Horse boxes

[billio]

I am researching a topic for a local society.

Between the two world wars the local polo club used to transport their polo ponies by train from Tadcaster to Harrogate, York and other nearby locations.

I wondered if anyone had information about the use of horse boxes for this purpose. The club are ideally looking for photographs, but any information about this and similar traffic who be helpful.

Bill

[billio]

I have been researching further and I have found some photographs of horses being loaded into a train of LNER (I think) horse boxes at Tadcaster station, probably in the 1930's. Unfortunately they are not very clear photographs. They were being loaded at a "cattle dock" on a siding to the west of the station building.

Just for the record these can be seen in the Tadcaster Community Archive at Tadcaster Library.

If anyone has any further information about these vehicles, I am still interested just to confirm the approximate date.

[60041]

Horse Boxes were quite a common sight on the LNER and later, British Railways. They were often used by the gentry to transport their horses to hunts or race meetings when these were out of the immediate area; sometimes they would even be run as a special train. I remember hearing of a Gentleman in the Whittingham area who used to regularly charter a train comprising of a single coach, horse box and luggage van in order that his son could travel home from school in Yorkshire to Northumberland at the end of each term.
Generally speaking, horse boxes were treated as passenger stock rather than goods stock so would be able to travel faster than normal goods wagons and could be attached to passenger trains.
The NRM has a BR horse box in it's collection, the last time I saw it it was on display at Shildon; it is rather later than the ones you mention, being built in the 1950's, but it will be very similar to the ones used between the wars. It comprises of a large stall, padded with leather where necessary, with a drop down ramp for loading and a separate compartment for a groom to sit with a connecting door to enable the groom to attend the horse en route.

[2512silverfox]

The LNER (and the other three main companies) classified Horseboxes as NPCS or Non Passenger Coaching Stock. As such it was used for a number of purposes where careful transit of horses was required. Typical uses were as follows:

1 Racehorses (from trainer to course)
2 Private Horse movement (less often in the inter war years and almost extict after WW2)
3 Hunt movements
4 Circuses
5 Military - Officers chargers travelled by horseboxes, but the soldiers mounts travelled in cattle trucks!

In 2 & 3 the movements were quite often just one or two boxes attached to a service train.

In the case of 1. they could be either single vehicles or complete trains.

In 4 & 5 they would be a complete train and this traffice continued right up until the last horseboxes in the 70s. The Household Cavalry used this method of transport until the late 60s.

Although horseboxes were not common user vehicles, they did travel afar and, prewar, all four companies vehicles could be seen in one train.

The previous photograph of a green vehicle at York is in fact a Prize Cattle van of GWR origin not a horsebox. Prize cattle were moved with as much care, if not more, than horses and the stockman travelled with them.

I hope that this helps.



As an afterthought, some vehicles were actually rented to individuals, primaily pre WW2 and earlier, and their owners' names were shown on the vehicles sides. Lord Derby was just one example.

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up 60041!

Sorry about this but your photo is actually of a GWR Prize Cattle Wagon, telegraphic code "Beetle."

Yet another example of the "scholarly restoration work" done by the NRM. Haven't these guys ever heard of Google? Cant they read wagon plates? Why is it painted Southern green?

This is the Mk1 horse box: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiseman2007/6853387064/

[Bill Bedford]

Ay up 60041!
Sorry about this but your photo is actually of a GWR Prize Cattle Wagon, telegraphic code "Beetle."
Yet another example of the "scholarly restoration work" done by the NRM. Haven't these guys ever heard of Google? Cant they read wagon plates? Why is it painted Southern green?

Actually it is green because it is a SR vehicle. People who have used Google may have found this page with photos of the GWR vans. And before every one gets too parochial, then LNER had some of the vans built to the same drawings as one of the GWR diagrams.

[jwealleans]

LNER had some of the vans built to the same drawings as one of the GWR diagrams.

Really? Can you expand on that, Bill? It's a new one on me.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

I've just come across this topic and may be able to add some helpful operational notes:

Traffic

Additional reasons for horse traffic by rail were:
- Major events: sporting; shows; horse sales.
- Individuals taking a horse to a hunt, or any other occasion.
- Hunt specials were dedicated trains that ran regularly inside a hunting Country if the distance was long (hacking out and back had previously taken days; it depended on the shape of the Country and where the kennels were located). Hunt specials between Countries were rare.
- Under "military traffic" there was a big difference between Officers' Chargers and working horses, hence the different accommodation. In practice, cattle trucks and horse boxes could be used for either depending on availability.

It tends to be forgotten that in the Working Timetable the letters "HC" were used to indicate the trains that were NOT allowed to have horse boxes (or carriage trucks) attached, and that many expresses were allowed to be stopped en route to have such vehicles attached/detached.

Horse boxes from different companies were almost never mixed because the vehicles were non-common user and the traffic was so route-specific. To date I only know of one example and it seems to have been a coincidence.

Loaded horse boxes

Had to be placed by the loco as a reminder for the crew to drive "gently" to avoid injuring a horse, whose value could be high. Boxes were transferred between trains as required.

If 4 or more boxes were booked to run together, a special could be arranged. A passenger brake, typically a 3rd brake, was placed on the rear for the guard and, perchance, any officials - grooms travelled with their steeds in the boxes: that was their job.

I've heard that special groom's tickets were printed but have never found confirmation. Has anybody come across this?

Volume of horse traffic

Was enormous, as boxes attached to normally-timetabled trains, and specials. Motor horse boxes began biting into the traffic from c1930. After WW2 horses were still used on the land and heavily in sport but the rail traffic was increasingly in the longer distance runs and BR had to build two batches of horse boxes, in 1954-55 and 1957. The first was based on the LNER's final design, the finest in the land. On my website (see under "Race Traffic") I have a picture of an early 1950s horse train where all the horse boxes are this final LNER design. Parkside do a kit). The second design was the Mk.1 version and 115 were built. Newmarket got both types. I've a photo of a train of these boxes on the website, too.

LNER horse box evolution

Both LNER designs derived from a GER design and, as already touched on, that line of development continued into BR days! I've submitted an account of this evolution to the GER Society for their Journal (due in the New Year, I believe).

Steve

website: http://www.steve-banks.org

[John Palmer]

Bill is quite correct about the the vehicle in 60041's post being a Southern design. There is a superficial similarity between the GWR and SR special cattle boxes, and for many years I thought that the vehicle I had snapped in a down goods on the Bristol & Exeter line was a Beetle rather than the Southern vehicle closer examination proved it to be.

If I have correctly identified S3738S as the number on the vehicle pictured in this thread then it was the last of the second batch of the Southern vehicles, one of 10 built at Lancing in 1952. This batch comprised electrically lit vehicles, whilst the first batch built in 1930 carried a prominent rooftop pot for the oil lamp. The vehicle I snapped, probably in the late '60s, must have been from the 1952 batch as the SR built vehicles were reputedly extinct by 1963.

All the 4-wheel Beetles appear to have been fitted with Dean-Churchward brake gear, but Swindon constructed 30 such vehicles on 6-wheel underframes in 1952 (obviously a Good Year for cattle boxes), and the brakes on these were actuated by conventional levers.

[65447]

I don't think that anyone should really be too surprised by this revelation. In the early BR days decisions were made across the board as to which type of goods vehicles were the most appropriate standards for the new nationalised organisation.

Unsurprisingly former LMS and GWR designs featured quite prominently, but there was also collaboration between companies before this, for example the recently-released Parkside Dundas model of a Gunpowder Van was a joint LMS/LNER product; the LNER built Lowmacs to its own design for the LMS, the common or garden 1923 RCH 10T mineral wagon was adopted by the LNER and LMS while a number of other steel mineral wagon types came from MOT designs, and so it goes on. I guess the point here is not that it happened, but that is not perhaps as well known or documented as we might wish.

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all
Am I right in thinking there is an excuse to run any railway's horseboxes anywhere?
If a owner/trainer from Newmarket wanted to run a horse in the Derby, would a GER horsebox would be be seen on LBSC lines? (or LSWR or SECR lines as three railways had stations in Epsom).
I cannot imagine horses being required to change boxes in transit.
Earlswood nob

[65447]

Good morning all
Am I right in thinking there is an excuse to run any railway's horseboxes anywhere?
Earlswood nob

Yes, absolutely.

[John Palmer]

Hoping this doesn't involve too great a deviation from the thread's topic, here is a photograph of what is either a horse box or cattle box, taken by panning a passing goods train at Highbridge in the late '60s/early '70s with a cheap and cheerful Kodak Instamatic. My apologies for the poor quality of the image, partly due to the scanning process and partly the low resolution of the film.

I would be interested to learn what this vehicle is, as it's one whose origins I have been unable to establish. The layout of the vehicle's cattle and attendant's compartments is very similar to that of the LMS prize cattle van to Diag. 1876. However, the data I have from Essery & Jenkinson's 'LMS Coaches - An illustrated history' is that all the LMS-built cattle vans were extinct by 3/65. That would leave lot 1638 to Diag. 1877 built at Earlestown in 1952 (surprise!) as a contender for the vehicle shown. I think the photograph contains some form of optical illusion because the right-hand end suggests that this is a straight-sided vehicle, whilst at the left hand end I get the impression that there is a turnunder in the end profile. As far as I am aware, LMS cattle vans were straight-sided, so this potentially complicates identification.

This vehicle is flanked on the right by another of the SR-design cattle boxes, and on the left by a GW Beetle, I believe.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

Am I right in thinking there is an excuse to run any railway's horseboxes anywhere?
If a owner/trainer from Newmarket wanted to run a horse in the Derby, would a GER horsebox would be seen on LBSC lines? (or LSWR or SECR lines as three railways had stations in Epsom).
I cannot imagine horses being required to change boxes in transit.
Earlswood nob

That's right - also for cattle trucks - using non-common user vehicles provided by the local company, if for a race meeting, working out and back in the space of a day or two. For other reasons and a one-way booking, the vehicle would work out in "loaded" manner and be returned empty (which meant being placed at front or rear of a passenger train, or a parcels/ECS train, a stock train, even in a goods train). If from a wayside station, a horse box/cattle truck would be delivered empty the same way in advance to be loaded before it was picked up.

Newmarket and the GWR/WR area in Wiltshire etc. were unusual in sending so many racehorses to meetings that specials were common and there are at least two pictures of Newmarket/GE vehicle trains on the Southern, at Honour Oak Park (returning from Epsom), and outbound at Redhill (destination unknown). I'll put one of these up on the website as it's also a good example of how a single company's stock was used in such workings. Loco changes were common at inter-company borders, however.

[Trestrol]

Have you seen the BTF "Farmer moving south" ? This is just after Nationalisation and a horse box is used to move a family of pigs. they obviously were used for other things.