Seed Crushing (Vegetable Fats & Oils)
This business was closely associated with the flour milling and animal feeds businesses, many seed crushing firms also had interests in those areas. Flour milling is considered separately under 'Lineside Industries - Food related industries - Flour' for domestic grain and 'Coastal and Riverside Industries - Grain' for imported grain. For more on animal feeds see also 'Lineside Industries - Farming related industries - Animal feedstuffs.
There are a number of valuable oils and fats recovered by crushing vegetable seeds. Vegetable oils are often called 'fatty oils', they have a similar make up the vegetable fats but are liquid at normal British temperatures whereas the 'fats' are solid (generally 'normal' is taken as fifteen degrees Celsius). As many of the plants used do not grow in Britain the seed crushing works were usually built in or close to large docks to facilitate imports.
The materials handled included soya beans, linseed (from the UK, Argentina, India and Canada), cotton seed (from Egypt, India and Greece) and peanuts (which they called 'groundnuts' from West Africa). All these oils were sold both for use in foods (human and animal) and for use in industrial products such as lubricating oil, soaps, varnishes, printing inks, and paints. Most of the residual fibrous material (they called it 'cake') was sold in slabs as animal feeds, some was taken to provender mills where it was mixed with grain and other additives to produce a range of balanced animal feeds known as 'compound feed' sold in hessian sacks.
A lot of the oil was shipped from the works in large wooden barrels, by the 1930s small electric trucks were fitted with simple screw-drive cranes to lift and carry these large casks. To lift the barrels using a standard crane they used a loop of chain with two hooks on it (called barrel hooks these were used for all sizes of barrels, see also 'Wagon Loads & Materials Handling - Materials Handling - Crane Hooks and Lifting Aids for an illustration). A big crane can lift multiple barrels using these hooks as shown below. 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.
Fig ___ Vegetable oil casks
Although oils were also shipped in bulk from the later 1920s numbers of these large barrels in the yard would be a feature of both soap and margarine works up to the early 1960s, thereafter bulk supplies replaced them fairly quickly.
The seed crushing firms also extracted coconut oil from the white innards of coconuts (called copra, this is shipped partly dried and is not white when it arrives, ranging from dark brown to nearly black, typically shipped in sacks, occasionally in bulk). One of the problems with copra are the small 'copra bugs' they live in the stuff, they are almost impossible to eliminate and can be very troublesome. It is not very dense so the bags tend to be large with a slightly 'knobbly' appearance as shown below.
The fibrous outer husk of the coconut is called coir, this was imported separately and used to make, amongst other things, ropes and 'coconut matting'.
Coconut oil has a high amount of saturated fatty acids with much shorter molecules (known as medium chain fatty acids or MCFA) than most dietary fats, it also has a relatively high melting point. Above 76°F (24°C) coconut oil is a colorless liquid. Below this temperature it solidifies into a pure white solid, it is almost all used as a food additive. Imported coconunt oil was supplied in barrels of various sizes up to puncheons, which hold approx 72 gallons, close to five feet long by four feet in diameter. This is the largest barrel that would fit through the drop door of a standard five plank wagon. By the 1930s some general cargo ships were carrying the oil in bulk using heated tanks.
There are four types of vegetable oil, divided according to how they react with air (although these are not clear distinctions) and whether they are a liquid or solid at average British temperatures.
Drying oils react with oxygen and form a 'skin', linseed oil (from the flax plant, the oil is yellowish in colour), painted on wood or bricks it forms a waterproof barrier (you have to boil it first, which is a smelly business). Linseed oil was sold to paint, varnish and printing ink manufacturers, linoleum works and lubricating oil firms (and of course in tins for conditioning cricket bats). Boiled Linseed oil is often boiled before using and boiled oil mixed with 'whiting' (powdered chalk) makes putty (as used to hold windows in place). Putty is also used in certain rubber compounds and as a coating for glossy papers. Other drying oils, not recovered at seed crushers works are Tung Oil (or China Wood Oil) and Oiticica Oil (from a Brazilian tree of the same name.
Semi-drying oils include soya bean oil, used in foods, soap, paints varnishes and as a source for Nylon production (the most widely used vegetable oil today). Sunflower oil (a yellow colour) and the yellow to dark red cottonseed oils are used for fish frying and soap making, in leather dressings, lubricants and as a food additive.
Non drying oils include the pale yellow to clear castor oil, originally mainly used as a medicine but since World War Two it has found many industrial uses. Milky coloured coconut oil is used in foods, cotton dyeing, soaps and detergents and for leather dressing. Peanut oil (or groundnut oil) went into margarine. Since World War Two a plant called Rape has been bred until it became a useful source of oil and animal feed. The oil is dark brown and is used in foods and lubricants. Rape is actually two species of the mustard family, other notable examples being turnips and sweeds. Even more recently Oilseed rape has been developed from the `weed' rapeseed, the seed is typically 42% oil and the meal left after removing the oil is about 42% crude protein. The refined oil is commonly known as Canola (a US registered trade name) but the name is also sometimes used to refer to the whole plant. A diesel engine will run on this stuff.
Finally there are the inedible soap stocks such as palm oil (used in soap, candles, and lubricating greases) and low grade coconut oil (a clear syrupy liquid commonly called copra oil and Cocoa Butter (used for soaps and cosmetics). These are all solid at normal British temperatures and required steam heating in railway tanks to allow them to discharge.
Associated railway stock would be owned by the seed crushing business but there were also tanks (usually lagged) owned by their customers, notably the soap industry, which would be seen at such a works (see also below under Soap and Margarine).
Oil and Cake Mills
Because of the close interrelation of flour milling, seed crushing (obtaining oils from plant seeds) and animal feeds (using the residue from the first two) many companies were engaged in at least two of these businesses. Unilever, for example, in addition to the two feed mills it owned in London (through its BOCM and Silcock subsidiaries) also had separate oilseed crushing plants at Silvertown and Erith (both on the Thames near London). Both Pauls and Unilever had feed mills and seed crushing plants in Hull (a major centre for seed crushing). Other companies such as Ranks and Spillers owned flour mills in addition to feed mills. Just to complicate the matter however not all 'cake mills' were also seed crushers, a lot of firms set up in the country areas to make animal feed, getting their supplies mainly from local flour millers.
All of which has made teasing out the history of the industry rather complicated, however the oil and animal feeds businesses in the ports usually shared the same premises.
By the early 1800s the oils from crushed seeds were increasingly important for a number of industrial purposes and for inclusion in human foods, the by-product of this process, the oilseed cake, is a rich source of protein and was sold as a feed for all types of animals. These firms also recycled the residue from flour milling (wheatfeed) which they mixed with the 'cake' (as noted above the large flour mills tended to be in the docks). From the 1890s other ingredients were added to make 'compound' animal foods. The output from the 'cake mill' was blocks of compressed feed to be sold to farmers. Some was also made into pellets, sold in hessian sacks, I think that started in the 1890s with the development of 'compound feeds'.
Seed crushing firms existing in most larger ports, the industry produced millions of tons of products and employed thousands of people. The map below shows the main ports associated with the trade.
Fig ___ Location of major oil and cake mills prior to the 1960s
Oil and Cake Mill Process and Buildings
The incoming vegetable matter arriving at the larger works in the dock areas would usually be delivered in sacks, copra (the dried inner white material from the coconut) was shipped in bags or in bulk.
The seed was run through sets of chilled-rollers, then heated by steam in 'kettles' (these were very big metal vats), it was then laid onto woollen sheets and covered with another layer of wool before being put into the press. The wool trapped the solid matter but allowed the oils to flow out of the press.
By the 1890s steam powered hydraulic presses were in use and this is where most of the oil was extracted leaving the 'cake' residue (these days they use a continuous process involving a tapering screw drive to press out the oil, in some cases they use a solvent to extract it).
The residual oilseed cake was cut into blocks and allowed to cool on racks. At the farm these blocks were put through a small mill which broke the cake up, from photos of which I gather the blocks were about two feet long, four inches thick and about fifteen inches wide. By the 1890s the feed was also being further processed, adding other ingredients to make a 'compound cake' that sold for a higher price. I believe this was sold in the form of 'pellets' delivered in sacks. I am not sure when (or if) the basic 'cake' ceased being sold.
A decent sized mill would take in say 700 tons of seed a week, producing nearly 500 tons of cake and about 350 tons of oil.
The seed crushing works were housed in a large building with windows, on the high sides of the main structure the name of the company was often displayed, sometimes in bass relief stone or brick lettering, usually including the word 'mill'. Hydraulic lifts were used inside the building so add a tall tower (say two stories above the top of the main building by about fifteen to twenty feet square) for the associated 'accumulator' and a raised water tank. Finally you should have a boiler house, both to provide power and also steam to the works.
Not all seed crushing mills were in the immediate dock area, some were located a short distance away and hence received train loads of imported materials from the docks. The illustration below is based on a photograph showing a rather attractive stone built former oil mill near Edinburgh. I have attempted to back-date the mill to show its original appearance and it gives a sense of the scale of a typical granite-built Scottish oil mill. Clearly this mill recieved its supplies in sacks (via the prominent sack hoists on the front of the building).
Fig ___ Scottish oil mill
Large establishment would have their own cooperage, a joiners' and pattern shop, a fitting shop (to make and repair machinery) and saddlers shop where they made not only the horse harnesses but also the belts to drive the machinery.
They needed large storage areas for the bags of seed and there were always a lot of barrels and steel drums about the works. Larger mills, as found in the dock areas, would have storage tanks for the oils as well.
The mills inside docks, which received a lot of cargo in bulk, often featured silo type buildings, usually square, with no windows. As with cotton mills the mills and silos were usually of brick and iron construction, the floor being made up of brick arches, to provide a 'fireproof' building and some were built using reinforced concrete from the 1890s on.
The animal feed side also required large buildings, up to 15 stories tall but often with fewer windows.
The sketches below are based (rather loosely) in the BOCM works in Hull (crush mill and silo), and the Foster Bros mill in Gloucester (provender mill building). The figures give some idea of the scale. There would also be a number of other ancillary buildings in the complex, many the size of a small factory in their own right. There would be a number of medium size oil tanks to hold the product prior to shipping. The buildings are show with the loading bays large enough to run a railway through them, the prototype bays were not so tall.
Fig ___ Typical main buildings for an oil and cake mill in a dock area
The feed was shipped out in considerable quantities, mainly by rail, and trains composed solely of vans and sheeted open wagons loaded with animal feeds were a common sight (especially in the South West and around Selby in Yorkshire) up until the late 1950s. A typical consignment for a particular station could be from one to ten wagon loads, to be collected by several local feed merchants.
In the 1960s a new approach was taken by the big animal feed firms, using more home grown plants and mills located closer to the customers in the country (these mills were much smaller than those in the docks and catered to a 70 mile radius or thereabouts). The first of these 'country' plants opened at Winsford in Cheshire, able to supply the industries on the coast and the farmers inland using short distance road haulage. The mills at the docks were then run down into the 1980s, then in the mid 1980s there was a change in agriculture policy and demand slumped, leading to a major retrenchment in the industry and the close of both dockside mills and some of the newer country mills.
Modelling an Oil and Cake Mill
Whereas the flour mill was a simple and monolithic building, grain going in and flour coming out, the oil and cake mill was a rather more complicated enterprise. Flour mills were generally made to look imposing as the public were expected to buy and consume the product (see also 'Lineside Industries - Flour, bread, biscuits and breakfast cereals'). Oil and cake mills catered to the agricultural sector and tended to be rather more agricultural in appearance. The big main building and silo might have looked like a flour mill, but the ancillary structures (often quite large) were often steel frames clad in corrugated iron. Where building were modified, from the later 1920s on, the corrugated metal clad steel frame was the norm.
From a model railway perspective these establishments are on the large side, but you can get away with a lot of compression and retain the general look of the thing. The best option would be a low relief structure against the backscene. A single siding would suffice, providing an excuse for a range of traffic although two sidings offers more scope for traffic. If you wish to avoid the covered loading areas as shown above you can model the wall of the building flat against the back scene, ideally you would have a loading bank to avoid having to 'spot' wagons, but just adding loading doors in the wall would suffice if space is tight.
The sketch below shows a minimal representation, with the three buildings reduced in size from the prototype, however the silo and associated buildings do suggest the nature of the industry. The separate provender mill is only one option, the space it takes could be used for other details associated with the industry as discussed below.
Fig ___ Example oil and cake mill on a layout dock area
Also you would expect to see tanks and their associated pipework (much of it elevated) to handle the oils produced in the plant. For modelling purposes two or three fairly small tanks (1.5 inches or 37mm diameter and height) would serve as an absolute minimum. You could replace the provender mill shown in the above sketch with these tanks. There would be a lot of wooden barrels, mainly rather large ones, with steel drums only really becoming more common in the later 1930s or possibly just post war.
Regarding the dock area the crossover on the area of inset track on the quay is not essential but allows a dock shunting engine a bit more scope. As in-fill for points is tricky the point at the rear (under the crane gantry) is exposed, add some 'setts' piled up beside it and a wheel barrow to suggest it is being worked on. The gantry crane is supported at the back by a rail on the warehouse to save space and is positioned clear of where you may need to get a hand in to resolve coupling problems. Similarly the suggested coal hoist is positioned near the centre of the exchange/shunting loop on the approach line to the docks, again clear of where your hand may need to get to resolve coupling problems (you can replace this with simple chutes to load barges from hopper wagons if you don't like tall things at the front of the layout). If you are not bothering with a dock engine the shed line can be used as a brake van storage line.
Rivers tend to meander, if space allows and the buildings are deep enough in relief in front of the backscene, you can angle the silo to get away from the rigid grid-like arrangement of buildings. By using a Peco large radius point at the entrance to the works the angle of the siding is gentle enough to eliminate most of the correcting curve. The net effect is that the overall length is similar but the crush mill and silo are at angles to the baseboard and a space is left for placing some barrels as shown below.
Fig ___ Oil and cake mill with angled buildings
A proportion of the oil made at these plants was shipped in company owned and branded rail tank wagons, although I have not been able to find details of the loading apparatus used (hence the covered loading bay at the crush mill in the illustration above). Some of these rail tanks were fitted with steam heating coils (required to liquefy a cargo of fats). These tanks were not heated by the railway engine in transit, the heating was done at the receiving end and could take up to 24 hours. Adding insulation to the tank and putting the stuff in very hot reduced this time considerably. In terms of a model railway this means you do not have to couple the tanks behind the engine in transit.
The rail tanks would be used both to supply customers and (I understand) to bring in some bulk liquids (such as molasses) to the provender mills for blending into the feeds. The customers for the oils covered a wide range of industries, dealing in foodstuffs, paints, chemicals, linoleum makers (who required linseed oil) and lubricating oil manufacturers (who used quite a lot of castor oil). These customers might also send their tanks to the seed crushers to collect cargo (I believe Crosfields the soap makers used some of their tanks in this way).
Although the bulk of the materials were delivered by sea some was supplied from UK sources. Most of this locally supplied material would arrived in vans and sheeted opens but for something a little different you can run in a sheeted hopper wagon carrying 'spent grain' from a brewery to the provender mill. The iron ore hoppers as supplied in kit form by the N Gauge Society were used for this work.
Fig ___ Sheeted hopper delivering spent grain
The seed crushers had to ship large quantities of 'cake', for which there would be regular rakes of vans to be loaded at the works. In the 1960s BOCM used some converted 'plate' wagons, fitted with a high plywood body, to carry their palletised animal feeds from the Avonmouth plant. A photograph appeared in Model Railway Constructor Annual of 1983 (published by Ian Allen Ltd 1982, ISBN-0711012334)in an article by Paul Bartlett & Trevor Mann in the Paul Bartlett & Trevor Mann on the BR standard 'plate wagon' with a selection of conversions based on the chassis. Sadly I loaned my copy to someone who appears to have lost it, so I cannot attempt a sketch. From memory they had plain sides some seven feet high and were open topped (covered by a tarpaulin in transit).
The vans used for shipping out the bagged animal feed were often branded using a paste-on paper label bearing the company logo, his practice appears to have caught on in the 1930's (when suitable latex based glues were developed). A second rectangular label was also often added stating the name of the product itself. Examples of the logos are included below, for more on traders labels see also Livery - Introduction.
The country animal feed mills were a lot smaller (although still substantial buildings) and had no requirement for the oil tanks. They processed locally produced material and sold to a limited geographical area (see also 'Lineside Industries - Farming Related Industries - Animal feedstuffs').
Companies in the seed crushing business
J. Bibby & Sons Ltd.
Based in Liverpool, the company started as a seed crusher in 1830, it was called J Bibby & Sons by the later 1870s at which time they began to make 'compound animal meal' (possibly the first calf meal). By the 1880s they also operated a mill in Lancaster and (after a fire) rebuilt the Liverpool mill. By 1914 they were employing 2,000 people and selling a range of animal feeds. They operated a small fleet of tank wagons from 1933 (possibly earlier but their tank wagon No.1 was registered on the LMS in that year), the only examples I have found details of are described in Mr Tourret's book Petroleum Rail Tank Wagons of Britain (see Bibliography for details) which were black with white lettering and some fitted with steam heating coils. They got up to at least wagon No.7 and this livery is at least easy to apply.
Fig ___ J Bibby lagged tank
They expanded into soap manufacture and the provision of fats for domestic consumption in the late 1940s or early 1950s (Araby Soap was introduced in the mid 1950s). In 1968 the firm was bought by Princess Foods and later became part of ABN (Associated British Nutrition), which is part of Associated British Foods but as of 2005 the brand remains in use (as J Bibby Agriculture) in connection with animal feeds.
Fig ___ Bibby's feed sack showing logo and typical lettering
BOCM British Oil and Cake Mills
BOCM is the giant of the industry, formed in 1899 when several firms joined together, however the individual mills continued to trade under their existing names. In 1907 BOCM introduced the first hen feed (based on imported American corn) called Eggemon, the adverts showed this as 'Egg em on' and Kositos, a feed for horses, cattle and pigs. By the time of the First World War they were described as 'Crushers, refiners and manufacturers of linseed, cottonseed, rapeseed and other oils; manufacturers of linseed, cottonseed and feed cakes'. In 1926 BOCM was taken over by Lever Bros, but the existing trade names continued in use.
BOCM operated ten large mills in Britain, all with direct railway links. Major BOCM connected works were found at Manchester, Renfrew, Erith, Hull, Avonmouth and Selby. BOCM in the Green Diesel era of BR used stick-on labels (actually they were plain paper pasted onto the sides of the vans). The examples shown are all from photographs, I believe they were red as BOCM paid extra to have a coloured label on their black and white magazine ads in the 1950s, but I cannot be sure the wagon labels were so coloured. As well as the logo label they often added a simple rectangle with the name of the feed type (eg Kositos) pasted on close by.
Fig ___ BOCM labels used on railway vans
By the 1950s some tank wagons had been re-liveried for BOCM, I believe they just added a letter in front of the wagon number to indicate its 'home' mill (M for Manchester, S for Selby etc), however details of this livery are hard to find. BOCM & Silcock Lever Feeds merged to form BOCM Silcock Ltd. in 1969 but the plain BOCM logo remained in use. The fleet of rail tank wagons in BOCM livery, carrying everything from whale oil to molasses as well as their more usual products such as linseed oil for the paint works. At least some of these tanks were insulated and some were steam heated. The sketches below show what I believe was the livery used by the Avonmouth tanks in the 1950s, both variants co-existed. They are based on information from Mr Tourret's book, any errors are mine. The logo on the right is the standard BOCM company logo.
Fig ___ BOCM Bristol tanks and Logo
In 1969 BOCM & Silcock Lever Feeds merged to form BOCM Silcock Ltd. In 1992 Unilever sold BOCM Silcock to merge with Pauls Agriculture to form BOCM PAULS LTD..
Fig ___ BOCM Silcocks and BOCM Pauls logos
Olympia Oil and Cake Mills
Based in Selby this firm was part of BOCM but traded under its own name. They operated some 14 ton rail tanks for oil, after the war these were used to bring in molasses from United Molasses. In the 1940s they also leased some unusual road-rail tanks from the LNER. These pneumatic tyred tanks traveled in pairs on a special six wheel chassis. The Olympia name disappeared in the early 1950s, absorbed by BOCM.
Fig ___ Olympia Oil and Cake Mills tank
Premier Oil Extracting Mills Based in Hull and (I believe) part of the BOCM organisation, this company operated a small fleet of tank wagons from the 1930s. There is a photograph taken in the 1930s of one of their tanks in Mr Tourret's book on petroleum tanks (the tank was for carrying seed oils and fats, it was lagged and fitted with steam coils), however I am not sure of the livery as the photo may well show the wagon in the builders 'photographic grey'. If the photo shows the final paint job the colours may be as shown, however I am very unsure on this (most of these wagons tended to be black or dark red, although the BOCM tanks in Bristol had light red oxide body and solebars).
Fig ___ Premier Oil Extracting Mills tank
Foster Bros Oil & Cake Mills This firm operated in Gloucester (the mill was built in 1862) and although they formed part of the original BOCM operation they continued to trade under their own name. This mill closed in about 1955, after BOCM expanded their capacity in Avonmouth. I have not found any references to railway stock in this company's livery and I believe their products were shipped in barrels, drums and sacks mainly by barge.
Erith Oil Works
Established beside the Thames in 1907, initially dealing in whale oil, by World War One they were an established seed crushing business who also handled coconut oil and other materials. They became part of BOCM but although a likely candidate I have found no reference to rail tanks in their livery. The site is still an oil works owned today by Pura Foods Ltd, a manufacturer and supplier of edible oils and fats. This mill is no longer part of BOCM and I am not sure what the mill now does (it is described as an R&D site).
Aberdeen Commercial Co
Established in 1837, by the time of the First World War they were listed as 'Seed crushers, oil cake manufacturers, linseed and cotton oil refiners, chemical manure manufacturers, dealers in grain, coal, lime and feeding stuffs for farm stock.' I have found no references to tank wagons operated by this company. By the end of the 1930s they had been absorbed by Scottish Agricultural Industries (a large company set up by ICI in the 1920s dealing in a range of farm products including feed but mainly concerned with fertilisers).
Joseph Rank Ltd Joseph Rank of Hull set up in business as a flour miller in 1875, after his death the business became a private company in 1899 registered as Joseph Rank Ltd., by this time it was a flour milling and animal feeding stuffs business. They built a big grain elevator as part of their seed crushing business at Baltic Mill in Hull, part of which has since been redeveloped as a retail and entertainments complex, retaining much of the original structure. I understand that the mill in Hull continued to operate into the 1980s.
____________________________________________
^
Go to top of page