random pre-grouping questions

[jamie92208]

I got that from a book of photos of West Yorks Collieries from old postcards. I know that the date that they went to sacks was later than I thought. Also the photos that I've got of Lancaster in the 30's show lines of 2 wheel coal carts parked up for the weekend with their shafts in the air. I'll look for the book and post the info.

 

It's surprised me as well but saves me buying 10 sets of scales. However I need a lot more 2 wheel carts.

 

Jamie

Hi Chris

 

I've now found the book which is "West Yorkshire Collieries in Old Postcards" by Norman Ellis who is a local postcard collector and historian near Wakefield.  On Photo 59 he shows a horse drawn coal cart, the standard 2 wheeler 1 horse cart, and comments that they could be seen around until the 1940's.   That would probably mean that bagged coal was around as well so both could be present.  Certainly on my 1930's photo of Green Ayre, all the 2 wheel carts are shown with their shafts up in the air, presumably on a weekend, lined up at the entrance to the yard.   

 

Hope this is of some use.

 

Jamie

[ChrisN]

Hi Chris

 

I've now found the book which is "West Yorkshire Collieries in Old Postcards" by Norman Ellis who is a local postcard collector and historian near Wakefield.  On Photo 59 he shows a horse drawn coal cart, the standard 2 wheeler 1 horse cart, and comments that they could be seen around until the 1940's.   That would probably mean that bagged coal was around as well so both could be present.  Certainly on my 1930's photo of Green Ayre, all the 2 wheel carts are shown with their shafts up in the air, presumably on a weekend, lined up at the entrance to the yard.   

 

Hope this is of some use.

 

Jamie

 

Jamie,

Thank you.  I think the real answer is that it depends on where you lived as to what was used.  There is a Punch cartoon from the mid 19th century showing men with coal sacks delivering Valentines Cards into coal holes.  I have also found at least one photo of the two wheeled cart with large lumps of coal in the early 20thcentury.  Fascinating.  It just goes to show as I am always finding out that you should take nothing for granted that what occurs now, or when we were young was the same a century ago.

 

Thank you again.

[Talltim]

Going back in the thread a bit, I was reading about one of the first lines in the US, the Boston and Lowell. They decided to spare no expense on their their track. To quote Wikipedia 

This, for them, meant laying imported British iron rails with a 4-foot-deep (1.2 m) wall of granite under each rail. They did this because it was commonly believed that the train would sink into the ground if the rails did not have strong support. The first track was completed in 1835, and freight service began immediately. The solid granite roadbed proved to be much too rigid, jolting the engine and cars nearly to pieces. Repairs on the locomotives (there were two at the time) would sometimes take most of the night, trying to get them ready for the next day's service. The much poorer Boston and Worcester Railroad could not afford a granite bed and so was built with modern wooden ties.

 

[Nearholmer]

The London and Greenwich made a similar mistake, using granite blocks, i think laid direct on the crowns of the arches of the viaduct out from London Bridge. Pretty soon replaced with what we now think of as more conventional track. Some of the redundant blocks may still be around; there was certainly a retaining wall built from them at New Cross Gate until c1980s. And, there are London & Birmingham Railway blocks forming a loading wharf at Watford Junction.

 

K

[Trog]

^{If anyone wants a closer look at L&B stone set sleepers they also occur as the back wall to the car park at Bletchley  and alongside Mcconnell Drive in Wolverton beside the site of the old gravel sidings.}

[cornamuse]

Anyone know where tramway regulations came into force first? I am fitting a skirt to a loco out of sheer frustration - but when did they start to be fitted?

[BG John]

A quick Google came up with the Tramways Act 1870 as the first legislation, and most of the steam working started after that. The Swansea and Mumbles was the first, authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1804, but didn't change from horses to steam until 1877. Before 1870, presumably each tramway was authorised separately, so could have totally different rules. No idea how early skirts were first fitted, but maybe one of the directors wives of your company was concerned about the engines scaring the horses, and her husband had them fitted to maintain domestic bliss!

[jamie92208]

The first Street Tramway wasn't brought to the UK, from the USA by George Frances Train, until 1860 and the Tramway legislation in 1870 came as a result of early problems with them as far as I know.  Frightening horses that then bolted was a major cause of death on the roads at that time.

 

Jamie

[Nearholmer]

Gents

 

From memory, and subject to checking when I get time to consult my big steam tram tome:

 

- Tramways Act 1870 doesn't mention locomotives, except maybe in passing;

 

- first GB tramway to use steam power successfully was Wantage in 1875, although there were experiments before then;

 

- Glyn Valley didn't get tram locos until the late 1880s, before that it was largely horse drawn;

 

- Locomotives on Highways Act 1861 and 1865 were targeted at "road vehicle" type locomotives, but contained some provisions that got applied to early steam trams;

 

- I think that "skirts" were applied as a common-sense measure before they became mandatory;

 

- how/when they became mandatory ......... I think a set of BoT Requirements in 1884, but I will double-check in the tome.

 

Kevin

[Nearholmer]

OK, huge tome consulted, and it is so poorly written/edited that it left me in the dark on this point.

 

Consulted a 1903 book, "The Law of tramways & Light Railways in Great Britain", and piecing things together from that:

 

It appears that the 1870 Act conferred powers on the Board of Trade to make bye-laws or regulations applicable to the use of "mechanical power" on tramways, and that the BoT gradually picked-up things from the Locomotives on Highways Acts and from emerging best-practice, to create a "model form" set of bye-laws or regulations, one of which states:

 

"(e) Arrangements shall be made enabling the driver to command the fullest possible view of the road before him. (/) Each engine shall be free from noise produced by blast and from the clatter of machinery such as to constitute any reasonable ground of complaint either to the passengers or to the public; the machinery shall be concealed from view at all points above four inches from the level of the rails, and all fire used on such engines shall be concealed from view."

 

What I'm still hunting for is the date when the BoT published the definitive version, I think 1884.

 

One more book to consult, when I get a bit more time.

 

K

[Nearholmer]

OK, Cornamuse, I now, officially give up .........

 

I have found a copy of the 1903 book on line, here https://ia902702.us.archive.org/31/items/lawoftramwayslig00robe/lawoftramwayslig00robe.pdfand the relevant item is at p352, but I still can't date it properly!

 

I did find another RMWeb thread on the topic, which fizzled out after a bit, the conclusion being "Hmmm ........ This is really complicated,mand we're not sure". EddieB mentions that he consulted the same huge tome that I did, coming away similarly baffled, but nobody seems to have mentioned the 1903 book.

 

K

 

PS: if you know the answer already, and are simply teasing us, please, please, do tell.

[BG John]

I have found a copy of the 1903 book on line, here https://ia902702.us.archive.org/31/items/lawoftramwayslig00robe/lawoftramwayslig00robe.pdfand the relevant item is at p352, but I still can't date it properly!

Interesting bit of bedtime reading, guaranteed to cure insomnia, but downloaded for future reference anyway!

[cornamuse]

Oh I wish I did! Thank you so much for your deep research and help. I think there is enough evidence here for all that I was looking for - which was an excuse to put a skirt on a loco in the 1860s - maybe a little earlier. I will sell it as a pragmatic decision after an accident on a part of the line that followed the road - but the real reason is I am RUBBISH at making coupled wheels that don't bind  

 

Once more- thank you all for your help!

 

It has also made me think my next loco should be Jane from the Wantage tramway, but backdated to a cab-less, more typically England feel.  

[BG John]

It has also made me think my next loco should be Jane from the Wantage tramway, but backdated to a cab-less, more typically England feel.  

I don't think she ever wore a skirt!

[Nearholmer]

In Jeeves mode:

 

"Very early for a skirt, if I may say so, Sir.

 

Your sartorial decisions are, of course, your own, but I feel that It would be neglectful of me not to draw your attention to the fact that Gentlemen in England very rarely adopt such attire until well after dinner, when, the ...... ahem ........ more free-spirited events of the evening commence, Sir."

 

Or, in Holmes mode:

 

"Come Watson, the game is afoot!

 

It is imperative that we should discover incontrovertible evidence that an enclosed locomotive was in existence prior to The Great Exhibition, in order that we might save Mr Cornamuse from a far worse fate than any which Professor Moriarty might devise: Death by Rivet Counter!"

[cornamuse]

giggling like mad here

 

I suspect you are right - very early for a skirt - and a solution I am hoping to avoid with Jane by using proper quartered wheels, not converted wagon wheels that lose their quartering!

 

As to rivet counters - there are SO many possibilities for them to have a field day on my layout that a skirt will pass unnoticed .. maybe ..

 

first issue - locos are freelance boxtanks of a Neilson ish design ..

 

another - the station (North Road in Darlington) is used back - to - front with no train shed ...

 

freelance goods stock ...

 

still using open 3rd carriages ...

 

Disc and Bar signal rather than the triangular affair the S&D liked ..

 

um... very few rivets ...

 

turning a sleepy village into a Spa resort

 

and so many other heinous crimes

 

all under the umbrella of it being an imaginary small early railway company NEAR the S&D but not as yet absorbed by them ... oh yes, and rule 1!

 

that said - I LIKE comments and criticism, as you can always learn something new - even if it is improved self-control!

 

cheers

 

Andy  

[Penlan]

I thought, an engine with enclosed wheels?  (aka 'skirt').
I think I've seen something like that in 'The Chronicles of Boultons Sidings', by A.R.Bennett.

 

OK, come on, own up, who's got my D&C 1971 reprint copy. Not the later Mike Sharman one drawings. 
I've spent some time searching the shelves for my copy, zilch.

[Nearholmer]

Bright red dust-cover? Ah, yes, here it is ......... Seems to have transported itself into my study.

 

Haven't got time for more than a quick flick through now - no skirts spotted.

 

K

[BG John]

What about European tramways (or other parts of the world)? Did they introduce steam earlier than we did, and maybe have examples that could have copied here?

[Nearholmer]

This garden shed on wheels dates from 1860, and comes from Cincinatti USA. I'm not sure whether or not it was the first "steam dummy", but it is certainly a very early one, and I think that, like street railways in general, "skirted trams" were a largely US invention. In Europe, Krauss and others were building very recognisable steam tram locos in the 1870s.

 

The oddities in GB and Europe, The Swansea and Mumbles, for instance, that predate US street railways, really belong to the back-end of the the earlier horse-hauled-railway tradition, not the street railway tradition. But, the boundary is very fuzzy indeed, hence 700 pages of turgid stuff about legislation!

 

K

[BG John]

Are you sure that's a loco, and not a facility for human bodily functions? The No 1 might lead people to think it is .

[Nearholmer]

Things got better in Cincinatti, when they produced this one in 1873.

 

(Beware, I tend to hoard pictures of weird street railway locomotives!)

[Nearholmer]

And, check the name on the front of this Swiss-built one in Geneva in 1877. I can't find it their on-line catalogue.

 

BTW, the first steam trams in Europe were, I think, British-built, in the mid-1870s, for Paris. There are tentative hints that an internal combustion engined tram was tried-out in Paris c1878 too.

 

So, the line of development seems to go US, GB, Europe.

 

Oh, unless one counts the French [edited to correct from Swiss] monorail from 1868 ......

[Edwardian]

Interesting Questions; when skirts became obligatory or common on locomotives, and some great pictures, Kevin.

 

Here, in Costa Coffee, Barnard Castle, I have internet, but no books.  Chez Edwardian, I have books, but no internet (2 weeks will it take BT to provide this at our new gaff).

 

So, memory is a treacherous thing but I must rely upon it.  I don't recall the Mumbles locomotives having skirts.  I have a recollection of pictures of little saddle-tanks, un-skirted, pulling double-decker tram car carriages. 

 

Similarly, I have never really understood lines like the Selsey and Wantage Tramways.  I don't recall seeing pictures any motive power on the former that wore a skirt, be it locomotive or rail-car, and the latter I believe there was a little box-like steam tram with skirts plus plenty of stuff without.

[Nearholmer]

Hello Edwardian, rather thought you'd enjoy this sort of obscuranta.

 

Anyway, I consulted "Tramway Lokomotiven" by Walter Hefti, who studiously ignores everything from the other side of the Atlantic, and he credits Manning Wardle as having built the first enclosed tramway locomotive (to which we should clearly add "in Europe"), in the form of this outhouse for Pernambuco, in 1867 (this one was, I think the third to the design, built 1870).

 

Also below is an 1873 design, which replaced cable-haulage on the first part of the New York Elevated, and that certainly has a mini-skirt.

 

Perhaps, Cornamuse, you could assume that your loco is on trial, and is "bound for Valaparaiso in the morning", to quote a well-known (by Victorian sailors) sea shanty.

 

PS: Selsey was pure dodge, using the Tramways Act to avoid spending money, and since it didn't run on the highway it didn't wear skirts. Wantage gradually forgot to wear skirts, presumably because BoT Inspectors were too busy to visit.