1930s milk tanker liveries

[PeterLoader]

Hi

I seem to be going around in circles regarding which liveries of tank wagon should make up my Penzance to London milk trains. My model railway is set in the 1930s comprising Newton Abbot station. It appears that a mixture of siphons and 6-wheel milk tankers would be appropriate. However, a definitive source as to what liveries to use seems difficult to find.

 

One question is would such a train have mixed liveries, e.g. combining Express Dairies with Nestle, with the latter appearing to have had a creamery at Lostwithiel whilst Express Dairies had a major creamery and bottling plant in Acton. Does this mean that Nestle would have supplied Express Dairies?

 

It appears that the Milk Marketing Board was formed in the early 1930s but which of their liveries is valid for the 1930s? Did Coop (or CWS) and IMS have a footprint in the south west and would their wagons have formed part of the Penzance to London trains?

 

I already have a few Express Dairies wagons so am hoping that they are valid but would like to lengthen the train with a few more wagons.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Peter

 

 

[Karhedron]

Hello,

 

The good news is that mixed liveries on milk trains was fairly common. While certain milk trains were dedicated to a single dairy company (such as the Dorrington Milk which served just the Indepent Milk Supply company), the main south-west milk train always served a mix of dairies.

 

The first thing to work out is what was running when. The 1930s was a big time of expansion in the dairy industry but the first milk tanks did not appear in the Duchy until the opening of Lostwithiel in 1932. Here are the dates and owners of all the creameries west of Newton Abbot along with when they opened:

 

Penzance and St Erth did not start dispatching milk tanks until the 1940s so can be discounted for your period.

The MMB opened its Cambourne creamery in 1937 but I think it did not start dispatched milk to London in tanks until the filling sidings were laid in 1946.

Lostwithiel was opened by Nestle in 1932 but by 1940 had been taken over by Wallens Supplies. Sadly I am not sure what livery the tankers wore during this period.  This photo of Lostwithiel in 1937 shows a dark milk tanker in residence but does not give any clue as to its livery. https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW054814

At Plymouth, tanks from both Daws Dairy at Saltash and the Ambrosia factory at Lifton were added.

Totnes was opened by Daws Dairy in 1934 and taken over by Cow and Gate in 1937.

 

Frustratingly, details and photos from the period are few and far between. Cow and Gate had dark liveried tankers with white lettering but I am not sure of the colour. I have seen a model of a Daws Dairy milk tanker which was white with blue lettering but I have not managed to find any photos of the real thing to corroborate this. Express Dairies had no creameries west of Newton Abbot. However I have seen a photo of a single Express Dairy milk tanker  being filled at Roskear. I suspect that this would have been with milk from MMB Cambourne before the opening of dedicated sidings at Dolcoath.

 

I have also seen photos of Express Dairy tankers at Cow and Gate dairies. Even in the 1930s, tanks were not exclusive to single companies. At the very least, companies seem to have shipped surplus milk to other facilities that had the capacity to process it into longer lived products such as cheese and butter.

 

The short answer is that few of the liveries available RTR would have been seen at Newton Abbot in the 1930s. You could see the odd Express Dairy tanker but it would probably have been a bit of an interloper rather than a regular fixture. Neither CWS nor IMS operated that far west.