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Regency Rails - Georgian, Williamine & Early Victorian Railways


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Stockton & Darlington Railway Early 4-Coupled Coaching Engines

 

The Stockton & Darlington commenced its own loco-hauled passenger services in the early 1830s. There were two basic types tried in these very early years; the Stephenson 'Planet'-type 2-2-0 and various 0-4-0s.  I have consulted T R Pearce's work to provide this brief summary of the latter type.

 

No.9 Globe

 

This was a Hackworth locomotive, and may have been the first passenger locomotive on the line.  In anticipation of the opening of the Middlesbrough branch, the company was considering taking over the passenger services from the horse-drawn contractor services. Delivered in October 1830, Globe took the first train into Middlesbrough in December 1830.  Hackworth was sufficiently proud of the locomotive to have it illustrated on his business card. In January 1838 Globe exploded at Middlesbrough through shortage of water, and was never repaired.

 

Selected Dimensions:

Boiler length: 9’3”

Boiler diameter: 3’6”

Wheels (wooden): 5’

Wheelbase: 5’3”

 

No.27 Swift

 

Built by R & W Hawthorn in 1836. The wheels are variously given as 4’, 4’6” and 4’7”.  Pearce speculates that they may have been increased in size. It was sold out of service in 1839. The engine was notable for its unusual motion, linking to vertical cylinders. 

 

No.29 Queen

 

A Kitchings locomotive delivered in 1838 with 4’6” coupled wheels, Queen’s axle loading was too great for the light rail of the Middlesbrough branch, and, so, in December 1839 the frames were lengthened and 3’ trailing wheels fitted. Later re-numbered 40, Queen was transferred to ‘merchandize’ duties by 1842.

 

 

No.42 London

 

Supplied by J Hague in 1839, London lasted until 1853, when it was sold to Cumnock Iron Co. London was used mainly on coaching duties.

 

Selected Dimensions:

Boiler length: 7’

Boiler diameter: 2’4”/2’7”

Wheels: 4’6”

Wheelbase: not known

Tender wheels: 2’10½”

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited by Edwardian
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Hi folks,

 

Feeling inspired by reading through this thread and others on the pre-grouping section, I decided to get back to doing some 3d printing artwork, and came up with this little beauty. I think at 1849 she might be a bit modern here, although she was built to replace the most Georgian and Williamine traction methods of cable haulage.

 

post-8704-0-60258900-1525251247_thumb.jpg

 

post-8704-0-95383200-1525251235_thumb.jpg

 

post-8704-0-14028800-1525251212_thumb.jpg

 

I'm in the process of making the mesh ready for shapeways if anyone fancies one.

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post-8704-0-95383200-1525251235_thumb.jpg

post-8704-0-60258900-1525251247_thumb.jpg

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Hi folks,

 

Feeling inspired by reading through this thread and others on the pre-grouping section, I decided to get back to doing some 3d printing artwork, and came up with this little beauty. I think at 1849 she might be a bit modern here, although she was built to replace the most Georgian and Williamine traction methods of cable haulage.

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 1.jpg

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 2.jpg

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 3.jpg

 

I'm in the process of making the mesh ready for shapeways if anyone fancies one.

 

Brilliant work.

 

Please give us some notes on the prototype and how you envisage motorising it.

 

It looks to me like a well tank variant of a 'Crewe type'.  If this can be made into a working model without too much difficulty, it would seem that 2-2-2 and 2-4-0 'Crewe type' tender engines would be feasible as 3D prints.  

Edited by Edwardian
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Hi folks,

 

Feeling inspired by reading through this thread and others on the pre-grouping section, I decided to get back to doing some 3d printing artwork, and came up with this little beauty. I think at 1849 she might be a bit modern here, although she was built to replace the most Georgian and Williamine traction methods of cable haulage.

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 1.jpg

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 2.jpg

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 3.jpg

 

I'm in the process of making the mesh ready for shapeways if anyone fancies one.

 

That is absolutely wonderful! And the Blackwall had such interesting little stations too ...

 

I'll be watching Shapeways with interest. Any chance it might be available in different scales?

 

Ian

 

P.S. You're right, the L&B's cable haulage was probably the most developed (and the most complex) cable arrangement ever used, at least on a public railway!

Edited by Ian Simpson
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Hi folks,

 

Feeling inspired by reading through this thread and others on the pre-grouping section, I decided to get back to doing some 3d printing artwork, and came up with this little beauty. I think at 1849 she might be a bit modern here, although she was built to replace the most Georgian and Williamine traction methods of cable haulage.

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 1.jpg

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 2.jpg

 

attachicon.gifLondon and Blackwall 3.jpg

 

I'm in the process of making the mesh ready for shapeways if anyone fancies one.

YES! YES! A thousand times yes!!
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NEW  TRANSPORT  NETWORKS

The  thought occurred to me the other day (while thinking about the potentially chaotic mingling of driverless computer controlled vehicles with “white van drivers” on ordinary roads that such a dangerous mix must also have threatened at the start of the C19 railways.

 

1  A segregated Network

 

Starting first with roads and canals: Turnpike Trusts consolidated through the C18 with Parliamentary Powers (and using free Poor Law Parish workhouse labour) to construct all-weather roads which travellers and carriers could use by paying tolls at the Toll gates or houses.

From 1752 the new canals, because they were waterways, obviously could not double as roads unless elaborately contrived like Amsterdam. Financed by aristocrat land owners or Industrialists like Wedgwood using Parliamentary powers, canal companies similarly charged private boat-owners tolls but also owned and operating their own boat fleets.

They already were half-way to being like railways.

 

The 1821 Act for the Stockton and Darlington allowed, like a toll road, for a railway that could be used by anyone with suitably built vehicles on payment of a toll. The line would be closed at night, and land owner developers within 5 miles could connect branches to the line and make junctions.

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It seems the S&D opened with a mix of horse and steam traction and vehicle owners. It was initially subject to delays behind slow horses (only partially alleviated by horses being made to ride downhill on dandy wagons) and due to mechanical breakdowns,

This didn’t get solved until the S&D decided to buy out the different coach companies in August 1832, substituting instead a passenger and small goods service between Stockton and Darlington on 7 September 1833, travelling at 12–14 miles per hour.

By this time George Stephenson had already advised the Liverpool and Manchester to operate a more co-ordinated railway.

Thus it was that we inherited a railway controlling both the fixed infrastructure and the means of propulsion until post nationalisation.

I wonder whether similar new organisations will prevail with computerised transportation – or some ‘private owner’ classes will emerge.

 

2 The Transport

 

But was the concept of a Stephensonian locomotive hauling a substantial train so clear until Rocket demonstrated its potentials at the Rainhill Trials?

A good many of the early experimental steam projectiles including other Rainhill competitors looked more like sporting gentlemen’s light phaetons, mere provocateurs, along with Trevethick’s “Catch me who Can” exhibit at Euston, not serious heavy haulers.

post-21705-0-91989800-1525679755_thumb.jpg

 

At Rainhill only Rocket and Hackworth’s Sans Pareil look in anyway ‘tractionised’. Novelty has a look of gentlemen serving themselves breakfast at speed from a heated sideboard; Perseverence apparently embodied the parentage of a steam road coach

 

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So might the railroad have taken off in a different direction? Although the main justification for the L&M was king Cotton, roads were already effectively speed-capped.The segregated railway could run fast more safely. A steam-coach on rails could offer high speed.

Gentlemen in flashy fast broughams might race each other in sporting contests.

All accidents in waiting...

In the event Rocket delivered a much more effective railway than most expected. Long trains of both goods and people could travel at known speeds and times -  even eventually enjoying breakfast at speed – still a Novelty even today!

dh

Edited by runs as required
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Novelty though is the long term winner because Novelty is the forerunner of today's private car. It didn't win at Rainhill because the concept was eighty years ahead of the technology. Private motoring is based on three things not available in 1830 - a small powerful propulsion unit that didn't require constant fuelling and maintenance, pneumatic tyres that would provide more adhesion than solid wheels and smooth tarmacadam roads

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Thanks for reading these reflections

Novelty though is the long term winner because Novelty is the forerunner of today's private car. It didn't win at Rainhill because the concept was eighty years ahead of the technology. Private motoring is based on three things not available in 1830 - a small powerful propulsion unit that didn't require constant fuelling and maintenance, pneumatic tyres that would provide more adhesion than solid wheels and smooth tarmacadam roads

Can you be confident that Novelty, today's private car, remains the long term winner ?

Our global future may be in the hands of perhaps 3 giant (Chinese owned ?) companies: Google, Amazon, Tesla/Uber.

Information is Power; "Privacy" may no longer exist.

 

I read somewhere the Germans are well advanced in compiling protocols for the mix of vehicles/drivers/owners/computerised guidance/common carriers on the German Federal road network.

dh

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Brilliant work.

 

Please give us some notes on the prototype ...

 

 

A few notes on the prototype:

Jones & Potts built six of these well tanks for the London & Blackwall Railway in 1848. They began work when the line ended its rope haulage (and adopted standard gauge) in February 1849. The driving wheels were 5'6" diameter, and the carrying wheels 3'6".  

The original locos were called Stepney, Shadwell, Blackwall, London, Bow and Thames (so at least the LBSCR noticed them).  A similar loco, Victoria, was ordered from the same company in 1850, and two years later George England & Co built two more locos to the same design, Samson and Hercules. 

They had a fairly typical turn of speed for small locos at the time, making the three-and-a-half mile journey with the (non-stop) boat trains from Fenchurch Street to Blackwall in 5 minutes. The L&BR loaned some of the tanks to the impoverished East & West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway [which mercifully became the North London Railway in 1853] in its early years. (The E.W.I.D. & B.J.R. was so poor when it opened that there was a rumour its carriage bodies were built from papier-mâché.)  

The later well tanks had larger domes (which may also have been retro-fitted to some of the original six), and the bell-mouthed chimneys were eventually replaced with stovepipe ones. The locos were initially painted in London & Blackwell ("bright") blue with large brass nameplates on the boilers and polished copper caps on the chimneys, which all sounds very attractive. Under the Great Eastern Railway (who leased the L&B from 1866) they were apparently a rather sickly pea green colour, probably unlined, until the livery was changed to black in 1873. Six of the class were still in service in 1878, but the last (Blackwall) was withdrawn in 1883.

Edited by Ian Simpson
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  • 2 weeks later...
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Those who fancy having a go at modelling the early railway scene in a large scale may be interested in this.

Those kits are actually surprisingly affordable considering the overblown prices wanted for 00 RTR.

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Meanwhile here in Australia we had a railway at Port Arthur in Tasmania by 1836, Powered by imported British motive power (usually imported for stealing a handkerchief or similar..)

 

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Edited by monkeysarefun
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The original locos were called Stepney, Shadwell, Blackwall, London, Bow and Thames (so at least the LBSCR noticed them). 

 

I recall reading that there was at one point a scheme to link the L&B with the LBSC via the East London Railway, hence the fact that the latter named some Terriers Stepney, Fenchurch, Millwall, Poplar, Blackwall and Minories. I forget where the lines would have connected, but I guess somewhere around Shadwell would be the most logical place.

 

A great book on the subject of the L&B is J. E. Connor's Stepney's Own Railway, which was how I first learned of its existence. When I saw the title on the shelf, I assumed it was about the Bluebell Railway.

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Allegedly the first steam loco in Scotland.

attachicon.gifDundee.jpg

 

The Glasgow and Garnkirk Railway had an R. Stephenson Planet-type 2-2-0 engine St Rollox in June 1831. At the time the line was 4'6" gauge. A miner's strike conveniently provided a window for conversion to standard gauge in anticipation of absorption into the Caledonian. The Dundee and Newtyle's locally-built six-wheelers started work in September 1833. They might be the first Scottish-built locomotives. After buying three of them, the company went to R. Stephenson for a Planet-type 0-4-0.

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Allegedly the first steam loco in Scotland.

attachicon.gifDundee.jpg

Not so.  According to 'The Monkland & Kirkintilloch Railway' published by Strathkelvin District Libraries & Museums in 1976, the M&K (opened in 1826) purchased 2 locomotives from Murdoch, Aitken and Company of Glasgow in May and September 1831, both described as being of the 'Killingworth' type with two vertical cylinders on top of the boiler.

 

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The M&K was the first railway in the world to have the use of steam locomotives allowed in its original Act of Parliament (the S&D had to get an amendment to its Act).  I also read somewhere (but it's not mentioned in this book) that when the first loco was delivered it was found that it would not pass under the short tunnel under the Glasgow - Stirling road (now the A80) near Bedlay Cemetary!  I suppose the concept of a loading gauge had not been thought of then!  Initially one locomotive was placed either side of the tunnel, with horse haulage continuing to be used through it.  I think that eventually the chimneys were cut down to allow the locos to pass through.

 

Jim

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Interesting.

 

A pedantic point follows.

 

The M&K may have been the first Act to explicitly allow steam locomotive power, but I’m pretty sure that the Swansea & Mumbles used steam locos (not until nearly 1880) either under it’s original Act, which was drafted before the first locomotive engine operated, or under the amendment of 1807 that allowed it to carry passengers. From what I can remember, one or the other included a “.....horses or other....” provision.

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