How was fish traffic handled?

[TomJ]

I’m wondering about how I might add another flow to a 50s/60s layout and use some lovely fish vans

 

I know that fish was counted as a NPCCS

and vans were often attached to passenger trains for speed. 
 

What I’m not sure about is how the traffic was handled at the receiving end. Would the fish be offloaded in the goods yard or in the station? And if it was a couple of vans attached to a passenger train might they be detached and shunted off elsewhere? Would a large town/small city justify a dedicated fish train or a few vans attached to another train?

 

Thanks everyone 

[The Stationmaster]

Depended on the volume being dealt with.   The block trains usually ran to either specialist fish platforms or, usually, sidings or even goods yards where road vehicles could back up to the wagons to allow easy transfer for the onward journey to markets.  Fish vans handled as tail traffic on passenger trains would normally be shunted to a parcels platform and in soem cases larger stations had a specialist fish dock for dealing with the traffic.  

 

My photo below shows the fish dock at Reading although by the time I took the picture it was only dealing with mail traffic.  You will see that t. it has a solid surface between and alongside the rails and this was to allow washing down.   The platform serving it is behind the fence  which divided if from Platform 4 although this was quite likely a later addition.  It survived until the mid 1960s when it formed the basis of Platform 4A  provided to allow closure of the former SR station, visible on the extreme left.  Incidentally vans or containers of fish passing as tail traffic on passenger trains lasted into the 1960s and could be found behind DMUs.

 

Fish in smaller quantities was also forwarded in passenger train brakevans - hence the 'unusual' small that could be found on some mail bags asit was treated in the same way as parcels traffic.  

 

[Fat Controller]

Some larger stations would have a specialised 'fish dock', where stock to be unloaded would be unloaded by merchants. Platform 0 at Cardiff is an example of such a platform, I believe. Other stations might just have an 'ice-house' on a platform, accessible to road vehicles. Boxes of fish would be unloaded from the train and kept in these. until the fishmongers arrived. My old home station, Llanelli, had such a building; it stank, though how much of the smell was due to the adjacent Gents was open to debate...

[Wheatley]

This an Ebay link, but the photo on the front of the book is of fish being handballed off lorries into fish vans in Aberdeen Goods Yard.  There appear to be a couple of roads set aside for fish with general goods in the background, no doubt the arrangements were flexible up to a point. 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393066357099

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Some larger stations would have a specialised 'fish dock', where stock to be unloaded would be unloaded by merchants. Platform 0 at Cardiff is an example of such a platform, I believe. Other stations might just have an 'ice-house' on a platform, accessible to road vehicles. Boxes of fish would be unloaded from the train and kept in these. until the fishmongers arrived. My old home station, Llanelli, had such a building; it stank, though how much of the smell was due to the adjacent Gents was open to debate...

Cardiff Central P0 is indeed the old fish dock, used in more recent years for general parcels traffic following the filling in of P5 (1964?), the old downside bay used by Porthcawl trains at peak times but for parcels otherwise.  As a result, handling of the fish traffic then took place for many years in the old Brunel Canton goods shed, now demolished and the site of the signalling centre.  Vans were put off here every evening from the daily Milford Haven-Paddington Goods fish train, and locos changed.  
 

P0 was instituted when the Millenium Stadium was opened with a view to handling rugex from downline.  Rugby is popular downline, and apparently they even occasionally play some sort of rudimentary form of the game in Llanelli, I’m told…

 

 

Coat?

Edited August 23, 2022 by The Johnster

[kingfisher9147]

There is a good  vid by bfi train times that shows the movement of fish.  Special trains would be arrange with certain pick up and drop off points.  Depending on your layout you can decide on where you would want goods dropped off.  There is a book by light Moor on handling good on the lner which might help, I am sure that there are other books about to help. 

Mike

[Rivercider]

There was also a fish dock siding at Bristol Temple Meads, behind platform 2 at the west end on the up side of the line. King class 6023 King Edward II spent some time there awaiting restoration in the 1980s.

 

cheers

[Michael Hodgson]

Fish was moved in crates, they would be off-loaded from vessels at the various fishing ports, some of which handled quite massive traffic.  They were usually sold through auctions at fish markets displayed in open boxes, where the buyers could assess each batch of the catch and decide how fresh it was etc, at the fishing port and/or at a major market such as Billingsgate where the crates would be loaded onto wagons for forwarding to the next destination, with ice to try and keep the goods fresh.  There were a lot of middle men involved between the fishermen and the ultimate customer, and quite a lot of physical handling of relatively small boxes.  In the days before freezers, speed was important at all stages of the process so that the product remained of merchantable qulaity; road haulage could be used for local consumption, but rail was the only way of covering longer distances rapidly.  The LNER carried more fish than the other companies, and journeys could be quite lengthy.  For example, London received fish regularly not only from ports like Grimsby, but also from Aberdeen and the smaller towns in that area.  Fish trains were always given high priority.

[The Johnster]

Class 3, ‘perishables’.

 

I once worked a Sunday evening dmu Hereford-Cardiff, one of my link jobs, and an enormous freshly caught Wye salmon was loaded into my van, more than 5’ long and pretty heavy, in a hessian sack and packed in ice, labelled for Paddington and addressed to the Savoy Hotel.  It changed trains at Newport.  I was most impressed with it, never seen one that big before and haven’t since, and I’m sure whoever caught it felt very pleased with himself!

[DavidB-AU]

At the larger end of the scale, Mac Fisheries had its own sidings at Finsbury Park where vans from Aberdeen would be detached, some for its own retail and some for onward working to one of the sheds close to Billingsgate. Although it wasn't the main London fish market, some ran right into Liverpool Street for Spitalfields. King’s Cross Goods had a "fish road", Manchester Oldham Road had a Fish Shed and was close to the wholesale fish market. Birmingham Snow Hill had dedicated fish platforms.

[keefer]

I don't know which services they were built for but on the cl.308 with an MLV, one end of the van was designated as a fish stowage area complete with drain hole in the floor.

[phil_sutters]

20 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Some larger stations would have a specialised 'fish dock', where stock to be unloaded would be unloaded by merchants. Platform 0 at Cardiff is an example of such a platform, I believe. Other stations might just have an 'ice-house' on a platform, accessible to road vehicles. Boxes of fish would be unloaded from the train and kept in these. until the fishmongers arrived. My old home station, Llanelli, had such a building; it stank, though how much of the smell was due to the adjacent Gents was open to debate...

I don't think of Hove being a fishing port, but I suppose in Victorian times it probably was, like Brighton. Anyway this notice was still there, when I last stopped at Hove. When fish traffic was last seen there I don't know.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by phil_sutters

[csiedmo]

Halifax, not exactly a large town, had it's own dedicated Fish train that ran Sundays only "as required" from Huddersfield. The "as required" status would suggest that there were unlikely to be many vans attached.

As there were no timetabled goods trains on Sundays beyond 4am, I assume it to have been unloaded either at the passenger platforms, or perhaps more likely, at the short bay at the west end of platform 4. 

What became of the "empties" is less clear; presumably pickup up at some point on the Monday by one of the goods trains. 

 

Cheers,

Ed

 

[C126]

3 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

Hove being a fishing port...

 

I wonder if it was a van or two detached from Shoreham, still with a reasonable fleet?  That will be the excuse on my layout, anyway...

[keefer]

On 24/08/2022 at 03:35, keefer said:

I don't know which services they were built for but on the cl.308 with an MLV, one end of the van was designated as a fish stowage area complete with drain hole in the floor.

Found the part of the MLV diagram:

From Wikipedia, it states there were 9 units (later 308/2) built for Fenchurch St.-Tilbury Riverside boat train services. While this makes sense of the MLV for luggage capacity, I wonder what fish traffic there was and how important it was, for official provision to be made for it?

Edited August 25, 2022 by keefer

[bécasse]

I suspect that the "fish" may well have been cockles from Leigh-on-Sea. Sixty years ago they were hugely popular among cockney families with buttered brown bread slices for Saturday "tea".

[Morello Cherry]

To echo Becasse could it be for fish traffic from Leigh on Sea?

 

'Leigh on Sea is the most active fishing port on the North Thames and the first fishing Port out of London. The fleet predominately fish for cockles but Sole, Thornback Ray, Herring and Whelks are also landed locally.' (According to Leigh on Sea)

 

or alternatively - fish traffic out from Billingsgate to be shipped from Tilbury? or something from further away that came via Tilbury, the MLVs had a lot of room so my assumption is that they must have been picking up/taking a lot of stuff.

[45125]

On 23/08/2022 at 23:20, Michael Hodgson said:

Fish was moved in crates, they would be off-loaded from vessels at the various fishing ports, some of which handled quite massive traffic.  They were usually sold through auctions at fish markets displayed in open boxes, where the buyers could assess each batch of the catch and decide how fresh it was etc, at the fishing port and/or at a major market such as Billingsgate where the crates would be loaded onto wagons for forwarding to the next destination, with ice to try and keep the goods fresh.  There were a lot of middle men involved between the fishermen and the ultimate customer, and quite a lot of physical handling of relatively small boxes.  In the days before freezers, speed was important at all stages of the process so that the product remained of merchantable qulaity; road haulage could be used for local consumption, but rail was the only way of covering longer distances rapidly.  The LNER carried more fish than the other companies, and journeys could be quite lengthy.  For example, London received fish regularly not only from ports like Grimsby, but also from Aberdeen and the smaller towns in that area.  Fish trains were always given high priority.

More often than not a fish van would contain an individual fish merchant purchase bought in the fish market at the port of origin. A fish merchant may have several vans in one train, the may be dropped of enroute at various locations for that merchants customers. Trains like the Hull Plymouth would have vans for various place not only on its route, but would drop vans off to join other fish trains as well as some other services to get to final destination, one regular destination on Hull Plymouth was Fishguard.