ON THE MOO-VE

PENRYN | 1961

Unloading livestock from the train | SWFTA Collection @ The Box, Plymouth

Passengers at Penryn station on the morning of Tuesday 10th October 1961 would have encountered a scene not that unusual then but a long gone sight today.

The stock and contents of an entire farm were being unloaded, having travelled for twelve hours overnight from Surrey.

The Surrey Advertiser of 14th October told the story. 40 cows, 25 heifers and calves, six crates of poultry and one pony were on the train – with fodder and drinking water provided of course – together with a tractor, two trailers, a horsebox and the farmer’s estate car.

All in all, 21 wagons were needed, plus a coach for the farmer, Mr F Murrell, and his family and assistants to travel in. They were moving to Carveth Farm, Mabe.

A Westward TV cameraman captured the scene that very wet morning:

British Transport Films made a celebrated short film of a similar move in 1952 called “Farmer Moving South”.

In October 1961, the idea of moving an entire farm by train was on its way out. It was part of British Railways’ “Common Carrier Obligations” where they had to accept any freight traffic offered at “just and reasonable” rates which had to be published. The requirement to publish railway freight traffic rates meant it was straightforward for road hauliers to undercut the railways on lucrative traffic. The requirement to accept any freight traffic meant that a good deal of it was loss making.

The “Common Carrier Obligations” were removed in the Transport Act of 1962. This was part of the initiative in the 1960s to restore the railways’ finances which included the Beeching line and station closures.