Exactly a week ago at Steve's steam and mince pie do in Telford, I saw a second hand Pola loading platform on his Back2Bay6 stall. Just my cup of tea, loads of potential in that I thought. I got it home, gave it a tidy up (it was marked where some "loads" had been glued in place) and made the decision to turn it into a cattle dock - serving a largely rural community, the WGLR relies heavily on the transporting of livestock. The weekly market at Gooey and the annual Kerry sheep sales alone would be great little earners.
Just gluing a few fences onto the platform sounded like an easy job, but I learnt long ago that simple glued joints don't last very long out in the garden, so not only did each piece of fencing have to be cut accurately, but every single joint was drilled, pinned and glued. This took a few hours, has did the painting of the fencing when the glue had set (2 days work just for the painting).
So here are some photos of the finished job. Sorry they're dodgy indoor shots ............. for now.
The loading ramp end. Animals are herded up the ramp and the internal gates allow them to be placed in any of the 3 pens. Alternatively, the gates could be left open, making the pens bigger - although each pen is designed to contain the same number of animals as the WGLR's livestock wagons.
At the opposite end is a set of steps for routine maintenance staff to access the dock.
A view from the track side of the dock.
The livestock dock fully populated with Schleich cattle and sheep.
At the step end is a tap and hosepipe for topping up the animal's water troughs and cleaning up after them. Talking of troughs, I've got 2 that came in a farm set that I bought from the Early Learning Centre a couple of years ago. If anyone has one, I'd be interesting in buying it.
Just gluing a few fences onto the platform sounded like an easy job, but I learnt long ago that simple glued joints don't last very long out in the garden, so not only did each piece of fencing have to be cut accurately, but every single joint was drilled, pinned and glued. This took a few hours, has did the painting of the fencing when the glue had set (2 days work just for the painting).
So here are some photos of the finished job. Sorry they're dodgy indoor shots ............. for now.
The loading ramp end. Animals are herded up the ramp and the internal gates allow them to be placed in any of the 3 pens. Alternatively, the gates could be left open, making the pens bigger - although each pen is designed to contain the same number of animals as the WGLR's livestock wagons.
At the opposite end is a set of steps for routine maintenance staff to access the dock.
A view from the track side of the dock.
The livestock dock fully populated with Schleich cattle and sheep.
At the step end is a tap and hosepipe for topping up the animal's water troughs and cleaning up after them. Talking of troughs, I've got 2 that came in a farm set that I bought from the Early Learning Centre a couple of years ago. If anyone has one, I'd be interesting in buying it.
yeah, I had to shovel it when I worked on a cattle farm in North Derbyshire. 
and that tap stand is the biz too
