Karhedron

I am afraid I don't know but I would expect something along those lines.

Spot on on both counts. You can see the end valve pretty clearly here on this preserved example. Cleaning was done via the large manhole cover at the top. I presume it was originally a manual process but some facilities eventually received automatic cleaners. You can see the one at St Erth in operation in this photo. It seems to have splashed quite a lot. http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/uploads/7/6/8/3/7683812/3297982_orig.jpg In addition to rinsing, tanks were also cleaned with steam lances to sterilise them. You can see one in use on the nearest tanker in this shot at Vauxhall in 1975.

I have only seen photos of the 6-wheeled ones on the Chard-Stowmarket workings but it is possible that the 4-wheelers were used too. There is no evidence of the 4-wheelers being used but one photo is all it would take....

Yes, the rake parked at Lostwithiel was part of the same reserve fleet. They were not new but heavily refurbished and came in 2 different diagrams. The MMB selected 40 ex 6-wheel milk tanks and 26 ex 4-wheel class B tank wagon frames with barrels from earlier milk wagons and clad them in stainless steel. The refurbished 4-wheelers were classified TRV and the 6-wheelers TMV.

Milk is something of a niche subject. The trains often ran at odd hours to suit milking times and get the milk to London in time for the morning milk round. Despite often being hauled by express passenger locos, the tanks tended to be grubby in BR days. The creameries and bottling plants that dispatched and received the tanks were often unobtrusive industrial buildings (although there were a handful of "showpiece" facilities such as Wood Lane, Rossmore Road, Torrington and Moreton-in-Marsh which all had striking art deco buildings). Overall it seems to have been a traffic that attracted little attention, despite the fact that the majority of milk consumed in the capital arrived by rail for many years. It is one of those subjects that seems simple on the surface but has a wealth of detail just waiting to be unpicked. Different facets of the hobby appeal to different people but researching the history of the real thing is almost as much fun as modelling it for me.

Afraid not. Would have been interesting though. Mid-green with white lettering. I imagine they would have ended up looking khaki coloured very quickly once in service.

I haven't seen a black IMS livery. Pre-war was red and post-war was blue. I suspect it was just Lima being Lima.

Yes. The late 50s and early 60s saw a spate of mergers and takeovers. Express took over HE&S just after nationalisation and IMS a few years later. In 1959, United Dairies merged with Cow and Gate (including its subsidiary, Dried Milk Products) to create Unigate. In 1960, Unigate took over Aplin and Barrett and acquired their “St Ivel” brand. Ambrosia ceased dispatching milk by rail at the end of 1962. By the end of 1963, just Unigate, MMB and Express Dairies would still be dispatching milk by rail. This was down from nearly a dozen at nationalsation.

Many of the colourful liveries of milk tankers were pre-war colour schemes. After pooling in 1942, tankers slowly started to be turned out in plain silver livery with owning dairy denoted by a small owners plate. This usually weathered to a pretty dull colour in service as the tanks were not cleaned often. The image below shows the "classic" look for BR-era tankers. However this is not the whole story. New milk tankers continued to be built into the early 50s and these were still painted in the owning dairy liveries, even as older tanks were getting painted plain silver. The dark blue Express Dairy livery with white lettering continued to be applied in the 50s and could be seen into the mid 60s. Other later-period liveries include a light blue livery adopted by MMB, the orange and white "St Ivel" livery and a deep orangey-red which I think might have been a Unigate livery but I have not managed to positively identify. Photos from the 70s show the majority of tanks were dull silver but more colourful tanks could be spotted, mixed in among them.

I can't think who you might be referring to. The MMB refurbished milk tanks were only used briefly in 1981 to transport excess cream from Chard to Stowmarket for processing. Sadly the flow was badly organised by both the MMB and BR. The Chard shunter was notoriously unreliable meaning the tankers were often late being marshalled. BR staff had to drive down from Westbury shed to man the loco. It took lorry turns away from Chard which upset the local drivers. Lastly, there were no washout facilities at Stowmarket. This meant the used tankers were returned to Chard with the residual milk having congealed into a nasty sticky mess at the bottom of the tanks. Some poor soul was then tasked with climbing in to clean out the tanks with a brush and hose. The flow ended after about 6 weeks of operation but photos of it in action survive. http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/uploads/7/6/8/3/7683812/1183751_1_orig.jpg 1123 hard at work on the climb past Ammerham between Chard Jnc and Crewkerne 23rd August 1981

Even prior to WW2, it was not uncommon to see milk tanks from one diary at another's facilities. The Milk Marketing Board was established in 1933 and from an early stage, it took a hand in ensuring that milk was not wasted by routing excess milk to facilities that had capacity to process it into longer-lived commodities. Here is a shot of of the Cow and Gate plant at Johnstown near Carmarthen in the late 30s. If you look closely, you can see an Express Dairies tank in residence indicating that inter-dairy traffic was already occurring at this date. One complication to this was that United Dairies and Express Dairies had installed incompatible connecting equipment on their milk tanks which led to a sort of VHS/Betamax situation where certain tankers could only use certain creameries.

I am pretty sure that all the regular choc and cream stock for the WR named expresses were Mk1 stock. Exceptions were those already mentioned (catering vehicles, slips etc). I have never heard or seen of a rake of Hawksworths receiving BR choc and cream in 50s. May I ask where you heard about this?

I think you are correct. Several catering vehicles spent the war years out of service and were decided to be in need of refurbishment before returning to service. I don't have a list of all the vehicles so treated but it is probably in Russel somewhere.

It looks like there are some different issues getting muddled up here. Let me summarise: Hawksworth coaches started to enter service well before nationalisation and several (but not all) diagrams were painted in authentic GWR livery. The Full brakes were only built after nationalisation and entered service in Crimson and Cream livery. They have only carried GWR livery in preservation. A small number of Hawksworth catering coaches were painted WR Chocolate and cream in the late 50s for named expresses. From memory, examples of both H55 and H57 received this livery but I would have to check to be certain. The 3 slip coaches converted from Hawksworth Brake Compos also received Chocolate and cream in BR days. Some GWR super saloons received Chocolate and cream in BR days. The Hawksworth Inspection Saloon received Chocolate and cream in BR days and could be mistaken for an auto-coach at first glance. In 1948 some Hawksworth coaches were turned out in hybrid GWR/BR liveries. This happened before Crimson and Cream was selected as official BR livery. These coaches had chocolate and cream livery but other details were a mishmash of GWR and BR features. The W-prefix for numbering was adopted quite quickly and over the months, the number moved to its BR-specific location. The GWR crests continued to be applied for a short while into 1948 until the supply of transfers was used up. As they were new builds, quite a few Hawksworth coaches ended up in these hybrid liveries. When people mention Hawksworth coaches in WR chocolate and cream, they are probably referring to this rather than coaches for expresses in the late 50s which were mostly Mk1 (apart from the exceptions noted above).

That's about the height of a kitchen worktop so seems reasonable to me. I doubt there is anything as formal as a standard.

It sounds plausible.

This may answer your question, this is a photo of the MMB creamery at Green Grove near Felin Fach on Aberaeron branch in 1963. There are 4 sets of slim pipes poking out over the line from the loading point. Now I can't say for sure they were for milk rather water for rinsing out. They are also over the concrete apron so possibly that is the cleaning point. However it is the clearest photo I have seen showing the pipework on a creamery similar to one you have constructed. This photo shows the view west. The photo below shows the view east where there was another door. However there is no pipework visible here and no concrete apron. I think this second entrance at the eastern end was for goods coming in by rail. Notably it is right next the boiler house which would make sense if coal was brought in by rail to provide power. So I think goods came in the eastern end, milk was pumped out at the western end and raw milk in churns came to the front of the creamery on the other side from the line.

My understanding is that Queen Marys were designed to run an passenger trains speeds so tended to find use on services like boat trains or fast fitted freight. Another place they were popular was milk trains. Here is one such service calling at the Express Diary at Seaton.

Fascinating vehicles. Guinness were the only company I know of to use them for beer. The other users were dairies who used them for milk transport.

Both Sanisburys and Lidl in my area seem to have been normal over the last few days. The biggest problem I have had is that both of them seem to have started playing Musical Shelves meaning I am having to spend twice as long as normal finding things.

Rather than using PVA, I would suggest floor polish such as Pledge Klear Multi Surface Wax. This may sound like an odd suggestion but it is actually very low viscosity acrylic varnish. This means it is easy to apply and easily seeps through the ballast without disturbing it. I add a couple of drops of acrylic matting agent to kill the shine and it is virtually invisible when dried. I used it on my Chew Magna layout and it has lasted pretty well, even withstanding several periods stored on its side.

Well remembered. Uttoxeter had a similar arrangement with a lightweight trellis supporting the pipework across both the road and a brook to reach the railway siding.

Lovely shot of St Erth. I am quite prepared to be mistaken but the fact that pipe is going in through the manhole suggests to me that this tanks is being washed out rather than filled. I don't think that the manholes were used for filling. However it does show the kind of pipework the previous poster was interested in. So white and lightweight seems to be in order.

This photo of Pont Llanio shows a hint of pipework beneath the black cylindrical tank that was used to store the chilled milk before it was pumped into the tankers. Unfortunately it is rather damage so doesn't show much in the way of detail. https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/32074

The only location that springs to mind with prominent pipework was Vauxhall but that was used for emptying milk tanks. The milk was piped across the road to the Unigate bottling plant opposite the station. From a modelling point of view, you could make the case that if the pipework is not particularly obvious in any of the photos of the real thing, it does not need to be on the model either....