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Southern miniture railway-Working


MrJack47790
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Hello

I have been admiring this little miniture railway what was on Hove's esplanade in the pre-war era called under two names the southern miniture railway and western lawn miniture railway.  

It also had connections to a orphanage in working for children who lost their fathers working on the railway and also i believed toured around the south of England.

I have learnt a lot on the line but the are two subjects i can't answer.

I believe the engine in question what i specifically what to know about(pacific)is a based upon Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway's southern maid but with smoke deflectors, please have a look and see what you think and give me you opinion,a second pair of eyes will really help me and will be greatly appreciated.

I really would like to know more on the engine so any information on it will be very much appreciated.

Here is the link to a short video of the line with the spare engine Drummond in action but will still show the track.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-miniature-railway-1926-online

My other question is what gauge it is it?

Please if you do know comment.

Also if u have experience with the various miniture railway gauges please could you make a guess by looking at the size of the people to track.

I believe it could be either 5 or 7 1/4 (more of me thinks 5.), however this is only going from my very limited knowledge of miniture railways and comparison of todays miniture railway,I think it's 5 as judging by the size of a man he sits just over each sides but on Romney 2 men fit in between the sides so thats why i guess 5 inch as like before  a second pair of eyes would help greatly

Final thing is if anyone has any information, details of place where i could get information or books to buy please comment it all anything will be greatly appreciated as is so often with old miniture railways little can be found out about them.

Thanks Jack

 

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47 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Something's not working here - we've got duplicate posts about Woking !

No i was recommend doing a new one this time specificlly with the words working in to appeal to others who may just glance other and there has been a few alterations.

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There isn't really anything that suggests Southen Maid as a prototype, and in any case Southern Maid was itself a copy of an LNER A1.

 

My immediate thought was that this was modelled on a Southern Railway Lord Nelson class, although it also appears to incorporate several elements of the earlier King Arthur class, and we might perhaps view it as a Southern Railway might have been. Of course, the firebox is completely different from both 4-6-0 classes; I don't know how long your railway is, but perhaps the designer baulked at the idea of having to fit a tiny firebox above a driving axle. Also, although the cab appears to have a King Arthur profile, the windows are completely different. The tender looks like a King Arthur.

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Difficult to make out in the gloom beneath the smokebox, but I can't see any evidence of inside cylinders, which makes it a sort of cross between an S15 and an N15; I really don't see much Lord Nelson in it.  A two cylinder layout was probably adequate for it's work and would have eased maintenance and preparation.

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1 hour ago, Jeremy C said:

I've just found a forum post elsewhere about this railway:

https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/southern-miniature-railway.1418719/

 

6" gauge, apparently (I had thought it looked a little small for 7¼", but it looked too big for 5").

Yes thats the best i think i'll get-from the son of an ex owner.

Thanks Jack

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10 hours ago, MrJack47790 said:

I believe the engine in question what i specifically what to know about(pacific)is a based upon Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway's southern maid but with smoke deflectors,

Given the Pacific is shown on film in 1926 and the RH&DR didn't open until 1927, that doesn't seem likely. I'd say it looks rather like a larger boilered, Pacific variant of a 'King Arthur'.

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2 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

Given the Pacific is shown on film in 1926 and the RH&DR didn't open until 1927, that doesn't seem likely. I'd say it looks rather like a larger boilered, Pacific variant of a 'King Arthur'.

Thank you for this information on the date the railway.

you are right but also wrong RHDR as southern maid was built in 1926 and green goddess was built in 1925 so the railway could have easily taken and shrunk the plans by that point.

Jack.

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I suspect that the loco was built to a set of standard model engineering plans possibly by Greenly, themselves inspired by a GNR A1, but "southernised" in detail by the builder. If so, that would explain the resemblance to the RHDR locos, which were designed by Greenly, inspired by the GNR A1.

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2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I suspect that the loco was built to a set of standard model engineering plans possibly by Greenly, themselves inspired by a GNR A1, but "southernised" in detail by the builder. If so, that would explain the resemblance to the RHDR locos, which were designed by Greenly, inspired by the GNR A1.

Thats what i have been thinking.

Thanks for the advice.

Jack

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3 hours ago, MrJack47790 said:

Thank you for this information on the date the railway.

you are right but also wrong RHDR as southern maid was built in 1926 and green goddess was built in 1925 so the railway could have easily taken and shrunk the plans by that point.

While some people are quick at building things, there doesn't seem to be very much time there for copying (and modifying on the way) what would be a brand new design, however the Greenly conection does offer the likely reason; a case of parallel development rather than copying.

Edited by BernardTPM
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8 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

however the Greenly conection does offer the likely reason; a case of parallel development rather than copying.

An intresting and the most like idea.

Going of this does anyone know anymore on the exact origins of the loco?

Thanks Jack

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Bernard, what I’m suggesting is that the loco is not a copy of the RHDR ones, but an earlier Greenly design that preceded them.

I concur with that. Both owe a lot in terms of proportion to Gresley's A1, but the loco in question does have a more 'Southern' rather than 'Great Northern' vibe to it with the possible exception of the cab windows that almost look 'North Eastern' with their noticably arched tops.

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While it is entirely possible that Henry Greenly was involved - he was a prominent designer of miniature locomotives at the time - I see no reason to think that the Hove locomotive was based on an RHDR locomotive that was at least 2.5 times larger in scale, and was itself based on an LNER prototype. As a working machine, live steam locomotives do not scale particularly well, and all sorts of compromises need to be made, even if you can get the outline more or less right.

 

We are told by the son of a subsequent owner of the railway and locomotives that they were built by Fredrick Hutchinson, whose son was a Southern Railway designer. Of course, the son's working for Maunsell might have been later than the locomotive was built, but its fairly obvious Southern appearance, does suggest an origin closer to Eastleigh than Hounslow (where Greenly was based). If the locomotive was built to raise funds for the Southern railway orphanage at Woking, then the builder might have received rather a lot of cooperation from the Southern CME's office.

 

I am not sure of the chronology of Greenly's smaller locomotives, but the three RHDR locos marked something of a change for him, so far as 15" gauge is concerned, by being recognisibly based on a prototype. The immediate predecessor to these, River Esk, is completely different, and this in turn is very different from his earlier designs for Bassett-Lowke.

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Greenly designed absolutely oodles of miniature locos, from 0 upwards, and published many ‘standard’ sets of drawings for use by model engineers. Without an encyclopaedic knowledge of all those designs, I’m doing no more than suggesting - it could have been designed by anyone - but if that loco doesn’t owe something to a GNR A1, I’ll eat my hat.

 

On dates, the RHDR locos were tested on the R&ER in summer 1925, and were shown in the model engineering press during construction even before that, so their design goes back to 1923/4.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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1 hour ago, Jeremy C said:

but its fairly obvious Southern appearance, does suggest an origin closer to Eastleigh than Hounslow (where Greenly was based).

Very easy to say with them smoke deflectors what i do believe were added to give it that southern style.

there are 3 main pointers what tell me the link to RHDR locos in my eye.

1)The boiler

Look at it, a circular, parallel style with that firebox, a design straight of an LNER A1 or RHDR loco.

2)the smokebox dart

I know it's a very simple matter but very few of this style are seen but an appearance was made on the RHDR locos in the early days-see pictures below.

3)the vale gear

Just look-It's almost identical in positions.

 

 

smokebox dart comparion.

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Although I suspect Hutchinson was inspired by Greenly's work, going back to his co-operation with Bassett-Lowke on the Ravenglass and Eskdale, I don't think that means he used a Greenly design as such. It should be noted that there was another loco, probably earlier, described as a Paddlebox, and subsequently rebuilt as a LSWR H15/S15, which suggests that he was quite capable of making his own way, perhaps with his son's help. Greenly generally worked in 5" and 7¼" gauges, so anything would have to be scaled up or down to suit his chosen 6" gauge. Hutchinson was probably making most of the loco himself, except perhaps the wheels, although these early craftsmen seemed to be capable of doing most things themselves.

The Pacific certainly echoes Maunsell's proposed 4-6-2, as shown in the RCTS book.  Basically a Lord Nelson with the Belpaire firebox removed, and a wide firebox added behind the last driving wheel. Like Greenly's Pacifics, the final taper of the boiler was ignored, either because it made construction difficult, or to include it would drastically reduce the diameter of the rest of the boiler, perhaps significant at this relatively small scale.

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Greenly had actually produced Pacifics, such as Colossus here, before the RHDR designs, for the R & E, predating Gresley's efforts by several years, but following a similar line of development from earlier Atlantic designs. There is also a touch of Vincent Raven's NER Pacific as well. It should also be remembered that constructing a large scale live steam loco, even if various bits and pieces and pieces were available, was usually a lengthy task, and the project would probably have had to have started, at the latest, soon after the GNR and NER locos were making their appearances, if it was going to be running in 1926.

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On 10/01/2021 at 20:25, MrJack47790 said:

Yes thats the best i think i'll get-from the son of an ex owner.

Thanks Jack

Erm, these remained the propery of Woking homes. From there they were in store at the Great Cockcrow Railway. They were certainly there about 6 years ago when i was shown them stored in a container.

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10 hours ago, Denbridge said:

Erm, these remained the propery of Woking homes. From there they were in store at the Great Cockcrow Railway. They were certainly there about 6 years ago when i was shown them stored in a container.

Thank you for this information.

Jack

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