking up for the next Volunteer Field Day?🙂

Best wishes 

Eric  

[Andy Hayter]

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

why do the careful analysis in the first place.

 

 

 

 

Because I suspect many of us will find we have far too many foreign wagons.  I know I do.  

 

With that knowledge we can adjust our rakes and perhaps refrain from future purchases.