Cows in cattle wagons - how arranged?

[Compound2632]

I've got cattle wagons, I've got cows. How to bring the two together in a prototypical fashion?

 

Here's a test fitting of Scale 3D cows in a Parkside LMS D1661 cattle wagon:

 

 

This is just a test, not a full load, and I've not yet fitted the partition that would reduce the size from "large" to "medium" or "small" depending on the size of the consignment. The cows fit crossways in the wagon, which I gather was the usual way. I've seen the suggestion that they were loaded alternately head and tail. Were the beasts tethered? Photographs seem very elusive!

 

Despite this being an early LMS vehicle, my main period of interest is c. 1902.

[Gordon Connell]

Can't help entirely Stephen but I doubt they were tethered, cattle don't usually have the necessary halters to give you something to tie on to and I certainly don't see anything to indicate this in pictures of cattle waiting in loading docks. If modern road transport is anything to go by you'd simply pack them in tight enough that they'd hold each other up and if there weren't enough to fill the wagon, then as you've already indicated you'd use a moveable bar or partition to provide the necessary support. Have to emphasise this is mostly educated guesswork based on no experience of moving cattle by train except what I've seen in photographs but some experience from the farm I grew up on.

[Wickham Green too]

Have you ever tried to train a cow to reverse into a tight space while her friends obediently stayed where you'd told them to ? ......... I think they'd have been packed in nose first.

[Mikkel]

I agree, they are very rarely photographed from a useful angle. None of any use in my collection of GWR cattle dock photos.

 

For the general orientation, this seems to support your positioning:

 

Caption: Midland Railway cattle vans at Derby, 26 November 1909. Source: Getty Images, embedding permitted.

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Mikkel

[magmouse]

The GWR General Appendix 1936 has this to say about tethering:

 

 

These instructions, it says, derive from the Animals (Transit and General) Order, 1927, by the Ministry of Agriculture. They may not reflect earlier practice, therefore.

 

Unfortunately the Appendix is silent on the question of how to arrange the cattle in the truck (perhaps it was considered 'obvious' - something 'everyone knows'?).

 

It does have a section, again relating to the Min of Ag 1927 order, about the use of partitions to separate mixed loads, and when cows and unweaned calves should be together and when not.

 

Nick.

[magmouse]

4 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Have you ever tried to train a cow to reverse into a tight space while her friends obediently stayed where you'd told them to ? ......... I think they'd have been packed in nose first.

 

Which begs the question, if on arrival the cows all had their rear ends towards the door on the side adjacent to the dock, how did they get out? Did cattle wagons have to be turned to avoid this situation?

 

Nick.

[magmouse]

A couple of other thoughts:

 

1. horse boxes are designed for the horse(s) to travel facing fore and aft, with - according again to the Appendix, a preference for facing forwards (i.e. if there is a choice of horse boxes available, one that allows the animal to face forward is to be chosen).

 

2. The picture posted by Mikkel shows the cattle wagon to have rings, in the outside at the top of the sides. Were these fore securing cattle, or a sheet when the truck was used for horses, or both?

 

Nick.

[Michael Hodgson]

14 minutes ago, Gordon Connell said:

Can't help entirely Stephen but I doubt they were tethered, cattle don't usually have the necessary halters to give you something to tie on to and I certainly don't see anything to indicate this in pictures of cattle waiting in loading docks. If modern road transport is anything to go by you'd simply pack them in tight enough that they'd hold each other up

Same as the Central Line then.

[Mikkel]

13 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Have you ever tried to train a cow to reverse into a tight space while her friends obediently stayed where you'd told them to ? ......... I think they'd have been packed in nose first.

 

Yes, that's also what photos suggest. E.g., hard to believe this shows them backing out :-)

 

Caption: Cattle being loaded onto a train at a London, Midland & Scottish Railway station, 1937. Source: Getty Images, embedding permitted.

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

For the general orientation, this seems to support your positioning:

 

Yes, that's my one good photo!

 

4 minutes ago, magmouse said:

The picture posted by Mikkel shows the cattle wagon to have rings, in the outside at the top of the sides. Were these fore securing cattle, or a sheet when the truck was used for horses, or both?

 

If for tethering, why on the outside? I suspect these are for tying sheets down. Also, if for tethering from the outside, they are awkwardly-placed in relation to the height of the beasts.

 

None of the drawings for Midland cattle wagons in the Derby C&W drawing office collection show any internal tethering points but all show these outside rings.

 

20 minutes ago, magmouse said:

It does have a section, again relating to the Min of Ag 1927 order, about the use of partitions to separate mixed loads, and when cows and unweaned calves should be together and when not.

 

That is interesting, in showing an evolution in the use of the partition, from being simply a device to meet the shipper's legal entitlement to different rates depending on the space occupied with a standard vehicle.

 

8 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Same as the Central Line then.

 

There might in that case too be considerable merit in applying those GWR General Appendix instructions.

[magmouse]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

That is interesting, in showing an evolution in the use of the partition, from being simply a device to meet the shipper's legal entitlement to different rates depending on the space occupied with a standard vehicle.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

There might in that case too be considerable merit in applying those GWR General Appendix instructions.

 

The MR cattle trucks might not provide for tethering, but tube trains do:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_passenger#/media/File:Strap_handle_S7_stock.jpg

 

Nick.

[eastglosmog]

2 hours ago, magmouse said:

..................

 

2. The picture posted by Mikkel shows the cattle wagon to have rings, in the outside at the top of the sides. Were these fore securing cattle, or a sheet when the truck was used for horses, or both?

 

Nick.

In the Farmer Moving South film by BTF, I recall seeing the cattle wagons being covered by external tarpaulins to keep the rain and snow off of the cows.

[Compound2632]

Just now, eastglosmog said:

In the Farmer Moving South film by BTF, I recall seeing the cattle wagons being covered by external tarpaulins to keep the rain and snow off of the cows.

 

That is one way of getting round the question!

 

But many prefer to model high summer...

[Flying Pig]

22 minutes ago, eastglosmog said:

In the Farmer Moving South film by BTF, I recall seeing the cattle wagons being covered by external tarpaulins to keep the rain and snow off of the cows.

 

On Youtube in two parts.  Cattle loading begins at 6m 12s in part one with no sign of tethering horned beasts that I could see. I'd guess this is the 1950s so may be different from earlier practice of course.

 

 

 

[eastglosmog]

Managed to get this clip from Farmer moving south, which I think answers the question - all the cows seem to be pointing the same way, across the wagon.  At least, this is how BR in Yorkshire did it in 1952, other regions and times could have been different.  For accuracy, also note that the floor was covered with sawdust.  Also note that although external rings are provided on the wagon, the tarpaulin is tied down to the iron bracing strap!

 

[Anotheran]

3 hours ago, magmouse said:

The GWR General Appendix 1936 has this to say about tethering:

 

In both the second and third sentences the phrase "with a bull" is used, implying that even if stock is horned they do not need to be tethered unless they are being carried with a bull. The only requirement for tying seems to be when a bull is either on it's own, or present with other stock.

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, magmouse said:

Which begs the question, if on arrival the cows all had their rear ends towards the door on the side adjacent to the dock, how did they get out? Did cattle wagons have to be turned to avoid this situation?

 

In the film, I notice that the cows all pile head first into the lorry but are then seen coming out head first, which suggests that however tight-packed, if untethered they can turn round. 

 

19 minutes ago, eastglosmog said:

For accuracy, also note that the floor was covered with sawdust.  

 

 

[DY 9164, embedded link to Derby Registers.]

 

This is the pair to the photo @Mikkel posted and is my other good reference photo. No. 17902 is evidently on its first trip. Not sure about sawdust, but certainly straw on the floor. The partition is positioned to turn this large truck into a small one but even so the beasts have room to move around - there are two or three?

 

Note also the screw coupling, standard on Midland cattle trucks from the end of 1901. (And I suspect generally - a decision of the RCH General Managers' Committee?) Lets hope it got tightened up before the train left.

 

In the film, I also noticed that the pigs and piglets went in a horsebox. I think I've read somewhere that cattle trucks, with their floor-level gaps in the sides, were unsuitable for piglets on account of the draught.

[bécasse]

There shouldn't be a problem in getting cows to back up. Round where I live they do so routinely as part of the milking procedure - head first in, tail first out.

[kitpw]

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/032139258/publication/GB189800361A?q=pn%3DGB189800361A is an 1898 UK patent "An Improved Cattle Truck for the Humane Transit by Railway of Horses, Cattle, Sheep, and Pigs."

 

This site might be worth searching - I don't have time in the next few days - https://www.bahs.org.uk/SearchSite.html which is the British Agricultural History Society.  I have in the past looked up journal articles there on market gardening and other agri-matters in the context of stuff-by-rail.

 

 

 

 

 

[magmouse]

9 minutes ago, kitpw said:

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/032139258/publication/GB189800361A?q=pn%3DGB189800361A is an 1898 UK patent "An Improved Cattle Truck for the Humane Transit by Railway of Horses, Cattle, Sheep, and Pigs."

All mod cons here - hay racks and water troughs, as well as securing points for tethering animals. The implication of the troughs and hay racks is the animals cattle face the end of the wagon, not the side. The wheelbase is curiously short in the drawings.

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, kitpw said:

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/032139258/publication/GB189800361A?q=pn%3DGB189800361A is an 1898 UK patent "An Improved Cattle Truck for the Humane Transit by Railway of Horses, Cattle, Sheep, and Pigs."

 

The decision to fit partitions to Midland large and medium cattle trucks was made at the end of 1892. Fasteners for the partitions were mandated in 1905.

 

There is a Derby C&W Drawing, No. 1234 of 4 Jan 1898, "Details of Bartrums Tethering Apparatus" [Midland Railway Study Centre item 88-D1961] of which I have a scan but it's baffling how the thing works. I think it does have to do with animal transport, since the Register also lists Drg. 1220 of 19 Oct 1879, "Details of Bartrums Headstall Fastening" [no copy in MRSC]. However, other drawings including "tethering" in their title definitely relate to horseboxes.

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, magmouse said:

All mod cons here - hay racks and water troughs, as well as securing points for tethering animals. The implication of the troughs and hay racks is the animals cattle face the end of the wagon, not the side. The wheelbase is curiously short in the drawings.

 

J. Rooth of Douglas, IoM, cattle dealer and butcher - not a wagon engineer. 

[hmrspaul]

Livestock have been discussed frequently on RMWeb  see  which also links to earlier discussions. By BR time there were entire rule booklets dedicated to Livestock, not just a few paragraphs in the GWR rule book. That MR photo is very nice. 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by hmrspaul

[kitpw]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

The decision to fit partitions to Midland large and medium cattle trucks was made at the end of 1892.

I went to the patent register because I thought that, perhaps, one of the arrangements of removable partition systems from one of the pre-group companies had been patented and it might describe how the animals were to be arranged in the wagon.  I'm slightly surprised that I didn't find one - it's just the sort of thing that was patented as an "improved" mechanism in the late C19th and early C20th.

 

Just one other thing though, I did find this "...the subject of adequately feeding and watering
cattle during long railway journeys has at length been put to experimental test. Some cattle have been transported from Edinburgh in
Reid's cattle-truck..." (BMJ 1869 Nov 13th).  There is an article in Scientific American for Nov 11th 1868 "Transportation of Cattle--Reid's Patent Cattle Wagons" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/transportation-of-cattle-reids-pat/ but  I don't have $99 about me just now to access it. However, some ilustrations of it are here - https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Journal_of_the_Society_of_Arts_and_I/y4tgAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Reid's+cattle+wagon&pg=PA772&printsec=frontcover  but, not much help as it shows cattle both fore and aft and side to side.  Ah well.....

[The Johnster]

I'm making assumptions here, but if the partitions were put in to hold the beasts up in transit as well as to separate them, then presumably removing the partitions would release enough space for them to be able to turn themselves around; they have quite small turning circles for such large beasts and will want to help the process along to get out of the confined space.

 

There was a tale, possibly apochryphal, about an incident at the cattle docks at Newtown, Cardiff.  A strapper (new lad on the job) was given the task of removing a large and rather intimidating bull from a cattle wagon, and Mr Bull wasn't keen on coming out at all!  Much pushing, prodding, levering, and swearing in both human and bovine languages, but no progress, until an old hand turned up, expressed his utter and complete for the strapper, and led a cow out of the adjoining wagon, and walked it past the bull.  The bull sniffed, turned round, and followed her out meek as a lamb...

 

'Strapper' is a general term for the new kid in South Wales, but according to Adrian Vaughan originates from early days on the GW, which inherited the term from the stagecoaches.  Back then, passengers' trunks and bags were stowed on the roof of coaches (which is why some trunks had rounded tops, to ensure that they were stowed on the top and were therefore first off at the destination), and they were covered by a tarp which was then strapped down with leather straps attached to the top rails.  This job was traditionally given to the youngest and least experienced of the porters, the strapper.