The Explosive Store Houses (ESH) at some ROF are within the main area [such as at Thorpe Arch] and others are in a separate compound as here.
A Double Sided Rail Fed ESH at Kineton before the re-build (only one now remains as an example for the training school.
I worked at CAD Kineton before it was totally rebuilt in the early 80's and it had a mix of double sided and single sided ESH's (Rail though the middle with stacks either side, or track down one side with all stacks to one side) When these were first built all movement in and out of the ESH was by labour gangs, loading & unloading railway waggons and stacking boxes to the roof between the pillars on 2" x 2" Dunnage to clear the floor. If the containers were cylinders they would be 'pyramid stacked' as in the picture.
In the late 60's when ammunition started to be palletised, the problem was how to get the pallets in & out of these ESH's so a solution had to be found how to get the Fork Lift Trucks (FLT) into the shed? So at Kineton at least (and Nesscliffe & Longtown so far as I know) a hydraulically ramped rail transporter was developed to carry electric FLT's complete with battery chargers [Called Burtonwood after the officer who designed them] Problem was you needed two because you never knew if it was a right or left handed platform you were working on! but this was a minor problem, and better than shunting the damn thing for miles to turn it round! So we shunted them in pairs each with its own FLT, one facing left & one facing right. Later we had a 'War-Flat' with Radcliffe Tail Lifts staggered on either side.
Hand Balled Ammunition Stack on Dunnage
A Burtonwood FLT Transporter
The other problem was that the buildings were on uneven ground, and the variation between the railway track and the platforms were not always the same hight and could be as low as 6 inch's at one end of an ESH. Anyway you could get up to 14 pallet widths into an WW2 Rail Fed ESH down one side between the pillars, but efficient storage it was not, and it was the need for better storage ESH's that led first to the closure first of CAD Corsham (underground and all hand balled) then Nesscliffe with Kineton being earmarked for a multi million re-build.
So you can see why the MOS also abandoned their old ESH sites as well. One or two continued on as Ministry of Food Emergency Food Depots.
Modern 'High Density' Road Fed ESH's at Kineton today (In almost the same area as picture one!)
Phone Boxes are because Mobile Phones (& Digital Cameras) are banned from the Explosives Area.