In 1967 the UK had one of the worst outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease in history. I was driving cattle wagons at the time and got an intimate knowledge of it. Suffice it to say it was a difficult and trying time.
Two forgotten corners stick in my mind from the time. The first was the immediate demand for the cattle wagons to be spotless and disinfected for every load. This was a bonanza for the manufacturers making disinfectant and they soon became scarce and prices rose. Somehow we managed this situation but was struck me was that right at the end of the epidemic it was 'discovered' that the most effective disinfectant was a solution of washing soda which was cheap and plenty was available. That always struck me as 'very fortunate' for the firms making regular disinfectants.
The other thing was the disposal of the bodies of slaughtered cattle. Almost always on the infected farm. For this to be done you needed fuel and the standard method of building fires hot enough to reduce the carcasses was a grid of creosote soaked railway sleepers reinforced by run of the mine coal. Both these were in plentiful supply, we still had a coal industry and so many railway lines were being ripped up that there was a glut of sleepers that up until then had been almost unsaleable. I know at least one haulage contractor who got his start sourcing and transporting sleepers for the fires. We got used to seeing large fires all over the country.
It became obvious that the availability of sleepers was a forgotten corner in the subsequent outbreaks of 2001 and 2007. The price of them had changed as well, the popularity of sleepers in garden renovations and the short supply naturally led to inflation and other ways had to be found to dispose of the carcases. This proved to be commercial incineration sites and rendering plants and anyone lucky enough to be in that industry had another bonanza! Haulage of carcases and disposing of them was a massive economic opportunity during both outbreaks.
I got a reminder of the sleeper forgotten corner much later when Gissing and Lonsdale were taking the Jubilee Engine out of its house at Padiham and moving it to Masson Mill. A ramp had to be constructed up to the level of the engine house.
I asked Terry Gissing where he got the sleepers from and he told me that they came from Poland and were very expensive. He resold them after we finished but there was no way they could have been used as an economic way of burning cattle!