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Creating a believable freelance pre-Group company


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I've wondered about the possibility of having the M&GN tap the Leicestershire coalfield instead of the GN & LNW Joint. Of course, the M&GN was an east-west line, which would make an extension to Leicester probably the most likely expansion they could do by some means.

 

@Edwardian, I think you said you were fond of the GN&LNW Joint, do you know of any ways to expand the M&GN?

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I do not see the MGN expanding westward following its formation in 1893. This would simply duplicate lines of the two owning companies. 

 

However, if one supposed that there were further pre-existing western lines of the Eastern & Midland or its constituents, there is more chance to invent something. 

 

If such a line might feasibly have been built before one of the actual lines it might otherwise duplicate, you might be on to something; such a line would become part of the M&GN from 1893. 

 

Still, there would be problems, I think. It rather depends on when such a company could have built an east-west route, and this is complicated by the fact that both the MR and LNWR routes were in place by the mid-century.  

 

The route to the north would be the Peterborough Cowgate to Leicester, which was provided by the Midland's Syston to Peterborough Railway, opened in 1848, which ran into Peterborough Cowgate station on the ECML GN section, the station used by the MGN, but with a spur to the GE line.

 

As Regularity points out, the LNWR connects Peterborough and Brum.  The Rugby & Stamford opened in 1850.  It had to share the last leg when it converged on the Syston and Peterborough.  The LNWR had a direct line to Peterborough from the south thanks to the L&BR's Northampton and Peterborough Railway from Blisworth to Peterborough, opened in 1845. 

 

What gave the LNWR a viable east-west route to Peterborough, however, was the LNWR building a line from Seaton on the Rugby and Stamford to Wansford on the Northampton & Peterborough. This gave the LNWR a direct east-west route with an end-on junction with the GE and access to Peterborough station. This link line was not built until 1879.

 

Elsewhere, the north-south Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway was opened progressively between 1879 and 1883. The GNR spur west from it to Leicester Belgrave Square was opened in 1883.

 

I think a good route would be to link Peterborough and Birmingham via the shortest route via Leicester, i.e. going in between the LNWR to the south and the MR to the north.

I would suggest an extension of the Peterborough, Wisbech & Sutton Bridge Railway (1866) (or a nominally independent affiliate).  The MR operated the line, but if we are positing a bigger company, we might also decide that it operated its own line with its own stock, thus making it a qualifying freelance company for the purpose of this topic; the Leicester, Peterborough, Wisbech & Sutton Bridge Railway.  

 

Cross the ECML and the Midland lines north of Peterborough Cowgate and strike roughly west-north-west, cross the GNR Wansford branch (1867), then the MR Syston-Peterborough round about Ketton, cross the Midland again south of Oakham station (you should have an MGN Oakham station) , and then west to Marefield where you use the route that the GNR used to get to Leicester (because this later line would never have been built in this scenario).

 

You only then need to demolish bits of Leicester, which no one will much mind, or notice, to emerge the other side to find a route to Birmingham. Not familiar territory for me, so you're on your own there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Edwardian
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7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

I do not see the MGN expanding westward following its formation in 1893. This would simply duplicate lines of the two owning companies. 

 

However, if one supposed that there were further pre-existing western lines of the Eastern & Midland or its constituents, there is more chance to invent something. 

 

If such a line might feasibly have been built before one of the actual lines it might otherwise duplicate, you might be on to something; such a line would become part of the M&GN from 1893. 

 

Still, there would be problems, I think. It rather depends on when such a company could have built an east-west route, and this is complicated by the fact that both the MR and LNWR routes were in place by the mid-century.  

 

The route to the north would be the Peterborough Cowgate to Leicester, which was provided by the Midland's Syston to Peterborough Railway, opened in 1848, which ran into Peterborough Cowgate station on the ECML GN section, the station used by the MGN, but with a spur to the GE line.

 

As Regularity points out, the LNWR connects Peterborough and Brum.  The Rugby & Stamford opened in 1850.  It had to share the last leg when it converged on the Syston and Peterborough.  The LNWR had a direct line to Peterborough from the south thanks to the L&BR's Northampton and Peterborough Railway from Blisworth to Peterborough, opened in 1845. 

 

What gave the LNWR a viable east-west route to Peterborough, however, was the LNWR building a line from Seaton on the Rugby and Stamford to Wansford on the Northampton & Peterborough. This gave the LNWR a direct east-west route with an end-on junction with the GE and access to Peterborough station. This link line was not built until 1879.

 

Elsewhere, the north-south Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway was opened progressively between 1879 and 1883. The GNR spur west from it to Leicester Belgrave Square was opened in 1883.

 

I think a good route would be to link Peterborough and Birmingham via the shortest route via Leicester, i.e. going in between the LNWR to the south and the MR to the north.

I would suggest an extension of the Peterborough, Wisbech & Sutton Bridge Railway (1866) (or a nominally independent affiliate).  The MR operated the line, but if we are positing a bigger company, we might also decide that it operated its own line with its own stock, thus making it a qualifying freelance company for the purpose of this topic; the Leicester, Peterborough, Wisbech & Sutton Bridge Railway.  

 

Cross the ECML and the Midland lines north of Peterborough Cowgate and strike roughly west-north-west, cross the GNR Wansford branch (1867), then the MR Syston-Peterborough round about Ketton, cross the Midland again south of Oakham station (you should have an MGN Oakham station) , and then west to Marefield where you use the route that the GNR used to get to Leicester (because this later line would never have been built in this scenario).

 

You only then need to demolish bits of Leicester, which no one will much mind, or notice, to emerge the other side to find a route to Birmingham. Not familiar territory for me, so you're on your own there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It may be better to have the Spalding and Bourne Railway be the "Leicester, Spalding and Bourne", and have the M&GN get running powers over the Syston and Peterborough.

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On 21/07/2021 at 10:19, Corbs said:

This is a shameless plug for my own video, but if you are interested, this episode of Railway Mania featuring Anthony Dawson is especially interesting with regard to early rail and steam development.

Points of note:

The impact of the Napoleonic wars on locomotive development

Christian dissenters having to make their own way in the world (knock-on effects from the civil war etc.)

 

I think this is relevant to the topic as all railways, even freelance ones, need to start somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

In a similar vein this Nissan Leaf ad from 2011 is like that but with gasoline engines, though I am guilty of severe off-topic-ness!

 

 

Corbs - I don't know what world I've been inhabiting recently but Railway Mania is new to me! Thank you. I wanted to watch your podcast properly and devote to it the time it deserved so a rather belated response. It's excellent. Very informative and I'll re-visit and watch it again and explore the other podcasts. A fantastic foil to the bleak and vacuous evening tv. I never realised the huge influence of Quakers, Unitarians and other Non-Conformists on the development of our railway system and the locos that ran on them. The internal combustion ad's brilliant too! Cheers. J.

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On 31/07/2021 at 12:52, Edwardian said:

I do not see the MGN expanding westward following its formation in 1893. This would simply duplicate lines of the two owning companies. 

 

However, if one supposed that there were further pre-existing western lines of the Eastern & Midland or its constituents, there is more chance to invent something. 

 

If such a line might feasibly have been built before one of the actual lines it might otherwise duplicate, you might be on to something; such a line would become part of the M&GN from 1893. 

 

Still, there would be problems, I think. It rather depends on when such a company could have built an east-west route, and this is complicated by the fact that both the MR and LNWR routes were in place by the mid-century.  

 

The route to the north would be the Peterborough Cowgate to Leicester, which was provided by the Midland's Syston to Peterborough Railway, opened in 1848, which ran into Peterborough Cowgate station on the ECML GN section, the station used by the MGN, but with a spur to the GE line.

 

As Regularity points out, the LNWR connects Peterborough and Brum.  The Rugby & Stamford opened in 1850.  It had to share the last leg when it converged on the Syston and Peterborough.  The LNWR had a direct line to Peterborough from the south thanks to the L&BR's Northampton and Peterborough Railway from Blisworth to Peterborough, opened in 1845. 

 

What gave the LNWR a viable east-west route to Peterborough, however, was the LNWR building a line from Seaton on the Rugby and Stamford to Wansford on the Northampton & Peterborough. This gave the LNWR a direct east-west route with an end-on junction with the GE and access to Peterborough station. This link line was not built until 1879.

 

Elsewhere, the north-south Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway was opened progressively between 1879 and 1883. The GNR spur west from it to Leicester Belgrave Square was opened in 1883.

 

I think a good route would be to link Peterborough and Birmingham via the shortest route via Leicester, i.e. going in between the LNWR to the south and the MR to the north.

I would suggest an extension of the Peterborough, Wisbech & Sutton Bridge Railway (1866) (or a nominally independent affiliate).  The MR operated the line, but if we are positing a bigger company, we might also decide that it operated its own line with its own stock, thus making it a qualifying freelance company for the purpose of this topic; the Leicester, Peterborough, Wisbech & Sutton Bridge Railway.  

 

Cross the ECML and the Midland lines north of Peterborough Cowgate and strike roughly west-north-west, cross the GNR Wansford branch (1867), then the MR Syston-Peterborough round about Ketton, cross the Midland again south of Oakham station (you should have an MGN Oakham station) , and then west to Marefield where you use the route that the GNR used to get to Leicester (because this later line would never have been built in this scenario).

 

You only then need to demolish bits of Leicester, which no one will much mind, or notice, to emerge the other side to find a route to Birmingham. Not familiar territory for me, so you're on your own there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm planning a model of a line that is similar to this idea, but not entirely the same.

 

The Gwash Valley Railway was first opened in 1867, running from Ryhall on the Stamford and Essendine Railway to Empingham, with the intention of building a line from Oakham to the East Coast, through a planned extension to Peakirk via Market Deeping to join the Peterborough, Wisbech and Sutton Bridge Railway's extension to Crowland (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/f4558d58-5a68-41cf-ae75-da0ed4abe55b).

In 1870, the Gwash Valley Railway was extended to Oakham. Running powers over the S&ER were granted to the GVR in the same year and a spur was later constructed near Ryhall to allow trains from the GVR to run south to Stamford East.

In 1872, the Marquess of Exeter attempted to sell the S&ER to the GNR, who declined. Afterwards, the Marquess approached the GVR with a similar offer. The company agreed and the S&ER was subsequently amalgamated into the GVR, with the GNR retaining their running powers over the ex-S&ER lines.

 

The assent of the GN&LNWJR in 1874, drew the attention of the GVR, who soon set their sights on create new semi-direct middle-distance route between Leicester and the East Coast, rivalling the MR's Syston to Peterborough line. An extension was proposed in 1876 running from Oakham to the GN&LNWJR at Tilton, providing the GVR with access to Leicester with running powers over the Great Northern Railway's Belgrave Road branch. The new line was completed by 1880. Another extension was also planned in 1876 to link the Sibson Branch of the former S&ER to the Eastern and Midlands Railway's Peterborough Wisbech and Sutton Bridge line at Paston via Ailsworth. Unfortunately, this fell through due to opposition from Earl Fitzwilliam, who was displeased by the proximity of the line to his Milton Park estate.

 

Like the GNR, in 1876, the GVR also gave its support to the ill-fated Norfolk Central Railway, a scheme proposed to build a line from March to Norwich, via Wisbech (connecting to the PW&SBR) and Watton (connecting to the independent Thetford and Watton Railway). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/3e042169-424c-487b-9a20-8fe0a9b369ba

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A few things have happened to resurrect my pre-Group project. The main one is that I have been working with Wayne Kinney of British Finescale on getting some point kits for 3mm scale to market. I built the prototype and put it on a board. Then I did some scenic treatment and just put some stock on it to see what it looked like.

 

3mm_point_demo.jpg.9e00ccca0d008942815b3fb60af8d444.jpg

Oh dear, it does look rather Surrey like doesn't it .......

So that got me thinking. Firstly, the availability of good quality points makes building a layout much easier. A British Finescale point can be built and laid in under an hour and work perfectly whereas a handbuilt one takes several hours and may need several hours more fiddling and fettling. Secondly I would like a test bed with a number of points to prove that these BF points are reliable to any sceptic there might be.

 

So I sketched out a possible track plan in AnyRail using their Exactoscale library and an 8" grid to adjust it for 3mm scale.

 

Deepdene-3.jpg.9dfb2f85ac2fedd3b0ea97ee1e68166c.jpg

In my thinking the lines to the left are towards Dorking (the present day Dorking West) and the lines to the right are to Reigate and Redhill (upper) and Horsham (lower). The period I have settled on in 1872 give or take a couple of years.

 

I had a bit of fun with an Ordnance Survey map of the time

 

Dorking-1869.jpg.8c509d284fcf0e83e9e733e03b29f796.jpg

 

So my layout plan would be Deepdene Junction where the lines to Reigate (singled as an economy measure) and Horsham (earthworks wide enough for double track but only a single line laid yet)  come together before continuing as double track to Dorking.

 

Comments have been made that the BoT would want the junction to be double track and that in reality a railway company would run two single lines to the next junction in order to save on a signal box. To which my answer would be, guys, this is 1872, BoT regulations are still evolving and staff are cheap.

 

I have a modified history too. It's no longer the London and Surrey Railway but the Surrey Railways Joint Operating Company. The history is still based on the Reading, Reigate and Guildford Railway being forced into independent existence by a revolt of SER shareholders in 1852, but instead of that impoverished company taking over other lines it, and two other nominally independent railways - the Leatherhead and Horsham and the Epsom and Sutton railways - creating a joint operating company in 1859 to operate their lines as they were fed up with the vulture like behaviour of the Brighton and South Western. The RGRR transferred it's own stock to the Surrey Railway and the opco also raised capital for new stock.

 

The layout of the junctions around Dorking also mean an operating pattern that lets trains be shorter. London trains would split and combine at Dorking. A typical London train in 1870 might be a dozen four wheel coaches, but if that is made up of a Horsham portion and a Reading/Guildford portion then I only need to allow for trains six or seven four wheelers long. In reality SER Reading to London trains were combined with a Tonbridge portion at Redhill so I am not flying that far from the truth

 

Joint operating companies were not unheard of in the nineteenth century, indeed the SER and the London and Brighton (no South Coast yet) started out with one. But the wrapping up of the Surrey Railways joint company in the 1890s allows the line of history to resume on a path to the present.

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Small world.

 

I was chatting over the weekend to some 3mm Society members.  They asked about my 4mil project. When they heard about the freelance pre-Grouping scheme and saw the 3D Sharp Stewart 2-4- 'standard class', they mentioned a chap freelancing in 3mil who had turned one into a single! 

 

It's all looking good!

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On 02/02/2021 at 13:08, ianathompson said:

 

I will admit that i am no expert on Edwardian railways, but like most modellers, I would like to think that I have a reasonable working knowledge of what to generally expect.

As an ignoramus on the finer points I would suggest the following type of line up was common.

Goods trains 0-6-0 or 0-6-2T or maybe 0-8-0 where heavy minerals were carried.

Express passenger 4-4-0.

Local passenger 2-4-0 or 2-4-0T, 0-4-4T or 2-4-2T.

My NM&GS is structured similarly with 0-6-0 for goods (largely coal, lime and stone traffic) and generally 4-4-0 for passenger with 0-4-4T on the stopping trains. The WELR is a short tramway branch and will sport a variety of 2-4-0T simply because I like that wheel arrangement. There are also 2 GER tram engines in use on the tramway.

As I simply love collecting engines I also have two 2-4-0 tender engine kits in the to do pile which will represent the passenger engines of a decade or three earlier, still in service. I must confess I have bought a Bachmann Atlantic as well and the Locomotion/Rapido Stirling single just because they are so nice. How they'll fit into the logic I cannot say.

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7 hours ago, GWRSwindon said:

I'm mulling over the idea of a "Birmingham & Peterborough Direct Railway" - it allows for the things I love: MPDs, busy main lines, and plenty of foreign companies.

That strikes me as a good candidate for a company something like the size of the M&SWJ. A fairly boisterous undertaking with both local traffic and logical connections at both ends. You could generate a plausible main line atmosphere from that in a severe competition mode with the companies whose lines it cuts across. Having an ally in a big railway company as a major shareholder would help I think, a company that would gain value in invading the territory of another.

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I did this map of my "Surrey Railways Joint Operating Company" network for a talk on a club Zoom call

 

image.png.258fea4474a572bd10a9e848747a8c74.png

 

The pink lines are LSWR, Stroudley Engine Green colour are LBSCR (what else?). red is SER and brown is GWR. Dashed lines are joint lines, dotted lines where running powers are granted, the main colour being the owning company.

Edited by whart57
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The LNWR had two routes from Birmingham to Peterborough, and a third in conjunction with the Midland:

Long-way round, via Northampton (but direct run-through possible)

Via Rugby thence Market Harbough-Wansford-Peterborough;

Via Nuneaton and Leicester - the route used nowadays.

There we’re other, more torturous possibilities, but…

…if there had been sufficient traffic, then more traffic would have used the first one, and it might have survived longer.

The GER and LNWR had a very cordial corporate relationship, because they didn’t compete for any traffic but did feed each other. Can’t see the GER putting that at risk for the “benefit” of great expenditure to capture relatively little traffic.

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It's probably worth restating my philosophy here since it is buried under a dozen pages of postings since.

 

We are talking model railways here, so my purpose is to be able to run locos and carriages I like in colours I like. (Freight stock is a bit freer given a lot came from other companies through interworking and pooling arrangements). It's a bit of an antidote to the rivet counting philosophy that says A couldn't have run with B and C is the wrong colour for the time A was around, without going over to a completely anything goes approach.

 

Now on a good model railway geography does play a role in terms of the scenery, the architecture of buildings and in what goods are carried in trains, but since few of us can contemplate the sort of American basement layout where a whole network can be modelled, we are unlikely to model multiple stations. So I don't think it's necessary to plot the route of a line that was never built. There were very few viable routes left unfilled in Britain anyway, certainly not after the last gaps were filled in with light railways.

 

So my approach has been to take lines that were built and give them a different history. In the posting above I see @Regularity has a picture of Lydnam Heath, that junction where Bishop's Castle trains had to reverse. An alternative history might have been that the line to the Welsh coast was completed. Or, heading north a little, another alternative history is that what became Colonel Stephens' Shropshire and Montgomeryshire had been successfully completed in the mid 1800s and the vision of a mainline link between the Potteries and the Welsh coast via Shrewsbury had become a reality.

 

A large number of lines in the mid-nineteenth century were promoted by independent interests and only when completed taken over by a major company. An obvious alternative history is that those companies remained independent. This the approach I have taken. Instead of the Redhill, Guildford and Reading line becoming part of the South Eastern Railway I have it staying independent. Similarly the independently promoted lines between Leatherhead and Horsham and Epsom and Mitcham Junction didn't fall into the lap of the LBSCR.

 

As far as a layout goes, I am only thinking of a small model of one of the junctions near Dorking as a showcase for the stock I am building. Another possibility, but discarded as being too large and ambitious, is the terminus at Horsham. Anyone who knows Horsham will know there is a Railtrack engineer's yard and stabling for Thameslink trains beside the curve of the line to Dorking. A nice site for Horsham Nightingale Road, the terminus of my company's line. My first train is nearly complete, an 1850s era single plus five four wheel coaches of 1850s vintage. Quite suitable for a Horsham to Guildford via Dorking local. But devising the loco and carriage liveries has been fun

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I believe you can do whatever you want, but it is easier if there is a plausible reason: the GER would simply not have got involved in such a scheme, but an interesting might have been based on their close working relationship would have been the GER acquiring the LDEC, rather than the GCR snatching it away from under their nose. This then provides for a lot more coal traffic. 
 

Anyway, my other interest is the EWJR, and if it hadn’t existed, no one would have believed me if I had made it up. 

In fact, it did exist and people still don’t believe me.

But it’s viability was always in question - like the BCR, it was a ruinously expensive fantasy and only carried the traffic it was built for (iron ore to South Wales) after nationalisation, and even then changing trends meant the cheaper Spanish imports were taking over.

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Well one thing i have been planning is if we apply these same rules of how a steam engine works but in a more fantasy setting. As i have been practising to be a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons. What this has to do with a believable freelance railway is i have a blank canvas, a whole country or continent i need to design and plan a railway network for. Think the Island of Sodor but XL. 

Am i totally mad for picking something much larger to world build? probably 

Will i have fun doing it? hopefully 

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This might seem an odd idea, but how big would a 'light' railway have to be, theoretically speaking, to require something bigger than a smallish tank engine? I was asking as I was watching one of @Corbs videos about his 'plausible reboot' of the Island of Sodor, and he mentioned the 'Woolwich' N-class Moguls, and how many of the kits were sold off far and wide.

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7 hours ago, NZRedBaron said:

This might seem an odd idea, but how big would a 'light' railway have to be, theoretically speaking, to require something bigger than a smallish tank engine? I was asking as I was watching one of @Corbs videos about his 'plausible reboot' of the Island of Sodor, and he mentioned the 'Woolwich' N-class Moguls, and how many of the kits were sold off far and wide.

 

Well,  like most branch lines, these smaller railways would often have weight restrictions and Light Railways proper would be allowed lower than mainline standards at the cost of speed restrictions. Further, traffic was unlikely to be such as to require ever larger and more powerful locomotives; such railways by definition were built in areas where the traffic was marginal and it was, therefore, uneconomic for a railway to mainline standards to be built and operated.

 

Colonel Stephens loved the Ilfracombe Goods - 0-6-0 tender engines, but rather small 1870s locos by the standards of the 1910s which is the time I think they went into Light Railway service - and he did order a powerful 8-coupled tank, Hecate, for the K&ESR's 1905 Headcorn extension, but such larger locomotives were the exception. Hecate was envisaged to fulfill a specitfic need, and was not a particularly successful or appropriate choice even so, an atypical choice underscoring experimental nature of much Light Railway stock choices over the years. 

 

So I think there are natural limits to what is credible in the Light ad other minor railways context.

 

On the other hand, there were a number of small mainline railway companies of varying characters - e,g, Maryport & Carlisle, Midland & Southwest Junc, Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junc, Eastern & Midland, LT&SR, LD&ECR, Hull & Barnsley etc - that survived as independent lines to or in the late Nineteenth Century and in many cases into the first decade or so C20th.     

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Fair enough; the idea I was playing with was that my planned layout, located in a fictitious market town on the North Norfolk coast (possibly somewhere near Hunstanton), connects to a light railway called the Jarlshaven 'Light' Tramway (the 'Jolt'); due to long-standing agreements that the owners of the line made, first with the Eastern Counties Railway, then the GER, and later still the LNER, the 'Jolt' has maintained running rights all the way to King's Lynn- they were rarely used in the past, but in WWI and afterwards, the increase of traffic on the 'Jolt' meant that they needed to make use of those running rights, and for that, a 'big engine' was needed.

 

In the event, a kit of a "Woolwich N" was purchased in 1920, and once it was constructed, it became the aforementioned 'Big Engine' for the 'Jolt'.

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14 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Colonel Stephens loved the Ilfracombe Goods

He's not the only one! It's one of very few locos I know I'd order on spec.

 

Were range and grade elements of the equation too, as well as traffic weight? I was just wondering if a very rough Justification Matrix could be arrived at for a given loco class. My time for trying to Create a Believable Freelance pre-Group Company is drawing near, and I'm getting nervous! Some round these parts have set the bar enviably high!

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11 hours ago, Schooner said:

He's not the only one! It's one of very few locos I know I'd order on spec.

 

Were range and grade elements of the equation too, as well as traffic weight? I was just wondering if a very rough Justification Matrix could be arrived at for a given loco class. My time for trying to Create a Believable Freelance pre-Group Company is drawing near, and I'm getting nervous! Some round these parts have set the bar enviably high!

 

Go Beyer Peacock! I nearly did, but went (mainly) Sharp Stewart in the end!

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If you like small tank engines, or the smaller tender engines like the Ilfracombe Goods or the Stirling O class, then model a light railway. If you like the intermediate sized engines like the Woolwich Mogul, then a light railway is not the place. Unless you have some implausible argument that a line that started out as a light railway needed an upgrade in the 1920s. The main objection to seeing a Maunsell N - to give it its SECR monicker - in an independent railway's livery is that any railway that could have used one would have been swept up in the Grouping. If the Grouping hadn't happened then it might be believable to think that a railway like the Cambrian or the Furness would have been interested in cheap kits of a pretty damned good loco. For the other three members of the Big Four though, that would have just been another non-standard loco class at a time when they had to make sense of the loco fleets they had inherited.

 

Six Woolwich Moguls did make it onto the lines of an independent British railway, one that avoided the Grouping, albeit finished off at 2-6-4T tank engines. That railway was the Metropolitan which had a healthy level of goods traffic up to the end of the 1920s.

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