Horsepower at Croft Spa Goods Depot
Northeast England during the age of the horse. The Railway companies were owners of thousands of horses, with even British Railways continuing the tradition. I believe that their last delivery and shunting horses were not retired until the late 1950s or early 1960s. Many station goods yards depended on horses to shunt wagons (a lot cheaper to buy, feed and shelter than even an 0-4-0T loco) and delivery was by horse-drawn carts for most of the railway's existence. Croft station was on the ECML but its goods depot was not, it was at the end of a spur laid by the Stockton and Darlington Railway from its line where the famous S&DR-ECML crossing would be, known as the Croft branch. About fifteen years later the east coast main line would join part way down the branch, to the south of Darlington, taking it over to become the main line. The remaining stump remained in place for a little over a hundred years with the S&D goods depot at the end of it.
Horses required protection for their hooves, so packed earth, ash or sunken track would be used. At Croft I have elected to use sunken track. There was no run around facility at Croft Spa goods yard, so I believe it likely that there was horse shunting to work the yard, which had six spurs, one of which extended through to the town's gas works. The yard worked only wagonload traffic and above. No "road van"* was scheduled to deliver or collect smaller consignments. Such items would be collected/delivered by railway cart to/from Darlington goods shed.
With an incline down to the yard entrance, and six spurs, one of which was at the northern end of the yard I have speculated on the operation and the screenshots are a diorama of one moment in time about 1938. ex-NER J77 0-6-0T 607, rebuilt from an old NER Fletcher 0-4-4T BTP, has brought the morning trip to the yard. Stopping outside and holding the train on the brake van the J77 could run forward on to the first spur and then the guard could release the brake, controlling the train rolling in to the main yard area. So long as the brake van clears the turnout for the first spur the guard need not be too fastidious about stopping too early. The J77 could then come out of the spur, take the brake van and place it in another spur, for attachment at the rear of the outbound train. The horse and the shunter have spent the morning taking the outbound wagons, all empty today, and placing them in to the first spur. The J77 can then promptly pick them up from the spur, shunt them down to couple up with the brake van and then depart back to Croft Junction yard to get on with its "day job", shunting the busy yard beside the ECML. The horse and the shunter then have time to take the arriving wagons to the gas works, to the loading bank and to the coal merchant.
* Note - I feel that I should explain the term "road van" as used by the NER/LNER in railway terms. It is not a road vehicle like today, but a covered four-wheel railway goods van assigned to a route on the railway between two points, usually depots and sometimes the same depot on an out and back route. It would be marked or tagged for the service and route. At the road van's starting point, it would be loaded up with consignments arrived in transhipment vans, then marshalled in a goods train travelling the route (the "pickup goods" or a trip working). The road van was carrying "small" consignments (under 2 Tons) and would collect/deliver at the stations on the route classified to handle small consignments.
If a consignor had traffic amounting to two tons or more the railway company would assign a wagon for the load. If the customer was a good one but the traffic less than two tons I am sure that the four rules applicable to goods clerks allowed the station master enough "wiggle room" to "find" the customer a wagon for the traffic they wished to consign. From the mid/late 1930s change was afoot. To reduce costs, the LNER was whittling down road van routes, preferring to send smaller consignments to goods sheds covering a large district if they could and then using motor vehicles, electric drays or horse-drawn carts to deliver consignments further out than was previously the case.
This is County Durham, my personal route and a work in progress.