HUGE SUPPLY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 282, 23 July 1932, Page 8

HUGE SUPPLY

MANY SPECIAL TRAINS PROYIDE LONDON'S MILK DEMAND. Some 240,000,000 gallons of milk are conveyed by rail each year to London and other large centres of population in Great Britain. Dozens of special fast milk trains are run daily, and in addition vehicles for milk conveyance are attached to many passenger trains. At one London terminus the number of churns of milk received daily is frequently over 4000. The empty churns have also to be promptly returned and special trains are often provided to take these back for refilling. Inlproved types of railway vans have been put into service. These specially-constructed vans have lattice or louvre sides designed to provide the maximum of ventilation, perforated zinc being fixed behind the apertures so as to admit the air but eliminate the dust, rain and sunshine. Great attention had also been paid to the design of the floors, which are composed of asphalt, decolite or other comp'osition. These floors can easily be washed out and disinfected after each journey, thus preventing any possibility of the milk becoming contaminated during transit. In recent years the conveyance of milk between certain depots has been by means of glass-lined metal tanks, with a capacity of 2000-3000 gallons. A large number of these tanks are now in use from various parts of the country, mainly to London, and each of the railway companies has made special arrangements for dealing with them. They have displaced many thousands of churns, although of course they are limited -in their application, and the smaller unit, the churn, is still used in very large numbers. From one place alone 9000 gallons of milk is dispatcljed in tanks every night a distance of over 140 miles, and is estimated to affect approximately a quartsr of a million London consumers a day. The bulk of the milk reaching London is conveyed over distances ranging from 40 to 100 miles, but large quantities are dispatched daily from Wilts, Gloucestershire and the West of England, StafFordshire, the Eastern Counties and the Midlands, South Wales, the Carlisle district, and Southern Scotland.