Potato sack colour?

[Piemanlarger]

I'm trying to find out what colour a 1930 potato sack would be In  general?

 

Or any sack for that I'm just pretending they have potatoes in them.

Could be turnips !

 

I've gone from ( r to l ) cream - stone - dunkelgerb as I have them spare !

 

I've

 Avoided a brown colour as I was thinking of a bit of light weathering with powders ??

 

 

Any idea - tips?

 

 

[Nick C]

The ones I've got are most similar to the colour on the left. Admittedly they're modern not 1930s, but I doubt the colour of hessian has changed much over the years.

[HonestTom]

I'd say the one on the left, but if you're worried, you might try adding a thin wash of dark brown or dark brown weathering powder (or whatever colour the soil is in your setting). A coating of dirt hides a multitude of sins.

Edited January 19, 2021 by HonestTom

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Wouldn't they be rather dark from the soil? I don't think potatoes were usually washed before being transported in the 1930s. The potatoes I buy aren't washed even today (but they come in paper sacks).

[The Johnster]

Another vote for the left hand version; sacks were, and where they are still made from natural materials still are, made of untreated hessian fibre or Jute, both of which are a simialr dun sort of colour.  They wre returned empty, in theory anyway, to their owners and washed for re-use.  The general appearance in use would be washed and thus perhaps a bit faded for empty sacks, and discoloured by earth from the potatoes for full ones, dusty or muddy depending on the weather.  A muddy trail might be left where full sacks were dragged to the sack truck from the pile of sacks in wet weather.  For potatoes from areas of red sandstone, like parts of Devon or the Brecon Beacons, a reddish tinge would be apparent.

 

The spuds weren't washed and a fair bit of earth stuck to them, but for this to badly effect the oustide of the sack, it would have to be left out in the rain and the earth soak through, and hessian is a fairly earth like colour anyway.  Stacks of sacks would be made by interlocking them; you laid them out on their sides with 3 in a row then two across the top ends, then repeated the process with 3 in a row across the two, and a further two laid over the ends of the first 3.   This built up into a stack stable enough to be built to about 6 feet in height that could be safely moved on a barrow,or trolley, a techinque I learned from Royal Mail in the 80s but valid for spuds in the 30s.  Once bagged (sacked0 up, they were kept under cover where possible.

[doilum]

My memory may be less reliable but, from teenage days working for a fruit and veg merchant, the common or garden spud came in much darker sacks. Specialist potatoes like the Jersey Mid came in lighter sacks with a red printed logo. Some came in small plywood barrels but either way they were packed in peat to stop them bruising. My time in this job(early 70s) saw the transition to paper sacks.

[spikey]

Is it just me who has never in his long life seen a hessian sack full of anything tied off with two "ears" like that? 

[The Johnster]

Look a bit like Eyeore, don’t they. 

[doilum]

I maybe wrong but think that the sacks were "sown" shut with a length of twine.

[Piemanlarger]

19 minutes ago, doilum said:

I maybe wrong but think that the sacks were "sown" shut with a length of twine.

 

That makes more sence i must say but I presume skytrex who made these modeled them on a prototype somewhere ?

 

Perhaps one day I'll file them off so they look " sown"  shut,

once I decided what colour I'm painting them !

[doilum]

Try a Google image search for wholesale vegetables market. I quickly found one of Covent garden. Sadly, inevitably monochrome, but shows sacks and boxes well.

[Nick C]

One hessian potato sack, full of potatoes: (note, photo taken under artifical light, so take that into account)

 

It's not often you can do proper prototype research in your kitchen cupboard...

Edited January 20, 2021 by Nick C

[spikey]

1 hour ago, doilum said:

I maybe wrong but think that the sacks were "sown" shut with a length of twine.

 

Some were for sure, but and they certainly didn't have "ears".  Whenever I think back to hessian sacks that are tied off, they were always bunched and tied in one hit in the middle.

 

Maybe sacks with bunny-rabbits' ears ( at least in the UK) is just one of those railway modellers' things, like coalyard bins being called "staithes" ...

[Steamport Southport]

3 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Some were for sure, but and they certainly didn't have "ears".  Whenever I think back to hessian sacks that are tied off, they were always bunched and tied in one hit in the middle.

 

Maybe sacks with bunny-rabbits' ears ( at least in the UK) is just one of those railway modellers' things, like coalyard bins being called "staithes" ...

 

Definitely called staithes in the north.

 

Just that many people set them up wrong. You are supposed to have a track above or on an elevated track behind them for unloading the wagons with the open part for coal removal. They weren't just placed randomly in the middle of a goods yard.

 

 

Jason

[doilum]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Definitely called staithes in the north.

 

Just that many people set them up wrong. You are supposed to have a track above or on an elevated track behind them for unloading the wagons with the open part for coal removal. They weren't just placed randomly in the middle of a goods yard.

 

 

Jason

This is a regional thing. The NE railway was ( I think) the only one to try and standardise on hopper ( bottom door) delivery to it's stations. Thus the elevated coal siding became a feature of most station layouts. The bigger the station, the greater number of cells. Other companies seem to have generally delivered coal in side door wagons . This resulted in the ground level bunker made from old sleepers or even large lumps of coal.

Personally, I have always associated the term " staithes" with the river or dockside facilities for loading ships or barges. This is probably a question of localised use of language.

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, doilum said:

This is a regional thing. The NE railway was ( I think) the only one to try and standardise on hopper ( bottom door) delivery to it's stations. Thus the elevated coal siding became a feature of most station layouts. The bigger the station, the greater number of cells. Other companies seem to have generally delivered coal in side door wagons . This resulted in the ground level bunker made from old sleepers or even large lumps of coal.

Personally, I have always associated the term " staithes" with the river or dockside facilities for loading ships or barges. This is probably a question of localised use of language.

 

Lancashire and Yorkshire and other railways. Famous ones at Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge and Halifax. I'm much more familiar with the railways from this side of the Pennines than the North East.

 

Just pointing out that staithes are a perfectly valid term.

 

 

Jason

[phil_sutters]

There is a thread here in RMweb about the Walworth Road (London SE17) coal drops - a Midland Railway depot in South London. This is a link from that thread https://sremg.org.uk/RlyMag/ForeignDepotsofSthLondon.pdf

While it seems from the photos in that article, that end door wagons were used, the coal certainly didn't stay on the level. Many of South London's railways run on viaducts and it was commonplace to have coal sidings, feeding depots below.

[Bristol_Rich]

If you search “Lincolnshire potato railways” on google, lots of images of sacks (including logos) loaded onto NG wagons during the 30’s...

Edited January 20, 2021 by Bristol_Rich

[doilum]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Lancashire and Yorkshire and other railways. Famous ones at Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge and Halifax. I'm much more familiar with the railways from this side of the Pennines than the North East.

 

Just pointing out that staithes are a perfectly valid term.

 

 

Jason

I had forgotten about the L&Y !

[Mike Bellamy]

47 minutes ago, Bristol_Rich said:

If you search “Lincolnshire potato railways” on google,

 

. . . . . . and a book of the same title published by Oakwood Press.

.

[Fat Controller]

47 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

There is a thread here in RMweb about the Walworth Road (London SE17) coal drops - a Midland Railway depot in South London. This is a link from that thread https://sremg.org.uk/RlyMag/ForeignDepotsofSthLondon.pdf

While it seems from the photos in that article, that end door wagons were used, the coal certainly didn't stay on the level. Many of South London's railways run on viaducts and it was commonplace to have coal sidings, feeding depots below.

The ones at Mile End, East London were 'repurposed' as a sand terminal, and served as such into the 1980s ; I suspect the ones at King's Cross were as well. I always understood such structures to be 'coal drops', and the defined areas for  stocking to be 'coal cells'. Just to show that such areas were not always next to the tracks, have a look at this image, which someone posted on here a while ago:-

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwf2009/5630333985/in/faves-32297024@N08/

 

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, doilum said:

Personally, I have always associated the term " staithes" with the river or dockside facilities for loading ships or barges. This is probably a question of localised use of language.

 

Yes, staithes means a dockside facility. 

Coastal shipping is of course where most of the early North Eastern coal wagons went to be emptied.  

I've always preferred the term "coal drops" for the elevated facilities used at NER stations for domestic coal.