Marple - A suitable case for treatment?

[Compound2632]

Well, why do you think so many railways went for variations on dark lake, Great Western included?

[Poggy1165]

Am I not right in thinking that circa 1908 the GW went to plain chocolate, and in 1912 to lake? Several other companies also did away with the lighter element of their livery. The Cambrian springs to mind - went from green and cream to plain green.

 

Simplified liveries were easier to apply and cheaper to maintain. Arguably not as pretty, though. In my own lifetime the Ffestiniog did something similar. Started with a very complex green and cream, tried out teak, decided on red/lake/whatever. 

[Compound2632]

Am I not right in thinking that circa 1908 the GW went to plain chocolate, and in 1912 to lake? 

 

Exactly so. It was an era of livery simplification, as you say. Even on the Midland, lining out of the solebars of carriages was abandoned about this time.

[Compound2632]

Digging around on The Railway Children's Strines connection, I found this rather entertaining article - including the threat of literary war between the K&WVR and the librarians of New Mills. 

 

Edward Ross, proposed candidate for the 'Old Gentleman', was Secretary to the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway from 1850 until his death in 1892. Given his position and later Marple connections, I'd bet he was one of the occupants of the MS&L dog-cart on that fateful day in 1861!

 

On the subject of the MS&L and gambling, its Chairman in 1861 was Charles Anderson Worsley Anderson-Pelham, Second Earl of Yarborough. A hand at Bridge (or in his day Whist) containing no card higher than a nine is named a Yarborough after him. The story goes that having been dealt such a hand, he offered to pay £1,000 to anyone dealt another, on condition they pay him £1 for every hand played. He'd worked out that the odds on such a hand are 1:1,828. I'd wondered how such an astute statistician could have got involved with such a dicey concern as the MS&L* until I read that he owned large swathes of Lincolnshire. What he lost on his investment in the railway he would more than gain from the increased value and return his estates would yield from their access to the railway!

 

*MS&L = Money Sunk and Lost; GC = Gone Completely.

 

EDIT: Three Chimneys is now a fully-licensed cattery. What is the state of the law on supplying alcohol to other people's pets?

Edited April 7, 2018 by Compound2632

[TheSignalEngineer]

As can be seen on the map above, there was once a canal wharf at Marple Wharf Junction. My understanding is that stone traffic was worked to here and transshipped into barges. Who did the railway working I am less sure. It would have ended quite early in railway history. The canal was the property of the Great Central, as was the Macclesfield Canal which branched off in Marple. 

 

The Peak Forest Canal Company ran out of money to build the Aqueduct and locks at Marple so the Committee decided to build a tramway to link the sections already completed from Ashton and Bugsworth and enable them to get money from through traffic. The tramway was built in 1798 and operated until about 1807. The line of route from the basin at the top lock can be seen crossing the recreation ground by Oldknow Road, and ran it ran down St Martins Road, crossing the canal by the warehouse pictured above. It continued down to the site of the aqueduct. Although the Marple line was short lived, at the same time the company built the Peak Forest Tramway from Bugsworth Basin towards Chinley, Chapel-en-le Frith, Dove Holes and Peak Dale. This lasted until around 1920, the wagons being sold off by the LNER shortly after Grouping.  The canal and tramway had been leased to the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway in 1843 and was taken into railway ownership in the 1880s The section from Bugsworth to just short of Chapel Milton is now used as a cycle path. There are still some stone block sleepers visible in the Chinley area.

[Poggy1165]

There is a rather excellent book on the Peak Forest Canal. I have a copy, but it isn't to hand. The tramway from Bugsworth (or Buxworth as it is now known) was one of the LNER's less desirable acquisitions, but it had a number of branches at the top end, and certainly carried a limited amount of general goods traffic as well as stone. The GCR had its very own quarry and Peak Forest and for some years, following on from the tradition of the canal company it acquired, carried out a stone trade, which was probably ultra vires. However they got away with it, the trade eventually dying a natural death.

 

The existence of the quarry was one reason they enjoyed running powers over the Midland to Peak Forest. You might have thought this would have killed the tramway, but it didn't. Albeit, some of the branches off it were rather removed from Peak Forest and no doubt had traffic of their own.

 

The GCR also owned barges on the canal, although latterly they were purely for maintenance. (From memory they stopped carrying goods and minerals in their own boats in MS&L days and such trade as there was thereafter was in private hands.) There is such a vessel kept in MS&L livery to this day. See this thread 

 

There even used to be a covered dry dock attached to Gorton Works to maintain the boats. As a kid I vividly recall discovering it and "inspecting" it in its disused condition. 

[APOLLO]

Some good canal info here

 

http://www.penninewaterways.co.uk/peak/index.htm

 

Brit15

[Poggy1165]

This is the book I had in mind.

 

Not cheap, and I suspect, out of print. Very interesting and detailed read though. 

[Argos]

There is an Oakwood Press publication entitled " The Peak Forest Tramway including the Peak Forest Canal".
 
It's quite a thin tomb, so should be found for a reasonable price, it's on Amazon for a tenner, the original list was £4.95.
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peak-Forest-Tramway-Including-Locomotion/dp/0853613788/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523391737&sr=8-2&keywords=peak+forest+tramway

 

It is an interesting read and the tramway system was quite extensive.

At one point I was I contemplating a "might have been" layout based around the Coal mine at Sparrow pit assuming locomotives has been introduced onto the tramway.

Needless to say it got no further than the pipe dream stage!

Edited April 10, 2018 by Argos

[Poggy1165]

The MS&L originally intended to go to Whaley Bridge, and from thence to Buxton. Had they done so, they would almost certainly have converted the tramway into a full scale railway as part of the project. However, the planets never aligned. What money there was, they preferred to spend elsewhere.

[Argos]

Another one of my layout pipe dreams presumes they reached Buxton building a Minories style terminus that got converted to OLE along with the Woodhead route and branch to Glossop.

 

I've always had a soft spot for EM1 & 2s.

 

Maybe I'll build in my next lifetime!

[Argos]

Apologies to Edwardian, we seemed to have wandered off from the original Marple topic.

[Compound2632]

Apologies to Edwardian, we seemed to have wandered off from the original Marple topic.

 

Not far, surely? The M&SLR's ambitions in the direction of the Peak are germaine to the history of the Sheffield & Midland joint line.

[Regularity]

The MS&L originally intended to go to Whaley Bridge, and from thence to Buxton. Had they done so, they would almost certainly have converted the tramway into a full scale railway as part of the project. However, the planets never aligned. What money there was, they preferred to spend elsewhere.

 

Spend? Or squander?

 

For those who don't know, MSL stands for "Money Sunk and Lost"...

...and after the London Extension was built, it was "Gone Completely".

[Compound2632]

Spend? Or squander?

 

For those who don't know, MSL stands for "Money Sunk and Lost"...

...and after the London Extension was built, it was "Gone Completely".

 

Before you. Perhaps just as well for the shareholders that those dog-carts met on that lane in 1861.

 

Query: Did the MS&L have any running powers (whether exercised or not) over the purely Midland line into the Peak?

Edited April 11, 2018 by Compound2632

[Regularity]

Before you. Perhaps just as well for the shareholders that those dog-carts met on that lane in 1861.

 

 

Worth repeating!

[Poggy1165]

Before you. Perhaps just as well for the shareholders that those dog-carts met on that lane in 1861.

 

Query: Did the MS&L have any running powers (whether exercised or not) over the purely Midland line into the Peak?

 

Yes, to Peak Forest. See above.