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Common goods and their containers


Note - For more information on the containers used see also Appendix One - Packaging Materials & Containers'

These notes were first prepared for the God Son's layout which featured small docks, the idea was to make up goods to appear on the quayside. As a result this is a somewhat eclectic selection based on the needs of his railway and a few odd examples for educational purposes. It is in no way comprehensive and several of the entries are duplicated elsewhere on this website.

Some idea of the range of materials being shipped and the containers used can be gained from a study of Stowage: The Properties & Stowage of Cargoes Thomas, Captain R.E., Extra Master, copies of which can be picked up cheaply (my copy cost six pounds). The 1930 second edition or preferably the enlarged 1947 third edition are probably of most interest to modellers but the 1968 sixth edition may have more relevance to the 'modern era' modeller. In the notes which follow I have tried to identify the details of the containers used, much of the information comes from seafarers and particular thanks are due to Captain Perkins, Captain Hatcher and Nigel Blacker, all formerly of the P&O.


Notes on the packaging for specific cargos


Acids and other corrosive liquids - Typically shipped in carboys, these could be loaded into open wagons but not over-stowed. I have seen a photo of a three plank wagon filled with carboys of acid, laid in neat rows across the wagon and (I think) packed with straw. The illustration shows carboys being filled, the figure gives a sense of scale.
Carboys being filled

See also 'Lineside Industries - Chemicals and Related Industries - Heavy Chemical Industries'.

Animal Feed - Almost all shipped in sacks, clearly marked with manufacturer and contents.
Sketch of Bibby's feed sack showing logo and typical lettering
The paper sack was developed in the 1920s but did not catch on for animal feeds for some years (perhaps because of the likelihood of damp storage conditions on farms), cloth sacks were still in widespread use into the 1950s. See also 'Lineside Industries - Farming Related Industries - Animal Feedstuffs.

Animal Hides - Three basic types are fur, dry hides (and leather) and wet salted hides. Furs were usually shipped in wooden cases lined with metal foil (and often coated with disinfectant powder) although cheaper furs were sometimes sent tied in bundles. Skins, dry hides and leather (hides with the fur removed) were shipped in bales, bundles and singly. The main risk associated with these hides was anthrax and warning notices advising staff to seek medical attention in the event of a pimple or rash were prominently posted. Wet Salted or Pickled hides were generally shipped in flat bundles tied together, always with the hairy side facing outward. Some were shipped in large barrels. Very wet and very smelly they were an unpopular cargo.

Antimony (a silvery metallic material used for alloy steels) - Cases, each about ten inches wide by nine inches high by eighteen inches long, natural light wood colour.

Apples -See Fruits

Asphalt - Barrels, black. Some was shipped in open ended wooden barrels but more conventional closed types were also used. Some was shipped in bulk and had to be literally dug out of the ships holds, this would be piled in wagons on the quayside but the wagons used would probably be PO types (at least some of which were metal bodied) as this material would contaminate them rendering them unfit for other goods.

Barbed Wire - Shipped on wooden reels or in coils secured with plain wire. Sizes of both varied.
Reel and coil of barbed wire

Basic Slag Fertiliser - A black powdery substance which was a byproduct of steel making, widely used up to the 1970's when the number of steel works began to decline and it has since become much less common. Shipped in closely woven bags and later paper sacks there was always a lot of dust associated with this stuff, staining both the inside of the railway vehicle and the areas where the loading and unloading took place.
Lifting basic slag sacks with a canvas sling

Picture showing Lifting of basic slag sacks with a canvas sling



Beans (green or white) 1lb (0.5 kg) bags, about 225 bags to the ton. The bags were light brown and about a foot long, nine inches wide and four inches thick when full (similar to the military 'sand bag').

Beer - Most beer was made locally but larger companies were certainly shipping barrels of beer before the First World War. Bass were selling their bottled beer as far away as India and Australia. The most common beer barrel was the Hogshead, which holds 54 gallons (imperial) and is 45" long by 38" max diameter. Commonly used for beer, wines or spirits these are about as big as a man can handle easily.
Man rolling a beer barrrel

For delivery to the docks and for inland traffic special wagons were built by several lines to carry barrels of beer and cattle wagons were also used (some being reserved for the traffic in the 1940's and 50's. Bottled beers were shipped in crates but I haven not traced any further information on this trade. Presumably this would have to be van traffic. See also Lineside Industries - Food Related Industries - Beer and Breweries

Bleaching Powder (aka B-K POWDER, CALCIUM CHLOROHYDROCHLORITE, CALCIUM HYPOCHLORIDE, CALCIUM HYPOCHLORITE, CALCIUM OXYCHLORIDE, CAPORIT, CCH, CHLORIDE of LIME, CHLORINATED LIME, HTH, HY-CHLOR, LIME CHLORIDE) - This was I believe shipped in wooden barrels and caused a lot of white staining due to the nature of the powder and its bleaching effects. By the later 1930's it was usually shipped in coated steel drums however it often ate through the drums. See also Lineside Industries - Chemicals and Related Industries - Heavy Chemicals Industry

Bicycles - All bikes had their pedals removed and refitted on the inside of the crank, the handlebars were turned sideways. Individual bikes were often shipped in a light wooden crate to protect them from knocks and scrapes in transit, crating up a model bike using 10x20 thou strip (in N) is possible. Where large numbers of bikes were being shipped, for example in the purpose-built BK type containers, the railways provided quilted canvass covers, designed for the job (there is a photograph of these in the book GWR Company Servants by Janet Russel (see Bibliography). In Janet Russel's book there is a photo taken in a goods yard showing a large crate holding five bikes, no additional packing seems to have been used to protect the bikes which are clearly visible in the crate.

Biscuits - Up to the 1960's most biscuits were sold by weight and supplied to shops in rectangular tinplate containers about a foot cube. The paper label wrapped round the tin served to seal the lid in transit but often the tins were packed in wooden cases for shipping from the factory. By this time however more biscuits were being sold in paper packets and these were normally packed into cardboard cartons. Being somewhat delicate biscuits were an early users of containers, McVitie & Price had some sturdy wooden containers in use between London and Edinburgh in the early 1920's and went on to employ a range of container types including a specialised purpose built fork-liftable design that, at the receiving end, formed the rear part of a road van (see the section on Container Handling). See also Lineside Industries - Food Related Industries - Biscuits

Butter - If wrapped packed in cartons, for bulk supplies (probably the most common up to the 1940s) packed in cases (sometimes kegs but that was not common by the 1930s). Australian butter cases measured 28 inches cube and weighed in at 56lbs (of butter, this was the standard unit for selling butter in the UK, half a hundredweight), about cases 33 per ton.

Cassia or Chinese cinnamon - Cassia is the preferred cinnamon species from peninsular South East Asia to Central Asia however in Western countries Ceylon cinnamon is usually preferred for its less harsh taste. Anywhere with a large Chinese population would receive regular shipments. Cassia can be substituted by cinnamon without loss of authenticity. - Bales, 30 to the ton, each bale was about eighteen inches square by two foot long.

Cars - These were shipped by rail ready to run on open flat wagons and in enclosed vans, carriage trucks and closed carriage trucks in railway terms. Cars for export were sometimes shipped whole but a lot were shipped as CKD or cars knocked down, with body panels nested, the engines in crates, interior fittings in cases and the wheels fastened together with a bolt through the hubs and a nut on each end. The wheels were shipped with the tyres on. Plenty of spare tyres were usually packed in and around, wherever they would fit. Some cars were shipped part assembled in cases as shown below, although condensation inside the cases was always a problem. The consignment would consist of a number of cases, all about the same end size but half about 20 percent shorter than the example shown. Note the slight over-spray forming a rough box around the stencilled lettering.
Car in cases
See also Lineside Industries - Vehicles & Related Equipment - Manufacturing of Motor Cars and Commercial Vehicles


Cement - Originally shipped in closely woven hessian sacks which leaked a lot or wooden casks lined with paper which leaked less but cost more. The paper sack, introduced in the 1920's proved ideal for this material and soon dominated the trade. Cloth bags and wooden casks continued in use (mainly for export cement) into the 1940's and in the 1950's and 60's some was shipped in steel drums (again mainly for export to countries where the paper sack was less suitable). There have been several developments which produced visible differences in the paper sacks. Pre-war examples were tied closed at the top, although they were squared off with well developed `shoulders' to the bag. This can be represented by simply adding a small blob of Milliput or similar modelling clay to the centre of one end on commercial whitemetal sacks. From the mid 1940s when mechanical filling was introduced until the late 1960s sacks were sewn closed (these had a ridge along the top edge, usually with a strip of blue reinforcing sewn onto it). I believe it was in the 1960's that bagging machines folded and pasted the bags after filling, resulting in a more square end. I believe that two colour printing on all sacks and bags was not introduced until the 1950s, so cloth bags would be light brown and paper sacks would be light brown (white in some cases), both with a single colour `logo' applied. The sketches below are based on my own and other peoples memories and may be inaccurate, however they are close enough to pass muster. The CMC inside the circle was replaced by Blue Circle in the mid 1960s, the plain blue ring came in (I think) in the later 1980's or early 1990s (I understand the company name actually changed from CMC to Blue Circle in about 1995).
Cement sacks
See also Lineside Industries - Building Materials - Cement and concrete manufacture and distribution.


Cheese - (Imported) tubular open crates but with solid top and bottom, packed six to a crate as shown below left. When not being shipped far it may have been sent as a 'round. wrapped in 'cheesecloth', as below right,but this would only be for a full wagon load by rail as it wouldn't take too much handling to cause damage.
Cheese in cratesCheese in rounds



Cigarettes - Oblong packets about ten inches by eight inches by two feet, wrapped in plain brown paper with a large rectangular label on one side, the Players label was white with (I think) blue writing. I believe it was essentially the same as the packet front.

Coconut - Coconut fibre is transported in bales (compressed and uncompressed), in hanks and in rolls. The fibres are sometimes wrapped in jute or bamboo mats or are also shipped un packaged. Steel strapping and coir cordage are used to ensure that packages hold together better. Coconut fibre is used to produce hawsers, ropes, cords, runners, mats, brooms, brushes, paint brushes and as stuffing for mattresses and upholstered furniture.

Coffee - Bags, each weighing 120 lbs (54 Kg) with about eighteen bags to a ton, each bag holding 3.4 cu ft. they were about three feet long by eighteen inches wide and about nine inches thick.

Copra - This is the dried inner kernel of the coconut plant, this is used to produce coconut oil (it has an oil content as high as 66 percent) which is widely used (soaps, margarines, butter and milk substitutes, candles etc). A profitable if not very popular import from the Far East, shipped in bags and in bulk, smelly and prone to be infested with 'copra bugs', which bite. Tends to contaminate other goods with the smell so usually shipped separately. There are about 30 grades and the material varies from dark brownish grey to almost black in colour, it is not very dense so the bags tend to be large with a slightly 'knobbly' appearance as shown below.
sketch of a Man with bag of copra


Copal Gum - Baskets or large hampers, 14 to the ton. Copal is a fossil resin obtained from the east coast of Africa. It is dug up by the natives and brought to Zanzibar, where it is prepared for the market by cleaning it from the dirt with which it is encrusted. It is pale yellow to deep reddish-brown or greenish-red colour. It is mixed with a caustic solution to make it soluble in water and used in varnish, floor polish, paper products, packaging coatings of all types, linoleum, oilcloth, printing inks and adhesives.

Corks - Imported ready-cut in very large hessian sacks, the sketch below shows sacks of about the right size (they may contain feathers) from a photo taken in the later 1930s.
Sacks of feathers in the 1930s


Cotton - Bales, by the 1920's these were about six feet long and two feet six inches square at the ends with eight or more metal bands round them, however the bales I have seen in pre-Grouping (pre-1924)photographs were typically about seven feet long and about three feet square (14 on a ten ton wagon as shown below centre). By the 1930s they were about four feet six or five feet long and two feet square (below right).
Bale of cotton

The standard size for modern US cotton bales is 55 inches by 20 inches square and they weigh in at 500 lbs (226Kg), however I think this size came in the 1970s.

Dates - Up to the 1950's most were packed in light wooden boxes holding about 28lbs or (13Kg), some were shipped in the familiar round-ended boxes packed in cardboard cartons holding (typically) 5-10 lbs for smaller boxes but anything up to 60lbs following the introduction of pallets. There were (possibly still are) three grades of date, the lowest being 'industrial' (used amongst other things for making boot polish). The industrial dates were packed in barrels or cloth bags as crushing was not a problem.

Dog Droppings, both locally produced and imported from Persia (Iran) and used in the leather tanning industry as well as for making dyes and as manure. The imported kind was shipped in cloth bags containing about 150 lbs of the material. Smelly. The local variety came from assorted sources, anywhere with large numbers of dogs would contribute, in the uk.railway newsgroup Bruce Fletcher commented -
In J Robin Lidster's book "The Forge Valley Line" he relates that the local Hunt kennels at Snainton used to send dog excrement ("Dog Pures") to Leeds where it was used in leather tanning. The "pures" arrived at the station via lorry in sealed 5 cwt barrels which were transferred to open railway wagons on skids - occasionally a barrel would slip and the lid would come off necessitating an unpleasant shovelling task especially in summer with flies and maggots.


Eggs - Wooden cases with hinged lids, clearly marked EGGS on the sides. I believe the British cases were about a two foot cube but have not been able to confirm that. Imported American eggs arrived in wooden boxes 28 inch cube holding 80 dozen eggs but Egyptian and Danish eggs came in crates about seven foot cube containing 1440 eggs. Eggs were often sold in 'long hundreds', 120 to the 'Hundred' (hence 1440 eggs in a box, a dozen 'hundreds').

Eggs - Powdered - Tin lined light wooden cases (also dried egg albumen).

Esparto grass - Shipped in bales bound with rope made of green grasses in the 1920's with some supplied loose for packing on board ship. As it is light weight it was often stacked high on the decks of the ships and formed a large bulging sheeted load on the railway wagons (similar in appearance to hay).
Bales of African esparto grass (late 1930s)
Bales of esparto grass being handled in the 1930s
By the 1940's it was being shipped in bales. Bales vary in weight and degree of compression depending on country of origin (approx. 70 - 80 kg). The bales were often tied with green grasses certainly up to the 1940's but iron or steel straps or wire were by then becoming the norm. Esparto is used as a raw material for paper making, as upholstery stuffing and as a binding material (coarse material with fragments of plant tissue, such as stalk, leaves or leaf parts, still attached). Esparto paper is made solely from soft esparto pulp or alfa pulp.

Feathers - Britain used to import considerable quantities of feathers, mainly from the Far East. The expensive types (ostrich and the like, used for fashionable clothing) were shipped in metal lined wooden cases, the cheaper types (used for mattress stuffing and the like) were usually shipped in very large sacks, about three or four feet by eight feet by two feet thick at the centreline. The sketch shows sacks of similar size however these might also contain cork.
Sacks of feathers in the 1930s


Ginger - One of the oldest known spices, it consists of the root or rhizome of a grass like plant, the product is usually shipped as roots. Prior to containerisation most ginger was shipped in cases (18x15x24 inches, 45x38x62 cm plain wood) or as a liquid in casks (hogsheads, that is large barrels). Ginger from the finest shoots of the rootstock is also imported in crystallized form in earthenware jugs and in syrup in wooden kegs, specially from China and the West Indies. Following the shift to containers most ginger root is packaged in jute fabric bags (36 - 65 kg, also secondhand bags) among other things and less frequently in boxes (60 kg). Queen Elizabeth 1st is said to have invented the gingerbread man.

Fruits - Apples pears etc
Apples - Commonly shipped in baskets (collected from the farms) and also in barrels (for export and occasionally for delivery to more distant towns and shops), the baskets were cylindrical, about eighteen inches in diameter and just over a foot tall (roughly 45cm diameter and 40cm tall). They were often stacked very high (ten or twelve feet) on horse drawn waggons and the trailers of pre-war 'mechanical horses', with ropes over the top to hold them down. Some types tapered and had an open top so they could be nested when empty, others had a basketwork 'lid' and could not be nested. If you search the internet for images of Covent Garden fruit market you should find plenty of illustrations.

fruit baskets
Imported apples were usually in boxes, the Australian boxes were about two feet square and 21 inches tall. Soft fruits such as peaches and strawberries were often shipped in small 'punnets' made of thin strip wood, often with a thin strip tinplate handle on the top. Handling these individual small baskets was time consuming to say the least as they had to be handled and stacked carefully to avoid damage.
Pears - Imported - Shipped in cartons or light wooden cases, typically 20" (51cm) cube (50-52 lbs).
The illustration below shows cases of fruit being unloaded at the docks via a gravity operated roller conveyor.
Roller conveyor with cases of fruit at a docks



Hemp - Bales (about 24 x 24 x 48 inches or 61 x 61 x 122 cm). This material when shipped is light brown in colour and bales usually had a light brown hessian covering). About 8 bales per ton.

Hops - Long tubular sacks, the illustration shows pre war and post war markings.

Sketch of Hop sacks showing pre-war and post war examples of the lettering
See also Lineside Industries - Food related industries - Beer and Breweries and Vinegar Breweries.


Jelatong or Jelutong resin from Malaysia . (Dyera costulata) Used for latex production by local people. The latex from the tree is coagulated with acetic acid and purified by boiling with water. Jelutong resin is used extensively in the manufacture of chewing gum. - Cases, (36 inch 1m cube), light plywood sometimes with external timber framework.

Jute (sacks and sack cloth are discussed separately below)- Bales, secured with 'iron' (probably steel) bands, 6 foot (1.8m) long by 3 foot (1m) square, there being 8 of these to the ton. Jute is a fibre obtained from several plants, pale cream in colour and between four and ten foot long. This material was associated with lots of small white butterflies which lived in the jute in their larval stage. At the docks these would be seen all over the surrounding area. Barges loaded high with Jute bales from ships at anchor were a common sight on the Thames. Jute is used to make burlap or hessian (sacking material) and the lighter variant called Gunnie (woven with a single rather than double thread and much more open weave).

Kapok - The kapok is a tree which produces hairs, from a quarter to one and a half inches long ranging in colour from white to grey with some types being a dark brown. This material is brittle and can not be spun into thread unless it is mixed with cotton. It offers a good thermal insulation and is water resistant. Widely used for furniture stuffing and also for stuffing quilted clothing. It is shipped in bales weighing anything up to 200 lbs. As the material is brittle the bales cannot be heavily compressed so they end up rather larger than other bales. In the between the wars era these bales were covered with a light coloured cloth, producing what appeared to be very large sacks but having a distinctly rectangular appearance.

Lampblack - Apparently this material (essentially soot) was shipped in woven cloth sacks, resulting in a lot of black staining of the wagons that carried it, some was also shipped in wooden casks (but I have not been able to confirm the size of these barrels). It was made in various ways, one being the burning of a mixture of coal tar and creosote oil, the 'soot' being collected in chambers with heavy iron doors. The chambers were emptied about once a week and the main markets for it were in the manufacture of paint and rubber.

Latex is a white sticky liquid from which rubber is made. It was shipped in barrels and later in coated steel drums. To keep it liquid ammonia had to be added, hence the coating on the metal drums. After the second world war more latex was shipped in bulk and the railways actually built a few bogie tank wagons for this traffic. See also Lineside Industries - Coastal and Riverside Industries - Gutta Percha, Rubber and Tyres .

Malt - This is grain which has been partially germinated for use in making beer. Shipped in sacks, the illustration shows pre-war markings.

Sketch of a malt sack



Matches - Rectangular plywood cases, resembling small tea chests with metal strips on all the edges, they were actually lined with very thin sheet metal (possibly tinplate) and they had the makers logo in red or black stenciled on the sides (often this was rather indistinct).

Nails and screws were shipped in barrels perhaps two feet six inches high by one foot six inches diameter at the widest point and sold by weight in the hardware shop. By the 1940's paper card boxes were in regular use for these items, typically six inches long by three inches square. These were packed in plain wooden cases and later (by the mid 1950's) in cardboard cartons.

Olives - Kegs for bulk supplies, otherwise glass jars packed in wooden cases (cardboard cartons after the 1950's).

Paints - Usually shipped in metal 'pails' either about the size of a bucket (but cylindrical not tapered) or the larger versions of the same container about two feet high by a foot in diameter.

Paper - Shipped in rolls, traffic out of the mill would consist in the main of rolls of paper ready for machine cutting or printing, although some might be cut down to sheets for a particular client. Rolls were between 20 and 84 inches long (51cm to 213cm) and (typically) about 36 inches in diameter, wrapped in thick brown paper. The illustration shows typical paper (newsprint) rolls and trucks used for shifting paper rolls at a works
Sketch showing typical paper (newsprint) rollsSketch showing methods of shifting paper rolls
See also Lineside Industries - Consumer Goods Related Industries - Paper, Card and Paper Sacks .


Pears - See Fruits -

Pepper (black or white, unground) - Shipped in sacks.

Potatoes - Sacks about three feet tall by eighteen inches wide and a foot thick with a 'knobbly' appearance. The top was sewn shut leaving two distinct 'ears' on the corners which were used as handles when moving the bags about. Seed potatoes require more careful handling, these would ideally be transported in well ventilated vans but were often carried in sheeted open wagons.
When shipped by sea (up to the 1960s at least) potatoes were often packed in wooden kegs, the open end being packed with straw and with a rope lashed over it. On coastal voyages in smaller vessels such as sailing barges they were sometimes shipped in bulk.

Jersey potatoes being landed
Jersey potatoes being landed



Rattans - Stick like material similar in some ways to cane but solid rather than hollow and more flexible. This stuff is cut from a tree-climbing vine into ten to fifteen feet lengths and is shipped in two ways depending on the source. Some are shipped gathered into bundles and bent into a U shape, others are simple straight bundles. The bundles weigh in at about 100 lbs but the number of 'sticks' depends on the thickness. The bundles are held together with more lengths of rattan. The material is used for basket ware and furniture, the stronger pieces are used for walking sticks, carpet beaters's and the like. More recently, since the introduction of containerisation, it has been shipped increasingly in the form of semifinished products, the outer layer being processed into weaving cane, binding cane and rattan split and the core being processed into wicker and round, flat, flat-oval and wedge-shaped weaving strips.

Rice - Sacks, pre war these would have been perhaps four feet long by two feet six inches wide and quite thick when packed.

Rope - Coils - The sketch below left shows a large coil of rope being secured with lighter rope, on the right are coils of smaller rope, in the lower left is a ball of tarred line for repairing fishing line (the inset top right shows an enlarged view).
Sketch of ropes coiled for shipping

As can be seen a coil of rope could be both large and heavy, at the rope works a substantial crane would often be provided to allow these to be loaded onto road or rail wagons for delivery. See also Lineside Industries - Coastal and Riverside Industries - Rope & Cordage.

Rubber, which is latex treated with acetic or formic acid, was shipped as thinly rolled sheets either a pale yellow or mid brown colour, formed into a bale and wrapped in hessian (sack cloth) or since the war in plastic sheet. It is used in this form to make thin goods such as surgeons gloves. The rubber was bound together in bales or blocks about 3 feet (90cm) square by 15 inches 38cm thick, these were heavy (a difficult lift for one man). See also Lineside Industries - Coastal and Riverside Industries - Gutta Percha, Rubber and Tyres .

Rhubarb

Sacks Usually shipped from the factory in bales as shown below, folded and stacked for return when in use. Sacks were still being shipped in bales in the early 21st century.
Bales of hessian sackss



Sack cloth There are many varieties of sacking, mostly based on jute fabrics, some was immediately made in to sacks but a lot was shipped out on rolls for carpet backing and wrapping bales, the illustration shows rolls of 'bail sheet'.
Rolls of jute sack cloth for wrapping bales
Mr Colin Alty was able to advise:
The jute business in this country was centred around Dundee, where the raw material was imported from India and processed in the mills. Jute was used for all sorts of job, such as backing for carpets and furniture as well as sacks and many other uses. The packaging business required many different types of jute fabric, from bale sheet as illustrated in your sketch, for rapping bails and as a protective covering for goods in transit, to the standard twill bag to carry 1cwt of corn. There were also three bushel twills for carrying ground nuts and palm kernel. My Father used to buy the used bags from Lever Brother Port Sunlight, we then reconditioned them and sold them to potato merchants. The process came under the direction of The Ministry of Supply and was seen as a vital material to be reused to save precious resources.
Eventually the whole industry moved to India were labour was much cheaper and of course the raw material was on the doorstep and I found my way into the bulk transport business (using pressurised vehicles with fluidised beds in the tankers to aerate the powered material and then release this mixture under 15 P.S.I. pressure up to in some cases 150 ft high into storage silos).
Salt - Sacks and bulk, the sacks held about 40lbs of salt, these were about two foot six high by a foot wide and tied off at the top. The sketch below shows slightly smaller branded and sewn salt bags being unloaded from an open wagon for delivery to shops in about 1890.
Sketch of salt bags being unloaded from an open wagon
See also Lineside Industries - Mining & Smelting Industries - Salt.

Sago flour

Sisal fibre - Bales, roughly four feet long by about eighteen inches square, normally wrapped in light brown hessian material but some were apparently not wrapped, in which case they would be pale yellow and have odd bits sticking out of the bale. Sisal takes its name from a port in Mexico but by the 1940s the most important sources were Kenya and Tanganyika, the plant is a bit like a cactus. The fibres are hairy and a pale straw colour but although it resists the effects of sea water quire well it is coated with tar for use in water or for outdoor duties. The illustration shows a man dealing with a sisal bale at a rope works
Man-handling a bale of sisal
See also 'Lineside Industries - Coastal and Riverside Industries - Rope and cordage'.

Sugar - Sacks, made of finely woven cloth, quite dark in colour, roughly 2 bushel sized. Sugar cubes were shipped in boxes. The examples below show the branding on Tate sugar sacks in (I think) the 1920s.
Tate Sugar sack and box

Modern shipments of bagged sugar come in paper sacks (not sure when this came in but it was after World War Two I believe) See also Lineside Industries - Food Related Industries - Sugar and Molasses, Starch and Glucose.

Tapioca flour - Shipped in large sacks, a lot of white dust was associated with this cargo.

Tea from India was shipped in chests - A chest was a British measurement of tea ranging from 80 to 84 lbs. By the 1960's the standard was the half chest, which is what most people think of as a 'tea chest' - Up to the 1940's the chests were made up from pale wood, usually covered with hessian, typically about the size of two of the more modern plywood tea chests. They were held together with metal bands and were broken down to pack flat when returning as empties. Plywood was developed in the 1930s and was being used for the more familiar tea chest by the 1940's. I was not able to find a definite specification for plywood tea chests but Guy King was kind enough to measure some for me. He found two standard sizes; 18 ½ x 18 ½ x 20 inches (46.4 cm x 46.4cm x 50.8cm) and 20 x 16 x 23½ inches (50.8cm x 40.6cm x 59.7cm). These are light plywood cases with thin metal strips along all edges, these were shiny metal, possibly tinplate, the illustration on the right shows typical markings from the early 20th century, often these were only on one or two sides of the chest and remained fairly standard into the 1950s.
Typical tea 'half chest' in the 1950s
Typical tea chest Typical tea chest markings

Tea came in various types, the three most common in the UK were -Tea (India & Ceylon) , Tea (D.E,I.) and Tea (china). As far as I am aware these were all shipped in standard tea chests.

Timber - Pit Props - Shipped loose, generally about eight feet long. For a lot more on how the railways handled these see the section 'Wagon Loads and Materials Handling - Wagon Loads'

Timber - Baulk - Heavy timbers, basically trimmed tree trunks (although they would be rectangular in shape if being imported, tapered for home grown timber).

Timber - Deal - This is pre-cut timber and imports started in about 1920. Up to the 1970s this stuff was handled plank by plank but as the fork lift truck became more common shippers began strapping it with metal bands. The average length would be eight feet or sixteen feet and would fit in a railway wagon or van but some was shipped in longer lengths. Most of this stuff went to the town timber merchants for use in building and manufacturing. The illsutrations shows men stacking 'deal' in the 1930s.
Stacking 'deal' in the 1930s
See also Lineside Industries - Building Materials - Builders and Wood Yards.

Timber - Jelutong timber is popular with wood carvers but it is currently becoming rare and people are advised to seek alternatives. Creamy white to a pale yellow A soft, fine, even-textured wood with straight grain. Used in industry for pattern making, battery separators, drawing boards, blackboards, toys, packing cases, ladies shoe soles and coffins but also sold for carving, fret work and making picture frames, .

Tin plate - Most was packed in flat timber boxes, the size of the box was determined by the size of the plates being shipped but prior to the 1970s most containers were capable of being man handled. The most common standard wooden box of tinned sheets was 14 inches by 20 inches and held 112 sheets of tinned metal. Each sheet weighed in at about a pound or 0.5Kg, so the box weighed about a hundredweight (about 51Kg) and could be handled by one man (with difficulty). In photographs from the mid 1950s I have seen pale wooden boxes of tin plate, about three foot by two foot by about ten inches deep with a couple of three inch square battens on the base to allow fork-lift handling.
Coils of tined metal were being shipped by the later 1930s, presumably for the tin can makers, the pictures I have seen show coils about three feet wide and about two feet in diameter. By the mid 1950s tinplate from the newer large works was shipped out in much larger coils as shown below, in transit these wagons would be sheeted.
Sketch showing loading coils of tin plate in the 1950s
See also Lineside Industries - General Engineering Industries - Tinplate.

Tobacco - See also Cigarettes - Tobacco is all imported and the bonded warehouses and works dealing with it were located in the ports, very little moving about on the railways in its raw state. Prior to containerisation tobacco from North America was shipped in 'hogsheads', the early type resembled the standard 'hogshead' barrel, 43 inches high and 27 inches in diameter, weighing in at about 400 lbs when packed. By the 1930's (possibly earlier) the tobacco hogshead was a cylindrical wooden container about four feet in diameter and four feet in height and weighing in at about 1,000 pounds. A hogshead is not a barrel as such being composed of two mats and two heads with rings (possibly metal possibly wood) at intervals. South American tobacco is shipped in bales and with the advent of containers the North Americans began shipping in bales as well although hogsheads of the cylindrical kind were still occasionally seen certainly into the early 1980's.
Landing 'hogsheads' of tobacco
Photo Landing 'hogsheads' of tobacco in London docks'



Vegetables - Cabbages, broccoli and lettuce were shipped in light wooden crates about a foot square and from eighteen inches to four feet long. Sprouts were shipped in baskets into the 1950s but with light wooden boxes becoming more common from the mid 1930s and low, rectangular, stackable cardboard cartons becoming the standard by the 1960s.

Vegetable Oils - Vegetable oils will burn but they have a high flash point so were not constrained by the Class A and B regulations for more flammable liquids. Hence rail tanks could be in any livery, but almost all were either plain red oxide or black with white markings. Barrels, drums, tins in cases or in bulk. When off-loading bulk supplies from a ship the ships supplied the steam for power and heating (if required), the receiver supplied the pump and hoses.
The vegetable oil barrels I have seen photographs of all seem to have light coloured ends, usually with some large but cryptic markings on them, seldom arranged neatly. The illustration shows the large palm oil casks being handled.
Palm oil casks as seen in soap and margarine works
See also Lineside Industries - Coastal and Riverside Industries - Seed Crushing & Oil and Cake Mills and also Margarine, Soap and Detergents.

Vinegar - Shipped in small kegs and 36 gallon barrels, also some in glass bottles in cases. The illustration shows typical vinegar casks.
Sketch of Vinegar casks

There was at least one 6 wheeled vinegar tank wagon operating in the 1950s. See also 'Lineside Industries - Food Related Industries - Vinegar Brewers' for an illustration of the tank wagon.


Whale Bone - Mostly shipped in cases, this was very valuable but was occasionally shipped in bundles.

Whale Oil - Usually shipped in barrels. Common in the early 1920s, getting rare by the later 1930s.

Whisky & Wine - Bottles of spirits and wine were shipped by the case, a plain wooden box holding (usually) 12 bottles. This was often not a crate with a lid, the bottles were laid on their side packed in straw, the cases were about fifteen inches by twenty inches by about five inches thick. For distribution to retailers a crate with a lid was often used as it was easier to check if the contents were all present and correct.
Sketch of cases for glass bottles
The makers name would be prominently displayed in red or black stencil (usually) on the top of the case. The sketch below shows a man with a six bottle case of wine or port.
Sketch of Man with 12 bottle case of wine
Some spirits and a lot of wine were shipped in barrels or smaller kegs but these were not remarkable.
See also 'Lineside Industries - Food Related Industries - 'Wine, Port and Sherry' and also 'Spirits and Distilleries'.

Wire - Depended on its value and size. Copper and other valuable wire was shipped in cases, plain wire such as fence wire, galvanised or not, was shipped in coils. Barbed wire was shipped wound onto wooden reels (illustrated above under Barbed Wire).

Wire netting - Shipped in rolls, typically about eight feet long and up to about four feet in diameter. If you have a 'Singer' or similar sewing and trimming shop you can buy 'dress netting' which makes good wire mesh fencing for OO, I haven't yet found anything really suitable for N Gauge but, tightly rolled, the dress netting might serve.

Wool, brought in from New Zealand, was shipped in bales (also called a truss) in two sizes, eighth of a ton being 3 foot 6 inches square by 6 foot, quarter ton being 3 foot 6 inches square by 9 foot. These were wrapped in hessian (a coarse brown cloth) and secured with rope or from the mid 1920s increasingly with steel bands.
Bale of Wool (1930s)
Bales of wool in the 1930s

However the degree of compression varied from country to country, the New Zealand bales weighed in at from 280-400 lbs each, Indian bales of smaller size tended to be slightly heavier and Chinese bales similar in size to those from New Zealand could weigh anything up to 1000 lbs.
The illustration below shows an AEC 'Mercury' 14 tonner in the later 1950s delivering what I believe is bales of recycled wool to a spinning mill.
AEC Logo



Wool Grease - Shipped in barrels or steel drums, mostly imported.





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