Compound2632

These have less detail than the Midland carriage marshalling books, which have enough information that one can usually identify the carriage diagrams - per the example posted above.

I'm pretty sure that a three-way, with overlapping switches, would only have been used in goods yards and would not appear, even trailing, on a running line. A tandem is like a tandem bicycle, one behind the other. What do you call a bicycle made for three?

Good to see a laid hedge modelled. Is it genuinely sheep-proof though? Is there any drystone walling in the area? As to the difference in pasture, there would be a number of factors, including whether the field was ever mown for hay or had had cows in it. I suspect the better pasture was always used for sheep, so kept well trimmed and fertilised, stimulating new growth. I look forward to DCC skipping lambs. Perhaps the poorer pasture could do with some thistles and cowpats?

Probably qualifies as sexist. If started at the fourth paragraph, might pass.

Every Kelvinside mantel had a pair, I'm sure...

Discreetly drawing attention to the - ahem - colour of the solebars...

I've found the efficient way to deal with this is to book something that you know will be of interests along with the thing that only might be of interest. Look at the speculative stuff first; if it turns out not to be interesting you've got the rest of the day to work on the definitely interesting stuff. But I have the advantage that I'm only 90 minutes away by stopping train, so it's not too big an expense.

Yes, that example is really two three-ways superimposed - or a tandem point and its mirror image superimposed.

Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night - at least with poor fuel and an inexperienced fireman.

But that's only one step in the handling process. I don't know about that. There was plenty of coal being transported by rail from the East Midlands and Yorkshire to London and places south thereof - a good 150 miles - and even further down to the South West. Where you got your coal from depended on what you were using your coal for. What is evident is, that however crazily inefficient the system looks to us now, it was efficient enough at the time.

Yes indeed - one sees them every day passing through Reading.

But that is driven by factors outside of the railway itself - the change from coal to electricity (and natural gas) in providing energy for industrial and domestic use.

Right, found it. My book is a collection of Rous-Marten's Railway Magazine articles, edited by Charles Fryer and published by Patrick Stephens Ltd in 1990. In October 1902, he wrote an article describing the new Johnson compounds, noting their affinity with the Worsdell No. 1619 - W.M. Smith does not get a look in. There he states that No. 2631, the Leeds-based engine, was working the 10:06am from Leeds and returning with the 3:55pm Glasgow Diner. The down train, originating at Leeds, had portions for Barrow, Glasgow, and Perth. It divided at Skipton and at Hellifield the two Scottish portions added carriages from Liverpool and Manchester and the Edinburgh train shed the Barrow carriages. It's unclear which half No. 2631 worked but the Edinburgh portion was van / compo / third (Leeds-Perth) / compo (Liverpool-Perth) / compo (Manchester Perth) - all M&NB 50 ft carriages per previous post) / Midland van, probably D530 (Manchester-Perth); load given as equal to 8.5 or about 130 tons tare. The Glasgow portion was a heavier proposition, so perhaps what the Compound took: brake compo / compo (Manchester-Glasgow) / van / 2 compos (Liverpool-Glasgow) / 2 compos / third / van (Leeds-Glasgow), all M&GSW 50 ft carriages apart from the vans, which were 6 wheelers, and the brake compo, a Midland 48 ft lavatory non-corridor carriage. This was equal to 12.5, about 200 tons tare. The return train was the 1.30pm from Glasgow. The formation of this had changed slightly from the photo in my previous post, being now all M&GSW bogie vehicles: van / third / third dining / first dining / compo / brake compo, equal to 11 (the diners being counted as equal to 2.5), about 170 tons tare. In November 1903, Rous-Marten wrote a 'performance' article. This is not reproduced complete, so I rely on Nock's Speed Records on Britain's Railways for the the information that the engine that attained 92 mph - 'several successive quarter-miles' in 9.8 seconds; one could wish he'd timed half-miles or even miles - was No. 2632. The train was the 11.50am from Carlisle to Leeds, about 240 tons, he says. In the Summer 1902 marshalling book, this was the 11.55am from Edinburgh and Glasgow to London: Midland slip compo brake (Edinburgh-Bristol) / brake compo / compo (Edinburgh-London, M&NB stock) / brake compo / dining compo / 12-wheel third kitchen diner / third / 6-wheel van (Glasgow-London, all M&GSW stock except the third diner), equal to 12, about 200 tons tare. The formation may have changed by the summer of 1903, or Rous-Marten may have been allowing 40 tons for passengers, luggage, and dinners. He also mentions another run from Hellifield to Carlisle with an afternoon express of 250 tons, in which 88 mph was attained coming down from Aisgill. This was probably the 1.30pm from London, the opposite of the 1.30pm from Glasgow described above, with a pair of 1893 diners and with the addition of a M&NB brake compo for Edinburgh, equal to 12.5, about 200 tons tare, according to the 1902 marshalling book. The 92 mph descending from Ribblehead is, I think, the highest speed for which Rous-Marten gives details prior to City of Truro's 100 mph in April 1904; he says it beats the 90.3 mph he got on the Nord with a de Ghlen Atlantic (another compound!) but he alludes to single quarter-miles at 90 mph and 91.8 mph (i.e. 10 seconds and 9.8 seconds on his stopwatch, which had a resolution of 0.2 seconds) with a L&Y Aspinall Atlantic. Elsewhere he alludes to getting 96 mph with a GW Atbara and a Midland Johnson Belpaire, but he gives no details.

I'm looking for my book of Rous-Marten articles. Meanwhile, here's a taster: posed photos, in Wye Dale in the Peak District, of the new corridor trains of 1899 for the afternoon Scotch expresses. These represent the extremes of the weight range. Glasgow express, made up of M&GSW Joint Stock: 31 ft passenger van number 203 (Lot 454, D568 - the corridor version of D530); 50 ft corridor third class number 203 (Lot 449, D564); 60 ft third class dining carriage number 1 (Lot 310); 60 ft first class dining carriage number 62 (Lot 365); 50 ft composite corridor carriage (Lot 450, D565); 31 ft passenger van (Lot 454, D568). The 12-wheel dining carriages are those built for the introduction of dining services on the London-Glasgow trains in 1893, modified with gangways to connect with the rest of the train. They remained on this duty until 1921. Note that the passenger brake vans were originally built with gangways at one end only; this was soon changed! [Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 64393.] Edinburgh express, made up of M&NB Joint Stock: 31 ft passenger brake van (Lot 454, D568) and 50 ft luggage composite (Lot 451, D468) (Bristol to Edinburgh); 50 ft brake composite (Lot 452, D566), 50 ft brake third (Lot 449, D564) and bogie dining carriage (Lot 440, D563) (London to Edinburgh); 50 ft luggage composite (Liverpool to Edinburgh); 50 ft luggage composite (Manchester to Edinburgh); 50 ft luggage composite, 50 ft luggage composite (all four Lot 451, D468) and 50 ft passenger brake van (Lot 453, D567) (London to Aberdeen). [Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 64394.]

No dining carriages of any sort? Ah, well.

Now you've got me on one of my specialist subjects... i suppose for this engine, we should be looking at 1902, for the summer months of which the Midland Railway Study Centre has a copy of the Anglo-Scottish marshalling book. There were morning, afternoon, and night trains between St Pancras and Glasgow, some with through carriages for Stranraer and for the Ayrshire Coast, and Edinburgh, some with through carriages for Aberdeen, Perth, and Inverness. Most of the carriages were M&GSW or M&NB Joint Stock, unlikely to be in your box of carriages; the later Bain 54 ft clerestories are likely to be the closest match. I'll have a rummage to try to work out which trains the first pair of compounds were used on.

There was, in 1919, a plan put forward by a Mr A.W. Gattie for an improved method of goods handling, known as the 'Gattie transport system', which I've not found very much out about but would appear to have been some form of containerisation. it attracted enough attention to be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, with a report published in December 1919. In a parliamentary debate, it was claimed that ' that the North-Eastern Railway Company asked Mr. Gattie to inspect their Hull Station and report on the possibility of installing his system there, and that Mr. Gattie reported that it would be necessary to clear away the existing station, thereby involving a capital outlay which the North-Eastern Railway could not undertake?' [https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1919-07-17/debates/724ebbb0-49cf-4f28-a666-a88f1a719fd9/GattieTransportSystem] It also completely ignores the subtleties of the coal industry: that many small communities required relatively small quantities of several different types of coal, from different seams within one coalfield and from different coalfields. Such small communities, or the coal merchants who served them, could not afford to have money tied up in large stockpiles of coal. One man could unload an 8-ton wagon in a day's work, hence avoiding demurage charges; the wagon would be back on its way to the colliery within a couple of days of arrival. It would take the same man a whole week to unload a 50 ton wagon which would be out of circulation for that length of time, tying up capital unproductively. How could that possibly be more efficient? What it all comes down to is that these big mineral engine fantasies depend on the MGR principle of operation, with a single large colliery supplying a single large customer. That was achieved in the 1970s, the customer being the CEGB, but by that time steam was dead. The conversion to electricity, with the National Grid, ought to have gone hand in hand with railway electrification - that's where governments chose to muddle through rather than tackling the problem. But I remember those MGR trains thundering through the centre roads at Oxford station in the 1980s, Class 56 roaring away at the head. A better engine for the job than any Mountain you can devise.

If anyone is inclined to question the presence of a Knotty van in Glasgow before the Great War, point them to Lt.-Col. Yorke's report on the accident at Gretna in the early hours of 14 May 1891: https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BoT_Gretna1901.pdf. Wagons in a southbound Caledonian goods train, Gushetfaulds to Carlisle, derailed, fouling the northbound line. (Which way is up, there?) A northbound Sou' Western goods train, Carlisle to College Goods, Glasgow, ran into this; fortunately there were only minor personal injuries but there was much destruction of stock, which is duly listed in the appendix. Damaged vehicles in the GSWR train were all GSWR and MR but the victims in the CR train bear witness to the goods traffic on the WCML: 10 CR, 5 NER, 6 LNWR, 5 L&YR, 1 GWR, and 1 NSR wagon. The latter was No. 2781, perhaps more likely to have been an open than a covered goods wagon.

If you're doing that, I'd like to see what you can get out of @eheaps's Smith-Johnson compound - can you better 2632's 92 mph sweeping down Ribblesdale with the Scotch Express... Perhaps what you need is a digital Charles Rous-Marten* figure with working stopwatch? *I don't know of that many famous New Zealanders but he's up there.

Ah, yes, I remember noticing that the twins carried the next two numbers after the real last class member, before they 'lost' them.

The rate of progress depends not only on man vs. machine but also on the geology.

Yes, those are only a feature of engines rebuilt with D or E boilers, and retained when those boilers were exchanged for the G7 Belpaire boilers. The D and E boilers were second-hand off Johnson 4-4-0s that were being rebuilt with the larger H boiler and were a bit longer than the B boilers originally carried. The 700 class were built without any sanding gear but once steam standing had become standard (from the mid-1880s) they were fitted with sandboxes under the front framing, with sand pipes to the leading wheels. I suppose that these got in the way of the modifications needed to fit the D or E boiler, or possibly it was felt that with the increased power of the rebuilt engines, better sanding was needed. Johnson's earlier 0-6-0s were also built without sanding but the later engines had sand boxes from new, either side of the centre driving wheel; these were of the same pattern as those fitted to these 700 Class engines but being mounted on the inside frames and partly hidden by the footplate valence, were rather less prominent.

In English, doesn't rhyme. 'Two little ducks', to which the congregation responds 'quack, quack".

You would have my father-in-law's sympathy - he doesn't rate the stuff, maintaining that other sparkling wines are better both in terms of price and quality. As an experimental psychologist with a keen interest in the fallibility of human judgement*, he maintains that the senses are tricked by the price and reputation. *His own excepted, I would say, but remember I'm his son-in-law.