Cattle pens

You don't need any for that level of traffic. Remember the livestock would be driven through the streets, not transported in lorries for a small town in the thirties. If you can control the animals in the street you can control them on a wharf/bank. If there is no market there is little farming activity; farmers didn't sent livestock to market by rail, that traffic was buyers sending from market to large towns. But that doesn't mean you can't have a single pen paid for by one of the butchers. Or you could have twice yearly sales of hill sheep, with temporary pens of hazel or chesnut. Adrian Bell's "Corduroy" is a good read to get a feel for the period, things didn't change much until WW2.

Ken.

"Ken Parkes" wrote

That's true but pens may have been necessary to contain the animals if it was necessary to wait for a suitable train.

John.

"John Turner" wrote in news:du2n52$2gi$ snipped-for-privacy@newsreaderm1.core.theplanet.net:

Yup and the drover would want a pint once he'd got to the stn. :-)

Thats what I thought, you need somewhere to stick them while you're waiting for the off ... I'm a litle stuck for guidence as the only place where i remember seeing cattle pens in real life was at my local stn ... closed the year I was born ... not demolished or even damaged for years there must have been 8 to 12 cattle pens at least ... but there was a market nearby.

Yes, but that presuposes that there is frequent livestock traffic away from the area. Without a market that is unlikely. Even with a market my local town had no pens, and when I lived near Llangefni I could find no evidence of pens having been in the yard, yet Bodorgan on the main line had two IIRC in the seventies, I presume they were for handling the Irish trade. Moniave had sheep sales in spades but the pens seem to have been lashed together for the events. Farmers who wanted to move their stock, say to another farm, would have hurdles of their own. Pens typically held six or eight cattle and three or four would service long trains of cattle wagons; clearly the pens were a convenience for rapid loading not a storage facility. If Chris's town doesn't have a market I see no reason for the company to install pens, and I doubt the local butchers would be "importing" their beasts, much more likely to buy locally, or buy in carcasses. An uncle of mine worked as a butcher in Kington, Herefordshire, and his employer bought much of their meat in private deals with local farmers even though there was a market. If you want the best you seek it out. But if Chris wants pens, why not? It's his train set. I recall a few years ago that the Keighley and Worth had double deck sheep pens, I think at Worth. Does anyone know if they were original to the line?

Ken.

Hale, between Altrincham and Chester on the Cheshire Midland line (later CLC) had a cattle pen although there would be little traffic for it - In the event it did get used a lot because of a polo club and the ponies going from or returning to it. Any loading bank would do in a pinch but actual pens seem to feature on most of the track plans I have seen.

Regards

Mike

Ken Parkes wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@rosecott.ukfsn.org:

To true!

Thanks for all the replies I decided that having cattle potentially going walkabout in a reasonably busy yard is a 'no no' and as the nearest market is more than a day's trip (there and back) away the local farmers are going to have to get their stock there via the chuff chuff. I'm just having the two pens though rather than the three.

I'd still be interested in seing some pics of real ones from the period if anyone knows of any. As I mentioned in my last post my local station had loads of pens (because of the market) however as I remember they looked quite modern ... galvanized large bore tubular steel railings and all than.

Nothing's too good for that part of the world:) When I got interested in railway modelling I assumed every station had pens because they were always modelled. When I started to look at stations around me (Birmingham at the time) I realized how few there were. Perhaps brummies are more resourceful. Or perhaps the coal wharves crowded them out. Going through the G&SWR sidings lists to see how many they had. May be gone some time.

Ken.

Five bar fencing, you cannot use the Peco fence for this, some had close spaced vertical fencing at the bottom (piglets? small sheep?) If the land was available some pens had a separate holding pen close by. Remember to allow access - the pen at Hale was on a bank that would hold two cattle vans (possibly three, just maybe four) but the pen did not occupy the entire bank and I think there was just a single pen as such. The access was separate from other access points, a gate protecting the bank from the coal yard and a separate gate by the base of the footbridge opening onto the road. The foot brodge had a span over the two lines and a second span across the coal yard to the street beyond.

Mike

I've been thumbing through some books and found four-bar timber pens on the Highland at Lybster, Stanley Junction and Inverness (massive complex there), and five-bar timber pens on the Caly at Blairgowrie and Barcaldine, and four-bar timber pens on the GNSR at Macduff. Portpatrick (GSWR) had what seemed to be five metal bars threaded through timber verticals. I suggest Chris decides which company built his line and looks through picture books of his company to see what their house style was.

Ken.

Ken Parkes wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@rosecott.ukfsn.org:

...

Well there be the problem, L&Y/L&NWR all I've found is out of focus in the distance type shots or much more modern post LMS or even BR pics.

Of course I appreciate that I'm having a woods for the trees or even a mountain vs molehill moment esp considering I'm using peco 100 track and largely rtr stock on a layout that depicts a station that could never have been built but even so my aim is to create something that can fool the eye.

Chris,

Google LNWR cattle pens uk > Greater Manchester County Records Office. They have lots of plans and may be able to supply a photograph.

Expect to go to Keighley and Worth on 11.March. If I see one there I'll photograph it for you. Ken.

Ken Parkes wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@rosecott.ukfsn.org:

That's very kind of you.