Guinness at Park Royal and its Railway
Guinness at Park Royal and its Railway
By Nigel Fitch
Nigel worked in the brewery in various production roles from 1970 to 1981. He was for all 40 years with Guinness/Harp/Diageo, based mainly in Park Royal, including being present for the brewery's last brew and closure in 2005.
Following Eddie Bourke's coverage of Guinness Dublin's railways, Nigel Fitch follows up with some notes and stories of the railway at Park Royal Brewery. This was the last brewery to install a private railway system and the last operational brewery railway in Britain.
Building the Brewery at Park Royal
It was distribution that would lead to the Guinness Board's decision to build a brewery in England. It had been mooted for a number of years and Manchester had been favoured, a site at Trafford Park had been purchased in 1913. However, a review of transportation costs led to the choice of the former showground of the Royal Agricultural Society, to be known as Park Royal in North West London. From Company files, Dennison and MacDonagh reported the financial case. With the primary aim to supply the London area, it was calculated a Manchester site would lose £45,000 per annum, but London would give a gain of £100,000. These figures from 1932 would be about £5 million today. Guinness had also looked at Thames Dock but, at £10,000 an acre, was too expensive. Park Royal would be £1,000 an acre and 132 acres were bought.
The Park Royal Industrial Estate was already taking shape. The site was chosen after careful consideration of many factors of construction, operation and distribution. For the latter, there were convenient road (A40 Western Avenue and the A406 North Circular Road); rail (Great Western Railway) and canal (Grand Union Canal) transport facilities. It came with space to allow for expansion and recreational grounds. Construction started in November 1933 and the first brew was mashed in February 1936.
The Railway layout at Park Royal
Unlike the Dublin Narrow Gauge Railway, the layout allowed traffic to move from the site direct into the national rail system. The railway was on the same spur off the main GWR line as the Park Royal Goods branch. The Brewery spur turned 90 degrees onto the Guinness property and into six parallel reception sidings, each capable of taking up to 45 wagons (12/15 tons each).
Working from south to north the lines were laid out as follows. The line to the Malt Store went into the building where wagons would be held for the day. Unlike the strict timing for vehicle deliveries of malt, barley (for roasting) and flaked barley, the rail wagons were offloaded through hoppers in between the rails when time allowed or there were gaps in road deliveries.
The line to the other side of the Malt Store was used for hop supply, either from farms or cold stores. Intake of whole hops from Guinness's farms tended to be concentrated around harvest. The spur also passed the spent grains area from the Brewhouse Annexe. In later years, three open spent grains wagons were only used for overflow/holding product.
The next spur was originally for coal for the Brewery Power Station and ash removal, but became redundant with the move to gas and oil as a backup in case of gas interruption. The Loco shed was added to accommodate 'in house' shunting (1948/49).
There were two spurs working the Draught Guinness Department, known as Top Bank and Bottom Bank. Top bank (South) handled empty (and occasional ullage casks/kegs), whilst the Bottom bank (North) was where full casks/kegs were loaded.
The lower spur also split to the tanker station for filling tanks on rail wagons. By the 1970s this was no longer used and CIP and ullage installations were placed over the rail tracks. Bulk Guinness by this time was being loaded out in Freightliners to be transported by road to the Willesden BR depot. A gantry was placed at the northern end to facilitate the loading and unloading of Transportable Tanks (41 barrels) for bottling. Smaller TTs of 14 barrels came into use which could be lifted by fork lift trucks and the gantry was removed in 1983.
Ian Peaty noted there had never been any railway signalling. Shunters were responsible for safe operation together with security at the main road entrance to the Brewery. Only one shunting unit was 'in steam' with the second held in reserve.
Shunting and locomotives
Prior to 1948, GWR handled all rail movements on the site, being run from Old Oak Common. I do not know whether rail nationalisation in 1948, or more likely increasing volumes had a role to play in the decision to set up their own shunting, but coincidently Park Royal bought two engines, named after the pre WW2 Guinness advertising characters Carpenter and Walrus. These 'Planet' Diesel Mechanicals 0-4-0s were built by F C Hibberd of Coronation Road, Park Royal with the first arriving in December 1948 and the second in February 1949. British Rail would deliver to and take wagons from the sidings.
On Tuesday, 22nd February, Guinness Time reported the Chairman (Lord Iveagh) drove one of the new Diesels (Walrus) from the Top Bank to the Bottom Bank cutting a red tape on the way. In honour of the occasion, H M Leyland (Deputy Chief Engineer) composed the following lines dedicated to 'The Walrus' and 'The Carpenter'.
- The time has come the Brewer said,
- 'To talk of many things'
- Of hoops – and staves – and metal casks –
- Of hogsheads and firkins,
- And why the steam is boiling hot,
- And whether tanks should singe.
- The Brewer and the Engineer
- Were talking on the 'phone,
- A name to give the new locos.
- And christen them our own.
- And whether letters be embossed
- Or merely painted on!
- The Brewer did suggest,
- Together with their coat of blue
- Would dazzle all the rest;
- And happy shunting would be met
- By the Diesels in the nest.
In 1985 Walrus and Carpenter were replaced by Lion and Unicorn. These were ex British Railways 08s (0-6-0 Diesel Electric). As a comparison, the Planet shunters had 144hp (horse power) with a top speed in 4th Gear of 11mph, whilst the BR 08s had 350hp and a top speed of 15mph.
All rail operations ceased in 1995. Lion and Unicorn stayed on site for a further two years before going 'on loan' to the Cholsey & Wallingford Railway which had taken Carpenter earlier. As of August 2022, Lion and Unicorn are operational with Carpenter 'under repair'. Walrus went to the Buckingham Railway Centre (formerly Quainton Railway Society) where it is a static display.
Rolling Stock
Anyone who had model railways from the 1950s will have seen the standard size of vans/wagons and other rolling stock getting longer and larger. A good example is grain. Up to the early 1970s normal capacity of hopper wagons was 15 tons malt or 20 tons barley. Deliveries were from large and small maltsters and I remember one small maltster used to supply four wagons in a season on the strength he drank Guinness (kept in a drawer in his desk)!
When the UK joined the EEC in 1973, European maltsters were keen to supply and following trials 50 tonne Polybulk long wheel base wagons came into use. There was much concern whether the large wagons could take the bends, as space had been taken for new buildings, trees, etc since the building of the original lines. Happily the wagons could be accommodated and supplies started to come from the near continent either direct by ferry and rail or barge to Tilbury and then wagon. Polybulk was then used by UK suppliers. Not all deliveries went smoothly as the derailed malt wagon can be seen from 1966!
The early 12 ton vans would take 117 Guinness draught casks. These were originally 11 gallon, though with the introduction of the Draught Guinness and its own integral gas system they were 9 gallon. The picture from 1964 shows casks being loaded by forklift. Later from 1969 30 ton vans would take 330 palletised casks.
The War Years
The in-house magazine Guinness Time in 1975 noted the effect on Park Royal Distribution during WW2.
"In December 1941 a voluntary scheme for transport economy was proposed by the Ministry of War Transport … Draught beer was encouraged, at the expense of bottled beer to reduce the bulk weight carried …… Early in 1943 the voluntary scheme which had been only a partial success gave way to a compulsory zoning scheme with boundaries local beers were not to pass. National beers were dealt with separately and their distribution unaffected. They were however urged to effect the utmost economy in the use of railway trucks and vehicles."
"Half of the Guinness traffic from Park Royal to Birmingham was taken off the rail and put on the canal in spite of higher costs and slower transit …… Early in 1942, with the railway companies, a system of 'nominated days of despatch' was instituted at Park Royal. All outwards rail traffic from Park Royal was grouped by town or district. Group consignments being forwarded on the week 'nominated' by the railway companies for each destination."
Cask and Tank deliveries
When the brewery started in 1936, all movement off site was by cask. David Hughes reports the numbers on site as 2,800 butts, 19,000 hogsheads, 350 barrels, 350 kilderkins and 120 firkins. Expected average turnround was 21 days. As volumes increased, the logic of moving to tanker was obvious. Outside of Burton, few breweries had their own railheads, so seven 40 barrel road/rail glass lined tanks were built by Dysons. The first delivery was in June 1949 to Newport (Thatcher's Bristol Brewery) and then other destinations such as Newcastle, Cardiff, Birmingham, Plymouth and Devonport. A train carrying tanks and casks could leave the Park Royal Goods Depot at 7.00pm and be in Newcastle on Tyne by 7.30 the next morning.
The Tanker Station for filing tankers on both road and rail was completed in 1953. By the summer of 1955, 80% of all beer out of Park Royal went by road tanker, which were typically 80 barrels.
Guinness Transport
The introduction in the 1960s of the rail Freightliner service from Willesden Rail depot may have helped concentrate the minds of the Transport Trade Union, which were still carrying over many restrictive practices from their days on the docks. By the end of the 1960s new productivity agreements were in place and road transport was in the ascendant over rail.
Changes, especially in the 1960s, but also in the 1970s, made road transport more economical as axle weights increased and this led to the steady decline in rail use. Guinness's business was also changing. In the early 70s sales of bottled Guinness matched Draught Guinness but by the 80s naturally conditioned bottled Guinness had gone. External packaging of Guinness and other brands (lager and ale) brewed in Park Royal was being increasingly done by road, culminating, as noted in the closure of the railway system in 1995.
Nigel Fitch
Sources and Further Reading
- All illustrations are from the Diageo archive except where described otherwise
- The Guinness Archive (Many thanks to Eibhlin Colgan)
- S R Dennison and Oliver MacDonagh: Guinness 1886 – 1989: From Incorporation to the Second World War (1998)
- Ian P Peaty: Brewery Railways (1985)
- Edward Guinness CVO (compiler): The Guinness Book of Guinness 1935-1985 (1988)
- M W Plumpton: Famous Breweries No 4 - Park Royal Brewery : Journal of the Institute of Brewing (Sept-Oct 1949)
- Ian P Peaty: Stout Work : Railway Bylines (May 2000)
- Brian Sibley: The Book of Guinness Advertising
- David Hughes: A Bottle of Guinness please (2006)