Milk churns

[Gloster]

FWIW I came across an online map this week which indicated the rail link to the Aplin & Barrett Bunford Lane creamery was actually closed in 1937. Up to 1935 the building had actually been a flax works, so I suspect it never received milk by rail.
The main Aplin & Barrett plant was on Newton Road, Yeovil - and closed by Unigate in 1976. It was adjacent to Yeovil Town station, but that seemed to be more related to distributing it's cheeses and potted meats by rail rather than milk. Certainly it would have been able to receive churns from the nearby goods yard, but there was no direct rail access for milk tanks. After the station closed, the rationale for the factory location would have disappeared.
So all you can take from this is locally road tank transport of milk was probably in use by 1937.

Looking at Cooke and Pryer’s diagrams the Bunford Flax Mill had a private siding off the Langport line just beyond Westlands’ siding from 1920: the agreement with Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries was dated 5 July 1919. No change of name is given before termination of the agreement in 1937; the siding was lifted the following year

 

[randyrippley]

Looking at Cooke and Pryer’s diagrams the Bunford Flax Mill had a private siding off the Langport line just beyond Westlands’ siding from 1920: the agreement with Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries was dated 5 July 1919. No change of name is given before termination of the agreement in 1937; the siding was lifted the following year

That fits. The ironic thing is that the flax mill was only there so Westland had a local supply of linen cloth for airframe skin.
By 1939 they were probably regretting its closure

 

[Gloster]

That fits. The ironic thing is that the flax mill was only there so Westland had a local supply of linen cloth for airframe skin.
By 1939 they were probably regretting its closure

I think that their only need for linen would be for the Lysander’s wings; just about everything else used metal throughout.

 

[Marton]

There was a big rail served dairy at Uttoxeter which, from memory, received/sent tanks that were attached to passenger trains including from the ex G.N. lines - just to make the point it wasn't limited to trunk main lines.

This one I believe.

Exhibition Details - Staffordshire Past Track

Images, documents and views from the past for the area where you live, work or visit.

www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk

 

[PeterC]

In the 60s whilst still at school, I worked part-time in a Lyons tea shop. The milk was delivered in churns from which we had to fill jugs for use on the tea bar. That was fresh milk, delivered by a local 'milkman', United Dairies I think. It may have been delivered from a small depot on the GEML opposite the western throat of the car sheds there because most milk deliveries were in glass bottles by then.

When I started commuting in 69 I only ever saw tanks in the United Dairies siding at Ilford. I wouldn't be surprised if they were filling churns at Ilford for commercial deliveries as the only other unit sizes would be pint or one third pint (for schools) glass bottles.

 

[30909]

Milk in churns stoped being collected by England and Wales Milk Marketing Board from farm's roadside milk stands in 1979. Little if any of this residual trafic went by train in ex farm churns but was delivered to Creameries or Dairies for bottling for local distribution or bulked for rail of road transport though by 1979 little if any rail borne milk was carried. The cesation of churn collection led to a number of small dairy farms selling their dairy cattle as they could not justify the cost of on farm bulk milk tanks and associated refrigeration. Most of the rail carried churn trafic stopped much earlier in the late 50s or early 60s as these churns were carried direct from the farm to the local station if not by individual farms by a local road carrier. Churns had preprinted labels with the dipatching farm and recieving dairy, this was nessesary for the farm to receive accurate payment as often there would be a churn part filled.

 

[Bedpan]

I remember as a child that there nearly always seemed to be a some milk wagons in platform 1 at Vauxhall station when we passed through on the way to London. I think there was a bottling facility nearby and there were fixed pipes running along the platform to facilitate this. I recollect seeing the milk train come through Esher and Surbiton sometimes but no idea what time of day this would have been (mid to late afternoon?) or what direction it would have been travelling in, or indeed where to/from. I assume from what has been said above it would have been North Devon.

 

[Karhedron]

You are right about Vauxhall. There was a Unigate bottling plant opposite the station. Those pipes on the platform used to run down under the arches and across the road to the bottling plant. Steam lines ran back the other way to clean out the tanks.

Most bottling plants received milk from a variety of country creameries by nationalisation. Milk for Vauxhall came from Torrington, Semley and Chard on the SR as well as Bailey Gate on the S&DJR. Sometimes it also received milk from north of the Thames. This would normally be worked down from the GWR via Kensington Olympia and then tripped from Clapham Junction.