Regency Rails - Georgian, Williamine & Early Victorian Railways

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

Formerly known as “artists impression”..

 

Evidently a rather impressionable artist.

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Evidently a rather impressionable artist.

It's my perception that many of them were when it came to depicting railway subjects in the days before photography. 

 

Jim

[Florence Locomotive Works]

On 16/02/2021 at 12:03, Edwardian said:

This image, found Here and described as "An image believed to have come to light from an early postcard" surprised me, and struck me as highly improbable.

 

 

It is actually quite probable that the image in question is indeed from a period postcard, given the record of postcards and technical illustrations (those meant for the general non "rivet counting" public of the time). Often they drew heavily on artistic license, such as the one below showing Blandy's semi portable steam engine of Ohio.

 

 

While the engine does in reality look pretty much like that, I highly doubt that the very picturesque world or the highly ornate saw its powering fall out of the sky with the engine. As with the S&D engine, it is very possible the printing/engraving company sent a "field artist" out to the S&D to make drawings of the nicest bits, two of which are certainly the engines and that bridge. So it may be simply a artist putting the two together as they were the bits that stood out to him.

 

Or, it may very well be photoshopped. 

 

Douglas

[whart57]

If that image came from a postcard then it wasn't the original medium. The quality and accuracy of the detail is quite unlike anything artists of the 1820s and 30s achieved as well. Remember, these artists had never seen steam locomotives before and they were tasked with capturing one in motion. That was beyond the greatest like JMW Turner, to think a jobbing engraver could achieve it is fanciful.

 

Go on a generation though and you have a generation of artists who have grown up with railways. You also have a range of publications interested in artwork for engraving, such as the early railway magazines. And on the Stockton and Darlington and similar mining lines, there are still old warhorses lumbering along pulling chauldrons while Stephenson's Patentee types have swept all before them on the mainlines. I'm guessing the image dates from the 1850s and was commissioned to illustrate a magazine article looking back at a pioneering railway. Much later and photography would be taking over.

 

The engraved plates would of course outlive the article and may well have attracted the attention of a postcard publisher around the end of the century. It's a very good image and the colouring does look right for the hand-coloured cards of the Edwardian era

[Edwardian]

Claimed as a postcard, I can well believe it was. If so, I would guess it was a postcard produced from an original artwork, not a photograph, and that it dates from the late Victorian or Edwardian period as an 'imaginative reconstruction'.  What is improbable, of course, is the combination of bridge and locomotive.

 

 

It looks to be an accurate portrayal of a Wilberforce type Hackworth, that is to say the 'Director' class of 1832-3, which survived long enough to be photographed, being generally disposed of around the late '50s. 

 

Assuming the hand of an artist not a photographer for our postcard, some skill was involved in depicting the loco from such a low angle, as no engraving or photograph I am aware of would have shown that. The style of the illustration is not, to my mind, that of the early, or even the mid Nineteenth Century.

 

 

The bridge was extant and was often pictured from a similar angle.

 

BTW I think it quite wonderful that there exists a place called Zanesville. 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Edwardian

[Guy Rixon]

The bridge looks to be copied from the preserved section of elevated iron railway now in one of the northern museums (Shildon?). IIRC, that structure was originally for a set of staithes, not a river bridge.

 

The style of lighting in the painting would probably date it. I don't know enough about art to be sure, but I suspect that it's a 20th century style. I think that a Victorian artist would have painted a more even lighting, softening the vignette around the engine, and might also have avoided the evil chemical green in the river. This is illustrative art grown out of high-impact advertising art, and it says "1920s or later" to me.

[whart57]

You do have to consider that the drawing and colouring might have been done by different people and at different times. People wanted coloured images before the technology existed to create them.

[webbcompound]

Not aware that he painted this subject but it is reminiscent of the style of Alan Sorrel (better known known for reconstruction illustrations of roman and mediaeval stuff).

[Edwardian]

If I had to commit, I'd say Edwardian, but it could be '20s.

 

The bridge has been at the NRM, York since the 1970s.

 

I believe the original only never comprised more than 4 iron spans, and I think, therefore, the iron section at York is complete.

 

 

Interestingly, Wiki cites Martin Smith, 825: "Gaunless Bridge, West Auckland, County Durham". British Railway Bridges & Viaducts. Ian Allan, 1994. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0-7110-2273-9 in support of the statement that locomotives ran across it shortly after 1833.

 

In case anyone comes to this without familiarity with the subject, it's a George Stephenson bridge from the early 1820s on the Stockton & Darlington. 

 

 

 

 

[drmditch]

3 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

If I had to commit, I'd say Edwardian, but it could be '20s.

 

The bridge has been at the NRM, York since the 1970s.

 

I believe the original only never comprised more than 4 iron spans, and I think, therefore, the iron section at York is complete.

 

 

Interestingly, Wiki cites Martin Smith, 825: "Gaunless Bridge, West Auckland, County Durham". British Railway Bridges & Viaducts. Ian Allan, 1994. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0-7110-2273-9 in support of the statement that locomotives ran across it shortly after 1833.

 

In case anyone comes to this without familiarity with the subject, it's a George Stephenson bridge from the early 1820s on the Stockton & Darlington. 

 

 

 

 

 

After frequent requests, the Gaunless Bridge should be moving much nearer to 'home', at Locomotion, Shildon this year.

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by drmditch

[Edwardian]

4 hours ago, drmditch said:

 

After frequent requests, the Gaunless Bridge should be moving much nearer to 'home', at Locomotion, Shildon this year.

 

 

Are you going to put No.1 on it? 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

31 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Are you going to put No.1 on it? 

 

 

 

The Smithsonian have done that with the "John Bull"............

 

 

....forget what year the bridge dates from though, but it is a very early one.

 

EDIT - The bridge dates from 1844.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Johann Marsbar
Extra info added

[rockershovel]

I really would like to visit the Smithsonian, along with the Henry Ford collection. 

 

I visited the Science Museum in South Kensington a couple of years ago, being in London with a few hours to spare. I was deeply disappointed by its disorderly state... and why, oh why, do none of our great museums have proper cafeteria facilities? 

[James Harrison]

2 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 why, oh why, do none of our great museums have proper cafeteria facilities? 

 

That's an interesting comment, more usually I see moans about museums sequestering exhibit space for use as tea rooms.

[rockershovel]

35 minutes ago, James Harrison said:

 

That's an interesting comment, more usually I see moans about museums sequestering exhibit space for use as tea rooms.

 

The South Kensington Museums are major tourist attractions, with (present circumstances excepted) very large numbers of visitors daily. They have no parking facilities and there isn’t much in the surrounding streets. They did, at one time, offer the facility for organised parties to use rooms as assembly points for lunch and reorganisation. 

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, rockershovel said:

 

The South Kensington Museums are major tourist attractions, with (present circumstances excepted) very large numbers of visitors daily. They have no parking facilities and there isn’t much in the surrounding streets. They did, at one time, offer the facility for organised parties to use rooms as assembly points for lunch and reorganisation. 

 

I think it was in 2004 that I attended a physics conference at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, at which the conference banquet was held in the main hall of the Science Museum - I was seated near Rocket. Around the same time I went to another physics conference held in the Scottish Exhibition and Convention Centre, where the banquet was at the Glasgow Science Centre. It was said that none of the interactive exhibits worked afterwards.

[Johann Marsbar]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

I really would like to visit the Smithsonian, along with the Henry Ford collection. 

 

Whilst I visited the Aviation branch in downtown DC (and the then storage facility out at Silver Hill) in 1998, it took me until 2016 to actually get round to visiting the Museum of American History which has the land transportation exhibits.  It is very well laid out as regards exhibits/ancillary displays, though things like the SR loco are a bit cramped for space.

 

A few pictures below (though they are a bit off this thread topic by quite a few decades)

 

 

 

 

The (fairly) new Udvar-Hazy Centre out at Dulles Airport for the bulk of the Aviation Collection needs the best part of a day on its own if you want to really look at everything there in detail. I did that in 2014 and it was obvious that some items that were in the storage facility in 1998 were still not on display out there, such as the complete Felixstowe F5 flying boat hull that they have.

 

[sir douglas]

the plain figures complement the scene really well

[Johann Marsbar]

2 minutes ago, sir douglas said:

the plain figures complement the scene really well

I was very impressed with the quality of those figures, though my guess is that they weren't particularly cheap to produce.

 

Although the original "John Bull" is at the Smithsonian in DC, the 1939 replica one is at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg...

 

 

though they do have an original 1836 bogie passenger coach displayed there with it...

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

why, oh why, do none of our great museums have proper cafeteria facilities? 

 

Try (when you can) the British Museum eaterie in the new(ish) great hall part. I was impressed.

 

The Science Museum ones do serve some fairly decent food, but they can't match the demand, so it becomes a bit of a scrum. If you go at some deeply off-peak time, a wet Tuesday afternoon in February or something, its OK though.

 

Birmingham Science Museum, a bit iffy on food; NRM, much better food than it used to be (now edible), but the cafe is very open, and bl@@dy cold in winter - I schedule a meeting with someone there, and we were freezing!

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Nearholmer

[billy_anorak59]

Quick question, while there is a lull in the main discussion, please? I'm sure someone here will have the answer.

I acquired a map in an antique emporium some years ago now, of the 'Proposed Chester and Birkenhead Railway' and dated 1836. It's quite finely drawn, as of most similar maps of the period. Unfortunately the top left corner was missing, but it displays fine.

 

I was just wondering as to why such a map as this was issued, and hence get some idea of its audience and how many were produced?

For example, do you think it was part of a prospectus to invest, or maybe as a more official document?

Thanks.

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by billy_anorak59

[Edwardian]

I suspect such plans were required to be laid before parliament, as each line required an act of parliament, but also to gather subscribers or seek the agreement of the promoters of a certain route. 

[Compound2632]

This would have to be a copy, maybe held by the company secretary or engineer, as the plans deposited to Parliament were retained and should now be in the National Archives. The description of one of the maps comprising item reference RAIL 1030/4 matches your map.

[billy_anorak59]

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The description of one of the maps comprising item reference RAIL 1030/4 matches your map.

 

So it does. Gosh.

Many thanks - much appreciated.

[Johann Marsbar]

Some replica 1830's North American locos I've found on my trips over there....

 

"Dorchester" from the Champlain & St Lawrence, the original being a Stephenson product of 1836...

 

 

"Raleigh" from the Raleigh & Gaston line, the original being built by C.Tayleur (Vulcan Foundry) in 1836...

 

 

"Sandusky" an 1837 product of Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor....

 

 

The "John Molson" a replica 1849 loco from the Champlain & St Lawrence, which is operational...

 

 

The original 1849 version was built by Kinmonds, Hutton & Steel in Dundee.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Johann Marsbar
added photo