Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Judging by the LBSC, which, despite its keen use of electric lighting on some fixed sets, still had a large fleet of gas lit coaches, it would be unlikely that each branch would have a gas generating plant.  The Brighton had just 3 Pintsch plants, Brighton, Battersea and New Cross, and had a small fleet of just 15 tank wagons to distribute the compressed gas across the whole system.  Other lines were similar, with the GWR having a large gas generating plant at Swindon.

There would be incoming fuel to run the equipment, but the requirements were fairly small, as it only involved heating the naphtha to release the gases.

Although shale oil was a source of naphtha, I don't think it was a primary one, although it's a nice ploy to justify a Scottish wagon in East Anglia.  Naphtha was also a by-product of the coal-gas industry, and the vast quantities that would be available from the large coke and gas plants scattered around the Midlands and London would have been able to meet the local requirements. Since the Scottish shale industry virtually died out by 1914, there would have been a lot of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth if there had not been any alternative supply to keep gas-light coaches running for another forty years or so.

The travelling gas tanks came in many guises, and I would suspect that the twin-barrel version, as modelled by SEFinecast (M&GN-ish) and David Geen (GWR), was more common than the multi-barrel type like the familiar GWR Cordon (other lines are available) or the single or triple type.  In my opinion the single barrelled type, as per the suggested GER wagon, looks horribly modern and barbaric for such a genteel location and time.  I can't speak for other lines, but the Brighton specifically noted that they must not be conveyed by passenger trains without the special authority of the Superintendent of the Line.

The infrastructure for filling the tanks on carriages was usually fairly simplistic.  Often there seems to have been just a length of hose with connections to fit onto the fittings on the travelling reservoir and the carriage tanks.  Presumably the travelling tank would be placed in one position and the hose moved to reach each coach, as you can often see the hose looped back upon itself between tracks. At some locations, where the gas was generated, there might be more permanent arrangements.  At Swindon, the generating plant was some distance from the station, and iron pipework carried the gas to a series of stand pipes by the tracks where the filling would take place.

As for using the Pintsch gas for station lighting, I would have thought it unlikely, although not impossible. I suspect that the Pintsch gas would have been more expensive to produce than the cost of town or coal gas, and it was only used because of the special nature of carriage lighting, where its ability to maintain good lighting levels when the pressure ran low, as the tanks emptied, was a considerable benefit. Also the problems associated with oil lamps on the move were not significant at a station, where someone could easily light the lamps when it got dark, and fill them when required, and turn them off when no longer required.  It probably gave the porters something to do between trains!

 

Thank you, Nick.

 

That is most helpful.

 

Yes, I was assuming a single Pintsch gas plant for the WNR, but was debating where it should go.  Logically it should be at whatever the WNR's equivalent of Melton Constable is located, but that would have to be off scene, so no good. 

 

I have the potential to model 3 stations, ultimately:

 

- CA, which is a large village. 

 

- Fitching Junction, some distance from the village it serves and mainly important as the convergence of Bishop's Lynn, Wolfringham and Achingham east-west routes and the North-South mainline

 

- Achingham - one of a cluster of 'hams' in that part of Norfolk, it might most closely resemble Fakenham, but with a terminus that takes inspiration from a Suffolk 'ingham'.

 

CA station will be oil lit.  There will be no town gas and no street lighting at all.  Ditto Fitching.

 

Achingham was always intended to have town gas, and to have street lighting. 

Edited December 6, 2016 by Edwardian

[uax6]

The last installed sets of big open cells I saw were in use by two different concerns, BT at the time I left, 2003, still had equipment hanging off 2000Ahr + sets in some exchanges, and what was the CEGB had some glass tanked 3-500Ahr sets used for swtiching in sub stations.

 

These style batteries still have many advantages over newer types, but often they are outweighed by the level of supervision they require.

 

Needless to say that most telecoms equipment now hang off floated, valve regulated, sealed lead acid cells. (Ah the old 3VB11's! if I had a pound for each one I've handled over the years.....)

 

Andy G

[The Stationmaster]

I've an idea - but can't confirm - that the GWR also had a Pintsch gasworks at West London.  There were definitely quite large gas storage tanks there which lasted into the early 1960s and they were associated, from what i can remember seeing from passing trains, with another building. 

[Compound2632]

That is presumably to avoid having a facing point on the main line and all its associated gubbins. Such arrangements were not uncommon.

 

It's simply a trailing connection into the up (?) line, just that that immediately converges with the down for the single section to the junction - see http://maps.nls.uk/view/104192289. The layout at Braintree presumably grew like that at Rowsley - the original terminus became a goods-only station when the extension was built, with a new passenger station on the new line - but in this case resulting in a single-line junction that is a single point - not something the BOT liked - preferring junctions to be laid as double, which in this case would have meant extending the station loop beyond the junction.

[The Stationmaster]

It's simply a trailing connection into the up (?) line, just that that immediately converges with the down for the single section to the junction - see http://maps.nls.uk/view/104192289. The layout at Braintree presumably grew like that at Rowsley - the original terminus became a goods-only station when the extension was built, with a new passenger station on the new line - but in this case resulting in a single-line junction that is a single point - not something the BOT liked - preferring junctions to be laid as double, which in this case would have meant extending the station loop beyond the junction.

 

Surely it is not a junction as such - simply a trailing connection and duly arranged as such in order to avoid having a facing point leading into the siding (very common arrangement as already noted although not always with the trailing end that close to the single to double line (passing loop) connection. 

[Compound2632]

Surely it is not a junction as such - simply a trailing connection and duly arranged as such in order to avoid having a facing point leading into the siding (very common arrangement as already noted although not always with the trailing end that close to the single to double line (passing loop) connection. 

 

I agree - the junction between the old and new lines to which I was referring is a few hundred yards to the east.

[phil_sutters]

Thank you, Nick.

 

That is most helpful.

 

Yes, I was assuming a single Pintsch gas plant for the WNR, but was debating where it should go.  Logically it should be at whatever the WNR's equivalent of Melton Constable is located, but that would have to be off scene, so no good. 

 

I have the potential to model 3 stations, ultimately:

 

- CA, which is a large village. 

 

- Fitching Junction, some distance from the village it serves and mainly important as the convergence of Bishop's Lynn, Wolfringham and Achingham east-west routes and the North-South mainline

 

- Achingham - one of a cluster of 'hams' in that part of Norfolk, it might most closely resemble Fakenham, but with a terminus that takes inspiration from a Suffolk 'ingham'.

 

CA station will be oil lit.  There will be no town gas and no street lighting at all.  Ditto Fitching.

 

Achingham was always intended to have town gas, and to have street lighting. 

Highbridge Somerset & Dorset had a very neat little gas works, as can be seen in 'Highbridge in its Heyday' by Colin Maggs. It served both the station and the works, I believe. My picture shows the main building as it remained in the 1960s. The gas holder was long gone by then. I have not yet established when it was built, but it was there in 1921.

Edited December 7, 2016 by phil_sutters

[Donw]

The last installed sets of big open cells I saw were in use by two different concerns, BT at the time I left, 2003, still had equipment hanging off 2000Ahr + sets in some exchanges, and what was the CEGB had some glass tanked 3-500Ahr sets used for swtiching in sub stations.

 

These style batteries still have many advantages over newer types, but often they are outweighed by the level of supervision they require.

 

Needless to say that most telecoms equipment now hang off floated, valve regulated, sealed lead acid cells. (Ah the old 3VB11's! if I had a pound for each one I've handled over the years.....)

 

Andy G

 

Around 1970 working in the then GPO zone switching centre at Reading the exchange  had a 50v battery comprised of wet lead cells this was floated with a three phase transformed and rectified 50v Dc supply. It was expected to be able to deliver 2000A for 10 hours in case not only the main supply failed but the diesel generator which started automatically if the mains was off for a few minutes also failed. In fact there may have been two sets of cells so one could be off line for maintenance.

The cells were each larger than a domestic fridge giant square glass jars with the lead suspended in the acid. The cells were kept topped up with de-ionised water and I seem to remember some carboys of acid around.  All exchanges had something similar but with smaller cells  according to the load. Not all would have had the generator. The 2000A load may seem high but the switching centre was Strowager electromechanical switches hundreds if not thousands  plus all the subscribers lines, the amplifiers etc of the transmission equipment for trunk circuits, ringing current and tones. Today's digital exchanges would need a fraction of the load.

I wonder what happened to all that stuff. Incidentally Carboys of acid seems to be a rarely modelled load.

 

Don

[uax6]

Some of that stuff is still about Don. I have had a fair few UAX's through my hands in the last 15 years, and I have a friend who is building a main non-director exchange in a spare building at his work place. Last time I saw it he had completed building the ringer racks, and was moving onto the line ccts. He's looking for some directors to add at the end of a rack, we've managed to locate most of a set of 1930's ones, and we have a lead on some 1970's ones too. It's amazing whats still about (and still in exchanges!). Mind you ND exchanges are fairly thin on the ground, the lovingly preserved Worksop exchange (Original exchange in its original building) got moved to storage, and a couple of racks have appeared at the Milton Keynes Museum, but sadly the way its displayed doesn't give you the feel of what it looked like in the real exchange.

 

I wish I could find a copy of the BT power section video on the new power plants (2020 and 2030's, the ones that take the 3vb11 cells for system X) that showed you what happened when various fault conditions were applied to the power plant. If I remember they had three 2020's connected in parallel (which gives rectifier capacity of about 300Amps @56.5v, and 9 strings of batteries, giving about 900Amps) and they then proceeded to apply things like full shorts to the main feed busbars, or to reverse batteries etc. The main results were lots of arcs, bangs and fires!

 

Back to topic a bit more, didn't the Midland railway have a gas works at some small place on the Settle-Carlisle?

 

Andy G

[Donw]

A spanner dropped across busbars (2 pieces of 6inch x 1 inch Aluminium running along the frame) just vapourised. A metal watch strap touching across busbars took someones hand off. 50v is safe well usually!

 

Don

[uax6]

And a crowbar dropped across the main busbar from the battery again just vapourised.

 

I think the job I would have hated most would have been to replace either the main fuse or a sub-main fuse, each carrying hundreds of amps. I bet there was a fair arc and a large chance of a bang if too main selectors had been left with the wipers 'in the bank' (ie the fuse had gone while the selectors where on a call. the first think that would happen with the power restored would be for them to 'self-drive' the wipers out of the banks to reset themselves, the magnet being something like 50ohms, drawing about an amp. now if you take one rack as having 50 odd selectors on, and there being possibly ten racks per fuse, that's a lot of amps when you are trying to put the fuse back in!).

 

I think I would have been quick to suggest manually restoring the selectors......

 

Andy G

[TheQ]

You lot seem good at throwing things at battery stacks, I wonder why I  used always to wear rubber strapped watches, and no jewellery. Also the requirements for battery packs on the broads are that there is a insulating cover, I wouldn't fancy shorting my 48V 500AH battery stack..

 Try changing 3 phase contactors live, now that is hairy....

 

 Following on from this discussion, should there on CA (well, Achingham) be a small telephone exchange with a light trail of smoke coming from it?

Edited December 7, 2016 by TheQ

[Nearholmer]

Can I put a proposal before my fellow members of the Lead-Acid BatteryvAppreciation Society?

 

That the Society holds its annual winter bean-feast at a charming little place called Castle Aching.

 

K

[Edwardian]

Can I put a proposal before my fellow members of the Lead-Acid BatteryvAppreciation Society?

 

That the Society holds its annual winter bean-feast at a charming little place called Castle Aching.

 

K

 

An Acid band?  In Castle Aching?!?

 

Of course, you would all be most welcome.

 

Once there is something to welcome you to, of course .....

[Caley Jim]

An Acid band? In Castle Aching?!?

 

Of course, you would all be most welcome.

 

Once there is something to welcome you to, of course .....

And until the WNR gets its tracks laid, getting the vast hoards attending to the venue would pose something of a problem!

 

Jim :-)

[nick_bastable]

A  rail replacement service would work

 

 

 

may I ask a question as to peoples feelings about figures on layouts?  Line No20 is due to appear on a mini  2mm display at the Canterbury Model Railway show next month,  it will due to a lack of reliable steamers be run in preservation mode ( look away I mean DMU's    )  as envisaged the layout  was not due any population,  question is on a preservation line should I add some for this occasion ?

 

Nick

Edited December 7, 2016 by nick_bastable

[TheQ]

it's not often that a preserved railway would run trains without punters, I would add some if it does not mean damaging the platforms for your future use.

[Nearholmer]

I was thinking that the (admittedly out of period) vehicle below would be more than large enough to accommodate the members of the LABAS, along with all their well-thumbed back-numbers of 'The Accumulator and Primary Cells Gazette' ( actually, there is an ephemera shop near here, which actually has a stack of copies of a journal of that kind, from the 1920s/30s, which have remained unsold for all the twenty plus years that I've been popping into the place).

Edited December 7, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

Would there be a splinter group meeting for NiFe battery enthusiasts is a pub down the road from the lead acid crowd? It could lead to ugly scenes, otherwise.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Northroader

[uax6]

Surely LABAS would have a vehicle something like this:

 

Now where do I join?

 

Andy G

[Caley Jim]

Surely LABAS would have a vehicle something like this:

Now that's what you call a horseless carriage!  

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

Actually, can I suggest a Lohner-Porsche Mixte? Massively high-tech, and also in-period.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Nearholmer

[ChrisN]

A  rail replacement service would work

 

 

 

may I ask a question as to peoples feelings about figures on layouts?  Line No20 is due to appear on a mini  2mm display at the Canterbury Model Railway show next month,  it will due to a lack of reliable steamers be run in preservation mode ( look away I mean DMU's    )  as envisaged the layout  was not due any population,  question is on a preservation line should I add some for this occasion ?

 

Nick

 

I would always have figures on the layout.  In preservation mode could the figures still be dressed as in steam days?  This way if you had to attach them with anything stronger than Tacky Wax they could stay there.

 

(Note: I am biased, I was painting my figures before I had any track, proper era carriages or engines.  Come to think of it I really still only have the figures.......)

[Shadow]

Thete is an article in "The Engineer" from 09 September 1898 that has details of an acetylene generator made by Pintsch's Lighting Company.

 

Page 258 in downloadable .pdf available here. Near top of page.

 

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/The_Engineer_1898/09/09

[Shadow]

Been doing some more research (I.e. time wasting) on the GracesGuides website and found some background info on the "Eastern and Midland Railway" line from Yarmouth via Norwich to Lynn and beyond. 1885 Aug edition of "The Engineer" page 100.

 

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/The_Engineer_1885/08/07

 

 

Still amazes me what you can find on-line! Can see a few more hours research going on there.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Shadow