SE&CR Traffic on the Sevenoaks-Tonbridge Line

[BlueLightning]

3 hours ago, GWRSwindon said:

I like the idea of an SE&CR/Brighton layout, though I hestitate between including the Southern Belle or the SE&CR boat trains, and you really can't have both on the same layout realistically!

 

Well then I hope our host won't mind me interrupting and pointing you towards my SE&CR / LB&SCR empire The Oak Hill Branch

[Nearholmer]

Dover Boat trains via the old Redhill route are quite a conceivable diversion, and if you go back early enough that was the normal route anyway.

[Edwardian]

54 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Dover Boat trains via the old Redhill route are quite a conceivable diversion, and if you go back early enough that was the normal route anyway.

 

You'd have to go way, way back to when it was the shared mainline to see the principal express traffic of both lines together.  On the SER it had been diverted via Sevenoaks long before the Quarry line opened to take the Brighton fast services. 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I was thinking sometime around when Dickens and a close female friend of his were dumped in a ditch by the SER.

 

Somewhere, I've read a detailed account of a footplate ride on a Down SER Boat Train, running via Redhill, written by a journalist who managed to wangle a pass - very evocative and exciting, given that the footplate he was riding on was open to the elements. It might be in 'Our Iron Roads'; I'd have to check.

[Edwardian]

12 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I was thinking sometime around when Dickens and a close female friend of his were dumped in a ditch by the SER.

 

Somewhere, I've read a detailed account of a footplate ride on a Down SER Boat Train, running via Redhill, written by a journalist who managed to wangle a pass - very evocative and exciting, given that the footplate he was riding on was open to the elements. It might be in 'Our Iron Roads'; I'd have to check.

 

Or when they were robbing the Crimean Gold from the Folkestone Mail!

[sem34090]

To be honest, with Blackstone, if you want to run any given company we can probably find a full, thorough and well-written justification for it!!!

 

As for Post Office vehicles I guess they're another thing I shall be wanting to build eventually...

Edited April 13, 2019 by sem34090

[Edwardian]

Well, I have not finished (there are 678 pages to scan through), but the NRM drawing list includes:

 

Box No   Roll No   Prefix     Number Suffix     Company                                                  Works    Title                                                                                  Description                               Creation Date        

 

62            2                             22                            South Eastern Railway                          Ashford   Side elevation for mail tender                                   Including estimate of cost       1888

 

62            2              A             1918                        Southern Railway                                  Ashford   Post Office van 50' 1", nos 691 – 4951

 

62            2              A             2645                        South Eastern & Chatham Railway     Ashford   Bogie van for the conveyance of mails 50' 1"

 

62            2              A             2605                        Southern Railway                                   Ashford   Post Office van no 4950

 

212          1                              2225                       SE & C Rly                                                 Ashford  Diagram showing PO van (50' 1") under load gauge

 

 

I wondered if 62/2/22, with its date of 1888, might be the 6-wheel mail tender no.280.  According to Gould (1976), two similar 6-wheel gangwayed vans 'in a new style' were built in 1881 (No.240 foreign mail) and 1883 (No.280 for day mail). No.280 had one sliding door per side and the leading dimensions were 30' x 7' x 7' over the body. 

 

As the SER's next mail vehicles seem to have been bogie vans of 1896, I think there is a good chance that the 1888 drawing might represent one or both of Nos.240/280.

 

62/2/A1918 represents SECR No.691 (SR No.4951), which is, according to Gould (1993) a 1904 vehicle very similar to No.693, in which we are interested. The main differences are that our vehicle has a corridor connection at both ends and has an inset panel for mail nets.  Gould (1993) has a picture of 691-693 when new.

 

62/2/A2605 represents SE&CR No.131, one of two similar 1906 vehicles. 

 

If we're lucky, 62/2/A2645 may represent one of the 1904 vehicles or one of the 1907 vehicles in which we are interested.

 

All of these are on the same roll, so would could as a single item for the purpose of NRM Search Engine retrieval.  Photographing them would be easy, but obtaining copies is expensive and takes weeks and weeks.   

 

I have also spotted some drawings pertaining to the American-style 'vestibule cars' built for the SER for the Folkestone Car train.  Clearly, I need to plan a visit to York in the near future. 

 

 

[Edwardian]

BTW, are you, Alex, or any of the Usual Suspects, planning to be at the York Show next weekend?

 

I'm planning to hit it on Sunday with Runs-As-Required, and hope to meet up with a couple of others.   

[Tom Burnham]

On 01/02/2018 at 12:46, bbishop said:

So you sent me off to find my Gould. He confirms there was also a through carriage for the LNWR, this of course would be a Tri Compo, detached at Herne Hill and onto a Manchester London Roads express at Willesden.

Sorry to re-activate this discussion, but I notice that the Railway Magazine for May 1898 (p.476) - it's on Google Books - says that a through L&NWR lavatory tri-composite bogie carriage from Willesden Junction was attached to the 11.0 am and 9.5 pm down Dover boat trains and the 8.50 pm down Queenborough boat train at Herne Hill (with corresponding return workings).  If the carriage for the Queenborough train arrived at Herne Hill too late for the boat train, it would be worked to Queenborough as a special train.  The London, Chatham & Dover (as it still was) had had to have some special spare couplings made to attach L&NW to LC&D carriages.

This is a bit confusing, as a press report in 1897 says that from 1 May 1897 there was a through carriage from Birmingham at 5.45 pm for Queenborough in connection with the steamer to Holland.  There are also press adverts for through carriages to Queenborough from Liverpool at 4.5 pm, Manchester at 4.15 pm and Birmingham at 5.45 pm.  Does this mean that a through carriage off each of 3 trains was taken off at Willesden, combined into a single train and worked via the West London line to Herne Hill?  Or were the 3 L&NWR trains combined somewhere en route, so that you might have to change carriages between Rugby and Willesden, say, to get into the through carriage for Queenborough or Dover?  I don't know enough about L&NWR timetables to know which is more likely!

I realise these carriages would not have been seen on the Sevenoaks-Tonbridge line, so apologies for straying from the topic!

Edited August 29, 2020 by Tom Burnham
Apology for straying from topic.

[Nearholmer]

Very interesting, even if not via Sevenoaks.

 

Queenborough was such a non-event in the longer term that it’s hard to believe it had such ambitions in its youth.

[Tom Burnham]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Very interesting, even if not via Sevenoaks.

 

Queenborough was such a non-event in the longer term that it’s hard to believe it had such ambitions in its youth.

After WW1 it certainly gradually decayed until it finally sagged into the mud.  But from 1876 to 1911 or so it was a primary route to Holland and Northern Germany.  Used by lots of British, Danish and German royalty (practically all related to Queen Victoria of course) and a lot of other well-known people including Bernard Shaw going to Beyreuth as a music critic, Theodore Roosevelt and Randloph Churchill (travelling under the name of Mr Spencer).  You wouldn't think so to look at Queenborough now.

[Edwardian]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

... such a non-event in the longer term that it’s hard to believe it had such ambitions in its youth.

 

I know the feeling ...

[Nearholmer]

Yes, that thought struck me, about me I hasten to add, as I typed it.

 

Onwards and upwards!

[whart57]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Very interesting, even if not via Sevenoaks.

 

Queenborough was such a non-event in the longer term that it’s hard to believe it had such ambitions in its youth.

 

Ambitious enough to get the rival SER build a pier across the river Medway at Port Victoria along with a branch line to it

[whart57]

2 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

After WW1 it certainly gradually decayed until it finally sagged into the mud.  But from 1876 to 1911 or so it was a primary route to Holland and Northern Germany.  Used by lots of British, Danish and German royalty (practically all related to Queen Victoria of course) and a lot of other well-known people including Bernard Shaw going to Beyreuth as a music critic, Theodore Roosevelt and Randloph Churchill (travelling under the name of Mr Spencer).  You wouldn't think so to look at Queenborough now.

 

The attraction for royalty, especially the 19th century Prince of Wales - the later Edward VII, was that Queenborough was not a primary route but a bit more of a discreet back route.