Transporting a boat by train....... Wrights of Ipswich

[Romeo]

My Dad bought a 12 foot rowing boat from Wrights of Ipswich in the early 1960s. ( a few years before I was born). Dad is no longer with us, but he did tell me that the new boat arrived by train, and was unloaded at out local station in SE Scotland. He told me that the boat (mahogany clinker) was wrapped in hessian sacking material, stuffed with straw.

Anyone ever heard of this before? Any idea whether it would have come on an open wagon, in a closed wagon, or in a goods van?

 

[Sumara of Weymouth]

I'm just reading a book about Uffa Fox. He used to deliver all his dinghies by British Rail apparently with no packing material. The maximum length was 14ft and this was partly why the 14ft racing class was so popular. Uffa Fox had a huge respect for the Railway Staff. Sometimes they would display one of his varnished dinghies on the platform at Waterloo just for people to admire. He never experienced any damage. Going off topic, the railways used to have theatre scenery wagons and scenery from London's West End theatres would often be dragged through the streets late at night to be loaded for a tour. If you look at well made scenery you will spot that the bottom and top rails run right across the frames and the stiles are tenonned into them. This is so no end grain faces down to the ground. Sometimes a hardwood running strip is added to save wear and tear. But I digress...

 

[debenriver]

During WWII pretty much all the boats that Whisstocks built for the Admiralty and the War Office (over 200 of them) went by train from Woodbridge station on open rail cars. There was a gantry and chain blocks to lift them on to a flat cart and they were then moved along the quay to the station and loaded on to the rail cars.

Cheers -- George

 

[LittleSister]

. . .
Anyone ever heard of this before? Any idea whether it would have come on an open wagon, in a closed wagon, or in a goods van?

Pretty much anything would have been transported by train at one time, including furniture, agricultural produce, animals large and small, and, of course, parcels and sacks of goods.

When the railways first started the roads were generally poor and very slow. They were competing with carts drawn by horses or cattle! (Not that I'm suggesting Romeo's dad's boat purchase was that far back!)

Sumatra of Weymouth mentions above a 14 foot length limit, but I'd bet that wasn't an absolute limit, but just the limit on stuff carried as some cheaper 'general light goods' type of class. I wouldn't be surprised if one could have had a yacht transported by train, at a price, and there'd be an absolute width and height limit because of track constraints..

 

[Wansworth]

Going by the modelrailways every small town had a goods siding

 

[fisherman]

Legend has it that in about 1920 there was to be a gig race on copperhouse pool at Hayle. The Cadgwith gig crew was renowned at the time , and the gig which came to race against them was left on the rail wagon when they saw the opposition. Legend has it. We do know that the gig was stored in a fish loft, a rock came from the cliff, through the roof and the gig, and that was the end of her. Called the Rose.

 

[DanTribe]

A fellow Stella owner told me that, in the 1960s, she and her husband sailed to a French port, Boulogne I think, and had the boat transported by rail to the Mediterranean.
The way she told it, she just turned up at the station and bought a ticket "two 1st class and a boat to Marseille SvP" and the railway did the rest.
I'm sure there was much more to it but she was a formidable lady and I didn't dare query her word.