SE&CR Traffic on the Sevenoaks-Tonbridge Line

[Edwardian]

Alternating stock is certainly possible, and is confirmed in Gould for some of the GWR through trains. However, the picture I posted above are c.1900 and the SECR's fancy, gangwayed coaches weren't built until 1907. I speculate that they were only built because of a new agreement for the SECR to provide stock in corridor trains of other railways. No other gangwayed stock was built in Mr. Wainwright's tenure.

 

I fear that you are right there!  Never mind, if my Insane Plan to run 3 mainlines down the length of a very long shed ever comes to fruition, there will be LNW stock forming the 'Sunny South' on the Quarry Line!

[Joseph_Pestell]

Final pic of an LNWR through train (apologies for the wonky scan):

 

LNWR-through-train.jpg

 

This is on the ex-LCDR bit, but west of Chislehurst, so it's not completely certain which way it will go when it gets there. The "two double-ended break composites" are quite likely 9' wide which raises loading-gauge issues on the ex-SER section.

 

Note the dining saloon!   

Do the headcode discs not tell us (or at least the cognoscenti) which route the train is taking?

[Guy Rixon]

Do the headcode discs not tell us (or at least the cognoscenti) which route the train is taking?

 

Excellent idea. All the relevant codes seem to have been tablulated, but I can't find the exact code shown in the photo. Assuming SECR post-1917 codes, the lamp in the middle of the buffer beam means a special train and perhaps the disc to the left of the smokebox (as seen by the signaller) in the photo is trying to indicate the route of the special?

[Dana Ashdown]

I found the pictures I was looking for.

 

Herne-Hill-1.jpg

 

Herne-Hill-2.jpg

 

In the first picture both LNWR and GWR coaches have come from Victoria to Herne Hill, having got to Victoria via the WLER.

 

In the second, the train is just the Midland portion heading north and 3 coaches is an easy load for an A class, even up 1 in 40. The coaches are low roofed, not clerestory. This is possibly because the clerestory stock was out of gauge for the the Widened Lines.

 

I think the second picture with the Midland carriages represents a suburban train, some of which operated to east end London prior to the Great War. Similarly, some SECR trains ran up Great Northern line into north London.

 

Dana

[Guy Rixon]

The Midland trains running though east London were mainly (entirely?) between the Midland and the LTSR after the Midland bought the latter in 1912.

 

I'm not aware of local passenger services from the Midland through Snow Hill to the LCDR and SECR. I've a few books on the underground north-south links and I think at least one photo would have surfaced by now. But if anybody has pictures or contemporary documents showing such a service, I'd love to see them.

 

I'm aware of the services from the SECR to the GNR. They went to Woolwich in the south. In SER days they were worked by Mr. Stirling's Q-class 0-4-4T and in later days by ex-LCDR A-class 0-4-4T. Pictures in the early 20th century show trains of the older SER 4-wheelers, with arc roofs. These were presumably built before about 1885 when the elliptical roofs came in. Notably, there seems to have been no matching service worked by GNR trains.

[Nearholmer]

Based on reading old accident reports, the SER went (at least at some dates) Enfield (GN), via Snow Hill and the curves in Southwark to Cannon Street. The trains either reversed there and went on to Woolwich, or were later routed to Woolwich without the reversal.

 

The LCDR ran Victoria via Snow Hill and the eastern curve at Farringdon to Moorgate. This one was a frequent service, maybe half-hourly [EDIT: it was four an hour in direction at some times of day.]. I have a hazy idea that the LCDR also ran through onto the Midland as far as Kentish Town, or even Harpenden, but make no claim on that point without further delving to confirm/deny.

 

[EDIT: I’ve also found Greenwich Park to Moorgate Services, and Crystal Palace HL Services to Moorgate in 1910.]

 

The Midland ran out of St Pancras via what is now the Gospel Oak to Barking Line, but I can’t for the life of me remember where their trains went (other than one that was a boat train), so need to check.

 

[EDIT: having checked for 1910, this is complicated! They were running East Ham, possibly Barking, to St Pancras, but also some trains by the same route to Moorgate, which is real ‘round the sun to meet the moon’ stuff.]

 

[EDIT: I’ve also stumbled on some services from Cambridge, via the GER, to St Pancras, which really surprised me. Blue engines at St Pancras it seems!]

 

This really needs a late C19th Bradshaw, which I don’t have, because the service patterns altered when the Met and District electrified, the tubes opened, and electric trams got underway. I’ve a long-incomplete task to draw “Sherlock Holmes’ Tube Map”, showing all this lot.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Nearholmer

[whart57]

The O class is already available in 4mm scale, from Branchlines. I have one in the queue. It's an old-school whitemetal kit with an etched chassis and some of its fittings, like the safety valve and steam-pump for the reverser, are what could be got for an etches-only F. There's also resin parts for an O1 from Golden Arrow.

 

Concerning the F, if a new master had to be made for the boiler, I suspect that it might sink a small-batch project. It would be easy enough to get a boiler, smokebox and firebox printed, if the budget is not too tight. If the etches for the rest can be procured I would gladly provide the prints.

 

I don't know about 4mm scale but isn't a big problem with the F and F1 the seven foot drivers. Not just sourcing them but also the fact that the axles are higher and the boiler is low, making the motor/gearbox layout a bit of a challenge.

[Regularity]

I don't know about 4mm scale but isn't a big problem with the F and F1 the seven foot drivers. Not just sourcing them but also the fact that the axles are higher and the boiler is low, making the motor/gearbox layout a bit of a challenge.

You now approach the real reason Bob Essery went to Scale 7. He once told me that when building a Midland Spinner to “0 Fine” - which is closer to scale in many ways than EM is - he was still having to cut holes in the boiler for the driving wheels, and realised that only by adopting S7 standards could he avoid this.

I have often thought that this is the most eloquent argument for “Proto” standards: fewer compromises - it is possible and necessary to still make some adjustments as you can’t scale physical laws (a fact Geoff Holt forgot when building a Johnson 4-4-0 for Dewsbury) and you can’t run round dinner plates for the most part, either, but forget all the hype. If you need to cut holes in the boiler due to your track and wheel standards, then maybe you need to reconsider things a bit?

[whart57]

Well since we aren't using the boiler to raise steam I'm not sure it matters so much if we cut holes than where we cut holes. I've not tried building an F but I would have thought splasher clearances and clearances for the connecting rods were going to be bigger problems

[Regularity]

Well since we aren't using the boiler to raise steam I'm not sure it matters so much if we cut holes than where we cut holes. I've not tried building an F but I would have thought splasher clearances and clearances for the connecting rods were going to be bigger problems

It matters if you can see the holes. I always thought the aim of modelling was to model what’s there (and visibly there), rather than what isn’t there, and holes in the boiler to accommodate wheels ain’t there.

 

But that’s not my point.

My point was that sometimes, “finescale” can be easier, and it was a shame that RJE didn’t make more of that reasoning, rather than preaching about it being more accurate. (Which it is, but that tends to make people twitchy because they then confuse accurate with accuracy, and accuracy with engineering tolerances. The latter apply no matter what you do, and are why we have things like track gauges to save us having to think about it.)

Edited February 16, 2018 by Regularity

[whart57]

I would argue that modelling without compromise is model engineering, and is there not an inconsistency in objecting to the driving wheel splashers are wider and taller to accommodate fatter wheels and deeper flanges and thus require cutting into the boiler, but being relaxed about a stonking great gear wheel on a driving axle? I wouldn't be surprised though if OO and EM models of the F class didn't look quite right, simply because the splashers would have to be oversized. Or the driving wheel diameter shrunk by a millimetre or so. You may be right in thinking that here P4 would be easier.

 

As for me, this sort of discussion makes me glad I've decided to model diesels .......

[Nearholmer]

And me very glad that I’ve allowed free-rein to my inner child, who has no trouble at all sensing the ‘innate railwayness’ of a coarse-scale loco that is not much more than a broad-brush impression of the prototype, in dimensional terms.

 

The question is: can each of us decide what bothers us?

 

I think the answer is ‘not completely’, and that if an individual is bothered by wheels that impinge into the envelope of the boiler of a model loco, then they are bothered by it; it’s an itch they can’t not scratch.

 

We probably each have our own little clutch of ‘itches’.

[Caley Jim]

We probably each have our own little clutch of ‘itches’.

Mine is drive shafts from tender mounted motor to loco which go through the middle of the cab (especially very 'open' cabs), which is why I arrange mine to go below the footplate.

 

Jim

[Regularity]

As for me, this sort of discussion makes me glad I've decided to model diesels .......

Chicken.

[Caley Jim]

As for me, this sort of discussion makes me glad I've decided to model diesels .......

I thought that was spelled 'diseasels'?  

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

I thought that was spelled 'diseasels'?  

 

Jim

 

That it is, and as every boy knows, coughs and sneezels spread them.

[Hroth]

That it is, and as every boy knows, coughs and sneezels spread them.

Unless you catch them in your hankercheeves!

[Edwardian]

Unless you catch them in your hankercheeves!

 

Well, they can be quite snotty ....

[Compound2632]

I found the pictures I was looking for.

 

Herne-Hill-1.jpg

 

Herne-Hill-2.jpg

 

In the first picture both LNWR and GWR coaches have come from Victoria to Herne Hill, having got to Victoria via the WLER.

 

In the second, the train is just the Midland portion heading north and 3 coaches is an easy load for an A class, even up 1 in 40. The coaches are low roofed, not clerestory. This is possibly because the clerestory stock was out of gauge for the the Widened Lines.

 

All the Midland carriages in these two photos are Clayton-era arc roofed carriages, built in the 1880s and upgraded with one compartment converted to a pair of lavatories in he 1890s. I think they may all be 45' composites to D513 or 45' brake composites to D536, both of which were relatively numerous. Seeing three together tallies with the idea of a through train (or portion) originating from various Midland centres - Bradford/Leeds and Manchester certainly. (I can't see why someone questioned Manchester Central?) They certainly aren't the 20th century arc roofed carriages built for suburban services northwards from St Pancras/Moorgate - those were 9' wide and had six end panels rather than the five seen here.

 

The standard Midland clerestory carriages were too tall for the Metropolitan lines. Lacy & Dow record 47 carriages built to a reduced height of 12'8" in 1907-11. This was done by flattening the profile of the roof of the clerestory section. These included eight 50' brake composites to D471, then 27 54' carriages - 10 brake composites, D472, 8 thirds, D547, 5 brake thirds, D477 and a pair each of vestibuled thirds and firsts, D541 and D540 - around the same time the 6-wheeled kitchen carriages built for the original Bristol-Bradford clerestory sets of 1897 were modified to clear the Metropolitan gauge, so clearly there was at least the idea of running through dining trains onto the SE&CR. The final lot of Metropolitan gauge carriages were twelve 50' third class carriages - one end having three third class compartments in the usual way but the other end arranged as a picnic saloon. The LMS clearly got fed up with trying to find work for these so passed them on (off?) to the M&GN in 1936, where they survived until the 50s.

 

I've seen a couple of photos dated to the early 20s showing a Metropolitan gauge brake composite at the head of a Scotch express leaving Carlisle - one heading south behind a compound, the other northbound behind a Manson 4-6-0. Is there any evidence for a through carriage between the SE&CR / Southern Eastern Division and Glasgow / West of Scotland? Or is it just a question of needing to press every available brake composite into use to meet the need for through coaches? I like the improbable idea of a Dover Western Docks-Greenock Princes Pier through carriage for that all-important Menton-Rothesay traffic.

[Compound2632]

[EDIT: I’ve also stumbled on some services from Cambridge, via the GER, to St Pancras, which really surprised me. Blue engines at St Pancras it seems!]

 

 

St Pancras was the Great Eastern's West End terminus for Cambridge expresses for many years, apparently much preferred to the Great Northern to Kings Cross by the well-heeled such as the Benson family. I think there was a piece in Midland Record or the Midland Railway Society Journal about this. 

[Compound2632]

I'm not aware of local passenger services from the Midland through Snow Hill to the LCDR and SECR. I've a few books on the underground north-south links and I think at least one photo would have surfaced by now. But if anybody has pictures or contemporary documents showing such a service, I'd love to see them.

 

 

The Midland certainly had a service to Victoria in the 19th century. I'm sure I've seen a photo of a Kirtley back-tank there but can't track it down just now.

 

EDIT: apologies for the lack of rigorous referencing in this and the previous post. A heavy cold is discouraging me from sifting through piles of books and urgently encouraging me to go to bed.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Compound2632

[Dana Ashdown]

The Midland trains running though east London were mainly (entirely?) between the Midland and the LTSR after the Midland bought the latter in 1912.

 

I'm not aware of local passenger services from the Midland through Snow Hill to the LCDR and SECR. I've a few books on the underground north-south links and I think at least one photo would have surfaced by now. But if anybody has pictures or contemporary documents showing such a service, I'd love to see them.

 

I'm aware of the services from the SECR to the GNR. They went to Woolwich in the south. In SER days they were worked by Mr. Stirling's Q-class 0-4-4T and in later days by ex-LCDR A-class 0-4-4T. Pictures in the early 20th century show trains of the older SER 4-wheelers, with arc roofs. These were presumably built before about 1885 when the elliptical roofs came in. Notably, there seems to have been no matching service worked by GNR trains.

 

I was wrong about the Midland trains going east — Mr. Brain having gone bye-bye I confused these with the GNR through service to Woolwich (which ceased at the end of June 1910).

 

Midland trains went to Victoria via Ludgate Hill, but this service ended 1 July 1908.

 

 

If you can find it, Adrian Gray’s South Eastern and Chatham Railways, A Marriage of Convenience (Middleton Press, 1998), outlines the many and varied SE&CR passenger services.

[Nearholmer]

Ah, that clears up my confusion ...... I knew trains went from the LCDR to the Midland, but I thought the6 were LCDR a Trains, and the6 didn’t figure in my 1908 Bradshaw for the, now, obvious reason. Thank you.

[burgundy]

At the risk of resurrecting this thread, while digging through some old magazines, I came across an article on a proposed merger of the southern companies in 1888.

The South Eastern and the Brighton apparently had a fairly public exchange about either forming a joint operating committee (as the SER and LCDR did subsequently in 1899), or of transferring some routes. The SER interest seems to have been in a joint operating committee, ideally including the Chatham, as a way to curtail the border warfare that had been going on among the companies for many years. The Brighton seems to have been more interested in dislodging the SER from the line between London Bridge and Redhill, which had become a secondary route for the SER, ever since the construction of the direct line to Tonbridge in 1868. The suggestion seems to have been that the Brighton would either lease or buy not only the SER's interest in the line to Redhill, but also the whole route from Tonbridge to Reading. If either of these proposals had come to maturity, it opens up a fascinating range of "what ifs".

In the event, the discussion foundered, apparently because Samuel Laing, Chairman of the Brighton, did not trust Edward Watkin, chairman of the South Eastern, and did not take to being hustled by him. The article concludes with the comment that "when Watkin came calling, the neighbours locked up their silver" which says a lot about Watkin's reputation.

Best wishes

Eric      

Edited April 3, 2018 by burgundy

[Oldddudders]

His involvement in multiple railways at home and abroad should have made him a distinguished figure of the era, but the single-stage Watkin’s Folly and 2000-yard Channel Tunnel told a tale of a man with unrealistic aims.