Castle Aching

[Compound2632]

43 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Off on a walk.  Will report upon return.

 

Good weekend, all.

 

J

 

Dear me, that's rather Captain Oates-ish...

 

I think we've been round the multitude of Es and E1s, possibly on another thread - or two. Speaking of which, the North Eastern got all the way to Z without any gaps; Vincent Raven was saved by the grouping from having to find a classification for his Pacific. Going post-Grouping, it's notable that the ultimate 4-4-0s were Class V - both designed by Irishmen but with, dare I say it, a hint of Derby influence...

 

Can anybody enlighten me as to the logic of the alphanumeric LSWR locomotive classification? I can see that the numerical part increases over time but the letters seem to hop around randomly. The Great Eastern's system was disorganised along similar lines, if not more so.

 

I've sung the praises of James Stirling's standardisation policy on the South Eastern, with just four classes making up over three-quarters of the fleet, but the letter sequence - in chronological order O, A, Q, F, R, B - baffles me. I make no claims for the Midland's class system though it is at least a bit more consistent than the LNWR's. 

 

 

[corneliuslundie]

I have a vague feeling that for at ;east one company the letter in the class indicated the year of introduction - to the initiated anyway.

The Cambrian never used such dull class labels, Instead we have mixed goods, small goods, large goods, large Belpaire goods etc. Much more romantic!

Jonathan

[Northroader]

The GER classes came from the order numbers used at Stratford Works, possibly going back to Sinclair’s days. Every job the works was required to do had an order number issued, whether it was for a new build batch of locos, but also replacement boilers, tenders, and machinery, then all the work and materials could be booked to that job. New class numbers of locos used the order number for the first batch to appear. If the engines had not been built at Stratford then the initial loco number was used, but very few were done like this. Works numbers weren’t used. The order  numbers went A1, B1, C1, etc, to Z1,  then A2,B2, C2, and so on.. so there was no relationship with wheel arrangements, as say the LNER system did. William Adams took this system with him when he went from Stratford to Nine Elms, and the LSWR kept with it.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Northroader

[Compound2632]

Ah, that makes sense! The Great Eastern, being the larger railway and operating the system for longer got through the alphabet rather more times - at least 88, if my reading of the Wikipedia article is correct. From that source, I also see that Robert Sinclair made an early attempt at bucking the system by starting at Class Z and working back but only got as far as V.

 

In contrast to the Great Eastern system, on the Midland S.W. Johnson only used letters to designate contractor-built classes - thus, for example, the 2441 Class 0-6-0Ts were S, U, and U2, all built by Vulcan - S were condensing, U steam brake only, U2 steam and vacuum brakes - at least as built. Somehow the system broke down with the hundred goods engines built by Neilson, simply classified as Neilson Goods class.

 

Closer to the West Norfolk, I gather that there is confusion in the literature between the class letters given to M&GN locomotives and the Derby boiler classification scheme, which also went by letter: engines rebuilt with class B boilers weren't class B locomotives...

Edited April 14, 2019 by Compound2632

[sem34090]

I think the LSWR went for order numbers.

[Regularity]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

U or Non-U?

GnU or Non-gnU?

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

the 2441 Class 0-6-0Ts were S, U, and U2, all built by Vulcan - S were condensing, U steam brake only, U2 steam and vacuum brakes - at least as built.

I thought U2 was an Irish rock band?

[Nearholmer]

It was an Ever Ready battery when I were a lad. 

 

Actually, "battery" is probably the wrong word. "Source of periodic deep disappointment, because they only lasted five minutes before going flat, and cost what was for us then so much money that the chances of Dad buying a replacement anytime in the next millennium were vanishingly small" might be a better term. Even now, the sight of that particular shade of blue, and that particular reddish-orange colour together can bring on waves of inner-deflation.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

A proper U2:

[Nick Holliday]

2 hours ago, Northroader said:

The GER classes came from the order numbers used at Stratford Works, possibly going back to Sinclair’s days. Every job the works was required to do had an order number issued, whether it was for a new build batch of locos, but also replacement boilers, tenders, and machinery, then all the work and materials could be booked to that job. New class numbers of locos used the order number for the first batch to appear. If the engines had not been built at Stratford then the initial loco number was used, but very few were done like this. Works numbers weren’t used. The order  numbers went A1, B1, C1, etc, to Z1,  then A2,B2, B3, and so on.. so there was no relationship with wheel arrangements, as say the LNER system did. William Adams took this system with him when he went from Stratford to Nine Elms, and the LSWR kept with it.

The LSWR certainly used the system, although there were a few variations and anomalies. I'm not sure what happened with the Jubilees, which were known as A12, after the first order number, but I wonder if Nine Elms had started off with a different numbering system, A1, A2, A3 etc. but got to a point where they saw the wisdom(?) of the GER method, which they followed thereafter, perhaps avoiding the use of A in subsequent lists.  It should be noted that engine classes that were built by outside contractors were known, usually, by the number of the first loco to be delivered hence the 395 (later duplicated to 0395) and 700 0-6-0 classes.

It seems to me that the hectic numbering in the first twenty years of the system calmed down just prior to the move to Eastleigh, when perhaps the smaller items were listed separately. Once we get to 14 suffixes the numbering doesn't advance as quickly, hence C14, E14, G14, P14, T14 and S14 were class names, followed by D15, H15, N15 and S15.

It should be noted that several order numbers could apply to classes we think of as only having one name. For example, within the G6 class were C7, X7, D9, M9 and R9, but there was little or nothing different between orders. On the other hand, there were 15 separate orders for "M7" locos, and with major variations between batches, some enthusiasts have used the different order numbers instead, although those not in the know haven't the faintest idea what an X12 might look like! With the B4 0-4-0 tanks, however, the Drummond built ones were substantially different in many ways, and the appellation K14 for them is often used.

Finally, there is an odd quirk with the T9 class. The initial order went to Dubs & Co., and so the class should have been known as 702 class, and the first Nine Elms locos were to order G9, followed by K9, and O9. The batch including T9 only appeared 18 months later; I don't know why this was adopted instead of the earlier order, and I wonder what they were referred to in the interim period. I am sure an LSWR expert will be along shortly to explain.

[Hroth]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It was an Ever Ready battery when I were a lad. 

 

Actually, "battery" is probably the wrong word. "Source of periodic deep disappointment, because they only lasted five minutes before going flat, and cost what was for us then so much money that the chances of Dad buying a replacement anytime in the next millennium were vanishingly small" might be a better term. Even now, the sight of that particular shade of blue, and that particular reddish-orange colour together can bring on waves of inner-deflation.

 

 

Not even a battery, merely a cell.

 

 

The thing that Triang produced to encourage the purchase of transformer controllers was the P40 battery controller, which took 3 (THREE I tell you!) EverReady No126 batteries, 3 zinc-carbon cells wired in series in a cardboard shell, with brass terminal posts. 

 

 

  X 3!

 

Trainset for Christmas, and after begging for assistance buying sets of 126 batteries, transformer for the birthday (and perhaps a couple of Airfix wagon kits too, if lucky!)

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Did you really have to show pictures of those things?

 

 

[nick_bastable]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

Not even a battery, merely a cell.

 

 

The thing that Triang produced to encourage the purchase of transformer controllers was the P40 battery controller, which took 3 (THREE I tell you!) EverReady No126 batteries, 3 zinc-carbon cells wired in series in a cardboard shell, with brass terminal posts. 

 

 

  X 3!

 

Trainset for Christmas, and after begging for assistance buying sets of 126 batteries, transformer for the birthday (and perhaps a couple of Airfix wagon kits too, if lucky!)

 

 

 

 

Blast from the past  covered with chicken pox using eldest brother train  08 with a siding probably system 4  track  powered by this   ( lack of mains sockets in the house and mains where unsuitable for children )

 

thanks for jogging the memory

 

Nick

[Hroth]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Did you really have to show pictures of those things?

 

 

Only as an illustration of how technology has progressed. 

Imagine DCC powered by 10 U2 cells......

 

17 hours ago, Regularity said:

GnU or Non-gnU?

 

Linux-GNU, naturally!

 

[Edwardian]

Yesterday, a highly pleasurable ramble, which started here:

 

[webbcompound]

Garden (Langley) Station to Lambly Viaduct. A fair step. Any loud chatter as you started off and we could almost have heard you in our garden (small amount of hyperbole there). A slight diversion and you could have viewed the 1836 station buildings in our village (private house but visible from the present platform) of Haydon Bridge.

[Nearholmer]

Good to see that the daffs are blooming "up north" - certainly in middle England Spring is a month to the day further advanced than last year, using a 'what came into bloom when' monitor.

[Hroth]

Here on the 53rd parallel north, we had daffs blooming in February.  Those have finished now, but some bulbs planted at that time are now sprouted and flowering!

 

Most odd....

 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, webbcompound said:

Garden (Langley) Station to Lambly Viaduct. A fair step. Any loud chatter as you started off and we could almost have heard you in our garden (small amount of hyperbole there). A slight diversion and you could have viewed the 1836 station buildings in our village (private house but visible from the present platform) of Haydon Bridge.

 

It is, indeed, Lambley viaduct, but the station is Lambley also; we (Runs-as-Required and I) started from there. 

 

For those unfamiliar with the area, to the north the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway ran east-west between those places.  From Hexham a branch dropped south-westwards to the River Allen, before dog-legging south-east to the terminus at Allendale. It is on that line you will find Langley station, aforementioned. 

 

But, we did not go there. Continue west on the N&C mainline and you arrive at Haltwhistle (what better name could there be for a railway station?). Here was the junction with another branch, which ran southward, going up the River South Tyne valley to Alston.

 

Alston is the terminus, and, by car, is just a jump over the moors to the head of Teesdale.  There was once a plan to link Middleton in Teesdale, terminus of a branch from Barnard Castle, to Alston by rail.

 

Lambley is a wayside station on the Alston branch, south of Haltwhistle and immediately after a viaduct.   The viaduct is nothing short of a piece of classical architecture, with rusticated base and dressed stone arches.  It is tall, graceful and astonishingly narrow.  It was designed by Sir George Barclay-Bruce and completed in 1852.  And I absolutely love it.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2019 by Edwardian

[webbcompound]

Ah, these identikit NER stations! (although Langley is missing the big stone building, which I failed to spot!

 

 

Edited April 14, 2019 by webbcompound

[CKPR]

Closed as recently as 1976. I have seen a model of Alston in 4mm and it was pretty big for a BLT - Brampton Town on the other hand would be perfect but I've never seen it modelled ( I still have a D&S autocoach kit  for the day I ever get round to it).

[monkeysarefun]

Hmm..... that viaduct is obviously a  direct copy of the one built as part of  the Lapstone Zigzag in the Blue Mountains here in 1863, a mere 11 years later. Our one has some sticky outy bits along the sides, added later to widen it when it was  converted to a road bridge in order to become  a major bottleneck on the route west of Sydney until in turn bypassed  in the '90's.

 

Now it is just used by me to jog across at lunch times and by various emergency services to practice sliding down tall things on ropes occasionally.

 

 

 

[Edwardian]

8 hours ago, CKPR said:

Closed as recently as 1976. I have seen a model of Alston in 4mm and it was pretty big for a BLT - 

 

Here in EM ...

 

 

An 1850s Jacobean revival building, with attached train shed and engine shed, running through to a turntable ... any resemblance to Castle Aching is purely intentional. 

 

[corneliuslundie]

A friend is involved in the narrow gauge railway which is gradually extending along the branch, mostly gardening as far as i can tell.

And in case you LB&SCR fans haven't spotted it, the new book on LB&SCR bogie carriages is due any day - delivery to the HMRS at Butterley on Wednesday and probably available from the website by the middle of the following week - our sales officer is on holidatyy over the weekend! After the work ian and I have put into this i want to see it sell out.

See the books section.

Jonathan

[Edwardian]

11 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

A friend is involved in the narrow gauge railway which is gradually extending along the branch, mostly gardening as far as i can tell.

And in case you LB&SCR fans haven't spotted it, the new book on LB&SCR bogie carriages is due any day - delivery to the HMRS at Butterley on Wednesday and probably available from the website by the middle of the following week - our sales officer is on holidatyy over the weekend! After the work ian and I have put into this i want to see it sell out.

See the books section.

Jonathan

 

Good news on the book.

 

Yes, there was talk from Lambley locals of a compulsory purchase order in the offing to allow the NG line to pass through Lambley station and across the viaduct.   The station was sold when the line closed, without any right of way reserved.   As a result, one must pass the station site at a lower level, then pass under the viaduct and up a staircase to reach the top.

 

Still, if you insist on buying a station, you're bound to get snoopers pointing cameras at your house ....