ER, SR, WR........why LMR?

[kevinlms]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

All a little fanciful, I fear.

 

Smokebox door numberplates where a Midland invention which Crewe was vey slow to take up in LMS days - many ex-LNWR engines didn't get them.

It was pointless to fit them to most LNWR locos, because they were hard to see in a LNWR shed.

 

The difference was that most LNWR sheds were straight and you could only see a smokebox number plate, by peering in the gap. Whereas a Midland shed were mostly a square shed, you could go near the centre (standing on the turntable deck was a no, no) by turning around, you could see them all!

 

So LNWR didn't waste their time fitting them. I don't know if they were made and never fitted, or never even ordered to be made. Anyone know that answer?

[The Johnster]

TTBOMK smokebox number plates were a Midland idea, from Johnson's time; everybody else used buffer beam numbers which were a better idea in some respects, as they can readily be used to identify a locomotive from the bunker or tender end.  Midland locos also had these buffer beam numbers of course, but buffer beams get dirty and probably presented problems to those staff who needed to trainspot locos at speed in poor lighting; locomen and guards observing other traffic, and signalmen.  Locos can be identified from the centre of a roundhouse by using the buffer beam numbers as well. 

 

Clearly the Midland, and consequently the LMS and BR, considered smokebox numberplates worth the effort, ditto shedcode plates.  I have no idea why they were disliked for LNW locos, but there was probably a reason.  Even the WR, as intransigent as it got when it came to implementing ideas new to them and especially Midland ideas that were new to them, accepted smokebox number plates and shedcode plates, though I doubt many on the region took much notice of the shedcode plates.  I was brought up with WR locos with these BR embellishments and to this day find smokeboxes without them a bit naked and incomplete.

 

There were interesting regional differences in the mounting positions as well.  The Midland originally put them dead centre, while they migrated upwards in  LMS days.  The WR mounted theirs in line with the top smokebox hinge, and the ER/NER/ex LNER part of the Scottish mounted them above this hinge.  The Scottish also went in for Caley blue backgrounds on some locos.

[Steamport Southport]

I've read somewhere that it was such a faff to fit them to the LNWR smokeboxes that many didn't get them and most that did later had them removed. 

 

It was more fitting the locating bits than the actually numberplate that was the problem. Something to do with airtightness I believe.

 

This 4 cylinder 0-8-0 has got one though. Also with the LMS number on the tender with meant a repaint every time they swapped the tender which was common on the LNWR. Soon ditched.

 

https://lnwrs.zenfolio.com/p492945023/h4F40DF98#h4f40df98

 

 

 

Jason

Edited September 12, 2021 by Steamport Southport

[Compound2632]

40 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

TTBOMK smokebox number plates were a Midland idea, from Johnson's time; everybody else used buffer beam numbers which were a better idea in some respects, as they can readily be used to identify a locomotive from the bunker or tender end.  Midland locos also had these buffer beam numbers of course, but buffer beams get dirty and probably presented problems to those staff who needed to trainspot locos at speed in poor lighting; locomen and guards observing other traffic, and signalmen.  Locos can be identified from the centre of a roundhouse by using the buffer beam numbers as well. 

 

To correct several points here:

• Smokebox numberplates were introduced in 1905, as part of the simplification of livery which saw locomotive numbers displayed on tender or tank sides. This was a change introduced by Deeley, Johnson having retired at the end of 1903.
• Midland engines never carried their numbers on their buffer beams; only the letters M R.
• Numbers on the buffer beam were by no means universal practice. The Midland was, by some measures, the second-largest of the pre-grouping railways, and didn't. Neither did the largest, the LNWR, which left the buffer beam blank. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Compound2632

[The Johnster]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

• This was a change introduced by Deeley, Johnson having retired at the end of 1903.
• Midland engines never carried their numbers on their buffer beams; only the letters M R.
• Numbers on the buffer beam were by no means universal practice. The largest pre-grouping railway, the LNWR, left the buffer beam blank. 

Thank you for putting me straight on these points, Compound.

[Compound2632]

Just now, The Johnster said:

Thank you for putting me straight on these points, Compound.

 

You're always welcome. I can these days never drive across a cattle-grid without thinking of your sheep-rolling story.

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

I've read somewhere that it was such a faff to fit them to the LNWR smokeboxes that many didn't get them and most that did later had them removed. 

 

It was more fitting the locating bits than the actually numberplate that was the problem. Something to do with airtightness I believe.

 

This 4 cylinder 0-8-0 has got one though. Also with the LMS number on the tender with meant a repaint every time they swapped the tender which was common on the LNWR. Soon ditched.

 

https://lnwrs.zenfolio.com/p492945023/h4F40DF98#h4f40df98

 

 

 

Jason

The photo shows the difficulty of seeing a numberplate, or even if it exists on the 2nd loco. With a line of locos, you'd find it quicker by just walking along and looking at the body numbers (or tenders for early LMS livery).

 

The main reason the LNWR frequently swapped tenders (they even prepared a couple of tenders that belonged to Crewe Works, with removable numbers), was because the LNWR had long ago worked out, that you didn't need the same number of tenders as locos. This was because the time taken for a major overhaul for a tender took less than for the loco, so you needed fewer!

 

You just needed to attach the nearest suitable tender, when the loco was ready. The tender it came in with, was probably already in service on another loco that had been sent out earlier.

[The Stationmaster]

On 11/09/2021 at 13:38, ikcdab said:

It's a very good question.

The Western and the southern were just carved directly out of the GWR and SR. The names just carried across, apart from the "Great" bit being lost. 

The LMS was cut in two, with the Scottish portions being hived off. Hence all that was left was LMR. 

The anomaly is therefore the LNER. It also lost its Scottish bit, bit then what was left was carved up into the ER and the NER. So to be consistent, the ER should have been the LER, but that doesn't sound right and moves to far from the previous LNER.

Hence it was just ER.

Ian C

The LMS was hardly 'cut in two'.- prior to nationalisation it consisted of four Divisions - Western (sub divided into two parts and geographically in one case almost as large as any other whole Division), Midland, Central. and Northern.  The boundary between the Western and Northern Divisions was at Kingmoor so logically the Northern Division would go into the new Scottish Region but by just about any measure it hardly equated to half of the LMS.  Later the Regional boundary was moved northwards until it ended up just south of Gretna on the WCML.  I suspect something similar defined the Scottish Region's southern boundary on the East Coast side as well plus the former North British lines inland were probably most likely allocated on the basis of where LNER District boundaries had fallen.

 

There was some initial swapping of Regional coverage in 1948 - for example part of the London end of the old GCR was transferred to the WR although it later went to the LMR (and back to the WR in late 1987).  Some GWR lines north of Chester also immediately went to the new LMR while the WR took some  LMS lines in South Wales and the NER took over some former LMS lines in parts of Yorkshire.  Thus even the initial Regional boundaries didn't follow exactly the previous Big Four boundaries.  Subsequently there was major shake up of boundaries in 1950 plus occasional minor changes  then the next big change was in 1963.

 

 

[Rugd1022]

Gentlemen, just three words for your considered perusal : Great Western Region.

 

That is all 

[ikcdab]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

On 11/09/2021 at 13:38, ikcdab said:

Expand  

The LMS was hardly 'cut in two'.- prior to nationalisation it consisted of four Divisions - Western (sub divided into two parts and geographically in one case almost as large as any other whole Division), Midland, Central. and Northern.  The boundary between the Western and Northern Divisions was at Kingmoor so logically the Northern Division would go into the new Scottish Region but by just about any measure it hardly equated to half of the LMS

 

That's really useful and interesting. Stuff I didn't know. In my own defence, I didn't say the LMS was cut in half. I said it was cut in two. The original single entity became the LMR and some of it became part of the Scottish. So it was indisputably cut into two parts, albeit of unequal sizes!

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, ikcdab said:

 

That's really useful and interesting. Stuff I didn't know. In my own defence, I didn't say the LMS was cut in half. I said it was cut in two. The original single entity became the LMR and some of it became part of the Scottish. So it was indisputably cut into two parts, albeit of unequal sizes!

Actually more than two bits as some immediately went to the Western Region and some went to the North Eastern Region (an probably some to the ER but i'm not sure about that).

[1E BoY]

19 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Actually more than two bits as some immediately went to the Western Region and some went to the North Eastern Region (an probably some to the ER but i'm not sure about that).

 

The former L&NWR stations east of Bedford St. Johns on the Oxford to Cambridge line were Eastern Region at the time of closure (01/01/1968).

[Pandora]

On 11/09/2021 at 13:35, LMS2968 said:

Simply devolved from what had gone before: London Midland and Scottish Railway; although its successor did not include Scotland, it did include London and the Midlands (but don't worry about northern England!). Neither the Great Western nor Southern Railways included the word 'London' in their titles, and while the London and North Eastern Railway did, it was split into two: the Eastern and North Eastern Regions.

The North Eastern Railway was the dominant constituent of the LNER at grouping,  within BR, the North Eastern Region lost its individual identity around 1967, the loss of the NE colours such as Tangerine which were changed to Eastern Region Blue,  the NE timetable book which the public could buy, I think it too had a tangerine cover, became part of the Eastern Region book.  there were 6 regions of BR, (Scottish, London Midland, Western, Eastern, Southern, North Eastern)  reduced to 5,  the NE was something of an anomaly,  was it because it was may have been the most profitable railway in the country prior to grouping of 1923?  Operating cost 50% of revenues, and its forward thinking, the electrification York to Scotland with the NBR? A subject worthy of the historians on the forum.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Pandora

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Actually more than two bits as some immediately went to the Western Region and some went to the North Eastern Region (an probably some to the ER but i'm not sure about that).

 

Mainly divvying up penetrating/competing routes. All the regions gained and lost through this process and unwanted "gifts" soon withered and died when separated from their original owners.

[The Stationmaster]

On 13/09/2021 at 07:17, Hroth said:

 

Mainly divvying up penetrating/competing routes. All the regions gained and lost through this process and unwanted "gifts" soon withered and died when separated from their original owners.

Not exactly.  The situation in what came to be termed (from 1950) 'penetrating lines' didn't really work out like that.  For example after going into WR 'ownership' in 1950 the former MR/M LMS route from Birmingham to Bristol gradually became the principal route while the WR eventually closed to through trains the former independent part of the GWR route from Bristol to Birmingham.  Don't confuse the telatively short lived penetrating lines situation with what happened following the 1963 boundary changes and the subsequent rash of closures (mostly already planned) and rationalisations (again in some cases already planned).

 

And most of the changes which took place in 1948 were geographical rather than applying to specific routes.

[The Stationmaster]

On 13/09/2021 at 06:57, Pandora said:

The North Eastern Railway was the dominant constituent of the LNER at grouping,  within BR, the North Eastern Region lost its individual identity around 1967, the loss of the NE colours such as Tangerine which were changed to Eastern Region Blue,  the NE timetable book which the public could buy, I think it too had a tangerine cover, became part of the Eastern Region book.  there were 6 regions of BR, (Scottish, London Midland, Western, Eastern, Southern, North Eastern)  reduced to 5,  the NE was something of an anomaly,  was it because it was may have been the most profitable railway in the country prior to grouping of 1923?  Operating cost 50% of revenues, and its forward thinking, the electrification York to Scotland with the NBR? A subject worthy of the historians on the forum.

This is a very interesting area and one where it is extremely difficult to find out one of the most important statistics - that of operating ratio.  In terms of return on capital - which is no doubt what most interested investors - prior to WWI the best payer was the Taff Vale followed by the NER (which had considerably improved its overall efficiency during the 1890s and first decade of the 20th century.  However the GWR was as good as the NER in improving efficiency but its return on capital in 1910 at 4.73% was not as good as the NER's at 5.21% (the TVR was at 6.24% in 1910 and the LNWR at 5.11%).  However the operating ratios could well tell a different story when seen as totals across all traffics the railway was handling (for example return on passenger traffic was lower than return on mineral traffics).

 

The only figure I can find is that the total operating ratio for the British railway companies in 1914 was 65% (I suspect that it excludes Ireland).  So the NER was doing well if it was at 50% and some others must have been doing badly if the total came out at 65%.  But in 1910 even the SE&CR was achieving a rate of return of 3.59% on capital employed.   But here's an oddity if ever there was one - only one British company in any sort of 'railway' business actually managed to repay to shareholders the whole of their invested capital at the time of its closure, and that was the Wantage Tramway Company.

[lanchester]

On 12/09/2021 at 15:12, Steamport Southport said:

I've read somewhere that it was such a faff to fit them to the LNWR smokeboxes that many didn't get them and most that did later had them removed. 

 

It was more fitting the locating bits than the actually numberplate that was the problem. Something to do with airtightness I believe.

 

This 4 cylinder 0-8-0 has got one though. Also with the LMS number on the tender with meant a repaint every time they swapped the tender which was common on the LNWR. Soon ditched.

 

https://lnwrs.zenfolio.com/p492945023/h4F40DF98#h4f40df98

 

 

 

Jason

Totally off-topic, but why are the wheels on that 0-8-0 so small? Or alternatively, why are the splashers so big - it hardly looks as though it needs splashers at all.

 

As regards the lack of plates on ex-LNWR engines, could it be that, because the smokebox door didn't have to support a dart or wheel mechanism, it was of significantly lighter construction?

[LMS2968]

According to Ted Talbot (The London & North Western Railway Eight-coupled Goods Engines (2002) Published by Edward Talbot ISBN 0-9542787-0-4):

. . .  the engine had all the standard Crewe fit­tings and all the usual features of the day. For the sake of standardisation with the '17in Coal Engine', the same splashers were used, but as the boiler was pitched higher, 7ft 10 ½in, and the cab floor and foot­plate were raised accordingly, 4ft 5in above the rails, there was a space of 9½in between the splashers and the treads of the tyres. This feature was perpetuated in all the 0-8-0s. Had the footplate been pitched 4in or so higher still, no splashers at all would have been need­ed, but clearly Mr Webb, despite his concern for econo­my, was sufficiently concerned with appearance to pro­vide them. Indeed, the splashers over the rear wheels, which were hidden behind the cab side-sheets, were much less deep than those over the other wheels.

 

As to number plates, these were a Midland Railway item and made sense there: that railway used (square) roundhouses so engines would be stabled around a central turntable and the crews would see the front of the engine. Other railways, including the LNWR, used straight sheds so the number needed to be visible from the side as crews walked down the lines of stabling roads; the front of the engine became visible only when up close. Bob Essery and David Jenkinson (An Llustrated History of LMS Locomotives (1981) OPC ISBN 086093 087 4) put it:

 

All engines were, or rather should have been, fitted with cast iron smokebox numberplates of Midland pattern although by the middle thirties, except for the standard locomotives and, of course, the ex-MR ones, the bulk of them were running without them (Figs. 6-7). The Official agreement to dispense with smokebox plates did not, however, take place until February 1928 when it was agreed that with the change in the position of the running number to the engine at that time, there was no longer any need for the numberplates on Western, Central or Northern Division engines. It is highly probable, therefore, that many non-Midland engines (especially ex-LNWR engines) were never given smokebox plates at all unless repainted during 1923-7. They were to be continued on the Midland Division where roundhouses predominated and it is an interesting fact that whenever the Midland Division received an engine without a smokebox plate, it was usual to chalk or handpaint its number on the smokebox for ease of identification on the shed. Most authorities are agreed that it was rare to see a Scottish (and almost unknown to see an ex-LNWR) locomotive with a numberplate by the time of the Second World War, although a few ex-LYR engines did keep them after repainting in the thirties. Needless to say, all standard designs received front numberplates which were never deliberately removed.

 

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

This is a very interesting area and one where it is extremely difficult to find out one of the most important statistics - that of operating ratio.

 

The data exists, in the form of the Railway Returns made annually to the Board of Trade by each company, collated by the Board and presented as a Parliamentary Paper. There's a thesis in there for some budding economic historian with a flair for transcription and number crunching, together with a  high boredom threshold. (I have made some use of these for the more exciting question of rolling stock statistics, courtesy of a contact who had access to Parliamentary Papers Online through his institution.)

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The data exists, in the form of the Railway Returns made annually to the Board of Trade by each company, collated by the Board and presented as a Parliamentary Paper. There's a thesis in there for some budding economic historian with a flair for transcription and number crunching, together with a  high boredom threshold. (I have made some use of these for the more exciting question of rolling stock statistics, courtesy of a contact who had access to Parliamentary Papers Online through his institution.)

Somebody has already done a very detailed and well thought out thesis containing masses of information however the one thing he didn't mention was operating ratios which in view of all the other information struck me as a strange omission as it was a simple financial tool for measuring performance.

[pH]

2 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

Most authorities are agreed that it was rare to see a Scottish (and almost unknown to see an ex-LNWR) locomotive with a numberplate by the time of the Second World War, although a few ex-LYR engines did keep them after repainting in the thirties.

But that changed after Nationalisation. Ex-LMS engines in the Scottish Region were fitted with smokebox plates, though (some? all?) ex-LNWR engines continued without them.

[LMS2968]

49 minutes ago, pH said:

But that changed after Nationalisation. Ex-LMS engines in the Scottish Region were fitted with smokebox plates, though (some? all?) ex-LNWR engines continued without them.

Not just in Scotland. Many English engines, including those from the former ex-L&YR, continued with smokebox plates. But Ted Talbot makes clear that the precedent had been set, and Crewe probably used it to rid its engines of as much Midland paraphernalia as it could. No plates on our smokeboxes!

[Bittern]

On the question of regions and their abbreviations, what does the "GE" prefix on this Mk1 mean? The caption refers to "Great Eastern lines", but I thought GE remained part of the ER until the Anglia region was created.

On 12/09/2021 at 23:18, The Johnster said:

The Scottish also went in for Caley blue backgrounds on some locos.

I've seen 1960s photos of LMR locos with maroon backgrounds, and sometimes white lining on the numberplate, which tends to look like parentheses. 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Bittern