Agricultural produce by rail - what did farmers import (particularly on the W&U Tramway)?

[Dungrange]

The Wisbech and Upwell Tramway was a rural and largely agricultural or farmer’s line and I’m wondering what would have been imported by the local farmers (and conveyed by rail).

 

I understand that the main import traffic on the W&U (ie from Wisbech towards Upwell) was always coal, with merchants based at all tramway depots.  However, in the Great Eastern Railway period the Working Timetables indicate that coal wagons were not conveyed in the scheduled goods trams, instead being conveyed by special services arranged at night on an as required basis.  As such, I’m wondering what was conveyed by the scheduled inbound services during the day (ie towards Upwell) apart from empty wagons and vans.

 

In his book on The Wisbech and Upwell Tramway, Peter Paye states that “In the 1920s and 1930s coke was conveyed for horticultural purposes” and he also highlights that granite was conveyed as part of a rolling programme of road improvements.  However, these are the only inbound cargos that are specifically mentioned in his book.

 

In contrast Peter Paye’s book gives a long list of exported produce, which included:

·       Root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, swedes, parsnips, turnips, mangold wurzels and from the early 1920s sugar beet.  I believe that these would generally have been conveyed in open wagons.

·       Flowers.  I understand these were conveyed in fully fitted covered vans.

·       Milk.  Dispatched in 17-gallon churns, but not sure about the wagons that conveyed these churns.

·       Hay, Straw, Corn.  Presumably these were conveyed in sheeted open wagons.

·       Fruit traffic, especially apples.  These were loaded into crates, but not sure about the wagons that conveyed these crates.

·       Summer fruits including raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, and strawberries.  These were all conveyed in covered vans.

 

Livestock, both horses and cattle, are highlighted as being two-way traffic, with animals being both bought and sold at markets, so horseboxes and cattle wagons could have been loaded in both directions.

 

So, looking at the exported produce, what would the farmers have imported?  Fertiliser?  Seeds?  Anything else, apart from the odd new tractor or other equipment that would have required a Lowfit or Lowmac wagon?

 

I’m also interested in knowing about the seasonality of these imports as well and if anyone has any details of tonnages of various produce conveyed, I’d be interested in that as well.

[CKPR]

Agricultural lime and limestone for sugar beet processing would have been  important imports into agricultural areas along with other fertilisers and seed stock, especially potatoes, with the latter two being among  the last traffic conveyed in the old 12T vans in the 1970s. Also, don't forget about oil coming in for rural factories and processing plants.

Edited November 2, 2023 by CKPR

[Dungrange]

1 hour ago, CKPR said:

Agricultural lime and limestone for sugar beet processing would have been important imports into agricultural area

 

I understand that the processing of sugar beet was undertaken at British Sugar Corporation factories at Ely, South Lynn, Wissington and Peterborough, so I'm assuming that the limestone would have gone to these locations rather than 'to the fields'.  Is / was agricultural lime used as a fertiliser for sugar beet?  I think the export from the tramway was the raw beet from the fields rather than a processed sugar.

 

I'll look for more details of fertiliser and seed potatoes as inbound loads.

[johnofwessex]

Lime is used as a soil improver in some areas but I dont know if it would be appropriate for that part of the world

[Philou]

Lime is used in acidic areas - I don't know about East Anglia, but acid soils can be found where there are fir trees and peat - think Welsh and Scottish uplands.

 

I've seen lime being used round here on certain fields occasionally - but I have no idea what crops had been grown before and what was to come.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Dungrange]

A company called Keith Mount Liming (https://www.mountliming.co.uk/about-us/history/) are based in Bury St Edmonds and their website states that they are a family business with the Mount family being the earliest known company to have applied lime to Norfolk fields as early as 1868.

 

The company offers a wide range of liming products throughout Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Lincolnshire & Hertfordshire, so my assumption is that it is a potential inbound load.  They claim to be the largest privately owned lime company in the country, so there must be a market and presumably there was a market for liming even in pre-grouping days.

[Andy Hayter]

4 hours ago, Dungrange said:

.... Great Eastern Railway .... 

 

Anything else, apart from the odd new tractor or other equipment that would have required a Lowfit or Lowmac wagon?

 

I’m also interested in knowing about the seasonality of these imports as well and if anyone has any details of tonnages of various produce conveyed, I’d be interested in that as well.

 

Tractors in pregrouping period would be very unusual almost anywhere and especially so in rural East Anglia.  However agricultural machinery and tools would certainly have been imported.   Most heavy kit in use would have been horse drawn but some may have been worked by traction engines and some of these may well have been itinerant and the engines imported as needed.  Ploughing would be most likely over winter and most lime would be applied at the same time.  Things like threshing machines and their motive power would be needed latish summer.  ditto reapers although these might well be owned by the farm  and would only be imported on purchase.   Small farms might well still reap by hand  with scythes.

 

Other imports -

tinned foods for the populace.  Probably not vast quantities but regular traffic.

Packaging for outbound crops - jute sacks (probably originally from Dundee as finished sacks or maybe jute on the reel); wooden crates new and returns;  wicker baskets new and returns

If there was a local brewery then malted barley and hops, if not then bottled and cask beer - farm work then was thirsty work.  If there was a local maltings then special coal (anthracite)  deliveries and barley. 

Timber - for construction and building farm machinery - wagons and the like.

Bricks, slates, roof tiles - maybe even reeds and long straw

Fish - fresh and preserved 

Iron for the blacksmiths - tool manufacture as well as a lot of horse shoes

 

 

A  lot of that probably did not change much until closure.

 

[billbedford]

16 hours ago, Dungrange said:

The Wisbech and Upwell Tramway was a rural and largely agricultural or farmer’s line and I’m wondering what would have been imported by the local farmers (and conveyed by rail).

 

Just some notes that might help. 

 

Coke was used for heating greenhouses, so it was mainly winter traffic. 

 

Potatoes and other food crop roots were bagged in hessian, later paper, sacks and sent by goods vans. Sugar beet was sent in open wagons. I'm not sure about fodder beets. 

 

Flowers: These were boxed and could be sent in passenger vans. 

 

Milk:  Dispatched in 17-gallon churns, The GER and LNER had dedicated milk vans. 

 

Hay, Straw:  Sheeted open wagons.

 

Grain:  Small quantities were sacked and sent by goods vans. Larger loads by grain wagons, though the fens weren't noted for growing grain. 

 

Fruit traffic, especially apples:  These were loaded into crates and conveyed by goods vans.

 

Summer fruits:  These were shipped in punnets or other baskets and conveyed by ventilated milk/fruit vans.

 

Livestock:   Yearling cattle were brought in to be sold at autumn stock markets, fattened over the winter and then sold on the summer. I presume the trade in young horses was similar. 

 

Note that, at least, pre-WW2, the traffic for flowers, especially daffodils, and individual soft fruits was high volume over a short period. This led to suitable vans being brought in from a wide area, including other railways. 

 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

17 hours ago, Dungrange said:

what would the farmers have imported?  Fertiliser? 

And what was the fertiliser in time past? The result of bowel movements of both humans and animals. London was a major exporter...

[Philou]

8 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

The result of bowel movements of both humans and animals

 

Oh pooh .........

[Nearholmer]

Lime was widely used as a “clay breaker”, but I don’t think that would have applied in the area under discussion. Acidity regulation might have, because fenland is peat or proto-peat, so acidic, but looking at traffic on the Wissington Railway, ‘burnt lime’ was only a very tiny portion.

 

Inward goods on the Wissington in the sample year (1954/55) was 1 354 tons, outwards 14 693 tons of beet, plus 3 801 tons of “other”. The inward items included beet seed, beet pulp (either for animal feed or fertiliser, I think), potato seed (seed potatoes?), galvanised iron sheets, empty crates & sacks, oil, farm machinery, building materials, and cattle.

 

The W&U served an area of greater population than the Wissington, so more “household necessities”, but people were very self-reliant, so even then probably quite modest volumes. Have a look at a WW2 ration statement per person, think about what wasn’t made/grown/bred locally, and go from there? My mother grew up in a ‘market gardening’ area, that was her father’s trade, and she tells me that they remained very well fed during the war by carrying on exactly as before - every fruit & vegetable grown locally, chickens, pigs, rabbits, pigeons, and in their case fish, because they were on the coast. Bread/flour, beer, butter and cheese were the things they didn’t have locally, although milk was local, and they made cottage cheese (horrible stuff - she still makes it now!).

 

 

[ianathompson]

I would not claim to be an expert on the subject but I have lived in the area for forty or so years.

I can remember when some aspects of the tramway remained but many have now disappeared.

 

Re oil for rural facories.

I am not aware that there were any rural factories near the W&U tramway, although I could be wrong.

It would be a plausible incoming load for an adapted latout.

 

 

 

The photo above, taken a couple of miles awy from Upwell shows a typical local field, last winter.

(I have my owm fenland tramway on the go.) It can be found here (to remaind myself as much as anything!)

 

Re lime.

The whole area of the Wisbech and Upwell tramway crosses fenland.

This was once marshland and the soils refelect this, as seen above.

The soils in the area are the very fertile black soils that are capable, with certain rotations. of producing three crops a year.

I would be surprised, although I could be wrong, if any lime or fertiliser was incoming.

 

Re sugar beet. 

I worked as a shift chemist at Wissington during the "campaign" for a couple of seasons, twenty odd years ago.

Refining sugar requires a large scale industrial facility.

Ely and Lynn shut because they were too small and hence inefficient.

The Wissington factory is, I have heard it said, the largest sugar factory in Europe, if not the World.

 

Processing beet is a complex job involving many stages before sugar is refined from it.

To give a simple idea of what went on in the mill end, where I worked.

 

Beet came in onto the "pad" before it was sent, via a flume, for dicing into small pieces.

These were fed into a boiler, which was effectively an archimedes screw.

They were in there for 10 hours and dosed with Hydrochloric acid before they came out.

The "raw juice", which we had to sample, was like liquid mud, rather than the syrup that many people imagine.

 

The remaining beet from the boiler was the "exhaused slices".

These were sent for drying and turned into animal feed. We had to sample this.

Line was added to the mix to neutralise the acid applied in cooking.

The "spent lime" was used as fertiliser locally, but not in the fens.

 

The factories were all rail connected and would make a good industrial model in themselves.

For those that did not realise the Wissington factory operated an extensive light railway network.

This was much larger then the wisbech & Upwell and reached far out into the fens.

 

Hope that this is of some interest. 

 

Ian T

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by ianathompson
typo and additional info

[Dungrange]

2 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

The result of bowel movements of both humans and animals. London was a major exporter...

 

Mousa models do a Midland Railway Manure Wagon - https://mousa-models.co.uk/scales/bwk1705-4-mr-d-344-manure-wagon-2/, which I'm assuming would be suitable for importing the output from animals.  Was human waste transported in the same way?  I must admit that I never knew they used human waste as a fertiliser at that time.

 

3 hours ago, billbedford said:

This led to suitable vans being brought in from a wide area, including other railways. 

 

Would these have been hired in under a short term (ie several weeks) contract from one or more railway companies, or simply brought in from the intended destination (eg the LNWR may have provided the GER with a number of vans for fruit destined for Birmingham, and the NER may have provided vans for fruit destined for Newcastle?  I understand that at that period traffic would normally be conveyed in the originating companies wagon, with the return journey being empty, but I suppose there was no reason not to have an empty inbound wagon to be loaded outbound (ie being returned to the originating company).

 

I also note your distinction between covered vans and covered ventilated vans.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Dungrange

[adanapress]

In the earlier W & U days there was very likely coprolite traffic.   Thats to say prehistoric

fossilized shark poo,   quite an industry back then in the North Norfolk high ridge, supplying

farms all over East Anglia. Fertilzer  source of nitrogen for the soil I believe. At a distance a heap of it looks like dark gravel. 

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Dungrange said:

understand that at that period traffic would normally be conveyed in the originating companies wagon, with the return journey being empty

Judging by things I found when looking at strawberry traffic in southern England, when big “fruit rushes” occurred vans were sent from destination companies. I found photos of LNWR and other ‘destination company’  passenger-rated fruit/milk vans being loaded deep in Hampshire, entire trainloads, with individual vans going overnight as far away as Edinburgh.

The LSWR itself sometimes got so short of passenger-rated vans during the strawberry season that they would use redundant  passenger coaches, painting over the windows and fitting shelves to the seat and luggage-rack frames and in between.

 

Whether the W&U had such “rushes” of very high value, time critical fruits, I don’t know.

 

 

Edited November 2, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Dungrange said:

.....  Was human waste transported in the same way?  I must admit that I never knew they used human waste as a fertiliser at that time.

Perhaps not human waste as such, but Glasgow Corporation had 'sewage disposal wagons', lettered as such, which took the sludge from the sewage works out to farms in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. Also the Glasgow Police Commissioners (who were responsible for cleaning the streets at the time) had manure wagons for similarly disposing of the horse manure they collected.

The four on the right are manure wagons.

 

Jim

Edited November 2, 2023 by Caley Jim
Typo

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

1 hour ago, Dungrange said:

Was human waste transported in the same way?  I must admit that I never knew they used human waste as a fertiliser at that time.

It certainly was from London. Just too large and polluted to the point that it had to be physically removed from the city after  the gongfermors had collected it. The railways arrived just in time to shift the shit in useful quantity until the construction of the Victorian sewer network could relieve the shituation shomewhat. As we all know this is an onpoohing story. (Whether it was required on the peat soils around the W&U is another question.)

 

The opinion of a friend who is a very successful metal detector operator (he'll be out now, because it is hosing down and that puts off both the amateurs and those who like to watch where you are succeeding and 'join in'.). He reckons that most of the random finds of really good C 18th and 19th items out in the middle of fields far from any settlement will have got there in excrement.

[Bernard Lamb]

3 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

And what was the fertiliser in time past? The result of bowel movements of both humans and animals. London was a major exporter...

Coprolite to give  it its proper name.

At one time dug in vast quantities in the area between Cambridge and Royston.

Presumably send to London by train.

Bernard

[Fat Controller]

In my home town (Llanelli) until WW2, a horse and cart would collect the contents of public urinals to be used in the 'picking' of steel sheet, prior to coating with tin..

[Philou]

............ and I understand dog poo was collected by the bucketful by the street urchins in London at 6d a bucket for use in the tanning industry - hence the nice brown colour to the leather - and the awful smell. I think the name given to the poo was 'shining' (read about it a long time ago in a book on Victorian life but can't recall the details).

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited November 2, 2023 by Philou

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

In my home town (Llanelli) until WW2, a horse and cart would collect the contents of public urinals to be used in the 'picking' of steel sheet, prior to coating with tin..

No, they were only taking the p*ss.

[billbedford]

4 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Coprolite to give  it its proper name.

At one time dug in vast quantities in the area between Cambridge and Royston.

Presumably send to London by train.

Bernard

 

Coprolites are fossilised faeces. They were used in the 19th century as a source of available phosphates. Refining was done in Ipswich by a company that later became Fisons Ltd. 

[Nearholmer]

4 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Presumably send to London by train

Coprolites were processed by factories in various places, I think there was one in Norwich, one in Ipswich, one near Birmingham (the erstwhile coprolite pits near where I live sent theirs by canal to Brum), and one in East London, plus others. 
 

What it yielded was phosphates, but the extraction process was pretty “industrial”, using sulphuric acid. It was largely replaced by imported guano, then by mined phosphates from places like Tunisia where I’ve ridden a very good metre gauge railway to mines at a place called Gafsa, which exports vast tonnages of the stuff.

[figworthy]

8 hours ago, ianathompson said:

Re oil for rural facories.

I am not aware that there were any rural factories near the W&U tramway, although I could be wrong.

It would be a plausible incoming load for an adapted latout.

 

 

Oil could have covered a number of things.

 

Paraffin will have been popular for domestic use in the days before electricity was generally available.

 

The pumping stations (for drainage) would have originally been wind powered.  Some of these were later converted to steam, and then diesel powered (now electric).  Because of their locations, most of those would have been supplied by water, but some could have come in by rail.

 

Adrian

[Fat Controller]

5 hours ago, Philou said:

............ and I understand dog poo was collected by the bucketful by the street urchins in London at 6d a bucket for use in the tanning industry - hence the nice brown colour to the leather - and the awful smell. I think the name given to the poo was 'shining' (read about it a long time ago in a book on Victorian life but can't recall the details).

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

I believe the name was 'Pure'. You can get an idea of the smell if you stay in the wrong bit of Marrakesh,