Castle Aching

[RedGemAlchemist]

Whilst relaxing with an afternoon cuppa and bun, I mulled over possible traffic for Castle Aching.

Well, the usual thoughts for Norfolk come immediately to mind (livestock, various produce, that sort of thing). Also I'd expect some stone traffic from its neighbours, though considering the time period that would be quite light at the KLR is just finding its feet circa 1905 and Alnerwick Quarry has no permanent resident engine until 1910. Guano of course too. Pyramid building stuff. That sort of thing.

Edited August 14, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[Compound2632]

Coal, coal, coal.

[Hroth]

That is hysterical!

 

Edit to add: the things we did when we were young- no elf ‘n safety in those days: how are any of us still alive??

WE survived because when we did things like that, we also applied a little common-sense.

 

The terminally stupid were thus weeded from the gene pool.  Nowadays, said pool is getting a little mucky...

Coal, coal, coal.

Not Spam?

[RedGemAlchemist]

Not Spam?

Yes, sir. And what would you like that with?

[Roger.s]

What lengths of rail were common in the 1900s? and which wagons would have been used to transport them across country, bearing in mind that keeping the rail straight would be desired (I think!! )?

 

The Great Eastern where using 30ft rails with 11 sleepers per length. In about 1904 the number of sleepers to a rail was increased to 13 because of the heavier Clauds coming into service. 

 

There is a thread on templot which gives much more information.

 

http://www:85a.co.uk/forum/view_topic.php?id=965&forum_id=1

 

Regards Roger

Edited August 14, 2018 by Roger.s

[Compound2632]

Not Spam?

 

I believe spam (in any sense) is post-Edwardian. Even if it wasn't - or even in this day and age - would it be one ton per inhabitant per year?

[Edwardian]

Two bits of metal rammed into a camp fire at an angle of about 60° as launch rails, then put your tin of food at the base of the launch rails and hide behind suitable low hummock or bushes. I once got a bean tin over the river Tyne*

Trying it with an out of date 5kg catering tin of beans results in every tree for about 30' having a coating of half Beans stuck on one side and the remnants of the fire spread over a similar area... The sound was impressive though.

 

* Ok, technically only the south Tyne at that point, but still...

 

Excellent

[runs as required]

Talking of the Great Eastern and the making of rails we ought to recall Cecil J Allen

From Edwardian Times he was the GER's Inspector of Rails at Workington - a long way away from Liverpool St and Stratford, hence all his gash train travel in his long-running British locomotive practice and performance article series).

He was my fount of all railway info. from about the age of 8 or 9 in Meccano magazine, later the Railway Magazine.

I reckon I first learnt from him how to judge train speed by counting rail joints -  check here:

 

Rail joints used to be the easiest way of finding out the speed of your train. By counting standard rail joints of 20yds and ensuring you start counting at zero and not ‘one’ Simply count  the joints in a given time and work out the V=D/T formula. There are some shortcuts available. Count the joints in 20sec  and double the figure to get the approximate miles per hour. Or take the time over 22 joints and use it like quarter-milepost timing. Beware of short  rail lengths that are sometimes used. With the advent of continuous welded rails, and the quality of modern welding, this method does not work very well,

although it remains the best way of trying to estimate the maximum or minimum speeds in tunnels

I always preferred the alternative of gazing out the window and dreaming

dh

Edited August 14, 2018 by runs as required

[Compound2632]

Presumably written at a time by which 60ft rail had become standard at least on those main lines where there might be some fast running worth timing - 1920s/30s? I note most of his books were published in the 50s and 60s, presumably after his retirement from railway employment.

[Nearholmer]

CJA wrote quite a bit of MR&L, 1909-15, effectively covering prototype matters bearing on modelling, while Greenly covered model-making itself. Between that and RM, he probably used-up his spare time. I think he drew some of MR&L artwork, with Twining and Greenly covering the rest.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Nearholmer

[corneliuslundie]

I cannot claim to have been in the same class as you pyromaniacs. But at secondary school we produced time fuses for bangers using potassium permanganate and placed said bangers with lighted fuses in convenient airbricks close to he master on duty, duly retiring to a same (and obviously innocent) distance.

And we used to go down to the River Taff in the lunch-hour (itself illegal if one took school lunches) and set off rockets powered by fuels such as powdered aluminium, magnesium etc. We could buy all these chemicals over the counter at the local chemical supplies company, no questions asked.

Hang on, haven't we been here before a few hundred pages back?

Jonathan

PS So it is 30 ft rails for Nantcwmdu. Lots of nicking to do in due course. mind you I think that is the template I made some months ago, Deja vu again.

The GWR was certainly building 45 ft long ail wagons by the early part of the 20th century.

[Caley Jim]

Re American Chocolate.  I've only ever tried Ghirardelli's, and that's proper chocolate.

 

Jim

[RedGemAlchemist]

Re American Chocolate. I've only ever tried Ghirardelli's, and that's proper chocolate.

 

Jim

That's because it's Swiss. They're the American distribution arm of Lindt.

 

Trust me, I know my chocolate.

Edited August 14, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[corneliuslundie]

Back on CA, what I was really thinking about was not what might be produced in the CA area for export by train but what might have been brought in by train, to justify wagons from various companies, such as those LNWR examples. We have previously discounted flour. Coal would come from the East Midlands I should think, but in PO wagons. The occasional delivery of shoes from Northampton (LNWR van)? Hats from Dunstable (in LNWR or MR vans). Fabric from Lancashire and Yorkshire (various companies, but an excuse for an LTR van). Any thoughts? 

Even though they were much more common I am finding it difficult to find a use for "foreign" opens.

Jonathan

Edited August 14, 2018 by corneliuslundie

[Edwardian]

Back on CA, what I was really thinking about was not what might be produced in the CA area for export by train but what might have been brought in by train, to justify wagons from various companies, such as those LNWR examples. We have previously discounted flour. Coal would come from the East Midlands I should think, but in PO wagons. The occasional delivery of shoes from Northampton (LNWR van)? Hats from Dunstable (in LNWR or MR vans). Fabric from Lancashire and Yorkshire (various companies, but an excuse for an LTR van). Any thoughts? 

Even though they were much more common I am finding it difficult to find a use for "foreign" opens.

Jonathan

 

Excellent suggestions.

 

Might coal also come:

 

(i) Via sea to Wolfringham Staithe and, perhaps thence via the Norfolk Minerals Railway?

 

(ii) Via rail from Yorkshire coalfields from the GB-GE Joint Line?

[Compound2632]

Coal would come from the East Midlands I should think, but in PO wagons. 

 

By no means exclusively - it would depend on the use to which the coal was being put. We've already seen that James has some PO wagons from South Wales anthracite collieries - preferred by the brewing industry on account of being low in toxic components. North Warwickshire coal was favoured by the biscuit industry - certainly I'm reasonably happy with the deduction that Huntley & Palmers were getting their coal from there and as we've learnt, they have recently taken over the local biscuit firm... Coal from these two areas would, I think, arrive via the Midland (D299s as well as PO wagons) and M&GN route, whereas domestic and I think gas coal might be coming from Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire, over the GN & GE joint line and thence the GE connection to the WNR. 

 

What is the population of CA and environs? The gasworks isn't actually at CA but coal for there has to be worked in and out, if I've understood correctly. One ton per inhabitant per annum for domestic use, and the same again for domestic gas, for those inhabitants with a supply. (The latter might be an over-estimate of consumption for 1905 - probably only used for domestic lighting and possibly cooking but not heating?) That's before counting up the industrial consumption.

[corneliuslundie]

Yes, you may well be right about sources of coal. I had forgotten too about coal by sea, which was always a strong competitor for that by rail. Anthracite for brewing, yes, and maybe for other industries where arsenic was something to be avoided, but relatively small quantities compared with house and industrial coal. Some collieries actually produced different types of coal from different seams. Then there is a;so the matter of coal factors and agents, who also owned wagons. So the coal might not arrive in a colliery wagon.  Firms such as Moy and the Peterborough Coal Company come to mind for East Anglia, though I am sure there were others. Especially, the gas works would probably have used a factor to source its coal. This might arrive in a ix of the factor's and the colliery's wagons.

Other thoughts. Occasional deliveries of china from the Potteries (NSR), salt from Cheshire (PO), pipes from firms such as Stanton and Staveley (separate at that time I think), etc, but all in fairly small quantities, so not daily wagons.

Can anyone think of goods which might come from the Southern Counties, ie SER, LCDR, LBSCR, LSWR? 

Jonathan

[Andy Hayter]

Strictly antharacite for malting.  Brewing could be done with steam coal.

 

The difference being that the hot vapour from the burning process passes through the barley on the malting floor. whereas in brewing coal is used to heat water a bit like a kettle and the gasses do not come in contact with the water.

[Guy Rixon]

Back on CA, what I was really thinking about was not what might be produced in the CA area for export by train but what might have been brought in by train, to justify wagons from various companies, such as those LNWR examples. We have previously discounted flour. Coal would come from the East Midlands I should think, but in PO wagons. The occasional delivery of shoes from Northampton (LNWR van)? Hats from Dunstable (in LNWR or MR vans). Fabric from Lancashire and Yorkshire (various companies, but an excuse for an LTR van). Any thoughts? 

Even though they were much more common I am finding it difficult to find a use for "foreign" opens.

Jonathan

 

Many, many small domestic items from Birmingham ("we make everything here") and elsewhere in the West Midlands. Needles from Redditch, for example. All these small items travelling in packing cases loaded on sheeted opens. Many of these would shown up MR wagons via the M&GN.

 

Ferrous castings for finishing in local industry, from the Black Country, or from other centres of heavy industry. Would the carriage costs outweigh a cheaper bid from, say, a Scottish foundry?

 

Farm machinery from the Coventry region, where there were some significant manufacturers. Large items on flat or well wagons, but smaller assemblies sheeted in opens? Probably dispatched via the LNWR.

 

Electrical equipment, from where? Quite possibly from London, so possibly conveyed by the GER. 1905-ish is around the start of the period where a new works might choose electrical power in place of a mill engine and line shafting.

 

Bricks, from Fletton, because they've recently become cheaper than the local product (assuming that the CA region even has the right kind of clay for bricks). Packed in straw in opens, presumably of the GER since their line goes bast the brick fields. Earthenware drainpipes, for the same reasons, but probably coming from a different origin; conceivably in GCR wagons from South Humberside where there were many ceramics works.

 

Slates, from Wales, in the Cambrian wagons with their pretty livery.

 

Potatoes from Lincolnshire, in sheeted opens of the GCR or GNR; but only in season.

 

Paper, as cut sheets, or made up into exercise books or ledgers. Presumably in sheeted-over crates, but I don't know where the paper mills were in 1905. I strongly suspect that one of the towns in the CA area has a printing works; they were quite common.

 

Fish, from Grimsby, probably via the GNR, in their distinctive vans.

 

Imported fruit, especially bananas, via London, since that were most of the dedicated banana trains went. Not sure if the 'nanas would be forwarded in whole van loads using the special vans.

[Andy Hayter]

Deliveries from Kent:

 

Fruit to jam making factories and for direct consumption

Hops for brewing

Possibly steam coal from the East Kent Coal field - but equally perhaps by Thames/Medway barge up the coast.

Oysters from Whitstable

 

Hampshire

Watercress.

 

IOW

Royalty delivered from Osbourne House to Sandringham

 

South West

Milk products - cream, cheese etc.

[Northroader]

Some ideas for your goods traffic, first wagon is incoming coal on a MR wagon (not one of those poncey wagons out of the diagram book) next a load from dawn sarf. This is the way goods travelled, sheeted over in an open wagon, and nobody knew what the hell it was carrying, but it would be there just the same. Nextly something more exotic, folks moving house, using a pantechnicon on a flat, could be from any part of the country. Lastly, and don’t look at the provenance, as it was Routier du Nords bright idea, an open with a sheeted load, much higher, and obviously animal fodder, usually in local wagons coming or going.

[Regularity]

Don’t overlook coal traffic for export: quite a lot went out via Lynn, certain Notts P.O. wagons such as Grassmoor colliery.

[Caley Jim]

A possible reason for Scottish wagons could be delivery of stone, especially for public buildings or for the local monumental mason.  Perhaps the company building the pyramid were using Aberdeen granite (I can't recall the name and it's too far back to look it up!). Many London buildings, including IIRC the Bank of England used stone from Chalmers Plean Quarry near Stirling. 

 

 

Jim

[Northroader]

Check the size of your blocks, Jim

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/136360-lswrsr-stone-wagon-load/&do=findComment&comment=3262705

[Nearholmer]

“Electrical equipment, from where? Quite possibly from London,”

 

I’ve been trying to sell at least a modest dynamo and a bank of accumulators to somebody, anybody, in CA for ages.

 

Likely sources are SE London (Siemens or Johnson & Philips), Manchester (Mather & Platt or, by 1905, Westinghouse), or Rugby (British Thompson-Houston, aka GE), but there were also a lot of smaller firms dotted about. Not sure where ECC (Wolverhampton) were in the game at this date - I think they were suffering under American onslaught.

 

I couldn’t interest anyone in a larger installation, could I? The electrification of the WNR would, unarguably, realise considerable savings on operating costs, in exchange for modest investment - finances can be arranged on very favourable terms.