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Regency Rails - Georgian, Williamine & Early Victorian Railways


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3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm finding some recent posts rather odd. This topic was started because the OP and others have a common interest in learning more about early railways, whether or not they intend to actually model them. The group this topic sits in is called "Pre-Grouping - Modelling & Prototype", so discussion of the prototype seems to be entirely within its remit. There are plenty of topics on RMWeb that are entirely devoted to the prototype without any reference to modelling at all. 

 

I'm afraid this all seems to be a manifestation of the adversarial and polarised spirit of the times - from which lunacy, I thought, an interest in railways of any sort was supposed to be an escape.

 

As I see it the greater impediment to the objective of the thread is not the discussion of the political and economic background of these proto-railways, nor is the polarisation of any discussion that occurs. All interesting discussions will have polarisation because that's the nature of free opinion. And the sad truth is that if a disparate crowd of people are all in polite agreement then they're probably wrong.  Politeness while protective of the crockery is the enemy of understanding.

 

There is a much more apparent problem and that is in the nature of the modelling itself. Leaving out live steam, by and large electricity provides the motive power in the popular scales, and within the constraints created by motor size we can achieve largely accurate representations of our chosen subjects. Mostly by off the shelf RTR, and for braver souls in kits and scratch built working models of the motive power. However some of the first steam locos are rather difficult if not impossible to depict in the smaller scales simply because of their size and the fact that they were pretty slow moving - all of which makes sourcing appropriately sized motors difficult.

 

Taking that a step, pardon the pun, further if we go back further then our motive power is either animal or human, and motorised examples of those motive sources depicting operating in a convincing fashion are damned, if not impossibly, elusive. The answer to that of course is to move to the larger scales but if that happens the difficulty of achieving passing realism remains while the size of the layout would either be beyond most modellers, or so truncated as to be not worth the bother.  Modelled human figures pushing small carts or leading a horse and chaldron would be have to be masterpieces of micro engineering or else they would wind up as caricatures.

 

Then we have the undeniable truth that most of what these proto-railways did whether powered by slow moving rather tiny and complex locomotives, or by humans or horses, was not much more than move odd shaped simple wagons from one point to another on primitive tracks which had the most basic of controlling systems or none at all, and little in the way of complex points to direct the flow. There was some minor carriage of passengers but their real reason for existence was mainly to carry coal. So there isn't that much scope in their depiction for interesting stock movements or mimicking scheduled services which is the basis of most railway modelling. From what I've observed the depiction of these simple systems is often as a background to a more complex layout using conventional modelling to depict what happens after the particular commodity is delivered to the rail head.  In those cases modelling the proto-railway can be quite convincing if it is just left static. Just as in the same way we people our landscape or fill our fields with farm animals, or our roads with motor vehicles. The observer doesn't really expect these to be mobile but they do expect the railways to be.

 

So is the discussion really about whether the depiction of these early proto-railways is possible within the general availability of the supporting technology and our skills? To finish I would suggest that for most the depiction of these would be as detailed static models where one's modelling skills are concentrated on the landscape in which they operated, rather than upon the depiction of movement in that landscape. However having said that, I am sure that someone will pop up with an example of skilfully modelled layouts or dioramas where the use of animal and human motive power has been depicted in an interesting way that steps beyond just being a small repetitious museum vignette.  An operating miniature of the real thing in other words, in which the motive power is not just pushed along by a concealed motor in a wagon, but in itself provides the power as in the real thing.  It's an interesting goal in modelling but beyond my skills.

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1 hour ago, Hroth said:

I'd forgotten to add that on early colliery style railways (ie before passenger carrying became the norm), it was purely up to the driver and fireman to avoid bumping into broken down trains and to protect themselves, which allegedly involved carrying a bucket of coals back down the line and building a fire between the rails to warn following trains.  This would only be sensible on railways which mounted the rails on stone blocks....

 

At least with a barely more than walking pace speed, there would be a chance of stopping before colliding!

 

 

Do you have a source reference for this? An interesting observation I’ve not seen before. 

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36 minutes ago, john new said:

Do you have a source reference for this? An interesting observation I’ve not seen before. 

 

An interesting piece of incompletely thought-through logic, if true. Having built your fire, and returned to the loco, what next? It appears to contain the unstated assumption that a loco, once broken down, will not restart itself by its own efforts. Does the following driver, then follow the same course of action? 

 

The assumption about the broken-down loco may well be founded on observation, and probably be true, mind. It probably falls into that quite large category, the most likely course of events and hence, the preferred  course of action in decisions involving insufficient information. 

 

It’s probably also true that on such lines, the most likely outcome tends to be much the same in all cases, ie “a protracted delay involving a great deal of trouble and effort for all concerned, and no small expense to the Company” 

 

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2 hours ago, Hroth said:

As I understand it, trains were dispatched on the time-interval system and regulated by Railway Policemen at intervals who would have a watch of some description.  They would pass a train if it arrived after the allotted time interval, and stop it if it arrived earlier. Intermediate stations would have local signals (Readings famous Ball, for example), they would also dispatch trains according to the time interval. The loco crew were supposed to keep an eye out for "obstructions" ahead and the guard toddle off with his red flag/light if the train had had an incident to protect it from the rear.

 

"Red For Danger" by LTC Rolt has a catalogue of such practices and how they could go wrong....

 

 

Presumably then, since local times would not have been standardised by then, the actual time-keeping was on a basis of “local intervals”, and the journey times, frequency and punctuality such that the (quite small) local discrepancies could be disregarded in the wider scheme of things? 

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1 hour ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

So is the discussion really about whether the depiction of these early proto-railways is possible within the general availability of the supporting technology and our skills? 

 

Well, @Edwardian's primary school-aged daughter managed this with a bit of help. (There was a topic on this.) So I'd say there's hope yet.

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6 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

Presumably then, since local times would not have been standardised by then, the actual time-keeping was on a basis of “local intervals”, and the journey times, frequency and punctuality such that the (quite small) local discrepancies could be disregarded in the wider scheme of things? 

 

Thats more or less it.

 

The railway would tell passengers that the journey would take a certain amount of time to accomplish it and that trains would leave the station at certain times.  The company would also have an idea about the time that the train would arrive at intermediate stations and passengers would be able to discover when to arrive for the train to London, or Bristol or Birmingham or wherever.

 

It aso used to be the practice that, before the electric telegraph and national time standards, the guard of the first train of the day would carry the time to all the stations along the way so they could synchronise the station clock with "headquarters" time.

 

The time interval was to ensure the proper distancing of trains along the line and consisted of allowing say 10 or 15 minutes between trains.  At stations, junctions and various wayside points, the Railway Policeman would stop a train if it arrived before the  time allowed for the previous train.  The major problem with this would be if an incident had occurred out of sight or earshot of the policeman and the guard of the previous train hadn't appeared to give a warning.

 

1 hour ago, john new said:

Do you have a source reference for this? An interesting observation I’ve not seen before. 

 

Not really, I'd read it somewhere, so that is why I said "allegedly".

 

Again it might have been in "Red For Danger" so it may well be an anecdote of times gone by!

 

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3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Again it might have been in "Red For Danger" so it may well be an anecdote of times gone by!

 

 

I also think it is in Red for Danger, somewhere. That's a good reason to reread it

 

Richard

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11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Well, @Edwardian's primary school-aged daughter managed this with a bit of help. (There was a topic on this.) So I'd say there's hope yet.

 

With a bit of help from Mr Ed and the community, and Derwent was a fairly straightforward early loco. 

 

With modern techniques like 3D printing and simplification of valvegear, it shouldn't be difficult to create representatives of early locos.  I wonder if anyone has looked into using the mechanism from the Bachmann Wickham Trolley as an even smaller motor bogie than the Black Beetle ilk?

 

When models go back to horse propulsion, then the only way is probably to use the Faller roadway system...

 

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5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm afraid this all seems to be a manifestation of the adversarial and polarised spirit of the times - from which lunacy, I thought, an interest in railways of any sort was supposed to be an escape.

 

Sure, but we are discussing the dawn of the railway era here. Railways didn't just spring into existence fully formed, there was a prehistory before the opening of the Stockton and Darlington. And then there was the era from 1825 to c1850 when railways matured into what we recognise today. How that happened, and why all the earliest mechanised railways were in Britain has its roots in the political and economic environment of eighteenth century England and Scotland and how that had advantages for industry over how things were organised in France or elsewhere in Europe. It was after all the French who made the first steam powered "locomotive". However as it was the French government paying for it and they could think of no better use for it than pulling heavy artillery around fortresses, the inevitable failure didn't lead to an improved version.

 

That was very different in England where instead of there just being one government, factory and colliery owners were many and there were enough prepared to let the Trevithicks and Stephensons tinker away until they got things right. You can see in the development of steam power from James Watt, through Trevithick and onto Stephenson and Hackworth the chaotic progress as problems were identified, solutions devised and the results either incorporated or discarded. Only under the English (and Scottish) system could you have that trial and error approach that ended up around 1840 with the "Patentee" locomotive with its multi-tube boiler, horizontal cylinders, proper driving platform and the rest. Patentee and Evening Star have a lot more in common than Patentee and Locomotion have.

 

Other social and economic factors play a role in how those early railways operated. Railway operation demanded greater discipline than either coaching or the factories did. The gentry took a while getting used to the fact that they had to bend to the timetable, and that the timetable wouldn't bend to them. There was no room for casual labour in railway operations either, every worker had to be trained for the job and adhere to the rules. It took a few spectacular accidents before that was learned. We look back from 200 years later and we think that was obvious. It wasn't at the time though, and it is that sort of thing that makes the early railways so fascinating.

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25 minutes ago, Hroth said:

I wonder if anyone has looked into using the mechanism from the Bachmann Wickham Trolley as an even smaller motor bogie than the Black Beetle ilk?

 

 

Now that is a very interesting suggestion!

 

The Wickham costs a bit more than the Bachmann US models I canabalise for motor drives, but the profile is so low that it seems very versatile. I'd expect a modern motor would run better at slow speed too. Does anyone have any experience of it? And if so, what are the wheel diameters / wheelbase?

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57 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Sure, but we are discussing the dawn of the railway era here. Railways didn't just spring into existence fully formed, there was a prehistory before the opening of the Stockton and Darlington. And then there was the era from 1825 to c1850 when railways matured into what we recognise today. How that happened, and why all the earliest mechanised railways were in Britain has its roots in the political and economic environment of eighteenth century England and Scotland and how that had advantages for industry over how things were organised in France or elsewhere in Europe. It was after all the French who made the first steam powered "locomotive". However as it was the French government paying for it and they could think of no better use for it than pulling heavy artillery around fortresses, the inevitable failure didn't lead to an improved version.

 

That was very different in England where instead of there just being one government, factory and colliery owners were many and there were enough prepared to let the Trevithicks and Stephensons tinker away until they got things right. You can see in the development of steam power from James Watt, through Trevithick and onto Stephenson and Hackworth the chaotic progress as problems were identified, solutions devised and the results either incorporated or discarded. Only under the English (and Scottish) system could you have that trial and error approach that ended up around 1840 with the "Patentee" locomotive with its multi-tube boiler, horizontal cylinders, proper driving platform and the rest. Patentee and Evening Star have a lot more in common than Patentee and Locomotion have.

 

Other social and economic factors play a role in how those early railways operated. Railway operation demanded greater discipline than either coaching or the factories did. The gentry took a while getting used to the fact that they had to bend to the timetable, and that the timetable wouldn't bend to them. There was no room for casual labour in railway operations either, every worker had to be trained for the job and adhere to the rules. It took a few spectacular accidents before that was learned. We look back from 200 years later and we think that was obvious. It wasn't at the time though, and it is that sort of thing that makes the early railways so fascinating.

 

Hence the Early Railways Conference research serial. Last held in York last year (The proceedings book due out shortly see recent post). Next is in Swansea in June 2021.

 

Having done a lot of research on pre-steam railways, and in particular Huntingdon Beaumont and the related Tudor/Stuart period mining, the Stockton & Darlington (and definitely the Liverpool & Manchester) were "modern image" in comparison and Davidson{?)'s early battery electric experiments not long after what today would have been in the realm of sci-fi - even only ten years before 1825.

 

Edited by john new
Added the link to the book.
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5 hours ago, Hroth said:

I'd forgotten to add that on early colliery style railways (ie before passenger carrying became the norm), it was purely up to the driver and fireman to avoid bumping into broken down trains and to protect themselves, which allegedly involved carrying a bucket of coals back down the line and building a fire between the rails to warn following trains.  This would only be sensible on railways which mounted the rails on stone blocks....

At least with a barely more than walking pace speed, there would be a chance of stopping before colliding!

I've posted above several times that early railways were dangerous on the downgrades - with frequent runaways/spills and death and injury. Horses were more valuable to operators because of fodder and stabling costs than drivers.

 

An interesting book on this is T R Pearce "The Locomotives of the Stockton and Darlington Railway" (which Edwardian made me buy at a recent exhibition). 

Of course the S&D spans the transition  between waggonways and Victorian railways proper. The S&D began in 1825 open to all on a toll basis, mixed horses and steam locomotives with several early attempts by the Board at contracting out manufacture and maintenance of steam power and waggons from straightforward 'in house' line management. Even Hackworth and the Shildon works were alienated as Contractors to the S&D which caused Hackworth to found New Shildon works to deliver his new locomotives while a parallel Contractor used the original Shildon for maintenance. (this seems to me both a link forward to the original 1990s Privatisation of BR and a harkback to the  Georgian waggonways.)

 The S&D was projected as a mineral only line and it came as a surprise to find passengers wanting to ride the rails in horse drawn coaches - with departures posted in the manner of stage coaches of the era. Then, because of the delays being caused, the S&D began setting about taking over the the independent operators.

 

By the time of the merger with the NER in 1863 the S&D had become, like every railway, subject to Board  of Trade  Inspection.   Under the BoT passenger carrying with the required compliant signalling was mandatory on all lines (except separately Pease owned Industrial premise sidings e.g. at Skinnigrove).

 

Interestingly Saltburn resort and the Zetland Hotel and the water lift came into being as an outcome of the S&D's extension to the Cleveland iron deposits and this B&T requirement to open all their lines to passengers. The short branch to the Saltburn terminus was the last horse drawn (BoT signalled) service on the S&D in the sixties.

Even the extraordinary line continuing on from Loftus to Whitby across the Staithes and other giddying viaducts and the crumbling clifftop tunnels came into the NER's portfolio as an indirect result of the S&D's Cleveland extension passenger carrying BoT compliance.

dh

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41 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Another option might be the truly tiny drives that 009 modellers extract from Japanese N scale trams. They would need axle extensions, but it wouldn’t be hard to turn-up a combined part-axle and wheel, bored to fit the existing axle.

 

Compared to NG locos, early steam engines should have enough internal space to hide a motor somewhere - I'm assuming we are talking 4mm modelling here. 7mm and things start to look positively spacious.

 

Or put the motor somewhere else, like Backwoods did with their 009 Fowler:

 

complete-7.jpg

 

The motor is in the tender with a shaft drive to the gearbox in the firebox

 

Out of interest, how did Triang do their Rocket? Does it have strange proportions, was is it made overscale?

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triang-OO-Gauge-Stephensons-Rocket-Parts-for-Spares/293270136358

 

Richard

 

 

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3 hours ago, RLWP said:

 

Compared to NG locos, early steam engines should have enough internal space to hide a motor somewhere - I'm assuming we are talking 4mm modelling here. 7mm and things start to look positively spacious.

 

Or put the motor somewhere else, like Backwoods did with their 009 Fowler:

 

complete-7.jpg

 

The motor is in the tender with a shaft drive to the gearbox in the firebox

 

Out of interest, how did Triang do their Rocket? Does it have strange proportions, was is it made overscale?

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triang-OO-Gauge-Stephensons-Rocket-Parts-for-Spares/293270136358

 

Richard

 

 

Tri-ang's Rocket has a small motor in the engine itself, with all the pickups on the engine wheels. Consequently the engine is definitely oversized for OO, but I presume the tender is fine. However, because the engine is self contained, I would imagine it would be suitable for other projects.

 

Dana

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.... reverting to the background of railways, the business of advising that “trains leave at certain times, and take certain periods of time for the journey” would be entirely familiar to a travelling public accustomed to stagecoach and sailing boat travel. 

 

Early railways also bear obvious signs of being laid out by engineers accustomed to canals and horse tramways. 

Edited by rockershovel
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30 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Early railways also bear obvious signs of being laid out by engineers accustomed to canals and horse tramways. 

 

Very much so, in my published ERC6 paper on Why replace the horse?* I referred to this phase as "iron canals". I can claim no originality for it as it was raised in the Q&A at an earlier session but, sadly, I don't know the name of the delegate who used it. Level or almost level stretches running with horses (later steam locos) interspersed with inclines (replacement for flights of locks). The classic probably being the Cromford and High Peak built as an integral "iron" leg as part of a linking canal network from Notts & Derbyshire into the Lancashire industrial area.++

 

* J New, Why replace the horse?, In Early Railways 6, Editor A Coulls, Six Martletts, 2019. pp  58-70 (Specifically on p70)

++ D Hodgkins, Success and failure in making the transition to a modern railway: the Liverpool & Manchester and the Cromford & High Peak, In Early Railways 2, Editor MJT Lewis, Newcomen Society, 2003. pp  52-63 

 

 

Edited by john new
To make better sense.
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52 minutes ago, Dana Ashdown said:

Tri-ang's Rocket has a small motor in the engine itself, with all the pickups on the engine wheels. Consequently the engine is definitely oversized for OO, but I presume the tender is fine. However, because the engine is self contained, I would imagine it would be suitable for other projects.

 

Dana

 

Thank you, I wondered how they managed it!

 

Richard

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14 minutes ago, john new said:

 

Very much so, in my published ERC6 paper on Why replace the horse?* I referred to this phase as "iron canals". I can claim no originality for it as it was raised in the Q&A at an earlier session but, sadly, I don't know the name of the delegate who used it. Level or almost level stretches running with horses (later steam locos) interspersed with inclines (replacement for flights of locks). The classic probably being the Cromford and High Peak built as an integral "iron" leg as part of a linking canal network from Notts & Derbyshire into the Lancashire industrial area.++

 

* J New, Why replace the horse?, In Early Railways 6, Editor A Coulls, Six Martletts, 2019. pp  58-70 (Specifically on p70)

++ D Hodgkins, Success and failure in making the transition to a modern railway: the Liverpool & Manchester and the Cromford & High Peak, In Early Railways 2, Editor MJT Lewis, Newcomen Society, 2003. pp  52-63 

 

 

"If we can't build a canal, then a railway will have to do"?

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.. although it’s difficult to see the alternative to the inclines at Cromford. I have been told that the C&HP was built as a railway because of the lack of water on the high limestone plateau of the White Peak. 

 

Its interesting to visit this line (now a cycle path) and then cross to the adjacent Leek and Manifold roadbed, also now a cycle path. The L&MVR was a later generation line, designed for a by-then mature and well-understood locomotive system, and it shows. 

 

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46 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

.. although it’s difficult to see the alternative to the inclines at Cromford ....

The MR Wirksworth branch more or less performed the climb from the Derwent valley up to the limestone and the C&HP masonry embankment past Wirksworth.

Alternatively the Via Gelia valley from Cromford, I'd have thought, could have afforded ruling gradient alignments that might have enabled later locomotives to climb.

 

At the northern end, the LNW  eliminated the C&HP inclines up from Horwich End by building a re=alignment from Whaley Bridge around the eastern flanks of Combs Moss to Buxton - and on south to Ashbourne offering through carriages Buxton to Euston via Stafford!).

This is exactly how the S&D had reconfigured its early "iron canal" up to west Durham for locomotive haulage by the time of the NER merger. The difference was the fierce Peak District competition the Euston Confederacy lines were in with the Midland compared to the NER monopoly.

dh

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51 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

"If we can't build a canal, then a railway will have to do"?

 

Certainly. While Blisworth tunnel was being dug there was a tramway over the hill

 

You can move a lot more stuff with one horse on water than on a tramroad

 

Richard

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Both the GNoSR line out of Aberdeen and the Ardrossan and Johnstone  Railway started life as canals which were then converted into railways. the latter line on what started life as the Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal, hence Paisley Canal station.

 

Jim

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