Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Would the 'Magazine Boots' possibly without hobnails which can cause sparks striking some materials. Sparks are generally to be avoided near explosives!

 

Don

 

Never did understand why "Ammo Boots", no-longer issue, so rare by my day and prized by those devoted to drill, were so-called because, with all their hob-nails, they were the last thing you would want to wear in a magazine for the reasons you make clear!

[phil_sutters]

Inspired by Chilmark and Dean Hill munitions depots, Newhaven & District MRC built this small scale, modern depot in 7mm scale/  9mm gauge.

 

 

You can see more about its history and the model's construction and some better photos here - http://www.newhavendmrc.com/club-layouts/farleigh-down-7mm-09/

Edited March 20, 2017 by phil_sutters

[Nearholmer]

"Magazine boots" had thick soles made of felt, I believe, and were worn as over-boots.

 

They were issued to working-class members, as they entered the periodicals section of public libraries in northern industrial towns, to avoid damage to the parquet, and noise that might disturb those reading.

 

As my father used, frequently, to repeat from a Goons sketch: "Do you have a long, felt want?".

 

K

[phil_sutters]

Whilst I can see that military small arms ammunition and small quantities of larger munitions may have been transportable by road, in pre-motorized road transport days, surely larger quantities of heavier shells would have been transported by rail. I am thinking of coastal batteries like Newhaven Fort and inland firing ranges as possible destinations. I suppose Newhaven could have been supplied by sea, but there must have been inland sites and coastal batteries without suitable port facilities that the railways would have been well placed to service.

Newhaven Fort was an innovative fortification, designed by a 22 year-old Lieutenant in the mid-19th century. Its history can be seen here. http://www.blighty-at-war.net/newhaven-defences.html  It is open to the public and has regular special events. The West Quay branch ran beneath the chalk cliff, out of which it was carved, winding its way around some of the lower level fortifications, but there doesn't seem to have been any direct rail link with the fort.

One line in this history of the Newhaven Fort is relevant and must have been true of other fortifications around the coastline of Britain -

The total ammunition capacity for the fort was thought to have been 2,678 barrels of gun powder and 5000 pre loaded shells.

Carting that lot, which included 9" & 10" calibre shells, even in partial loads, through the lanes of Sussex or other coastal counties, would have been a logistical challenge.

Edited March 20, 2017 by phil_sutters

[mullie]

Yes, it is an interesting subject, and I have never attempted 'scumbled' teak, so in due course we shall see. In 1905 I am in teak days and the coaches will date from 1880s-1890s.  The types that D&S produces were, from memory, c.1896-7.  So they should look fairly fresh and new - opposite end of the spectrum from Pott Row's more venerable coaches!

 

I note what you say about tea - I shall make some tea before I start, and see if I can't reproduce the colour!

 

It seems, however, that there is quite a choice of teas out there:  

Nice of you to mention the coaches on Pott Row, they are a modest effort on my part. The six wheelers are not even really conversions, simply as built with an additional axle, interior added and altered roof details. The four wheeler is a much more substantial rebuild based on a GE Society drawing. As I model the late 40s early 50s I was trying to recreate that elusive LNER brown colour that is different in every photo. I use a Tamyia red brown rattle can and didn't go too heavy with the weathering as strangely enough they seem to have been fairly well looked after in their final years. The colour is a good match to some photos I have but probably not to other photos of the same stock because of the vagaries of colour reproduction at the time. My clerestory coaches are more heavily weathered and a subtle variation of the colour from the same rattle can.

 

Martyn

[Caley Jim]

Would the 'Magazine Boots' possibly without hobnails which can cause sparks striking some materials. Sparks are generally to be avoided near explosives!

 

Don

That would be my thinking too.

 

Jim

[TheQ]

Large quantities of munitions were regularly carried by rail, normally in open wagons covered by a tarpaulin. From the nearest railhead they were loaded onto horse drawn, Later motorised lorries. This continued till beeching had his way. There are still military depots which are / could be still be used for this, they are still rail connected and are scattered around the country.

[Edwardian]

Whilst I can see that military small arms ammunition and small quantities of larger munitions may have been transportable by road, in pre-motorized road transport days, surely larger quantities of heavier shells would have been transported by rail. I am thinking of coastal batteries like Newhaven Fort and inland firing ranges as possible destinations. I suppose Newhaven could have been supplied by sea, but there must have been inland sites and coastal batteries without suitable port facilities that the railways would have been well placed to service.

Newhaven Fort was an innovative fortification, designed by a 22 year-old Lieutenant in the mid-19th century. Its history can be seen here. http://www.blighty-at-war.net/newhaven-defences.html  It is open to the public and has regular special events. The West Quay branch ran beneath the chalk cliff, out of which it was carved, winding its way around some of the lower level fortifications, but there doesn't seem to have been any direct rail link with the fort.

One line in this history of the Newhaven Fort is relevant and must have been true of other fortifications around the coastline of Britain -

The total ammunition capacity for the fort was thought to have been 2,678 barrels of gun powder and 5000 pre loaded shells.

Carting that lot, which included 9" & 10" calibre shells, even in partial loads, through the lanes of Sussex or other coastal counties, would have been a logistical challenge.

 

Well, I have a bit of a 'thing' for Palmerston Forts, with their casements and RML guns, and now you have shown me a picture of one with a railway line running round the base!  Great link, BTW. I checked out the maps for the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries; they show the line round the site, but the site of the fort itself is coyly left blank!

 

 

Nice of you to mention the coaches on Pott Row, they are a modest effort on my part. The six wheelers are not even really conversions, simply as built with an additional axle, interior added and altered roof details. The four wheeler is a much more substantial rebuild based on a GE Society drawing. As I model the late 40s early 50s I was trying to recreate that elusive LNER brown colour that is different in every photo. I use a Tamyia red brown rattle can and didn't go too heavy with the weathering as strangely enough they seem to have been fairly well looked after in their final years. The colour is a good match to some photos I have but probably not to other photos of the same stock because of the vagaries of colour reproduction at the time. My clerestory coaches are more heavily weathered and a subtle variation of the colour from the same rattle can.

 

Martyn

 

And spot on they are too, IMHO

[ChrisN]

To answer Don's question.  The Cambrian did have at least two, possibly three gunpowder vans which were Iron Minks.  I am not sure if they bought them from the GWR or made them themselves.  The build date is 1905, so too late for me.  They were used from Penrhyndeudraeth gunpowder factory.  I have no idea what they did before 1905.

 

Corfe Castle: just amazing.  Love the thatched roofs.

[Donw]

Large quantities of munitions were regularly carried by rail, normally in open wagons covered by a tarpaulin. From the nearest railhead they were loaded onto horse drawn, Later motorised lorries. This continued till beeching had his way. There are still military depots which are / could be still be used for this, they are still rail connected and are scattered around the country.

 

Donnington Depot had a rail connection still in use in the 80s . It was the truncated remains of the Newport branch and I saw a daily trip of a 47 with some speedfreight wagons down to the exchange sidings with the internal railway. I never saw a specific GPVs. There were specials which could include all sorts of things guns and vehicles on flat wagons. The IRA was rather busy at the time so I couldn't ask questions. 

Don

ps I case you think I am giving away secrets the BBC announced in 2015 it was t0 be increased as a key Military Logistics Depot I don't know if it still has a rail connection.

[phil_sutters]

Well, I have a bit of a 'thing' for Palmerston Forts, with their casements and RML guns, and now you have shown me a picture of one with a railway line running round the base!  Great link, BTW. I checked out the maps for the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries; they show the line round the site, but the site of the fort itself is coyly left blank!

 

The Fort is there on the 1938 OS map, published in 1940. Obviously not a top secret installation by then.

In looking through my own photos of the Fort, I came across these photos, taken in limited light through a glass case, of a model of 40pdr field gun mounted on a lightly armoured machine wagon. The wagon may well not be what was actually used, as I suspect that it was the gun that was the point of interest. I have tried to reduce the reflections of the 'spy' who took the photo by some judicious Photoshopping

I am sure that in the Seaford Museum, in Martello Tower, No.74, I have seen a model of a coastal defence train, but it is a time since I was in there and they don't/didn't allow photography. They may have given up now like other places that realize that they can't control phone snappers, in the way that they did cameras.

 

[Metropolitan H]

Yes, Magazine boots were (are) soft soled for just that reason. Most Gunpowder / Explosives vans had one or two pairs hung just inside the doors - so they could be reached without entry, before putting on for entering the van.

 

A good example of a shell filling facility and expolsives handling practices can be seen at the "Needles Lower Battery" on the Isle of Wight. Makes a good day out.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

P.S. - You all got there before I turned the page. Bother!

 

CH

Edited March 21, 2017 by Metropolitan H

[phil_sutters]

Yes, Magazine boots were (are) soft soled for just that reason. Most Gunpowder / Explosives vans had one or two pairs hung just inside the doors - so they could be reached without entry, before putting on for entering the van.

 

A good example of a shell filling facility and expolsives handling practices can be seen at the "Needles Lower Battery" on the Isle of Wight. Makes a good day out.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

P.S. - You all got there before I turned the page. Bother!

 

CH

One of the big advantages of transferring to the Naval Section in the CCF after basic training, was that they had rubber soled boots, rather than the army's stiffier studded ones, and they didn't have toecaps that had to be burnished with molten shoe polish. Studs didn't mix with steel decked warships.

[burgundy]

 

In looking through my own photos of the Fort, I came across these photos, taken in limited light through a glass case, of a model of 40pdr field gun mounted on a lightly armoured machine wagon. The wagon may well not be what was actually used, as I suspect that it was the gun that was the point of interest. I have tried to reduce the reflections of the 'spy' who took the photo by some judicious Photoshopping

I am sure that in the Seaford Museum, in Martello Tower, No.74, I have seen a model of a coastal defence train, but it is a time since I was in there and they don't/didn't allow photography. They may have given up now like other places that realize that they can't control phone snappers, in the way that they did cameras.

 

Newhaven Fort 40pdr rail gun model 21 10 2014.jpg

There is a long story behind the "Brighton Armoured Train" which has been documented a couple of times.

The First Sussex Artillery Volunteers had a company that was recruited largely from Brighton Works and their Colonel was a Director of the Railway Company - Colonel Goldsmid, who had one of the D Bogie tank engines named in his honour.

In about 1893, Captain Boxall, who was also employed at Brighton Works, identified a "spare" 40 pdr gun and designed an armoured mounting on a turntable, to fit onto a standard machinery truck. With the blessing of the company's Directors, Brighton Works then constructed the mounting, which had a recoil mechanism and jacks to the sides, which allowed the gun to be traversed and fired broadside to the track. A demonstration was given at Newhaven, to which all the great and good were invited. It was, of course, judged to have been a huge success.

Between 1894 and about 1899, the train appeared regularly at Volunteer Field Days across the South East, hauled by D Bogie "Goldsmid" and accompanied by a couple of elderly carriages for the gun crew, with armour plates along the roof to provide protection for "snipers".  It disappears from the records after 1899.

Although referred to as an armoured train, it was always employed as a rail mounted gun.

Best wishes

Eric

 

[The Stationmaster]

Donnington Depot had a rail connection still in use in the 80s . It was the truncated remains of the Newport branch and I saw a daily trip of a 47 with some speedfreight wagons down to the exchange sidings with the internal railway. I never saw a specific GPVs. There were specials which could include all sorts of things guns and vehicles on flat wagons. The IRA was rather busy at the time so I couldn't ask questions. 

Don

ps I case you think I am giving away secrets the BBC announced in 2015 it was t0 be increased as a key Military Logistics Depot I don't know if it still has a rail connection.

 

(see previous) Military explosives (of whatever class) were not carried in Gunpowder Vans but in standard, and quite ordinary, vans or opens - the exact wagon being dependent on the class of explosive.  For example most bombs, including napalm filled ones, were carried in sheeted opens (the idea of the sheet being to prevent sparks reaching the load).  Even 'components' (or definitely some of them - possibly all) passing to/from ordnance factories also passed in ordinary wagons.

 

After (but started on special authority during) WWII there were considerable differences between the quantities of military and non-military explosives allowed to be carried on one train - the limit was originally a maximum of 5 wagons (common to all explosives traffics pre 1914i) but by the 1950s up to 60 wagons of some classes of military explosive could be conveyed on one train.  I can remember a bomb dump being cleared up in Yorkshire back in the 1950s the bombs were brought into the local goods yard by the military and loaded to Hyfits then taken away in a (not too big) block load by a wheezing and clanking WD which had brought in enough empties to refill the goods yard ready for the next lot of bombs.  And in the late '60s when DeGaulle threw the Yank bases out of France thousands of tons of ammo were shipped across to England - there was a regular working from Tilbury which used to stand on the (bi-directional) Up Main Through Line at Reading waiting a path down the B&H at about 17.00 every evening and for several weeks all it carried were napalm bombs, a trainload at a time.

[corneliuslundie]

The Potts in its last reincarnation seems to have carried little else but munitions and soldiers going on and off leave. There is a good book about that period. And it is mentioned casually that chemical weapons were stored in a nearby wood (though at the time that was meant to be secret). I think they also came in by rail and I assume went out again the same way.

Jonathan

[Northroader]

On the Victorian coastal defences/ narrow gauge railway theme, Hurst Castle is worth a look at. It's at the West end of the Solent,approached across a long shingle spit from Milford on sea. (West of Lymington) it started off as a Henry VIII coastal defence, but was considerably beefed up in the Napoleonic and Palmerston eras. There's no standard gauge connection, but a small line moved the shells around behind the castle, a lot of it is still there, in a very rusted state.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurst_Castle

[Bill_J]

On the Victorian coastal defences/ narrow gauge railway theme, Hurst Castle is worth a look at. It's at the West end of the Solent,approached across a long shingle spit from Milford on sea. (West of Lymington) it started off as a Henry VIII coastal defence, but was considerably beefed up in the Napoleonic and Palmerston eras. There's no standard gauge connection, but a small line moved the shells around behind the castle, a lot of it is still there, in a very rusted state.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurst_Castle

 

There's another example of an Henry VIII fortification a little further East, on the entrance to Southampton Water. Also built at the end of a shingle spit and, also featuring a narrow gauge railway. The Royal Naval Air station at Calshot spit, is a little later than Castle Aching. The little 2ft gauge railway built by the contractors during the expansion of the air station during and after the Great War, was taken over by the RAF in 1919.

 

The Air station was particularly noted as the home of the RAF's High Speed Flight, and in the thirties saw the famous Schneider Trophy team and the Supermarine S5 and S6, fore-runners of the Spitfire.

 

Andrew Barclay, Sons and Co Ltd, class E 0-4-0 well tank loco no 1431 was given to the Talyllyn Railway in 1953, where it was re-gauged to 2ft 3ins and is still running today as No6 "Douglas"

 

When I lived there in the late 70s, there was still some evidence of the railway including the little three road engine shed. Unfortunately the few photo's I had taken at the time have been lost in many house moves and changes of circumstance since then. If anyone is interested Google "The Calshot Express"

 

Many regards to all, and thanks to you Edwardian for allowing these flights of fancy, space on your thread, and to the many commentors and contributors for freely sharing so much here.

 

Billj 

[Nearholmer]

18" gauge railways were used quite widely in British forts in the late C19th, and some, at least, were locomotive worked in part. This one had a loco worked line for a period, although it doesn't get a mention in, the well worth watching, video (scones and cakes are given due prominence, however) http://www.camdenfortmeagher.ie .

 

The French went completely OTT with narrow-gauge railway served fortifications, from about the 1880s, right up to the Maginot Line, which has more underground railways than most cities.

 

WIkipedia has a section on such matters, but it is very much incomplete and contains minor errors in the detail that it does include https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_military_narrow-gauge_railways

 

K

Edited March 21, 2017 by Nearholmer

[wagonman]

One of the big advantages of transferring to the Naval Section in the CCF after basic training, was that they had rubber soled boots, rather than the army's stiffier studded ones, and they didn't have toecaps that had to be burnished with molten shoe polish. Studs didn't mix with steel decked warships.

 

 

But you did have to press in all those weird creases in your bell-bottoms... I went for the Signals section – minimal squarebashing!

[C Davy]

Yes, it is an interesting subject, and I have never attempted 'scumbled' teak, so in due course we shall see. In 1905 I am in teak days and the coaches will date from 1880s-1890s.  The types that D&S produces were, from memory, c.1896-7.  So they should look fairly fresh and new - opposite end of the spectrum from Pott Row's more venerable coaches!

 

I note what you say about tea - I shall make some tea before I start, and see if I can't reproduce the colour!

 

It seems, however, that there is quite a choice of teas out there:  

 

The GER Teak Coaches can be seen at my RMWeb thingy

'C Davy's 7mm GER pre-Grouping Workbench'

As posted there the colour is very thinned Phoenix Precision Paints 'LNER Teak' over Halfords Vauxhall Mustard Yellow spray can. The apparent difference in colour between the 6-Wheel Brake Third and the close-up of the clerestory bogie coach is solely

 due to the overexposure of the negative (yes, it was a negative!) of the Brake Third.

I'm still concerned about the degree of enlargement of the clerestory coach as it brings out all the bad points of my painting. It doesn't look too bad in real life, honest!

Colin

 

   

[Donw]

Hurst Castle is Interesting but quite a long walk out to it I think it is nearer in this photo taken from near to Fort Victoria

 

 

 

There is also this place 

Pembury Country Park is on the site of an old armaments store some interesting structures and bits of track and there is a minature railway on the site run by a local MES at weekends I think.

 

It started as a Dynamite factory in Victorian times was producing TNT for WWI and WWII there was a connection to the GWR at Pembury on site were standard and narrow gauge lines. Some tracks of both are still to be see buried in tarmac.

 

Don

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

But you did have to press in all those weird creases in your bell-bottoms... I went for the Signals section – minimal squarebashing!

RAF section for me - none of those tiresome matters and the chance to fly in real aircraft.

[phil_sutters]

RAF section for me - none of those tiresome matters and the chance to fly in real aircraft.

I did have to press those multiple horizontal creases - but I did get to fly - as a passenger in a De Havilland Dominie - the RNAS version of the Rapide - from HMS Ariel, Lee-on-the-Solent out over the Isle of Wight and back. My greasy naval breakfast didn't make it all the way round. We didn't have a RAF section at our school.

The creases were to mark where you folded the bell-bottoms up to enable you to scrub the decks, which as schoolboy cadets we never had to do. Anyway no.8 uniforms were in use for most working tasks by then - lighter blue shirts and darker blue cotton trousers. So, as with a lot of things naval, the bell-bottoms and creases were more traditional than functional.

[Edwardian]

Brisk start to the day - clearing the snow from the drive and exercising the dogs.  Thawing now, but most of the snow still there as I sit dripping onto my keyboard!

 

Well quite a lot of posts that I shall enjoy catching up on.

 

In the meantime all I will say is that I have a fully developed and researched plan for a micro-layout set in a Palmerston Fort in the 1880s, but the MDF base is still at the old house and I cannot yet afford the NG kit I would need.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Edwardian