Imaginary Railways

[BG John]

Just been in my library and the figures for the C&C could make sense.

 

Intermediate stations at Cenarth, Abercych and Llechyd wouldn't contribute much, but in 1925 Kilgerran and Cardigan contributed half the passengers and three-quarters of the freight traffic for the whole Whitland and Cardigan (which admittedly wasn't that great).  Transfer that to the Newcastle Emlyn branch and it might have survived beyond 1952 (and 1972 for freight).

 

Off topic but noteworthy is that traffic receipts from some Pembrokeshire stations fell by 70% in a decade during the 1920s/30s.  The idea that rail traffic only declined after WW2 and was run down by BR is 30-40 years off.

As the reason for not extending the line beyond Newcastle Emlyn was apparently due to spoiling the Teifi Valley, that was becoming popular for tourism, maybe if the C&C had managed to get there before then, it could have created a lot of traffic from tourism.

 

As these ideas are all imaginary, a junction at Kilgerran with the W&C would add interest, especially with a bit of playing with dates, so that the C&C was broad gauge and the W&C narrow gauge, with mixed gauge into Cardigan. Of course in this imaginary history, the area would be prosperous enough to support this, with a frequent service on both lines!

[Northmoor]

This thread has produced so many "What if?" scenarios for particular railways, most of us have come up with more than one to justify our choice of "prototype".  However, I once started to compile a list of more strategic "What if?s" where a major industry or political event did or didn't happen.  See if you can add to these:

1. The Irish potato famine never happened.  Quite apart from the obvious millions of people saved, it would have impacted the railways of Britain as trade with Ireland would have been considerably greater.  One example is that Fishguard Harbour wouldn't exist, Brunel would have built the harbour 50-60 years earlier at Abermawr about 10 miles further west, in deeper water.
2. (Mentioned elsewhere in this thread) The Grouping was a much less extreme event than actually occurred, with the companies consolidated into perhaps a dozen and not four. Larger regional companies, perhaps the financially more secure, survived.  Perhaps the GER might have stayed independent? With more companies, would they have all retained their own works or would have been increasing use of contractor-built and standard locos and rolling stock?
3. Electrification planned by the NER and LMS actually went ahead in the 1920s and progressively extended. The initial Crewe - Carlisle would be extended to form a NW England network with branches to Liverpool and Manchester where conveniently, it would link with the 1500V Woodhead route electrified by the LNER!
4. Nationalisation - which was as universally unpopular across the industry as privatisation/franchising was in the 1990s (but the government did it anyway!) - didn't happen.  Instead the government offered low interest loans to the companies to invest in modernisation but still created a BTC to offer standard designs of diesels, units etc.  There would have been less variety but also considerably fewer redundant/duplicate designs built by contractors without the skills to build them properly.  The Big Four were often quite innovative, British Railways generally built slightly more modern versions of the equipment the railways already had, without updating the working practices.
5. The Beeching report was implemented, but nothing that WASN'T listed in the report was closed.  Sadly a great deal was; most rail re-openings, planned or actually implemented, are of lines closed after 1968 which the Beeching report didn't propose for closure.
6. (We've all dreamed of this one) Steam wasn't hurriedly abandoned in 1968 but was continued in a few small areas where there was a concentration of traffics with no advantage of diesel over steam (e.g. short distance, slow-moving, unfitted coal trains).  Newer steam locos, such as 9Fs were retained until they were worn out, the traffic was lost or modernised such that steam was no longer appropriate. The massive costs of redundancy ies was spread over a longer period and the workforce given longer to adapt or leave the service.  The full design life of the 9Fs might have seen them in service up to the mid-80s, which coincides with the pit closure plan which led to the miners' strike.....
7. (My favourite) The Channel Tunnel project was completed in the early 1970s.  What might the rail network look like now? Would the GC have been mothballed then upgraded as the main line to the continent?  Would Tonbridge - Redhill - Guildford - Reading have been a major freight route, to Berne Gauge?

Any others?

[Compound2632]

 

1. (My favourite) The Channel Tunnel project was completed in the early 1970s.  What might the rail network look like now? Would the GC have been mothballed then upgraded as the main line to the continent?  Would Tonbridge - Redhill - Guildford - Reading have been a major freight route, to Berne Gauge?

 

... or, the Channel Tunnel project was completed in the 1890s, with the Chemin de Fer de Watkin running through from Paris Gare du Nord to Manchester Gare Centrale. What would the locomotives have looked like in the early 20th century? - compound atlantics of course, with the technical sophistication of De Glehn and the external elegance of Robinson!

Edited August 31, 2017 by Compound2632

[The Johnster]

This thread has produced so many "What if?" scenarios for particular railways, most of us have come up with more than one to justify our choice of "prototype".  However, I once started to compile a list of more strategic "What if?s" where a major industry or political event did or didn't happen.  See if you can add to these:

1. The Irish potato famine never happened.  Quite apart from the obvious millions of people saved, it would have impacted the railways of Britain as trade with Ireland would have been considerably greater.  One example is that Fishguard Harbour wouldn't exist, Brunel would have built the harbour 50-60 years earlier at Abermawr about 10 miles further west, in deeper water.
2. (Mentioned elsewhere in this thread) The Grouping was a much less extreme event than actually occurred, with the companies consolidated into perhaps a dozen and not four. Larger regional companies, perhaps the financially more secure, survived.  Perhaps the GER might have stayed independent? With more companies, would they have all retained their own works or would have been increasing use of contractor-built and standard locos and rolling stock?
3. Electrification planned by the NER and LMS actually went ahead in the 1920s and progressively extended. The initial Crewe - Carlisle would be extended to form a NW England network with branches to Liverpool and Manchester where conveniently, it would link with the 1500V Woodhead route electrified by the LNER!
4. Nationalisation - which was as universally unpopular across the industry as privatisation/franchising was in the 1990s (but the government did it anyway!) - didn't happen.  Instead the government offered low interest loans to the companies to invest in modernisation but still created a BTC to offer standard designs of diesels, units etc.  There would have been less variety but also considerably fewer redundant/duplicate designs built by contractors without the skills to build them properly.  The Big Four were often quite innovative, British Railways generally built slightly more modern versions of the equipment the railways already had, without updating the working practices.
5. The Beeching report was implemented, but nothing that WASN'T listed in the report was closed.  Sadly a great deal was; most rail re-openings, planned or actually implemented, are of lines closed after 1968 which the Beeching report didn't propose for closure.
6. (We've all dreamed of this one) Steam wasn't hurriedly abandoned in 1968 but was continued in a few small areas where there was a concentration of traffics with no advantage of diesel over steam (e.g. short distance, slow-moving, unfitted coal trains).  Newer steam locos, such as 9Fs were retained until they were worn out, the traffic was lost or modernised such that steam was no longer appropriate. The massive costs of redundancy ies was spread over a longer period and the workforce given longer to adapt or leave the service.  The full design life of the 9Fs might have seen them in service up to the mid-80s, which coincides with the pit closure plan which led to the miners' strike.....
7. (My favourite) The Channel Tunnel project was completed in the early 1970s.  What might the rail network look like now? Would the GC have been mothballed then upgraded as the main line to the continent?  Would Tonbridge - Redhill - Guildford - Reading have been a major freight route, to Berne Gauge?

Any others?

 

 

 

Point 6 and the 9Fs; standardisation with diesel/electric practice led to them being fitted with backlit 4-character headcode displays, mounted on the sloping plate below the smokebox at the front and in the rear of the tender, the latter being split to avoid the ladder fouling visibility of it.  Tenders replaced with bogie version in order to allow tender first running up to 60mph with fully fitted freight trains, also air brakes and a riding cab on the tender for guards.  Small yellow warning panels on the sloping front plate and tender rear and a generator for on board electric power for the headcodes and marker lights.  Roller bearings fitted throughout, and some fitted with oil burning; this stopped after the oil crisis in 1974, but the locos were not reconverted to coal.  A group of these 'modernised' 9Fs were kept for the Port Talbot-Llanwern iron ore trains until the advent of more powerful diesels after the partial failure of the class 56s, as they eliminated double or triple heading and could clear the top of Stormy bank at 15 mph, 6mph faster than 3x37s.

[Corbs]

I do like the idea of a pre WW2 channel tunnel having been built. Would it have been used in the evacuation of the BEF in 1940 and subsequently flooded I wonder?

In which case would there have been a grand reunification in the 1950s? Would it have connected with the GCR as the main trunk route into the UK?

[Compound2632]

I do like the idea of a pre WW2 channel tunnel having been built. Would it have connected with the GCR as the main trunk route into the UK?

 

Sir Edward Watkin was either chairman or on the board of the Chemin de Fer du Nord, Channel Tunnel Co., South Eastern Railway, Metropolitan Railway, and Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. So, yes.

[MikeOxon]

I do like the idea of a pre WW2 channel tunnel having been built. .....................

 

In around 1930, one William Collard, Chairman of the London and Paris Railway Promoters Ltd. proposed to build a Channel Tunnel together with a new, Broad Gauge (7ft) railway from London to Paris.  For more information see, for example:

 

http://archives.chic...-channel-tunnel

 

I imagined the scene in a post on the Imaginary Locomotives thread.

 

This led to HS1, HS2, etc being Broad Gauge and re-conversion of the GWR along with its electrification

[brack]

In around 1930, one William Collard, Chairman of the London and Paris Railway Promoters Ltd. proposed to build a Channel Tunnel together with a new, Broad Gauge (7ft) railway from London to Paris. For more information see, for example:

 

http://archives.chic...-channel-tunnel

 

I imagined the scene in a post on the Imaginary Locomotives thread.

 

This led to HS1, HS2, etc being Broad Gauge and re-conversion of the GWR along with its electrification

Genius!

Hmm, we're going to build a 25 mile tunnel, what could make it easier? I know, make it a wider, incompatible gauge so we have to dig twice as much stuff out and tranship both ends...

[MikeOxon]

Genius!

Hmm, we're going to build a 25 mile tunnel, what could make it easier? I know, make it a wider, incompatible gauge so we have to dig twice as much stuff out and tranship both ends...

Yes - they really should have gone for 'atmospheric' while they were about it

[Compound2632]

Yes - they really should have gone for 'atmospheric' while they were about it

 

... with the tunnel as the vacuum tube.

[The Johnster]

I think they missed a trick with the Channel Tunnel.  Trains go through at a set speed, right?  And the scenery down there is really dull, right?  So, why not paint panels of a cartoon telling a story in moving pictures on the wall to entertain the punters as they pass beneath the waves, lit by the carriage lighting.  Something involving underwater tunnels flooding, fishes swimming past the windows, that sort of thing...

[Compound2632]

I think they missed a trick with the Channel Tunnel.  Trains go through at a set speed, right?  And the scenery down there is really dull, right?  So, why not paint panels of a cartoon telling a story in moving pictures on the wall to entertain the punters as they pass beneath the waves, lit by the carriage lighting.  Something involving underwater tunnels flooding, fishes swimming past the windows, that sort of thing...

 

On my very first journey, only a few months after the tunnel opened, I was sitting opposite a young lad and his mother. She'd evidently told him that they were going under the sea, so he was excited - and disappointed that it was so dark. Nevertheless he was positive he'd seen a fish...

[John B]

A red herring?

[MikeOxon]

On my very first journey, only a few months after the tunnel opened, I was sitting opposite a young lad and his mother. She'd evidently told him that they were going under the sea, so he was excited - and disappointed that it was so dark. Nevertheless he was positive he'd seen a fish...

I once overheard a conversation between two Americans, who were commenting on the amazing technology that allowed the train to run underwater.  Now, there's an idea for an imaginary railway!  Build the model in the bath.

[Corbs]

I had an idea for an exhibition layout that used a well-known and proven track layout, but the entire thing is set in a house, with the railway running along the kitchen sideboards, along with a bridge over a (full) sink, supported on a floating piece of tupperware.

The water column would be a pepper pot, the engine shed a cereal packet with holes cut in it.....

[The Johnster]

I once overheard a conversation between two Americans, who were commenting on the amazing technology that allowed the train to run underwater.  Now, there's an idea for an imaginary railway!  Build the model in the bath.

 

 

When I was a guard at Canton in the 70, we would respond to passengers' complaints that such and such a train was running late with 'well, the Severn Tunnel's under water, you know'.  You had usually moved away by the time they'd realised...

[peanuts]

i do remember reading somewhere but cant for thr life of me remember where of a proposal to double and exstend the Delph branch to Denshaw where opon a four mile long tunnel would continue the route through to link up with the Rishworth branch and on to Halifax .Was whilst researching a school project on local railways and the author did describe it as one of the more fancifull proposals around at the time of the opening of Standage tunnel  

[scots region]

I had an idea for an exhibition layout that used a well-known and proven track layout, but the entire thing is set in a house, with the railway running along the kitchen sideboards, along with a bridge over a (full) sink, supported on a floating piece of tupperware.

The water column would be a pepper pot, the engine shed a cereal packet with holes cut in it.....

You could have an industrial scene wereby ground coffee and boiling water is brought to a site, shunted into exchange sidings and tipped off a ramp into a cafetière, or tea bags into a kettle with the cap being held up by a craine. You could even make it a self contained narrow gauge section. Edited September 2, 2017 by scots region

[melmerby]

- A  LNWR line from Windermere to Keswick via / under Dunmail Raise

I thought that Windermere wasn't the originally planned terminus, rather Ambleside but they couldn't get any further because of objections.

Hence the somewhat out of the way location rather than actually on the lakeside a few miles further North at Waterhead.

 

Keith

[detheridge]

Here's a couple of 'what ifs':

Suppose that the Metropolitan had not been included in LPTB and continued its existence as a 'main line' railway. What would it have looked like by the 1950s (assuming of course that WW2 hadn't happened)?

There is mention of a design for a 4-4-2 tender loco for working up the GC as far as Nottingham (I think in George Dow's books?)

 

Then again, suppose that the Met (who acquired the GN&C in 1912) had taken over the ex GN Northern Heights branch, and run original GN&C stock to High Barnet and Ally Pally, with a double tracked line to Edgware, and used the original Camelback locos for goods traffic, or even some of the 0-4-4Ts?

 

Suppose that Brunel had got his way in 1845 and built a main line to Porth Dinllaen near Caernarvon for the Irish traffic? This would leave Angelsey sidelined. As a result, a narrow gauge 3' empire similar to the IOM Railways would have developed there, with the main terminus at Menai Bridge, and branches to Holyhead and Beaumaris, and the 'main line' to Amlwch for the copper mines at Amlwch. Parys mountain near Amlwch has been mined for copper since Roman times, had its peak up to 1880, and was active supposedly right up to the 1960s. There's a spiffing museum in Amlwch that shows the full history.

 

Regards,

 

David.

Edited September 12, 2017 by detheridge

[melmerby]

Here's a couple of 'what ifs':

Suppose that the Metropolitan had not been included in LPTB and continued its existence as a 'main line' railway. What would it have looked like by the 1950s (assuming of course that WW2 hadn't happened)?

There is mention of a design for a 4-4-2 tender loco for working up the GC as far as Nottingham (I think in George Dow's books?)

 

Then again, suppose that the Met (who acquired the GN&C in 1912) had taken over the ex GN Northern Heights branch, and run original GN&C stock to High Barnet and Ally Pally, with a double tracked line to Edgware, and used the original Camelback locos for goods traffic, or even some of the 0-4-4Ts?

 

Regards,

 

David.

But if the Met had been viewed as a mainline railway (as originally intended in the 1921 railway act) it would have been amalgamated into the LNER grouping* along with the GCR.

However it was considered to be "just" a suburban outfit. This of course meant it was inevitably merged into the LPTB when that was created in 1933.

 

* Mind you that itself could have produced some interesting developments

 

Cheers

 

Keith

Edited September 12, 2017 by melmerby

[Corbs]

Imagine if the GCR and Met had become the fifth member of the 'Big Five'...

[Compound2632]

Imagine if the GCR and Met had become the fifth member of the 'Big Five'...

 

And/or the Met had reached Birmingham - Watkin had it pointing in that direction... HS2 avant la lettre.

[runs as required]

I thought that Windermere wasn't the originally planned terminus, rather Ambleside but they couldn't get any further because of objections.

Hence the somewhat out of the way location rather than actually on the lakeside a few miles further North at Waterhead.

As a child I always admired Coniston station and its little branch train (and the wonderful Furness Railway gondola that sat as an abandoned shell down beside the lake).

Only later did I find the branch line connected to the rest of the FR on the 'wrong' side of Barrow.

Suppose it had connected via Windermere (Lakeside) to the FR or via LNW to Oxenholme ?

[melmerby]

And/or the Met had reached Birmingham - Watkin had it pointing in that direction... HS2 avant la lettre.

That was once one of their targets.

If the GC had reached Birmingham would they then have tried to reach North Wales to link up with their other lines, that would have given them a way to get to Manchester from another direction.

 

Another GC might have been was if they had actually amalgamated with the SE when they were both under Watkin's management. That would have given them a through route from Manchester to the South coast where there were also ambitions for a Channel Tunnel (partly dug) and on to Paris.

 

Keith