GWR Cattle Docks

[steve howe]

Can anyone advise if the standard GWR cattle dock was painted? According to Vaughan (OPC 1977) the rails were recycled point rodding, presumably these would have been painted (black?) against rust and the concrete posts left unpainted. Old photos such as there are, seem to suggest the fencing was a lighter colour, but this may have been due to the practice of whitewashing the pens between use.

Steve

[Tim V]

The preserved example at Highley is painted white all over.

[Albert Hall]

Colour Rail (ref 198140) shows the cattle dock at Yealmpton in 1959 made from rusty bridge rail mounted on dark (black?) posts. Looking at the Ratio cattle dock kit didn't really clarify the situation.

Roy

[martin goodall]

I did some photographic research on this topic some time ago. The answer would seem to depend on the period portrayed by the layout. Limewash was extensively used for disinfecting both cattle wagons and cattle docks until after WW1, finally being phased out between 1924 and 1926. The colour of cattle docks up to that time was predominantly white, mainly from the lime-washing, but gates, posts and railings may also have been painted white for good measure.

After lime-washing was discontinued in the mid-1920s it seems from photographic evidence that the GWR did not paint their cattle docks at all, so that the colour after lime residues had finally disappeared became rusty iron for railings, bare timber for gates and bare timber or concrete for the fence-posts.

I have an unresolved dilemma on my layout, as I originally intended to model the buildings and infrastructure circa 1930, by which time the white colouring on cattle docks would have disappeared, and so my cattle dock is currently un-painted (with bare wood and concrete and rusty railings); but more recently I have been thinking of back-dating the fixed parts of the layout to the early 1920s (around the time of the Grouping). Rather than painting the cattle dock fittings white, I think I may compromise by hinting at remaining traces of lime on these fittings.

[Hardwicke]

Rather than painting the cattle dock fittings white, I think I may compromise by hinting at remaining traces of lime on these fittings.

Or display it just after use by a herd of cows...

[steve howe]

Or display it just after use by a herd of cows...

The Ratio kits has a sprue of cow pats....

Steve

[Hardwicke]

I've checked two photos of West Bay (Bridport) and in the 1920's and possibly before, the cattle docks were dark.

[steve howe]

Thanks Michael, I suspect black bitumen paint was used.

cheers
Steve

[bécasse]

The GWR were certainly great advocates of the use of black bitumen paint. All their corrugated iron huts of various configurations were assembled from sheets which had been pretreated with the stuff, the manufacturer's trade advertisements actually refer to the GWR-usage.

[Noel]

I suspect that it wasn't bituminous paint, but actual bitumen, with the sheets, or rails for the pens, dipped into hot bitumen and left to cool. The GWR at one time apparently made spike fencing out of old boiler tubes [waste not...] which were so treated. There was a commercial product from before WW1, Robertson's Protected Metal [RPM], which used corrugated sheets dipped in bitumen which was then further treated with asbestos felt and a waterproofing compound, possibly rubber, as it stayed black over time https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Gov05_08Rail-t1-body-d23-d2.html; industrial buildings so constructed were still around in the early 1970s. Unsurprisingly RPM has now disappeared; quite apart from the asbestos, fire insurers weren't too keen on it. RPM used a proprietary process, and the GWR corrugated huts weathered to grey over time, suggesting that their surface coating was just basic bitumen.

[Tim V]

Yet Cadeleigh (Exe Valley) is white. Also shows the whitewash on the cattle wagon.