30s Loads Ideas

[Northsider]

Imagine all the heavy stuff that goes by road today: bricks, liquids, stone, large bits of engineering, bulk dusts and powders, animals and animal feed, passengers' luggage, bicycles... And then work out how it was packaged: boxes, barrels, crates, drums, baskets, or loose.
Pinched this off the Internet...

 

[viaEstrecha]

Great pic of Southwold. And good that the chaps recreating a bit of it have been making good progress this year, running their first passenger-carrying train.

 

[playmofire]

And don't forget the goods van which can trundle round with whatever you want to imagine inside it, or you can make some decals or stickers to say what's inside it.

 

[Dan]

I have used cigar plastic tubes for pipe loads on FRR cars, and plastic plumbing pipes for large flat car loads. My son is a plumber and had lots of short pieces to be discarded so I used them on my RR.
In the USA Harbor freight has a small table saw and a small chop saw (great brass track cutter).

 

[korm kormsen]

looking at this pic, my mind went offtopic:

a pic. fine. but in that times a pic was something special. so why was it taken?
it was no inauguration or similar - not enough officials and decoration for that.
in the center of the pic is a large coffer. decorated, with a lock and two latches.
probably containing something of worth, belonging to somebody important.

who of the persons seen looks important? two of them. but in another way of importance.
let's look at the man to the right, in the foreground. correctly dressed in a uniform. but no arms visible.
standing in a disziplined manner, looking into the camera. holding a bicycle(!)
for me that spells out the local policeforce. and by standing near the coffer, instead of standing with the group, he seems to be guarding the coffer.

the other important person seems to be the man standing a little to the right and behind the others.
his dressing, his manner to stand there says - I'm the boss here. the stationmaster.

well, to look at the great unwashed mayority:
the engineer on his mashine, beside and below him the fireman. the big man in the tight uniform must be the main porter.
the man in the waistcoat is one of two, who do not look into the camera, but to the coffer. i think, he is the freight- counter.
(what would be called a "tally man" in a harbour) responsable for documenting sent and received freight.
the other person, looking at the coffer is the small, slumped man beside the main porter. the way he looks at the coffer, he seems to think how he might be able to move that big coffer. so he must be the actual working porter.

that leaves two. the person half hidden in the back with the modern strawhat could be the Reporter of the local newspaper, who hired the photographer.
the well dressed gentleman between/behind the fireman and the main porter can not be the important owner of the coffer, or he would stand more to the front.
so i deduct, that he is a represntative of the owner... of who? a local lord? or who?
and what is in that coffer?

well, here it is already half past five. so i'm off to feed myself.

about the important questions still unanswered, i will think later ... if i don't forget.

 

[playmofire]

It ;looks like a commercial postcard to me and a search turns it up on the alamy website (The Narrow Gauge Railway between Hailworth and Southwold, Suffolk, England - Southwold Railway Station. The line operated between 1879 and 1929 Stock Photo - Alamy).

However, the same search also turns up this version: A collection of 27 photographic postcards of railway stations, including postcards titled 'Chip (click on the image for a larger version).

And a bit further down the search: Prints of The Narrow Gauge Railway between Hailworth and Southwold

 

[dunnyrail]

looking at this pic, my mind went offtopic:

a pic. fine. but in that times a pic was something special. so why was it taken?
it was no inauguration or similar - not enough officials and decoration for that.
in the center of the pic is a large coffer. decorated, with a lock and two latches.
probably containing something of worth, belonging to somebody important.

who of the persons seen looks important? two of them. but in another way of importance.
let's look at the man to the right, in the foreground. correctly dressed in a uniform. but no arms visible.
standing in a disziplined manner, looking into the camera. holding a bicycle(!)
for me that spells out the local policeforce. and by standing near the coffer, instead of standing with the group, he seems to be guarding the coffer.

the other important person seems to be the man standing a little to the right and behind the others.
his dressing, his manner to stand there says - I'm the boss here. the stationmaster.

well, to look at the great unwashed mayority:
the engineer on his mashine, beside and below him the fireman. the big man in the tight uniform must be the main porter.
the man in the waistcoat is one of two, who do not look into the camera, but to the coffer. i think, he is the freight- counter.
(what would be called a "tally man" in a harbour) responsable for documenting sent and received freight.
the other person, looking at the coffer is the small, slumped man beside the main porter. the way he looks at the coffer, he seems to think how he might be able to move that big coffer. so he must be the actual working porter.

that leaves two. the person half hidden in the back with the modern strawhat could be the Reporter of the local newspaper, who hired the photographer.
the well dressed gentleman between/behind the fireman and the main porter can not be the important owner of the coffer, or he would stand more to the front.
so i deduct, that he is a represntative of the owner... of who? a local lord? or who?
and what is in that coffer?

well, here it is already half past five. so i'm off to feed myself.

about the important questions still unanswered, i will think later ... if i don't forget.

Interesting analysis if the bods in the picture. I think the bloke with the bike could be either a postman or military geezer, I think a cop would have a more popped up hat, though he could be a higher up official of a cop rather than a beat bloke. Interesting conundrum, I have this picture in a couple of books and never looked at it like this. My mind tends to wander to the train or buildings, in later years just behind bike bloke a sort of ooen carriage shed was built which does help to date the picture as being before xxxx year.

 

[Northsider]

looking at this pic, my mind went offtopic:

a pic. fine. but in that times a pic was something special. so why was it taken?
it was no inauguration or similar - not enough officials and decoration for that.
in the center of the pic is a large coffer. decorated, with a lock and two latches.
probably containing something of worth, belonging to somebody important.

who of the persons seen looks important? two of them. but in another way of importance.
let's look at the man to the right, in the foreground. correctly dressed in a uniform. but no arms visible.
standing in a disziplined manner, looking into the camera. holding a bicycle(!)
for me that spells out the local policeforce. and by standing near the coffer, instead of standing with the group, he seems to be guarding the coffer.

the other important person seems to be the man standing a little to the right and behind the others.
his dressing, his manner to stand there says - I'm the boss here. the stationmaster.

well, to look at the great unwashed mayority:
the engineer on his mashine, beside and below him the fireman. the big man in the tight uniform must be the main porter.
the man in the waistcoat is one of two, who do not look into the camera, but to the coffer. i think, he is the freight- counter.
(what would be called a "tally man" in a harbour) responsable for documenting sent and received freight.
the other person, looking at the coffer is the small, slumped man beside the main porter. the way he looks at the coffer, he seems to think how he might be able to move that big coffer. so he must be the actual working porter.

that leaves two. the person half hidden in the back with the modern strawhat could be the Reporter of the local newspaper, who hired the photographer.
the well dressed gentleman between/behind the fireman and the main porter can not be the important owner of the coffer, or he would stand more to the front.
so i deduct, that he is a represntative of the owner... of who? a local lord? or who?
and what is in that coffer?

well, here it is already half past five. so i'm off to feed myself.

about the important questions still unanswered, i will think later ... if i don't forget.

I'll tag ge_rik in -he's our resident Southwold Railway specialist, and may be able to shed more light on this...

 

[Paul M]

It ;looks like a commercial postcard to me and a search turns it up on the alamy website (The Narrow Gauge Railway between Hailworth and Southwold, Suffolk, England - Southwold Railway Station. The line operated between 1879 and 1929 Stock Photo - Alamy).

However, the same search also turns up this version: A collection of 27 photographic postcards of railway stations, including postcards titled 'Chip (click on the image for a larger version).

And a bit further down the search: Prints of The Narrow Gauge Railway between Hailworth and Southwold

That does seem to be the case, but it does make Korm's discussion any less interesting. The chap with the bike seems to be a Railway employee, if he were a postie, there would be some kind of bag involved

 

[ge_rik]

I'll tag ge_rik in -he's our resident Southwold Railway specialist, and may be able to shed more light on this...

Interesting photo and analysis. Southwold had two porters and a station master right up to its closure in 1929, so it's likely that at least one is a porter (possibly William Stannard or ?? Fisk). The Station Master's most probably going to be in on the photo (poss Bert Girling) and it's likely that one of them is the guard for the train (maybe George Burley). I suspect the chap with the bike is a postman delivering and collecting mail from the train. The lad is, as you say, logging the merchandise being transported.

The rest might just be passengers or local tradesmen. The baskets probably contain fruit. The large trunk might belong to a wealthy holiday maker or possibly one of the girls attending the local private school (St Felix's).

I doubt it was a special occasion other than the photographer for the postcard company wanting to take something which might sell. I'd imagine that once word got around anyone who was at the station wanted to be immortalised on the postcard as photography was still somewhat of a novelty.

Rik

 

[ge_rik]

If you've not seen it, this video of the Southwold gives a good overview of how the railway operated

Rik

 

[dunnyrail]

If you've not seen it, this video of the Southwold gives a good overview of how the railway operated

Rik

Great Vid, I bought a copy. The link does allow you to watch it using the YouTube site. It finally helped me to understand the complexity of Staff and Ticket working. I used the knowledge to install Staff and Ticket working on my line, needed a Timetable recast to be able to get 3 trains out on the line by my somewhat revised system using joinable Key Rings.

 

[ge_rik]

Great Vid, I bought a copy. The link does allow you to watch it using the YouTube site. It finally helped me to understand the complexity of Staff and Ticket working. I used the knowledge to install Staff and Ticket working on my line, needed a Timetable recast to be able to get 3 trains out on the line by my somewhat revised system using joinable Key Rings.

I remember seeing your staff system in an earlier thread. I hadn't realised it was based on the Southwold's

Rik

 

[dunnyrail]

I remember seeing your staff system in an earlier thread. I hadn't realised it was based on the Southwold's

Rik

Not really based on the Southwold, but just that I learnt how Staff and Ticket working worked from that vid. I modified the standard UK system for my own use.