Kittybrewster-Laisterdyke milk
This service is quite well known, but with few details. I'm finding a complicated story and am going to begin with some captioned illustrations while I build up an account. This milk came from around Aberdeen where a high cream variety was produced that was used to make a particularly rich ice cream (Mackies - still trading today) and sent long distances where its high cream was medicinal. The Laisterdyke dairy in Bradford produced several varieties of milk and there was a personal connection between the two firms. This millk was sent in ro-rail tankers on specially built flat wagons down the ECML to Doncaster and then via Leeds Central, to Bradford. After unloading at Laisterdyke station, the dairy (which was quite close by) collected the tanker.
This map shows the agricultural regions of Scotland and the concentration of dairying around Aberdeen where a combination of good soil and climate made for particularly nutritious grazing for some of the dairy farms. Map source: The British Isles, a Geographic and Economic Survey, History of the British Isles, Stamp and Beaver, 4th Edition, 1954.
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The LNER built its first batch of 4w road-rail tankers and 6w flat wagons to D.183 at Dukinfield in 1934-35. Three were for the GE Section and two for the Northern Scottish Area (for Kittybrewster). Some more were built in 1939 for the GE Section. The working from Kittybrewster was the LNER's only one for mobile tanks apart from those in East Anglia. Source: LNER Diagram, author's collection.
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This looks like one of D.183 built at Dukinfield being shunted by Gorton's N5 No 5942 while being checked for clearance under a goods loading gauge. The tank's livery is not easy to read but appears to be "Unknown over MILK DEPARTMENT LONDON". The flat wagon's livery is incomplete with, as yet, no lettering or number. Photo: British railways.
Mark Hambly (thank you) has just advised that the almost invisible text adds up to:
CO-OPERATIVE WHOLESALE SOCIETY LTD MILK DEPARTMENT LONDON
while the partly unseen end bore a large C W S
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The Up working left Aberdeen at 1.45pm and ran overnight so I have yet to find a photograph. The best I can offer is what looks like a milk train at Woking on the SR with similar wagons. Photo: author's collection.
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The whole story of the Kittybrewster-Laisterdyke servce is a blizzard of connecting services employing fast freight, passenger and non-passenger workings in which the overnight service from Leeds Central to Bradford also carried gas tank wagons from the gasworks at Copley Hill.
