Weston region dairy in N

[alibuchan]

Hi guys,

 

I am looking for a bit of advice and guidance. I have decided that as I have somewhere that I can take my Modern Image N stuff to play, I wanted to have a go at something completely different.

 

I have got a farish class 14 in the BR Weathered green livery and I was wondering what would be the correct tankers to push around and play with for a small dairy complex. I have seen some of Dapols very nice weathered 6 wheeled ones but was wondering if they would be the right thing and what else would be in use?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Alistair

[Kris]

Dapol tankers are the ones you want to use. The other milk tanks available in n gauge is from peco and is a generic model of a 4 wheeled tank wagon. 4 wheeled milk wagons tended to be very early models that had been replaced well before the time that you are modelling. The Dapol wagons are currently not readily available and are not listed for production this year. Some shops do have some examples in still if you look around. The other option is to use ebay but they do seem to go for a premium on here.

[TomJ]

A certain large store in Liverpool seem to have plenty of the weathered 'united dairies' 6 wheelers in stock.

[Kris]

A certain large store in Liverpool seem to have plenty of the weathered 'united dairies' 6 wheelers in stock.

 

Livery is wrong for OP's time frame. United Dairies became unigate in 1959 and soon after this time the tanks were re clad without branding.

[Etched Pixels]

The class 14s appeared in 1964, were all gone in 1968 and I've never seen suggestions or photos of one working dairy traffic. They were slow (40mph max) while milk was fast traffic, single cab (so needed a separate guards van even after the union fun over rear cab guards was sorted), and what tiny bit of work they did seems to have been coal although the tried them on just about anything before giving up.. Post withdrawal they ended up mostly with the NCB and BSC who needed heavy shunting locomotives plus a few other sites like cement works and then on into preservation where they turn out to be ideal locomotives able to work diesel services with low fuel consumption, strong enough to get everything in place while the kettle crew is still waiting for the fire to warm up, interesting visually. and fast enough for almost all the line speed limits.

 

As has been said you'd want the silver (weathered I suspect) ones. On the bright side although they probably never did much milk traffic in reality they got flogged off all over industry and lasted in industry for a long long time, so as an industry owned loco you've got a much bigger plausible timescale than their brief interlude on BR. The livery is also probably fine. A lot of them don't seem to have been repainted between 1964 and the 1980s. The NCB in particularly seems to have worked on the basis that providing there was enough dirt on it that would protect the paint from fading 8)

 

Plus rule one always applies.

 

Alan

[alibuchan]

I did have an idea that they probably never ran with the milks, but I was planning on it being a few smaller dairy that the Hymek or what ever brought it down and left the train to be shunted around the dairy by the 14 and then the Hymek picks the loaded ones up again. As this was not due to really leave the house apart from maybe the odd trip to club etc... then I could get away with it.

 

The main reason that I chose a this was because I wanted to have a play with sprat and winkle's and some D&G couplings to find out which ones I like more, in a more of a small layout situation than a shunting plank.

 

It will also give me some practice at scenery techniques and baseboard construction at the same time.

 

Hopefully this will also be of some use for the 2011 competition if am very lucky.

 

Alistair

[Flying Pig]

I can imagine a Class 14 being used to trip small numbers of tankers a short distance for attachment to a milk train even if this didn't actually happen, whereas I'd expect that if the wagons arrived behind a Hymek that engine would do the small amount of shunting required. Photos of milk tankers on Paul Bartlett's site - here - if you want to repaint the United Dairies models.

 

Or you could go for the NCB option as Etched Pixels suggests, but then you'd probably need to find the Dapol 21T hoppers, which I believe are also scarce at the moment

[TomJ]

There is also a kit for the 21t hoppers from the N Gauge Society (quick plug for them) if you want to go down that line

[alibuchan]

I would go for the NCB but I have already got a couple of 6 wheel tankers and many cows that can be used for a dairy complex.

 

Alistair

[Etched Pixels]

I can imagine a Class 14 being used to trip small numbers of tankers a short distance for attachment to a milk train even if this didn't actually happen, whereas I'd expect that if the wagons arrived behind a Hymek that engine would do the small amount of shunting required. Photos of milk tankers on Paul Bartlett's site - here - if you want to repaint the United Dairies models.

 

Or you could go for the NCB option as Etched Pixels suggests, but then you'd probably need to find the Dapol 21T hoppers, which I believe are also scarce at the moment

 

KMRC do them in fives but they are quite pricy that way as they come with a complementary Hymek 8) I'm sure they are around - Albatross often has stuff nobody else does and East Somerset Models still list two of the NCB hopper numbers plus some of the BR grey ones. If you are modelling pick up traffic it doesn't need to be NCB hoppers anyway just appropriate period coal wagons whichever side of the fence the 14 is assumed to be on.

 

The early 1960s still saw all the small pits all over the Welsh valleys and trip working a few wagons between them to collect up and go to the washery and on in bulk. Mechanisation meant the big pits were vastly more efficient and the small ones were not worth fitting out so within a few years the small pits were pretty much all gone along with that traffic. After that there was still a lot of NCB internal traffic involving the bigger pits (plus of course steam into the 1970s)

 

http://www.rmweb.co....s/page__st__150

 

has some nice NCB type views including some of the tracklaying standards

 

Other thing of course is that not all dairy traffic went in tankers - cheese for example doesn't work well in a tanker

[Kris]

There are some 21t hoppers at the South Devon Railway shop.

[Kris]

I have already got a couple of 6 wheel tankers and many cows that can be used for a dairy complex.

 

 

 

You don't tend to find cows at dairy complexes. They are milked on the farm (okay in a building normally known as a dairy) then the milk is collected by lorry and taken to the central processing plant. This method has been going on since the late 1920's early 30's maybe earlier.

 

 

[Etched Pixels]

Dairy complexes tend to be near dairy farming areas though so you can still fill the fields with cows, including of course a couple hanging over the fence trainspotting as cows always seem to.

 

Alan

[Karhedron]

I can imagine a Class 14 being used to trip small numbers of tankers a short distance for attachment to a milk train even if this didn't actually happen

It did happen sometimes at least. I have a photo in one of the rail mags from a few years back of a class 14 tripping some empty milk tankers in the Cardif area.

 

The most suitable tankers would be the silver unigate ones (prefferably weathered to within an inch of their lives ). Most of the creameries still in use on the WR were owned by Unigate by that time.

 

If you are looking for inspiration for creameries then the following threads might be of interest.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/29635-shunting-milk-train-at-bailey-gate-dairy/page__p__312488__fromsearch__1#entry312488

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/24358-1960s-milk-trains/page__st__25__p__275897__hl__merton__fromsearch__1#entry275897

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/25940-how-to-unload-bulk-wagons-at-breweries-and-creameries/page__p__312576__hl__morden__fromsearch__1#entry312576

[Katier]

Dairy complexes tend to be near dairy farming areas though so you can still fill the fields with cows, including of course a couple hanging over the fence trainspotting as cows always seem to.

 

Alan

Indeed but then said cows could just as easily be overlooking a colliery or similar.

 

 

Dead right about the 'dairy processing factory' ( which is what it is as the end of the day ) wouldn't be the farm. If every farm that milked cows had a railhead that would be a LOT of branchlines!!!

 

 

[alibuchan]

Indeed but then said cows could just as easily be overlooking a colliery or similar.

 

As I said though I have got a couple of the tankers and the Class 14, and plenty of cows to populate the area with. Plus a milk train running through some fields sounds good in my books.

 

As the layout will only be 6 inches wide and 5 foot long (4 foot for the scenery scetion), which for a colliery sounds a bit small, at least with 8 or 10, 6 wheelers and a 5 or 6 vans to play with at home sounds good to me.

 

Also one of the other club members has got a thing for dairy's and I would be able to pick his brains.

 

Alistair

[The Stationmaster]

D95XX/Class 14 locos were intended for local trip working and they could therefore be found on exactly that - with any and every kind of traffic which could be found on such workings. So not at all unusual to have found them on milk tanks if they happened to be based in an area where milk tank trip working took place (instance already quoted by Karhedron above) and indeed, as I have mentioned here in the past, at one time they even had a booked turn on a Newspaper Train from Paddington.

The only problem you face (unless you cheerfully ignore it - and who will argue if you do) is that it was usual for the train engine to shunt milk trains when picking up from dairies. However some were served by local trips so back in with the D95XX albeit only at some time during their very short BR life (but then milk traffic didn't outlast them by too many years so no need really to worry in my view. The other potential problem you face - if you want to bow to realism? - is that of loads; the D95XX could take quite considerable loads on level routes where 500+tons trailing was quite permissible but on routes where gradients came into play they were rather restricted. For example using Carmarthen - Pencader as an example D70XX Hymeks were allowed 550 tons for milk trains but the D95XX was limited to 160 tons trailing. It's good job they never got to Aberystwyth as they were only allowed 95tons trailing load between there and Strata Florida

[Karhedron]

All the Creameries I can think of are at the least, semi-rural, so a few cows in a field near by is a good idea in my book

The alternative if you want an urban setting is to model the bottling plants at the other of the line. I think by the 1960s only London was still receiving milk by rail (please shout if I am wrong). There were rail-served bottling plants at Marylebone, Wood Lane, Cricklewood, Ilford, Vauxhall and Morden and may have been a few I missed.

[alibuchan]

Having now acquired a nice half rake of 6 wheeled tankers, and on the look out for more, I am turning my attention to the vans that would be in use for cheese, yoghurt and other such products.

 

Would they go in Siphons or 4 wheeled insulated vans or I did see a picture of a Stove R on the back of the formation.

 

Sorry for all of the questions but this is not really an era that I know that much about.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Alistair

[Kris]

You would be unlikely to see a Stove R in a milk train. What you saw is likely to have been a full passenger brake. I would have expected to have seen cheese in separate trains in 4 wheel vans, or possibly even being sent via passenger services. Siphons would have been used to carry churns of milk, cream and possibly yogurt.

[Karhedron]

Stove Rs were passenger rated brake vans and were quite common on milk trains. They were most common on the LMS/MR although after nationalisation they were also quite common on the SR. On the WR where the class 14s worked a Collett or Hawksworth full brake would be the most appropriate vehicle.

[Kris]

Stove Rs were passenger rated brake vans and were quite common on milk trains. They were most common on the LMS/MR although after nationalisation they were also quite common on the SR. On the WR where the class 14s worked a Collett or Hawksworth full brake would be the most appropriate vehicle.

True - I forgotten about that, mind to full of WR things rather than the rest of the network.

[craigwelsh]

It did happen sometimes at least. I have a photo in one of the rail mags from a few years back of a class 14 tripping some empty milk tankers in the Cardif area.

 

Modern Locomotives Illustrated:

186 - Class 14, 15, 16 and 17

 

There was a bottling plant at Marshfield that was rail served at the time and I guess the tanks had been dropped off the Camarthen train and were being tripped in there.

 

Sadly the site is now a housing estate and the plant closed a few years back, I used to cycle past it when younger.

 

I'll be modelling that train sometime in P4 as I have the bits .

[Karhedron]

A further thought on brake vehicles for a milk train. If you are doing a train full of milk on the main line then you will need a passenger brake vehicle like a Stove R or an ex-GWR full brake. However if you are doing trip workings then you might not need one. Empties were not time critical and so could be run with a normal goods brake. Similarly while shunting in the depot then the brake vehicle is not so important.

 

Even if you are representing a train of loaded tankers you could argue that your creamery is at the end of a branch (like Hemyock). The class 14 could then trip the loaded tankers with a normal goods brake to the junction where they would be attached to one of the fast milk trains.

 

If you want a perfect vehicle then the Collett K40 full brake from a TPM kit would be ideal. Finish with milk train transfer from Railtec models and voila!

 

 

Just ideas.

[buffalo]

Stove Rs were passenger rated brake vans and were quite common on milk trains. They were most common on the LMS/MR although after nationalisation they were also quite common on the SR. On the WR where the class 14s worked a Collett or Hawksworth full brake would be the most appropriate vehicle.

 

There are, of course, exceptions. In Michael Welch's Somerset and Dorset Sunset, there is an August 1963 photo of 2251 class no 2204 bringing a train of six-wheel tankers off the Burnham-on-Sea branch onto the down main line at Highbridge. Immediately behind the tender is what looks to me to be a Stove R. No Teddy Bears in sight, but evidence that Stove Rs did appear on the Western Region.

 

Nick