Hi All,

As some of you know I am moving soon, in fact this afternoon I had the removals man round and the date is now fixed for the 30th of this month.

Between boxing stuff up, I have been working on ideas for a layout in my new house, and looking at lineside industry I am going for a creamery (laser cut from Osborns) as I have some United Dairies tankers.

My question is this .... how were the tankers moved around ?

Would a creamery have their own shunter ? I really like the NGS Hunslet Shunter. They look awesome, and I have seen great reviews of them. If I get this one .....



Would I be able to use it ? It does not seem to be tied to any particular industry, and the description says it was used for all sorts of stuff, so I would like to get one to use shunting the tank wagons around in the dairy.

Just asking for a bit of advise     

Many thanks

All best wishes

Kevin

 

Good luck with the move Kevin.

I don't think creameries generally had their own  shunting locomotives.
Most, even the large creameries, would only produce around 5 tankers, if that, per day and these would, I think, usually be picked up by a BR shunting loco and taken to the nearest station or goods depot for collection for onward transportation at express speeds to their destination which was usually London.

Rule One does, however, apply and I like your idea of using the Hunslet.

Cheers
Martin

TBH, I'd have thought the train loco would have shunted its own wagons rather than there being a dedicated shunter but I really wouldn't know the truth if it bit me

The dairy at Stewart's Lane was on a sharp curve so a tiny P class tank was used specifically for this work. I'm sure you could find other examples, but I agree it would be highly unlikely that a dairy would be able to afford a loco of their own.

Dave

A lot of Dairies were built next to running lines on routes to London or were tripped from branch line dairies to the mainlines. Trains would set off from one point, say Penzance, and pick up full tankers at different dairies along the route to London, ie, St Erth, Lostwithiel, Saltash, Totnes etc... I've studied milk trains in some detail and can't think of many facilities that had its own shunter.

The forum's very own Matthew Pinter (Karhedron) has written an excellent book on the subject called "Milk on the Rails".

As outlined above a typical dairy/creamery is unlike to have a dedicated shunter. Any work that needed doing would be either done by the loco bringing in fresh tanks and taking the existing ones away, or by human (pinch bar) or horse power (horse or tractor).

That said, a Hunslet shunter would be very suited to a busy dairy and the NGS model is excellent (I think I have four and am tempted by the NCB Maroon one).

The HNRC shunter is very much post-privatisation (see the website on the side!). If you like it, then go for it, but for something more suited to a steam/transition era layout then I'd probably opt for one of the following: NCB Maroon, Caledonian blue or 'Big John' blue. The Caledonian blue one (used in a paper mill) would sit nicely with the clean image a dairy is likely to want to project.

Quote from: Ensign Elliott on May 15, 2025, 09:16:22 AMThe forum's very own Matthew Pinter (Karhedron) has written an excellent book on the subject called "Milk on the Rails".

As stated by @Ensign Elliott  above, Mathew Pinto (@Karhedron) has written a book specifically about milk traffic.


More information here:

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=64373.msg853458#msg853458

Another resource is Moving the Goods #9 Foodstuffs bookazine published by Kelsey Media.  Although not dedicated to milk traffic, there is one chapter on the subject.

The Moving the Goods series includes information on other goods traffic including coal, fuel & oil, aggregates, the automotive trade, livestock & birds, and steel.  I find them very good as they have many unusual and interesting photos not seen in other publications. 

Ian

"Milk on the Rails", by the rather aptly (sur)named Matthew Pinto, is one of the very best books on railway operations and practices that I have read - I have learned a lot! So much so that I have had to completely rethink my own milk train operation for my layout. It has made drawing up a timetable / operating sequence so much easier now I know that much of the Southern Region's milk traffic often departed its point of origin as just a few tanks attached to a passenger service until being remarshalled into a milk train bound for London (Clapham Junction - for tripping to Vauxhall for example).

The book also has photographic proof that during BR days quite a few of the colourful milk tank liveries survived - albeit usually covered in a layer or two of grime.  All of my milk tanks are positively filthy - so much so that one of my fellow club members jokingly told me that I was putting him off milk for life! Well, that's how I remember 'em!

With regard to the shunting of a creamery, practically all this work was done by the mainline railway, though I note that Matthew Pinto has included excellent photos of the Express Dairy at Morden South with its own diesel shunters in 1934 and in 1977.

Finally, wouldn't it be very nice if Bachmann-Farish/Dapol/Sonic/anyone else produced a R-T-R Rotank Trailer loaded onto a suitable 6-wheel wagon..?  One can but dream!

Quote from: Cols on May 15, 2025, 05:57:53 PMFinally, wouldn't it be very nice if Bachmann-Farish/Dapol/Sonic/anyone else produced a R-T-R Rotank Trailer loaded onto a suitable 6-wheel wagon..?  One can but dream!

Osbornes do just that, see below

https://osbornsmodels.com/ocww-aln070-roro-milk-tank-trailer-on-6-wheeled-chassis-53615-p.asp

hope this helps

Alex

Thank you very much indeed for that most welcome information, Hailstone! I will be following this up, in the near future. You've put a smile on my ugly mug!

Cols