Finding out about 1870-1880s railways

[Lacathedrale]

I'm quite familiar with the broad brush strokes and practices of the pre grouping era, but the gulf between the experimental era (1830s-1850s) and the turn of the 20th century is all but a blank for me!

 

Resources seem extremely scant, and I'm not even sure where to look. Most books I've read summarise the early periods of these lines into paragraphs of facts and figures, rather than giving an "in the moment" view.

 

By way of illustration: what was the platform surface (or height?), What kind of turnouts were used (what chairs? Where did baulk road exist?), How were passenger trains handled in an era of common mixed trains? Etc.

 

Is there a book which covers this in general bounds? If not, my specific interest is the railways of Kent and Sussex, the LBSCR, LCDR and SER.

[sem34090]

I doubt there was any baulk road on the KESR (Didn't that come much, much later than the 1880's?), LBSCR, LCDR or SER to start with, but I imagine there was a good deal left until the turn of the century, if not beyond. Broad Gauge on the GWR didn't cease until the 1890's.

 

Beyond that, I too am curious!

 

C. Urious

[Regularity]

You need to find access to bound volumes of such as Railway Magazine, and to pore over articles and their accompanying photos. Old - and I do mean old - books may help. The photos are really useful: the article may be about locos, but photos may reveal details about the track, etc. Platforms were generally lower, and gradually got taller, but you can work this out from photos. There were also drawings in such magazines as The Engineer, etc.

 

Both the Midland and the GWR (“narrow gauge” parts) experimented with inside-keyed chairs - the lineman can see both sets of keys whilst walking down the four foot - but found they provided a hard ride, so abandoned them. A lot appeared on other railways, presumably on the second hand market, but again, you find this by looking at photos. You can also determine if turnouts used timbers, interlaced sleepers, or a mixture (such as the GER which used timbers under the crossing vees, but interlaced sleepers between there and the switches). That said, photos of New Radnor in the 1940s show that inside keyed chairs were still in use at the end of WWII on remote parts of the GWR!

 

In your case, there is SECSOC and the LBSCR Society, where you may find members with an interest in trackwork, etc, during the period of interest to you, but don’t bank on them knowing everything or being able to simply download all that they know at the drop of a hat.

 

Basically, you probably have to go to primary resources, in the hope that they even exist.

[Lacathedrale]

I doubt there was any baulk road on the KESR (Didn't that come much, much later than the 1880's?), LBSCR, LCDR or SER to start with, but I imagine there was a good deal left until the turn of the century, if not beyond. Broad Gauge on the GWR didn't cease until the 1890's.

 

Beyond that, I too am curious!

 

C. Urious

 

Hi there, you're right that the KESR was much later, but I didn't say KESR, rather just 'railways of Kent and Sussex i.e. the areas With regard to baulk road, it was just a point to illustrate that many of the things we take for granted in later modelling (for ex. train diagrams, headcodes, processes for watering and turning locomotives, what goods facilities would have been seen, how long the earliest wagons/etc. appeared etc.) all appear to be all but unknown.

 

 

You need to find access to bound volumes of such as Railway Magazine, and to pore over articles and their accompanying photos. Old - and I do mean old - books may help. The photos are really useful: the article may be about locos, but photos may reveal details about the track, etc. Platforms were generally lower, and gradually got taller, but you can work this out from photos. There were also drawings in such magazines as The Engineer, etc.

 

Both the Midland and the GWR (“narrow gauge” parts) experimented with inside-keyed chairs - the lineman can see both sets of keys whilst walking down the four foot - but found they provided a hard ride, so abandoned them. A lot appeared on other railways, presumably on the second hand market, but again, you find this by looking at photos. You can also determine if turnouts used timbers, interlaced sleepers, or a mixture (such as the GER which used timbers under the crossing vees, but interlaced sleepers between there and the switches). That said, photos of New Radnor in the 1940s show that inside keyed chairs were still in use at the end of WWII on remote parts of the GWR!

 

In your case, there is SECSOC and the LBSCR Society, where you may find members with an interest in trackwork, etc, during the period of interest to you, but don’t bank on them knowing everything or being able to simply download all that they know at the drop of a hat.

 

Basically, you probably have to go to primary resources, in the hope that they even exist.

 

It looks like one can view the entire archive of Railway Magazine online (https://www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive/) so that could be a start. Do you have any recommendations on books? I'm happy to trawl primary sources but just a general pointer would be great (I've requested some info about SECSOC for that purpose too).

 

All the very best,

[Edwardian]

This is a very good topic to post. There seem to be important visual differences in the appearance of railways in those days compared with what seems more familiar to many of us. 

 

As I have discovered in relation to Castle Aching, the familiar appearance of the steam-age permanent way is largely a thing of the 1910s onward (I model c.1905 in a relative backwater, so I need a contrasting late Victorian look).

 

So, you are likely to encounter the following:

 

- Rails on mainlines will probably be bullhead by the 1880s, but smaller companies and less important lines may not be.  A lot of lines were laid to flat bottom vignoles rails in, say, 1850s-1860s, or, indeed, bridge rail. The Midland & Great Northern, for instance, didn't renew some stretches of its main line as bull head until c.1902-1905.  Crucially, sidings and yards are likely to feature vignoles rail.  This was often spiked to the sleepers, not chaired, so is best represented by soldering FB rail to copper-clad sleepers.

 

- Ballast generally has a top dressing of fine material covering the sleepers. photographs tend to suggest that this practice was abandoned on most lines c.1910, but was pretty universal in earlier years.

 

- Sleepers were often inter-laced on turnouts, rather than using through timbers, so point-work looks very different. 

 

- Signals may well be of earlier patterns than the familiar steam-age upper or lower quadrant signals.  For instance, a fairly common earlier type was the slot in post variety, whereby the arm disappeared into the post when the line is clear.

 

- I have come across examples of platform heights of 1' to 2 1/2', so noticeably lower platforms are a good indicator of period. 

 

- Even those ubiquitous enamel advertising signs will betray you.  I believe they were not produced until the late 1880s. 

 

In terms of rolling stock, everything is different. Coaches built in the 1860s and 1870s have a distinct look.  The panel style found on, say, Ratio GW 4-wheelers, Triang clerestories and many etched kits is really a later style.  Your coaches are likely to have raised beading on the waist.  Panels might have square corners and lights might have large radius curved top corners. Those familiar Stroudley 4-wheelers would have been among the most modern-looking coaches out there.

 

I am not sure mixed trains were that common.  It depends on where you're modelling, of course.

 

I would study photographs as the best way forward, e.g. somewhere like Lewes before its rebuilding.

 

You have not mentioned the scale in which you model.  For the LB&SCR, 5&9 kits will provide you with all the Craven-era rolling stock you need in 4mm.  There is similar coverage of the SER, but in 7mm, though SER Kits seem prepared to consider re-scaling kits.  

 

In terms of books, I suggest that you will glean a little from many.  Any good book on a specific line in Kent and Sussex, e.g. an Oakwood volume, will give you valuable information on the early history of that line, albeit at the cost of the subsequent 4/5ths of the history being of no help to you!  

 

Good luck and please let us know how you get on.

[Jim Martin]

You could try E.L. Ahrons' Locomotive and Train Working in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century, which I think was an anthology of articles from the Railway Magazine from about 1920. I've seen copies, but never sat down and read one: there are several volumes and while copied in good condition can cost a lot, some are ridiculously cheap:https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/locomotive-and-train-working-in-the-latter-part-of-the-nineteenth-century/author/ahrons/.

 

You can find a list of the volumes, together with a pithy assessment of these and other books by Ahrons, at http://www.steamindex.com/library/ahrons.htm. Based on your interests, it seems like you'd be after Volume 5: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=locomotive+and+train+working+in+the+nineteenth+century&client=ms-android-motorola&prmd=isnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj12b7xtvrYAhUK6RQKHRg2CBw4ChD8BQgPKAE&biw=360&bih=512#imgrc=k0fH_jkqrnXC5M:

 

Jim

Edited January 28, 2018 by Jim Martin

[Regularity]

Do you have any recommendations on books?

Difficult question: such things are not common, they can be patchy - varying according to the interests of the author/photographer/publisher and they tend to pre-date such things as ISBN.

 

Jack Kite, now long gone to the platform in the sky, did an album or two, called something like Vintage Album. It does seem to turn up from time to time.

 

There are also vendors of photos, who attend shows have an eBay presence, or their own websites, e.g. Roger Carpenter at shows, railwaystationphographs.co.uk, who are migrating away from eBay (redgate8) due to eBay’s hike in fees. Usual disclaimers apply!

[Nick Holliday]

I agree with everything Edwardian says. The only point of disagreement might be the proportion of information actually relevant to the early period, at least with regard to photographic coverage, which is often more like 1% or less, rather than 20%. Part of the problem is that outdoor photography was relatively rare until the end of the 1880's, and much of what was taken earlier concentrated on major events, such as openings or accidents, locomotives and possibly station buildings. Followers of the LBSC are particularly fortunate, in that there is a series of early official photos showing Brighton shed and yard, which modern experts have analysed and dissected in depth, and, at Lewes, Edward Reeves captured many railway scenes, albeit accidentally. Fortunately most, if not all, of his negatives have survived, and his company is still in business, however, they are fiercely protective of their copyright, and very few of their best items have been published. E J Bedford then took up the baton and captured Lewes station and its environs before the major 1889 rebuild, whilst it retained much of its earlier features.

It sometimes pays to investigate slightly outside the box, as some of the books concentrating on locos or carriages make use of early photos, which their authors have managed to dig out of the archives, such as recent volumes on Caledonian and LBSC coaches, and the relevant volumes of the RCTS locomotive histories. You really need to have access to a well stocked library, to be able to skim through volumes to find the cream, unless you have enough spare cash to buy every book that might contain something useful!

The Ahrons' books Jim mentioned are useful guides to operations, but their photographic coverage is limited, and often tending towards locos from the later years of Victoria's reign.

[Lacathedrale]

Hi Edwardian, thank you for your kind help and advice. How much of turnout timbers would have been seen under this fine layer of ballast? I'm thinking to myself - why make my life hard with interlaced turnout timbers from the get-go if it's all going to be covered!? Thank you very much for the tip on vignoles rail in secondary/siding/etc. - I wonder if Peco Code-100 flatbottom rail might be a good use for vignoles spiked to timbers - certainly with the ballasting mentioned above it hardly seems neccesary to go the whole hog

 

In terms of modelling, definitely down one of my previously described layout plans i.e. Caterham (possibly semi-fictionalised into 'Foxley Wood' so I can fit it into a reasonable space) or Greenwich Park (again, twisted into 'Southwark Park' so I can have at least one or two goods lines). I'm trying some 2mmFS now, but I think this would most definitely fit better in 7mm and I'm already in conversation with Dan at SER Kits to order one of his Stirling A-class 4-4-0's. 

 

Jim, I've picked up that Ahron book just to have something to leaf through, hopefully it'll come useful. Thank you.

 

 

Nick - I want to be as accurate as possible, but this is a model and layout building exercise rather than a doctoral thesis - so if I can't find out this information after a good effort I'm happy to freelance it based on whatever IS available! Hopefully I can post my progress such as it is here, and be pilloried for it. 

Edited January 28, 2018 by Lacathedrale

[Edwardian]

Hi Edwardian, thank you for your kind help and advice. How much of turnout timbers would have been seen under this fine layer of ballast? I'm thinking to myself - why make my life hard with interlaced turnout timbers from the get-go if it's all going to be covered!? Thank you very much for the tip on vignoles rail in secondary/siding/etc. - I wonder if Peco Code-100 flatbottom rail might be a good use for vignoles spiked to timbers - certainly with the ballasting mentioned above it hardly seems neccesary to go the whole hog

 

 

 

Lacathedrale - a good question. 

 

The short answer is "I don't know".

 

I am still building track, with interlaced sleepers to the turnouts. I have not ballasted yet.  On the one hand it seems annoying to go to the trouble of interlacing and then cover it up completely. On the other, however, I simply don't know how evident the timbering will be when I've ballasted.  I have to consider 2 factors here: 

 

First, on the prototype the covering of the top dressing might be (i) worn in places, (ii) have settled between the sleepers, so that the ghost of the sleeper is still discernable, and, on the model, (iii) the extent to which the top dressing interferes with the operation of the points on a model may require me to reduce the coverage.

 

Second, with bullhead rail, contemporary photographs show that the upper parts of the chairs remain visible.  You can, thus, easily spot the difference between top-dressed BH and FB track.  With interlaced timbers, the course of each sleeper on BH turnouts will thus be clear from the positions of the chairs.  

 

Also two issues seem to emerge  regarding choice of rail.

 

One is rail weight. Earlier rail, laid or re-laid in sidings, and perhaps worn, is probably going to be lighter than later rail.  However, I do need to make a transition from a bullhead mainline to a FB yard, so I chose to stick to the same code, in my case Code 75, as I am working in 4mm.  Code 100 in 7mm would presumably give a nice light rail look.  I don't know what issues it might throw up where used with 7mm Bullhead or with wheel standards etc.  But there are plenty of 7mm modellers hereabouts who can help you there. 

 

Second issue is the need to maintain a constant rail height.  E.g. for 4mm, I have been advised that thin Timber Tracks wooden sleepers with plastic chairs should achieve the same rail height as FB soldered to PCB sleepers, but it is always possible that thin shims will be necessary to even everything up.

 

Now, speaking of track, I really ought to get back to mine after an extended break ....

[Nick Holliday]

A number of Brighton Circle members are working in this sort of era, such as Burgundy and Chris Cox, and the 2mm section of the Epsom and Ewell MRC is working on a full scale model of Lewes dating to around 1880 and post regularly here. I would suggest investigating Burgundy's excellent Modellers Digests, several of which feature work on early layouts, or contain relevant photographs that may be of interest.

[ian@stenochs]

Difficult question: such things are not common, they can be patchy - varying according to the interests of the author/photographer/publisher and they tend to pre-date such things as ISBN.

Jack Kite, now long gone to the platform in the sky, did an album or two, called something like Vintage Album. It does seem to turn up from time to time.

There are also vendors of photos, who attend shows have an eBay presence, or their own websites, e.g. Roger Carpenter at shows, railwaystationphographs.co.uk, who are migrating away from eBay (redgate8) due to eBay’s hike in fees. Usual disclaimers apply!

Jack Kites books, I have two, are excellent with most pre group companies covered. He had an eclectic taste in railways. However most views are late Victirian or Edwardian period as are most photos available from the collections from which prints are sold. Remember photography was new and expensive in the period we are discussing here.

 

Worth trying the relevant line Societies for back copies of their journals as they often publish useful views. They also have experts who can help with specific questions but make sure you don’t ask for too much and you are prepared to give them something in return, at least a stamped envelope if you write or an offer to pay costs if you e mail. Virtually all are volunteers with busy lives too.

 

Ian.

[Edwardian]

Jack Kites books, I have two, are excellent with most pre group companies covered. He had an eclectic taste in railways. However most views are late Victirian or Edwardian period as are most photos available from the collections from which prints are sold. Remember photography was new and expensive in the period we are discussing here.

 

Worth trying the relevant line Societies for back copies of their journals as they often publish useful views. They also have experts who can help with specific questions but make sure you don’t ask for too much and you are prepared to give them something in return, at least a stamped envelope if you write or an offer to pay costs if you e mail. Virtually all are volunteers with busy lives too.

 

Ian.

 

Ian, I have one of these, but did not realise there were two.  

 

OS Nock did pre-Grouping albums on various lines, not sure which.

[Killian keane]

If you haven't got these already, Donald Bradleys books on LCDR and SER locos are a must for the pre grouping southern modeller

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Locomotive-History-South-Eastern-Railway/dp/0901115487

https://www.amazon.com/locomotive-history-London-Chatham-Railway/dp/0901115479

Edited January 28, 2018 by Killian keane

[Dick Turpin]

You could always try reading around the subject to get a feel for the period in general, such as social and economic history texts and anything that takes your fancy which was actually written in the period. I like to consider the political undercurrents and social trends of the time I'm trying to model as a backdrop too, as well as just what merchandise the railway was transporting to and from where, as well as the kind of people who may have had a hand in producing it,their lives and their living conditions. I also periodically wonder exactly where my forebears would have been living then and what they might have been doing at this time as well as how I'd have felt if I were with them. As an aside, whenever I try to think back to the railways in the late Victorian period, I tend to imagine Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson travelling in their compartment and discussing their current case. That's the lasting power of literature for you!

[Regularity]

Re ballast. It does show: Trevor Nunn ballasted over the tops of his sleepers, but they still ‘grin’ through.

[Edwardian]

Re ballast. It does show: Trevor Nunn ballasted over the tops of his sleepers, but they still ‘grin’ through.

 

Well, that's a relief!

 

A nice example of the sort of styling common for coaches in the '60s and '70s, including, from what I can tell, raised beading to the waist panels.

[Branwell]

It may be worth looking at joining some of the line associations/societies and then there are publications like Midland Record and Railway Archive (neither of which, sadly, are being produced any more).

 

Given your interest in the railways of Kent and Sussex, Railway Archive will probably be of more interest - see http://lightmoor.co.uk/category.php?section=Railway%20Archive for an index of articles.

[Regularity]

Yes. All done with ply and card - Trevor doesn’t like plasticard!

 

The coaches were made from Nigel Digby’s drawings in his M&GN book, IIRC, but they are fairly typical of those built by contractors for smaller railways.

 

Incidentally, Jack Kite’s books are “Vintage Steam” and “Vintage Album”.

[Regularity]

An additional photo - scarily nearly 15 years old!

[LBRJ]

Slightly OT but there are a lot more pictures around from the 80s and 90s about than from the 70s and before due I believe to "a technical improvement"  in the early 1880s, that made photography both easier and cheaper.

It always strikes me that the basics of what we now see as "the modern world" really started to take shape only in the last couple of decades of the C 19th.

[Ravenser]

Slightly OT but there are a lot more pictures around from the 80s and 90s about than from the 70s and before due I believe to "a technical improvement"  in the early 1880s, that made photography both easier and cheaper.

It always strikes me that the basics of what we now see as "the modern world" really started to take shape only in the last couple of decades of the C 19th.

 

I believe it was only in the 1880s that photographic plate emulsions became good enough to make photography of moving trains possible

 

Slightly off-beat as a source, but in 1866 Charles Dickens published a collection of short stories with a railway setting under the title "Mugby Junction". The one that is remembered is "The Signalman" but there might be some useful hints in there - the SER was his local railway and he clearly had a sharp eye for the railways. At worst, you end up spending a couple of days reading some minor Dickens...

 

Another possible source would be accounts of railway signalling - the development of mechanical signalling and "lock and block" were very much of this period, and the SER and LB&SCR were among the first to take them up in a serious way. Illustrations (photos or engravings) relating to the early work of Saxby, and Saxby & Farmer are likely to be highly relevant

[Caley Jim]

You could always try reading around the subject to get a feel for the period in general, such as social and economic history texts and anything that takes your fancy which was actually written in the period. I like to consider the political undercurrents and social trends of the time I'm trying to model as a backdrop too, as well as just what merchandise the railway was transporting to and from where, as well as the kind of people who may have had a hand in producing it,their lives and their living conditions. I also periodically wonder exactly where my forebears would have been living then and what they might have been doing at this time as well as how I'd have felt if I were with them. As an aside, whenever I try to think back to the railways in the late Victorian period, I tend to imagine Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson travelling in their compartment and discussing their current case. That's the lasting power of literature for you!

I have a book entitled 'The Age of the Railway' by Harold Perkin, originally published in 1970.  It is not a railway history, but an account of how the development of the Railway network changed society and was the origin of many things which today we take for granted, such as GMT, package tours etc.  I would suggest that anyone with a modicum of interest in the Victorian railway scene would find it of interest.

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

As an armchair pre-grouper, I think you raise some good questions.

 

Lots of good advice already, but a few further thoughts:

 

- The Engineer is available on line, and although it won’t answer all your questions, it does contain a great deal of relevance, plus a distracting mass of irrelevant, but fascinating, stuff!

 

- the journal of the ICE is very good, and if you are a member of any engineering institution other than the Civils you should be able to get access via your librarian.

 

- ‘Our Iron Roads’ was an early general railway book that was churned out in great quantity, so is easy to find at sensible prices. Mine is a 3rd edition, dated 1883, and cost £16.

 

- this was before ‘lock, block and brake’, so signalling and traffic control practices varied widely, with only the best and latest bearing much resemblance to what has become familiar as ‘traditional’ railway practise.

 

- which leads neatly on to accident enquiry reports. There are zillions of them on ‘railways archive’ and a look at any from your area and period will yield all sorts of information, from train formations to operating (mal)practices.

 

- J T Howard-Turner’s history of the LBSCR is quite well-illustrated with early pictures, track layout diagrams etc.

 

- there are odd instances of paintings and engravings of particular stations, which probably give the best available guidance as to the general look of railways at the time.

 

Overall, though, I think you are looking into “the dark age” of railways. There seems to be more around covering the very early years, up to maybe 1845/50, when it was all new technology, than in the period when railways became near-universal, but practices hadn’t standardised under the guidance of the Board of Trade, and photography was still not common.

 

Kevin

[Lacathedrale]

Very interesting - I do find it odd that we have such detailed OS maps that we can determine things like turntable diameters and signal post locations, but we have no (easy access to) pictures of said turntables, posts or even trackwork.

 

I've read somewhere that tandem turnouts were alot more common and slips less so in this era, is that correct?