LBSCR & GWR at Battersea Wharf

[Nearholmer]

Mikkel

 

The big release of Terriers from passenger trains seem to have been c1902-4, and then resulting from the electrification of the ELLR and the recasting of services, and, I think more were let off the leash when The Elevated Electric came into being.

 

They were used for shunting, so you could probably get away with it, but the more typical loco might be the E1, and for tightly curved bits, the D1, which I think is what we see in the Grove Street pictures.

 

Mr Holliday will know more.

 

Kevin

Edited September 29, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Mikkel]

Thanks Kevin, that's very useful. Yes those D1s are very nice!

 

The one below is simply marvellous. You would think the modelling mags were full of scenes like that. 

 

 

I know we're in danger of going wharf in all directions, but I couldn't resist this one (now, these two).

Edited September 29, 2016 by Mikkel

[Nearholmer]

Except that, thinking about it, D1 were probably still on front-line passenger duty in the 1910s; they didn't get released until the electrification had spread out a bit more, and that was slow progress, because of WW1.

 

K

[BG John]

OK, London Corporation loco below.

 

I've always had it up my sleeve as a scratch-build, because it is about as near to a box on wheels as one can get, and because nobody would believe it in a pre-grouping context!

 

The tramway loco is described in a very muddled/confusing/erroneous article in The Engineer, but I'd need my notes to be able to point to it. It looked like a slightly heavily built single-deck horse-tram car, and it started life as a battery-electric, to a patent by Mr Eliosson (sp?). It was then fitted out with an internal combustion engine and transmission to the patent of The Connelly Brothers of New Jersey, but their (very clever, scavenged two-stroke) engine was too weedy for the application, and it was fitted with a new engine, effectively an upright Otto (two cylinder, IIRC) by Weyman of Guildford, which was very successful. It ran for several years in Southwark, and was also tried on the Croydon- Thornton Heath route. There was a twin of the loco, or possibly the same loco exported, used as a depot shunter by the street railway in New York. (Photo below is a thumbnail from the LT museum website; I've got a full-res scan of the picture somewhere, but not on my iPad, which allows a lot of detail to be seen. There is a drawing in The Engineer article, too.)

• 

Pure guess work, but I removed the perspective and using a buffer centre of 3'5" as the only dimension, I came up with a body length of 15ft, and height to top of the sides of 10'3". Even the buffer height is tricky as the skirt hides the wheels, so I can't get the rail level precise. It makes the bloke nearest the camera around 5'6". Anyone want to suggest different dimensions?

 

[Nearholmer]

I'm not going to argue with a that.

 

Now, how does the photo below come into the story?

 

K

[BG John]

I'm not going to argue with a that.

So that makes it all my fault if it turns out to be wrong then!

[BG John]

Now, how does the photo below come into the story?

 

K

Hmmmm. Narrow gauge as well. This is getting worrying. Like Kirtleypete, I'm starting to feel a new layout coming on, but not yet! It will have to be Cheapside Yard 2, when version 1 is finished.

[Edwardian]

I'm not going to argue with a that.

 

Now, how does the photo below come into the story?

 

K

 

Royal Army Service Corps Deptford Special Reserve Depot?

[Nearholmer]

Yes.

 

Or, The Royal Victoria Victualling Yard, to give it an earlier title.

 

Located between Deptford Wharf and the Foreign Cattle Depot, with an extensive 18" gauge railway, complete with fleet of Hunslet "Waril" class, almost identical to 'Jack'.

 

I couldn't find a photo of a Deptford one, but they were ever so, ever so slightly bigger than Jack, and four of them became the motive power of the Sand Hutton LR.

 

These Emmettesque little machines lived only a wall-thickness from the Maudsley petrol loco, but I don't think there was a Sg/ Nt interchange, unless it was where the bowels of the two premises abutted (yeugh!).

 

K

Edited September 29, 2016 by Nearholmer

[The Stationmaster]

I know we're in danger of going wharf in all directions, but I couldn't resist this one (now, these two).

 

The line down the middle of Grove Street linked Deptford Wharf LBSCRy yard to the Foreign Cattle Market, the very line that the Maudsley petrol loco was built for, but it looks as if tramway regulations were, one again, being flouted by the 1930s, and I think the sectional appendix bans SR locos from it. I don't think there were 'run rounds' on this link line, so I guess wagons were capstan shunted,to avoid the loco having to propel them up the road, but who knows!

 

More rich grime!

 

K

 

The Sectional Appendix entry for working over Grove Street to the Govt Stores Yard actually required two engines on the train - a six-coupled engine at one end (the Deptford Wharf/New Cross end) and a four coupled engine at the other.  The Instructions are interesting in referring to a specific  number (243) in Grove Street as the site of the gates giving access to Grove St

[Nearholmer]

Stationmaster

 

I've just read the full page of closely-spaced text in the SR 1934 appendices, and it seems to match what you have in front of you.

 

But, it makes no sense at all in relation to the c1916 edition of the OS map, because, when that was surveyed, there was, no SG connection direct into the "base supply depot" (later name for the combination of the victualling yard, and cattle market, which the army took over during WW1) and the route along Grove Road was accessed via a teeny little exchange sub-yard, which looks as if it was laid-out so that the LBSCRy loco popped a few wagons into a siding, then the Maudsley petrol loco pulled them out, and propelled them down the road to the cattle market (vice versa with loaded wagons out).

 

I'm guessing that 243 Grove Road was the unfortunate residence that was demolished c1900, to allow the rail route to the cattle market to be created. On the map, it is very clear that the line runs straight through a "hole" made in terrace of houses!

 

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a 1930s 25" map on-line, and the 6" map from 1938 is clearly based on exactly the same survey as the 1916 25" map, and includes things that I know had definitely disappeared in the 1920s, so doesn't help!

 

I think that the direct connection from the LBSCRy into Grove Street was probably created during WW1. Most of the 18" gauge railway was removed (I think sprigs of 18", and a few wagons, lasted a lot longer) during post-WW1 rationalisation in about 1924.

 

Kevin [ edited as I piece together the story more carefully]

Edited September 29, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

Stationmaster - this 1949-surveyed map shows the track arrangement that probably existed from WW1, as per the appendices (plus what I take to be a fair few bomb-gaps), and it, indeed, radically simpler and more efficient than the pre-WW1 situation.http://maps.nls.uk/view/103032006

 

In a roundabout way, this answers a question that I've had in my head for years: what happened to the Maudsley loco?

 

It wouldn't have had any chance of coping with the WW1 and after train loadings (25 wagons permitted; it could only pull 4), so my surmise is that it was probably either junked by the Army straightaway, or used by them for shunting within the depot, until it expired, which I would bet didn't take long (fragile engine and transmission, needing lots of finicky maintenance; trouble on wheels during a war).

 

K

[The Stationmaster]

Stationmaster - this 1949-surveyed map shows the track arrangement that probably existed from WW1, as per the appendices (plus what I take to be a fair few bomb-gaps), and it, indeed, radically simpler and more efficient than the pre-WW1 situation.http://maps.nls.uk/view/103032006

 

In a roundabout way, this answers a question that I've had in my head for years: what happened to the Maudsley loco?

 

It wouldn't have had any chance of coping with the WW1 and after train loadings (25 wagons permitted; it could only pull 4), so my surmise is that it was probably either junked by the Army straightaway, or used by them for shunting within the depot, until it expired, which I would bet didn't take long (fragile engine and transmission, needing lots of finicky maintenance; trouble on wheels during a war).

 

K

 

Certainly makes a lot of sense in relation to the 1930s Instructions.  For the benefit of others 243 Grove Street which I mentioned above was where the railway emerged onto Grove Street after passing over Windmill Lane level crossing (which had a Crossing Keeper).  The gradient off the Deptford Wharf branch must have been pretty steep which would probably have defeated the Maudsley loco without any wagons!

[Edwardian]

Certainly makes a lot of sense in relation to the 1930s Instructions.  For the benefit of others 243 Grove Street which I mentioned above was where the railway emerged onto Grove Street after passing over Windmill Lane level crossing (which had a Crossing Keeper).  The gradient off the Deptford Wharf branch must have been pretty steep which would probably have defeated the Maudsley loco without any wagons!

 

 

NLS has a 1938 Revision in the six inch to 1 mile series; the nearest I could get date-wise to WW1.  Show the Grove Street line, Deptford Wharf and the Depot's internal lines reasonably well.

 

Lawson Boskovsky Billinton

[Nick Holliday]

There's an interesting article on the history of the cattle market at http://deptfordmisc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/city-of-london-sale-of-foreign-cattle.html It appears to suggest that the War Office only rented the site until it purchased it in 1924, so whether the loco came with it I cannot say.  Incidentally, I note that the maker's name was actually Maudslay - I had always thought it had an "e"!

 

Refrigeration had already brought the yard into decline. "Trade fell off. Whereas in 1907, 184,971 cattle and 4,950 sheep were imported through the market, the figures in 1912, dropped to 21,547 cattle and 1,193 sheep."

 

During WW1, however, "Deptford became under Major Millman, a great supply base, sending hundreds of thousands of rations to the troops in France and other theatres of war. The railways were improved and the site was adapted to the requirements of the several Expeditionary forces"

[Nearholmer]

"........which would probably have defeated the Maudsley loco without any wagons!......"

 

Even with my misspelling, it was made of sterner stuff: the Railway Inspector had them put it through its paces, by filling four vans with paving slabs, and having it demonstrate stopping and starting the load on the 1:36 gradient of the line.

 

K

[Compound2632]

Lawson Boskovsky Billinton

 

Come again?

[Nearholmer]

Like Magnus Volk, a true native of Brighton, with one emigre parent.

 

K

[neilkirby]

Read through this thread yesterday afternoon, Just out of interest as I have family connections to the Battersea area, then last night in the 'Battersea Memories' Facebook group somebody posted this:

 

There was some debate as to the date of the picture, but I did note that someone said that the 'smaller building on the left' was a banana warehouse. So another possible source of traffic?

 

Neil

[kirtleypete]

Superb! Make quite a layout, wouldn't it.

 

Peter

[Mikkel]

Read through this thread yesterday afternoon, Just out of interest as I have family connections to the Battersea area, then last night in the 'Battersea Memories' Facebook group somebody posted this:

battersea wharf.jpg

 

There was some debate as to the date of the picture, but I did note that someone said that the 'smaller building on the left' was a banana warehouse. So another possible source of traffic?

 

Neil

 

Thanks for posting that Neil, as Peter says this area is so modellable.

 

I hadn't noticed those cranes on the wharf before, another interesting feature.

[Brassey]

There is an LBSC model of just such a location on the exhibition circuit but I cannot recall the name; i saw it last year and was impressed

[kirtleypete]

It's a very useful picture for the roundhouse roofs, you don't see that in ground level shots.

 

Peter

[Mikkel]

There is an LBSC model of just such a location on the exhibition circuit but I cannot recall the name; i saw it last year and was impressed

 

Are you perhaps thinking of Brighton Road? http://www.lbscrmodels.co.uk/brigpics1.html

[kirtleypete]

Superb layout - thanks for posting the link,

 

Peter