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London & Brighton Railway carriages


5&9Models

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I'm beginning to feel like a bus,  I don't post anything for ages then a string of posts one after the other. I'm keeping the posts minimal to provide a bit of bite sized interest and to avoid boring you all with the same background for all the photos. Please bear with me, it's all I've got at the moment!

 

A few images of some early London & Brighton Railway stock. The open sided second coupe break (surely far too many titles for such a basic vehicle?) appears to be waiting for an engine of some description. The conductor (that's what they were called in those days) remains calm but his patience is wearing thin! The carriage lacks a few passengers, or perhaps the weather is so good they've all booked an open third, which conveniently leads on to the second picture. The third pic shows the roofed version of the same open third and there is an enclosed second version too, although I haven't photographed it yet. Perhaps a little job for this weekend. 

 

London & Brighton 2nd coupe break copy.jpg

London & Brighton open third copy.jpg

London & Brighton 2nd copy.jpg

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...those early vehicles are very characterful...and better still when so nicely modelled (and with a very convincing bunch of day trippers as well).

Kit PW

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I'm completely taken with this.  On 99% of layouts - including my own - figures are away from the train, or hidden in the shadows inside coaches and under cab roofs.  Here for once the railway and its passengers are fully integrated and visible together. They are literally crawling all over it! :lol:

 

Are these also your own figures? They are excellent, not least the guy having a good swig.

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2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Are these also your own figures? They are excellent, not least the guy having a good swig.

Thanks Mikkel. Yes, they’re my own figures. I was inspired by those lovely illustrations of excursion passengers having a good time, away perhaps for the first time in their lives from the daily grind. I wanted to show the whole spectrum of behaviour (and misbehaviour)! Hopefully I will get a few more done, somebody standing on the seat, someone leaning out waving, and so on.

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2 hours ago, burgundy said:

Surely, it is the cast from East Enders, from 170 years ago?

Good point! 

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Mikkel

Posted (edited)

Ideally you would want a figure looking dead scared at the horrendous speed. That will be difficult to model though, so alternatively someone with motion sickness leaning over the side :lol:

 

PS: Just noticed the chap holding on to his hat. Excellent.

Edited by Mikkel
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2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

... so alternatively someone with motion sickness leaning over the side :lol:

 

But where do I buy 4mm scale sick? The pieces of carrot would be tiny!

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Just a glossy stain down the side of the wagon, suitably swept aft, of course...

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Mikkel

Posted (edited)

This made me wonder what speeds trains were actually running at during the period modelled by Chris, and how that compared to the stage coaches that (some of) the better-off classes would have been used to?

 

This page says that stage coaches travelled at around 12 mph when they were at their peak in the 1820s (I assume that's on good roads and doesn't include the time taken to change horses etc).  I gather that the Stockton & Darlington ran at 12-15 mph in 1825, so not really a major increase in speed initially.

 

But by the 1840s/50s on the London & Brighton the speed would have picked up I assume?

 

(edited to correct my confusion over dates!)

Edited by Mikkel
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I don’t think the speed, per se, would have terrified me.  More the rather rudimentary brakes of the era...

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On 24/05/2020 at 06:51, Mikkel said:

This made me wonder what speeds trains were actually running at during the period modelled by Chris, and how that compared to the stage coaches that (some of) the better-off classes would have been used to?

 

I don't have a timetable for one of the early excursions but there are a couple of examples, which may give a clue.

There is a newspaper description of an early excursion train, arriving at Brighton on Easter Weekend 1844, with 3 locos and 33 carriages (there had been an extra loco for one part of the journey), a mere 1½ hours late. The scheduled time is not recorded but, in the early days, first class only trains, with one stop at Croydon, did the journey in 105 minutes, while mixed trains (with second class accommodation) were allowed up to 150 minutes.

In 1857, a 65 minute schedule was introduced for the very fastest train and this remained a benchmark for a number of years.

In LBSC Footplate Experiences, Curly Lawrence quotes an example of the G class single Lullington, with an excursion made up of 14 crowded open thirds, covering the 48.5 miles from London Bridge to Preston Park in 50 minutes. One of the Guards is recorded as commenting that “the light 4 wheel van wagging its tail at over 70mph gave him a queer feeling inside”. This sounds as though it was in the Billinton period, when block signalling and continuous brakes would have been in place.

Best wishes 

Eric 

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On 23/05/2020 at 08:12, Mikkel said:

Ideally you would want a figure looking dead scared at the horrendous speed.

Dr Lardner?

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I don’t have a complete timetable for all stops but I have the departures and arrivals for London Bridge and Bricklayers Arms for 19th March 1844.
Dep. LB: 7.30am, 11.30 (fast), 1.30Pm, 4.30, 5.30.

Arr. LB: 8.00am 11.00, 2.00pm, 4.00, 6.00.

Dep. BA: 9.30am (3rd class), 12.30pm (1st&2nd), 2.30 (3rd class), 3.30 (fast), 7.30.
Arr. BA: 6.00am (3rd class), 10.00 (fast), 12.00noon (3rd class), 3.00 (?class), 7.00 (3rd class).

The class for the 3pm arrival at BA is blank but I assume 1st&2nd, and I wonder just how fast the ‘Fast’ service really was? I would guess around 30-35mph average, ‘Fast’ simply meaning fewer stops.

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In 1840 the London & Croydon was covering the 10.5 mile journey from London Bridge to Croydon in 30 minutes. That included six intermediate stations and the steep incline at New Cross. Whishaw records average speeds of 20 mph on the line in 1839 excluding the stops. Early trial runs recorded speeds up to 40 mph,  but these weren't acheived in normal service until the atmospheric line was in place.

Taking into account (a) the short distances between the L&C stations and (b) improvements in loco power over the next few years, I'd suggest speeds around 30 mph would be fairly representative by the mid 1840s, with expresses hitting higher speeds on suitable stretches of track.

Edited by Ian Simpson
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