A Nod To Brent - a friendly thread, filled with frivolity, cream teas and pasties. Longing for the happy days in the South Hams 1947.

[Penlan]

Finally, at least in the depressed early Thirties, in common with Helston, you have a dedicated Kingsbridge Rabbit Van for London!

Helston had a Rabbit Van?

OH, I must look that up.

I know there were 1,000's of Rabbits a year or three ago in the embankments for the new Helston Heritage line.

[gwrrob]

Another source of traffic on the branch post war was sugar beet.Anyone know what type of wagons were used for this freight.

[Tim Dubya]

Would have thought just opens but as for dia's no idea. I'm sure there was an article in MRJ about beet traffic but that would have been on the GER? (not at home so can't check).

Edited February 16, 2016 by Tim Dubya

[colin penfold]

Sugar beet is not in any way fragile and is carried between farms in Norfolk in open lorries so Im sure opens would be all that would be needed. The beets look a bit like swede.

[Clearwater]

Another source of traffic on the branch post war was sugar beet.Anyone know what type of wagons were used for this freight.

I'm no expert here but given it was just post war and there hadn't been much investment, the wagon must have been past their best and a bit beeten up...

 

Sorry, hat coat gone

 

David

Edited February 16, 2016 by Clearwater

[DonB]

I would think that Sugar Beet was dispatched from the field with

minimal cleaning / washing, then carried in ordinary open wagons, to the processing mill where they would have been washed anyway. The reception / unloading facilities at the Mill would dictate whether end-tipping opens were required. (I worked for a company that supplied mechanical handling equipment to Beet factories, and they featured a wagon on an end-tipping device in one of their early 1900s catalogue engravings, I'm not sure that the engraving was ever used, I found the printing plate rotting away in the base of the company water tower!.).

Sugar beet grows to about a 6" round root similar to an oversized beetroot.

[MikeHemmings]

There's a picture of sugar beet loaded wagons

 

http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/51/Derwent.htm

 

Mike

[Mulgabill]

I may have already mentioned this, but I recall meeting David Geen years ago at an exhibition.  Upon expressing my interest in the South Devon mainline, David recommended Brent as the most manageable (11 feet in 4mm scale between the overbridges) combined with the most operational interest. 

 

This contrasts with arguably diminishing returns for the size and effort of producing Totnes.  I know Totnes has 2 branches and four tracks through the station, but the Kingsbridge Branch arguably yielded more operational interest/traffic than the Ashburton (much as I love the latter), which was on the point of closure at times during the Thirties.

 

For the Kingsbridge Branch in the Thirties, you have 2 locomotives and two B Sets.

 

You also have one or two (depending on the time of year) massive 70-footers conveyed to Brent on a local passenger before being taking down to Kingsbridge on the branch train.  Like Totnes, you have a pick up or trip goods calling at Brent, with the train engine presumably doing its own shunting. 

 

Finally, at least in the depressed early Thirties, in common with Helston, you have a dedicated Kingsbridge Rabbit Van for London!

 

How interesting re the Helston rabbit van, Im building a model based on Helston, but have not come across any reference to the rabbit van before. Does anyone know what it would have been? I suspect it wouldn't have lasted to the late 50s early 60s of my timescale, but nor did the many PO wagons I already have.

 

I may even get round to a thread, if I ever work out how to start it up, and get photos "small" enough to add. At the moment its easier to go modelling than comute.

 

Keep it up Robin I'm learning all the while.

 

TONY

[The Stationmaster]

Another source of traffic on the branch post war was sugar beet.Anyone know what type of wagons were used for this freight.

In later years 16T Mins were used (after being cleaned) but basically any open wagon with decent loadability so 4 or 5 plank high as a minimum.   The stuff can be very filthy to handle if lifted in wet weather so later on many farmers/agricultural contractors tended to use conveyors for loading railway wagons but it was probably still hand loaded in the 1940s as it was also hand lifted back then.  Then off to the factory where various unloading practices seem to have been followed including, I believe, tippling wagons at one of the more modern larger factories.

 

Next stage in the process railwaywise is for the bagged beetpulp to be returned to the forwarding stations so the farmers or gents who sent in beet get the dried pulp back for winter fodder for cattle.  in later years that was always sent in Vanfits but earlier times almost certainly saw the use of sheeted open wagons when vans weren't so numerous.  

 

Sugar beet is an excellent crop the use of which in Europe has been messed up by idiots who seem to think that countries who have only produced sugar for the last couple of decades have an autoatic right to displace home production.  As a crop it is a good for rotational purposes so cuts down on use of artificial fertilisers, apart from the tops (which I think might be capable of use in silage) there is no waste at all - it can be used directly as cattle feed (suitably chopped up) but is best used in the main British manner being sent to factories for the sugar to be extracted with the leftover pulp going back to farms as cattle feed.  In case folk don't know Silver Spoon brand sugar was at one time exclusively produced from sugar beet grown in Britain but i think the product from the refineries has always been distributed by road with only the beetpulp going out by rail

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

No Wales....

 

Patience young Jedi.  I looked at the over view map yesterday, and there is definitely more coverage than last week, including creeping in to the Forest of Dean and East Angular, 

 

The map scanning Gnomes are obviously hard at work uploading new maps each week.  

 

At this rate, Wales by mid-March!

[brushman47544]

In case folk don't know Silver Spoon brand sugar was at one time exclusively produced from sugar beet grown in Britain but i think the product from the refineries has always been distributed by road with only the beetpulp going out by rail[/i]

Off Topic, if that's possible on ANTB, but I remember when Silver Spoon first appeared in the shops. I wouldn't use it. It didn't taste quite the same as Cane sugar (from Tate & Lyle then) and you needed more of it to get the same sweetness, especially in drinks and on cereal. I also felt we (the UK that is) should stick to producing other things we couldn't buy so readily from abroad when the Commonwealth countries we got our Cane sugar needed money from sugar exports to support their economies. Haven't times changed!

 

In a similar vein does anyone else remember Kangaroo brand butter from Australia?

Edited February 17, 2016 by brushman47544

[Waraqah]

Rob it's probably true.

I had an Uncle who was a gunner on Lancasters during the war. Coincidentally  My Wife also had an Uncle on Lancasters but he got shot down and KIA after a raid on Hamburg. Last week I took my love of Aircraft to the next level and took a flying lesson in a Cessna 152 - My Daughter got it for me for my Birthday (the lesson not the plane). I went from Spring Chicken to Shite Hawk in 45 minutes. It was quite hands on and you get to fly it and actually take off. (Although they do insist on the landing bit). 

If you get the chance to have a go, it's well worth it. It was the best money I Never spent.

 

Hi Ted,

 

 Sounds like a great experience. I'm surprised they're so strict about not letting you land the plane though; I'd have thought hitting the ground would be the easiest part of it!

[Northroader]

I didn't know you could milk kangaroos?

[Alister_G]

I didn't know you could milk kangaroos?

 

You have to tie 'em down first, sport...

 

Al.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Tie them down?  Surely a gentleman would take the to dinner first...

[Captain Kernow]

The beets look a bit like swede.

That may solicit an official complaint from the ambassador.

[Stubby47]

I had no problem viewing maps of Wales. I just zoomed out to see most of the country, then zoomed in over the area ( Menai Bridge, Holyhead, Rhyl) and the old maps were available.

[The Stationmaster]

Tie them down?  Surely a gentleman would take the to dinner first...

Dunno about taking them to dinner but they are very nice to eat for dinner.  Bit like goats in that respect I suppose - nice to eat the meat but make bloomin' awful so called cheese.

 

Going back to sugar - Britain, like a number of EU countries, operated a quota system for impart of cane sugar from traditional (in our case Commonwealth) sugar cane producing countries so we were in a system of looking after our traditional producers and our own production (which had developed for strategic and good agricultural reasons).  However some dumbo world trade organisation decided this system wasn't fair to emergent sugar producing countries around the world so we were ordered - by a pack of idiots in my view - both to cut back on domestic sugar production from beet and to seriously reduce the quotas we allowed from Commonwealth countries which were long established suppliers and to buy instead from the newly emergent producers some of whom were about as economically and politically stable as Syria now is.

 

The effect of this nonsense was to destroy jobs in the beet processing industry across Europe (some European countries used far more beet sourced sugar than us), damage the economies of long established cane producing countries, reduce the availability of cattle feed created as no more than a by-product and thus involving no expensive processing, and remove from farmers the ability to grow sufficient quantities of a profitable crop which also made an excellent rotational contribution which kept down n the use of artificial fertilisers.   Round here in the last 2 - 3 years a new rotational crop has appeared in the form of poppies which are being grown mainly for drug production (due to a shortage of opium for drug manufacture - really!!) but which also has some rotational value;  another rotational crop is linseed which had become quite common around here before poppies arrived on the scene.

 

Note to scenery builders - there are modern crops so wouldn't really fit layouts set in the past.

[Mallard60022]

Dunno about taking them to dinner but they are very nice to eat for dinner.  Bit like goats in that respect I suppose - nice to eat the meat but make bloomin' awful so called cheese.

 

Going back to sugar - Britain, like a number of EU countries, operated a quota system for impart of cane sugar from traditional (in our case Commonwealth) sugar cane producing countries so we were in a system of looking after our traditional producers and our own production (which had developed for strategic and good agricultural reasons).  However some dumbo world trade organisation decided this system wasn't fair to emergent sugar producing countries around the world so we were ordered - by a pack of idiots in my view - both to cut back on domestic sugar production from beet and to seriously reduce the quotas we allowed from Commonwealth countries which were long established suppliers and to buy instead from the newly emergent producers some of whom were about as economically and politically stable as Syria now is.

 

The effect of this nonsense was to destroy jobs in the beet processing industry across Europe (some European countries used far more beet sourced sugar than us), damage the economies of long established cane producing countries, reduce the availability of cattle feed created as no more than a by-product and thus involving no expensive processing, and remove from farmers the ability to grow sufficient quantities of a profitable crop which also made an excellent rotational contribution which kept down n the use of artificial fertilisers.   Round here in the last 2 - 3 years a new rotational crop has appeared in the form of poppies which are being grown mainly for drug production (due to a shortage of opium for drug manufacture - really!!) but which also has some rotational value;  another rotational crop is linseed which had become quite common around here before poppies arrived on the scene.

 

Note to scenery builders - there are modern crops so wouldn't really fit layouts set in the past.

Poland for one. Not that long before I went out there in 2003 there were still 'seasonal' train loads of the stuff loaded in remote, rural locations on almost abandoned branch lines that saw only SB traffic from year to year. I did manage to get some timber load (two LWB wagon loads) on one steam driving turn in 2003, however that went soon afterwards and such freight traffic disappeared during the next couple of years (sadly). However, in 2004 I did get a turn on a Mushroom Picker Special (OL49 loco). That is a typical 'excursion' service that I believe may still be available (steam hauled).

Phil 

[Mallard60022]

I had no problem viewing maps of Wales. I just zoomed out to see most of the country, then zoomed in over the area ( Menai Bridge, Holyhead, Rhyl) and the old maps were available.

Are you still thinking you can fly Stu? I'd give up that wacky baccy stuff matey, it's not good for you.

Dilberty.

[Mallard60022]

Oh yes, one can catch a train at Hereford that goes to see Larry at Holyhead. I never knew that.

Cecil.

[NHY 581]

That may solicit an official complaint from the ambassador.

The Swedish Ambassador to Newton Abbot, Olaf-Göran Sigmundsen has lodged an official complaint.

 

He is pictured below at a press conference held at the Black Cock public house in Newton Abbott.

[Captain Kernow]

The Swedish Ambassador to Newton Abbot, Olaf-Göran Sigmundsen has lodged an official complaint.

 

He is pictured below at a press conference held at the Black Cock public house in Newton Abbott.

He looks a bit like a merchant banker, surely?

I had no problem viewing maps of Wales. I just zoomed out to see most of the country, then zoomed in over the area ( Menai Bridge, Holyhead, Rhyl) and the old maps were available.

You didn't happen to spot Haverfordwest while you were there, did you? I'm longing to find it.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Haverfordwest is west of Haverford...  unless you travel by GWR, in which case it's nowhere near.

[Clearwater]

Haverfordwest is west of Haverford...  unless you travel by GWR, in which case it's nowhere near.

Did the gwr train ryanair's staff then?