Imaginary Locomotives

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

This leads to another thought. What if in 1923 the Grouping was done differently, done more along the lines of later BR and franchise dividings up of the network.

 

If, say, the government created a London and Home Counties Railway out of the SECR, LBSCR, GER, Metropolitan and the suburban lines of the LSWR and the lines going north. And then the rest of the LSWR was grouped with the Great Western.

 

Then we could imagine all those Drummonds and Uries getting Swindonised.

 

OK, I've triggered a fatwa now ...........

 

Or even better, Richard Maunsell taking the CME position at Swindon!

[whart57]

25 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Or even better, Richard Maunsell taking the CME position at Swindon!

 

Except that Maunsell was SECR and not LSWR

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Except that Maunsell was SECR and not LSWR

 

Yes, I was expecting that objection. He became CME of the Southern on the grounds of seniority over Billinton, Urie being on the point of retirement too. In your scenario, He'd be out of a job at Ashford, or looking for a move, prospects for the development of steam on your L&HC being limited. He was senior to Collett and undoubtedly the most able CME of the 1920s. The management of the enlarged Western Railway would have been foolish not to snap him up.

 

I'm much interested in the private lives of the locomotive engineers and the web of interconnectedness. I was tickled by this from the Wikipedia article on Maunsell: "It was at a social evening organised by the L&YR's Aspinall that Maunsell was to meet his future wife, Edith Pearson. He evidently impressed Edith as she was to send him a letter in March 1893 requesting a tour of the grain elevator at Fleetwood Docks. Their correspondence became increasingly familiar..." 

 

Romance takes many forms!

[whart57]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Romance takes many forms!

 

Like Bill Shankly taking his wife to watch Liverpool Reserves as an Anniversary treat

[JimC]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

Then we could imagine all those Drummonds and Uries getting Swindonised.

Scrapped at the first opportunity I expect!

[tythatguy1312]

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

He became CME of the Southern on the grounds of seniority over Billinton

well that certainly intrigues me, particularly as 2 of Billinton's designs required revisions in my eyes, specifically the E2 and the B4X. Could we have seen improvements to those designs if Billinton became CME?

[Mookie]

On 08/12/2021 at 12:48, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

It's not a turbine electric, but might give some suggestions to a turbine that was designed for coal hauling and was successful...

 

 

.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Mookie

[Jeremy Cumberland]

11 hours ago, tythatguy1312 said:

I am now intrigued by the continued independence of the Talyllyn railway. You'd think a passenger carrying railway would be a candidate for nationalisation, even if passengers were the only thing they had left.

Quite a lot of railways were excluded from nationalisation (although not nearly as many as were excluded from the Grouping). Of course all the Big Four were nationalised, and all the joint lines owned or operated by the Big Four, but only four fully-independents were included: East Kent, K&ESR, the North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway - these three were all former Colonel Stephens railways - and the Mersey Railway.

 

The most notable exclusion was probably the Liverpool Overhead Railway.

[DenysW]

Quote

 Whart 57 said: This leads to another thought. What if in 1923 the Grouping was done differently, done more along the lines of later BR and franchise dividings up of the network.

 

If, say, the government created a London and Home Counties Railway out of the SECR, LBSCR, GER, Metropolitan and the suburban lines of the LSWR and the lines going north. And then the rest of the LSWR was grouped with the Great Western.

 

Sadly this fails the test of how the Government forced private companies to Group into bigger private companies, which was on share prices in, I believe, 1913 - upsetting the Caledonian who had had a bad year that year. To do the sensible thing, whether it's Big (to split the Great Central's London Extension off from it, or to split the various Joint lines ownership into a single Grouped company) or minor (to make sure that the LT&S isn't in LMS) was in the 'too hard' basket.

 

This doesn't mean that I don't like complementary ideas such as unifying the express lines (ECML, WCML, MML, GWML) into a single organisation in 1923, or unifying the freight operations (Westminster focus probably regards these solely as a way to get MPs coal reliably to their second homes in the capital), but no, 'too hard' basket.

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Sadly this fails the test of how the Government forced private companies to Group into bigger private companies, which was on share prices in, I believe, 1913 - upsetting the Caledonian who had had a bad year that year. To do the sensible thing, whether it's Big (to split the Great Central's London Extension off from it, or to split the various Joint lines ownership into a single Grouped company) or minor (to make sure that the LT&S isn't in LMS) was in the 'too hard' basket.

 

A major factor in England was that the LNWR/L&YR/MR and GNR/GER/GCR had already been working closely together for the last decade and a half before the grouping. Indeed the L&YR and LNWR amalgamated a full year before the grouping. So the basic shape of the LMS and LNER was well-nigh inevitable. 

 

There were al sorts of financial anomalies. I'm fairly sure all the grouping companies had a shareholding in each other. The LMS certainly did in the GWR, arising from the Midland's investment in one of the GWR constituents - possibly the South Devon? The Midland came close to acquiring the Bristol & Exeter in the late 1860s...

[rodent279]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A major factor in England was that the LNWR/L&YR/MR and GNR/GER/GCR had already been working closely together for the last decade and a half before the grouping. Indeed the L&YR and LNWR amalgamated a full year before the grouping. So the basic shape of the LMS and LNER was well-nigh inevitable. 

 

There were al sorts of financial anomalies. I'm fairly sure all the grouping companies had a shareholding in each other. The LMS certainly did in the GWR, arising from the Midland's investment in one of the GWR constituents - possibly the South Devon? The Midland came close to acquiring the Bristol & Exeter in the late 1860s...

If the MR had got the B&E, that would have created  something similar to XC, but 150 years earlier!

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, rodent279 said:

If the MR had got the B&E, that would have created  something similar to XC, but 150 years earlier!

 

That was the thinking. It's a natural extension of the Midland's main line. Anyone in Exeter wanting London could go up by the South Western.

[whart57]

33 minutes ago, DenysW said:

 

Sadly this fails the test of how the Government forced private companies to Group into bigger private companies

 

 

An ideological opposition to nationalisation helped too

[DenysW]

According to C.E. Stretton's "The History of the Midland Railway" (1901), p 222, in October 1877 the GNR and the MR launched an unsucessful bid to purchase the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (to function as a M&GN Joint Railway) because Watkin wanted 4.5% for the MS&L shareholders, and the maximum joint offer was 4%.

 

Watkin's London Extension then ensured that the GCR stopped paying dividends to Ordinary shareholders by the mid 1890s, having only enough money for Preferred Shareholders, loans, and dentures, and not all of those every year. Surprisingly he eventually left under a cloud.

 

Whart47 said: "An ideological opposition to nationalisation helped too". Agreed. If you nationalise the lot, you can do any re-structure you like. If that's out of the question on political/idealogical grounds, you force yoyrself into compromises that fit the non-nationalisation rulebook.

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by DenysW
Add text

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Watkin's London Extension then ensured that the GCR stopped paying dividends to Ordinary shareholders by the mid 1890s, having only enough money for Preferred Shareholders, loans, and dentures, and not all of those every year. Surprisingly he eventually left under a cloud.

 

... the infernal regions, rather than sitting on one? 

[Northmoor]

40 minutes ago, DenysW said:

 

Sadly this fails the test of how the Government forced private companies to Group into bigger private companies, which was on share prices in, I believe, 1913 - upsetting the Caledonian who had had a bad year that year. To do the sensible thing, whether it's Big (to split the Great Central's London Extension off from it, or to split the various Joint lines ownership into a single Grouped company) or minor (to make sure that the LT&S isn't in LMS) was in the 'too hard' basket.

 

This doesn't mean that I don't like complementary ideas such as unifying the express lines (ECML, WCML, MML, GWML) into a single organisation in 1923, or unifying the freight operations (Westminster focus probably regards these solely as a way to get MPs coal reliably to their second homes in the capital), but no, 'too hard' basket.

You rightly say it fails the test, but surely that is precisely the sort of "What if?", that this thread is all about.  A change of government policy is much more plausible than locomotives too tall, too heavy or lacking adhesion for the routes we're inventing them for.  In this case, what if the threshold for absorption had been based on five years' income rather than a single year?

 

I rather like the idea of a number of local regional companies surviving as independent, like the Cambrian, Furness, Great Eastern, Caledonian etc.  Some might not have been able to continue to build unique types in small numbers so might there have been some interesting "standard" types from private builders?  The Midland 3F & 4F could have been common types across several railways, with local variants.

[The Johnster]

34 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A major factor in England was that the LNWR/L&YR/MR and GNR/GER/GCR had already been working closely together for the last decade and a half before the grouping. Indeed the L&YR and LNWR amalgamated a full year before the grouping. So the basic shape of the LMS and LNER was well-nigh inevitable. 

 

There were al sorts of financial anomalies. I'm fairly sure all the grouping companies had a shareholding in each other. The LMS certainly did in the GWR, arising from the Midland's investment in one of the GWR constituents - possibly the South Devon? The Midland came close to acquiring the Bristol & Exeter in the late 1860s...

There was a pretty close alliance between the GW and the GC as well, not to mention the GW's close relationships with the Barry, and the Rhondda & Swansea Bay, which included the loan of 31xx Churchward large prairies to work the Barry's Cardiff Branch and the provision of brand new 45xx (they were 21xx then) small prairies for the R&SB, in that company's livery.  They revereted to their GW numbers at the grouping.

 

The Riverside Branch in Cardiff was owned by the GW, which worked the freight on it, but all passenger work was handled by the Taff Vale and the Barry between them, and this was a busy commuter line worked to capacity at the rush hourse.  Taff Vale services ran to Penarth with some through to Cadoxton via Sully, and the station was effectively the Barry's Cardiff  terminus, serving trains from Barry, Bridgend via the Vale of Glamorgan, and the (in)famous 'St Fagan's Pullman from Pontypridd (Graig) via Ty'nycaeau and Wenvoe Jc. 

[whart57]

The obvious "what if" is if the government nationalised the railways in 1923, or at least created a single company rather than four competing ones.

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

Both W&L locomotives were given the Swindon treatment

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Lovely engines, I'd love to see someone like Rapido do a On16.5 version of them

 

Yes, they are pretty little thins with plenty of character, and to my (admittedly biased) taste, improved by 'Swindonification', but I believe the alterations were carried out at Oswestry/

[DenysW]

There's also the 'what if' GNR/NER/NBR had resisted being grouped in with the financial disaster that was GCR, sending it into the Midland/LNWR/GSWR Grouping and giving them a LMNWG Railway, but receiving Caley, GNoS, and the HR in exchange, to become the GNES Railway.

[whart57]

7 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Yes, they are pretty little thins with plenty of character, and to my (admittedly biased) taste, improved by 'Swindonification', but I believe the alterations were carried out at Oswestry/

 

According to my book on the W&L both engines received their modifications at Swindon although normal heavy overhauls were done at Oswestry

[The Johnster]

2 minutes ago, whart57 said:

The obvious "what if" is if the government nationalised the railways in 1923, or at least created a single company rather than four competing ones.

It was on the cards and Lloyd George was keen on the idea.  Everybody would likely have carried on as before with their existing working practices but presumably a national livery would have emerged, much as happened in 1948.  One would assume that a range of standard locomotives based perhaps on Maunsell's Woolwich moguls would have emerged during the 20s, so something not unlike a Lord Nelson as the standard express passenger, a version of the S15 as the mixed traffic, the Q as the standard goods and a 2-8-0 S15 for heavy work.  Standard classes with interchangeable standard components.

 

The 1930s depression would have put paid to further developement, but coach design would have progressed to all-steel types with buckeye couplings.  It would also have prevented improvement of freight or mineral rolling stock.  If electrification had not gained a decent bridgehead (the NER 1,500vdc overhead, most likely) by 1929, the Wall Street Crash which precipitated the depression, no real progress would have been made in that direction either, but I think that the 750dc third rail 'Southern Electric' network would not have happened at all. 

 

Except for the immediate Greater London commuter area, in which I would envisage the LPTB being the operator south of the Thames out as far as the North Downs escarpment, with new connecting chords and tunnels to enable through running to the Underground and Tube networks.

 

I reckon a Lord Nelson would have been better than a Royal Scot and not far off a Gresley A1 in capacity and performance.  That's my version of alternative history, others are available...

[The Johnster]

21 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

According to my book on the W&L both engines received their modifications at Swindon although normal heavy overhauls were done at Oswestry

I stand corrected then, information useful.  Oswestry would, I think, be capable of the work and I always thought that was what had happened.

[rodent279]

49 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

There was a pretty close alliance between the GW and the GC as well

A GW & GC merger would also have created something similar to XC-did the GC have running powers to York & Newcastle?

[The Johnster]

39 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

A GW & GC merger would also have created something similar to XC-did the GC have running powers to York & Newcastle?

 

No, but I think they handed over the NE at Leeds.  My great uncle Ted, bit of a character and in the catering corps during WW1, worked as a steward on the Barry-North Shields 'Port to Port Express' (from 1919 to about 1927, after which he developed a professional bad back) for which the GW and the NE provided stock, a 'double home' job with the stock and crews overnighting and working back the following day. 

 

The train ran via Banbury, where the GC provided a locomotive, and Sheffield, so if the GC loco did not come off there it must have worked through on the Midland, or a Midland loco provided Sheffield-Leeds, which seems unlikely as the Midland were in competition on this route.