RMweb Premium Blobrick Posted May 29, 2021 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 29, 2021 Does anyone know why the lamp irons fitted to the vestibule ends of Mk1 coaches are at different heights and not parallel ? I ve attached a photo to show what l mean Bob C Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Phil Bullock Posted May 29, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 29, 2021 Have always assumed.... and that is dangerous! .... that the lower one was intended to be used from ground level .... the higher one from a platform . Standing by to be corrected! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Nick C Posted May 29, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 29, 2021 7 minutes ago, Phil Bullock said: Have always assumed.... and that is dangerous! .... that the lower one was intended to be used from ground level .... the higher one from a platform . Standing by to be corrected! Not so helpful if you've got a platform at the start of the journey but not at the end! Most guards I've seen use, as you might expect, the one closest to them at the start - which can be awkward if they end up with the opposite platform at the end... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Blobrick Posted May 29, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 29, 2021 Hi Phil That does sound plausible, but if you wanted to attach a lamp in a platform, pound to a penny the "platform" lamp iron would be the furthest way! Bob C Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldhawk Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 As the lamp irons are attached on either side of the gangway face-plate and not on the end of the coach body, the left hand bracket being higher than the one on the left. Having this difference in height prevents the lamps being damaged if they are forgotten about when the coaches are pushed together. 1 8 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HGR Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 It's more so that the irons on coupled coaches do not foul each other if either happen to be bent so as to be forward of the faceplate. The very early Standard Carriages (as would later be called Mk.1) had the lamp irons on the body ends, but they were moved to be welded onto the gangway faceplates so that a tail lamp on a passing train was easier to be seen from a signal box if it happened to be on the far side of the coach and thus partially obscured by the gangway if it were on the body end. Initially I think the irons were at the same height both sides but it was quickly realised the risk of them 'locking horns' if they happened to be proud of the rubbing plate. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickham Green too Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 10 hours ago, HGR said: ..... The very early Standard Carriages (as would later be called Mk.1) had the lamp irons on the body ends, but they were moved to be welded onto the gangway faceplates so that a tail lamp on a passing train was easier to be seen from a signal box if it happened to be on the far side of the coach and thus partially obscured by the gangway if it were on the body end. ...... Why was this not perceived to be a problem on earlier stock ? - especially with B.S. gangways which project further ! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HGR Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 6 hours ago, Wickham Green too said: Why was this not perceived to be a problem on earlier stock ? - especially with B.S. gangways which project further ! They work in a different way ... B.S. gangways were intended to be clipped together when coupled, so there would be no relative movement between the mating faces of the two gangways. All of the flexibility occurs between this and the coach end. The rubbing plates on Pullman type gangways as used on Mk.1 are not attached to each other when coupled. The protrusion of the rubbing plate in front of the headstock is slightly more than half the distance between headstocks on adjacent vehicles when the buckeyes are coupled. A pair of sprung buffer rams / plungers behind the bottom of the rubbing plate pass through the headstocks to accommodate the buffer forces (the side buffers being retracted play no part in carrying the buffing forces). This ensures that even with full drawbar pull there is always some residual 'squash' keeping the rubbing plates in contact. The rubbing plate / gangway faceplate is constrained by the buffing rams in the vertical and horizontal directions. So relative lateral and vertical displacement between the coupled coaches causes the two rubbing plates to slide over each other. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickham Green too Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 Sorry, I do know how Pullman gangways work - and I've explained this on another thread recently ......... no, the question was "Why was 'hiding' the tail lamp on the body end not perceived to be a problem on earlier stock ? - especially with B.S. gangways which project further !". 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HGR Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 41 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said: Sorry, I do know how Pullman gangways work - and I've explained this on another thread recently ......... no, the question was "Why was 'hiding' the tail lamp on the body end not perceived to be a problem on earlier stock ? - especially with B.S. gangways which project further !". My apology, misread your question. Parkin mentions the Standard Carriage Committee minute where this came up, and gives the explanation as to not fitting the lamp iron on the coach end as "lamp then not easily visible if signalman on opposite side". Does not give any further reasoning why this should have now become a problem when not so with previous stock other than the minutes stating that it was at the request of the operating departments. Looking in to this a bit further there is another minute that states the height of the lamp bracket on the gangway in order to avoid fouling the irons on ER 'regional vehicles' which have a foot / lug protruding at the bottom. This implies that some LNER or BR(E) pre-Mk.1 vehicles had the irons on the gangways already. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldhawk Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said: Sorry, I do know how Pullman gangways work - and I've explained this on another thread recently ......... no, the question was "Why was 'hiding' the tail lamp on the body end not perceived to be a problem on earlier stock ? - especially with B.S. gangways which project further !". Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheatley Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said: Why was 'hiding' the tail lamp on the body end not perceived to be a problem on earlier stock ? Maybe it was, but perhaps BR's 'design by committee rather than edict' process was the first time anyone had listened to the operators ? In the same way that rocking grates and self cleaning smokeboxes on locos became standard despite neither of those being new inventions. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldhawk Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 Wickham Green has made a good point, that has puzzled me too, so having trawled a few coaching stock books looking for good photos of the ends of non-mark 1 gangwayed stock, I think I have found the answer. Where there is a gangway, the lamp bracket has been extended outward so as to hold the tail-lamp anything up to a foot away from the end of the coach so that the signalman's view of. the lamp is not blocked by the projecting gangway. It also seems to be a general rule that there was only one lamp-bracket provided which was mounted to the left of the gangway, this certainly seems holds true in my own line of interest of Southern stock. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickham Green too Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 2 minutes ago, Goldhawk said: ..... It also seems to be a general rule that there was only one lamp-bracket provided which was mounted to the left of the gangway, this certainly seems holds true in my own line of interest of Southern stock. The second lamp iron on Southern stock was attached to the middle step - where it must have caught many a trouser leg over the years ....... THAT's a damned good reason for putting it somewhere else ! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted May 31, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 31, 2021 (edited) 17 hours ago, Wickham Green too said: Sorry, I do know how Pullman gangways work - and I've explained this on another thread recently ......... no, the question was "Why was 'hiding' the tail lamp on the body end not perceived to be a problem on earlier stock ? - especially with B.S. gangways which project further !". It is a very good question (which to be honest is one I've never thought about previously) and you could readily extend it to include side lamps where one of them would be even less likely to be seen by a Signalman than a tail lamp (which might help explain why side lamps on passenger trains were dispensed with in Pre WWII days?) I happen to have an official photo of a GWR buckeye fitted coach and the tail lamp bracket is no more than about 6" above the gangway floor and sticks out from the vehicle end (to which it is fixed) almost as far as the gangway - but note the gangways on GWR buckeye fitted vehicles were quite not the same as those used by e.g. the LNER. Incidentally most photos indicate that certainly as far as Collett stock was concerned the side lamp brackets were on the vehicle end and fairly prominanent. On all the official broadside photos I have of GWR passenger carrying vehicles vehicles fitted with standard gangways the tail lamp bracket can usually be picked out clearly as standing further from the coach end than the out of use gangway. So in reality I suspect there might not have been too much difficulty seeing a lamp in terms of its position. But according to the Minute Books I have there were definitely problems over the years on the GWR of Signalmen not being able to see tail lamps on passenger trains. The solution was to adopt not only white as the colour for the body of such lamps but also to employ a particular type of hard wearing enamel finish which was intended to make the lamp easier to clean as well as to improve its visibility. I have never found a reference in the Minute Books to reports or claims of any other difficulty in seeing tail lamps on gangway fitted vehicles. Edited May 31, 2021 by The Stationmaster Correct typos Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickham Green too Posted June 2, 2021 Share Posted June 2, 2021 (edited) On 29/05/2021 at 22:01, Nick C said: Not so helpful if you've got a platform at the start of the journey but not at the end! Most guards I've seen use, as you might expect, the one closest to them at the start - which can be awkward if they end up with the opposite platform at the end... ..... yes, I know this is a MkII so Off Topic .......... Edited April 21, 2022 by Wickham Green too Photo reinstated 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted June 2, 2021 Share Posted June 2, 2021 On 30/05/2021 at 21:55, Wickham Green too said: The second lamp iron on Southern stock was attached to the middle step - where it must have caught many a trouser leg over the years ....... THAT's a damned good reason for putting it somewhere else ! Somebody must have been promoted through the grades to a position he could do something about it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewartingram Posted June 2, 2021 Share Posted June 2, 2021 Would it be easier to reach via the gangway? 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldhawk Posted June 2, 2021 Share Posted June 2, 2021 1 hour ago, stewartingram said: Would it be easier to reach via the gangway? Yes, provided that the external bolt on the gangway doors has been left undone, the guard could open the doors from the inside using his key. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertcwp Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 LNER stock with Pullman gangways had lamp brackets on both sides of the gangway faceplate: SC16657E_Tulloch_1-6-63 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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