random pre-grouping questions

[Argos]

Love the pictures Nearholmer, please keep spoiling us with more!

 

I have often contemplated a loco hauled tram model (Burton on Trent and Wolverton spring to mind although no freight on the latter).

I have also toyed with the idea of electric ones, St Edwards Hospital Railway which was nearby and more bizarrely the Cruden Bay Hotel Railway.

I like the idea of building a model of whole line along with idiosyncratic stock.

[Edwardian]

Fascinating, Kevin.  That is a great find.  1870 seems pretty early for one of these garden-shed or street trams in the UK.  Most examples I have come across are from at least the late 1870s, and they seem to become very common in the 1880s. 

 

Beyer Peacock made a number, and the Manchester Museum of Science & Industry has stacks of plates and GAs of BP locos online.

 

Fox Walker made some really very rather sweet little ones for the French from 1877 - Industrial Record online Dec 1967

[Penlan]

So, memory is a treacherous thing but I must rely upon it.  I don't recall the Mumbles locomotives having skirts. 

1878 >>> There be dragons......

 

[Nearholmer]

Argos

 

I hate to be the bringer of distracting news, but the Wolverton & Stony Stratford did operate some sort of freight service for a while, possibly during its fleeting visit to Deanshanger, which was meant to serve an agricultural machinery works.

 

They had "bi-modal" wagons, which were basically a road-type horse-drawn wagon, with a strange mechanism that made iron flanges poke out from behind the wheel-rims when needed, plus a pin to lock the rotating bit (I'm not good on horse wagon terminology!) that carries the front axle. The Bessbrook and Newry railway used either the same or very similar wagons. There was a drawing of a W&SST wagon in The Engineer or Engineering sometime in the 1870s or 1880s, and the B&N one is covered in a very famous paper about the line in the ICE Journal c1888.

 

Two good ones for models would be The Alford and Sutton (2'6") and The West Carberry (3'), which both had wagons virtually identical with the Lynton & Barnstaple's four wheelers. I've built West Carberry ones in 15mm/ft scale for my garden line (inevitably, the L&B ones came out r-t-r in 16mm/ft scale five minutes later!).

 

Edwardian

 

Indeed. I will see if I can ferret out a picture of Merryweather's loco (1875?) which really "kicked it all off" in Europe.

 

K

[The Stationmaster]

To (and from) the Mumbles - without skirts

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Now, this is a complete ruse, to get my favourite topic into the thread, but I will make it compliant with the thread title, as follows:

 

Where, and in which year, was internal combustion power first applied to a rail vehicle in Britain?

 

I'm actually not totally sure of the definitive answer, but I will offer an answer, if nobody else does.

 

The, possibly misleading, clue is this picture.

[Edwardian]

Some great pictures.  So what is the deal with the Wantage and the Mumbles?  Some days skirts, some days not?

 

Does it depend on the weather?

[Nearholmer]

Wantage simply flouted the regulations when nobody was looking, and people ceased to look relatively few years after it opened.

 

Mumbles was "pre-regulations", and I suspect that the 1878 photo might show a loco being demonstrated or trialled by a manufacturer, but I'm no expert.

 

Since we have no answers to the "internal combustion question", thus far, here is a real fun one.

 

I imagine the Constable to be saying: "Move along now; nothing to see here.", which will ring bells if you are a fan of The Quatermass Experiment.

[Penlan]

.... So what is the deal with........  Some days skirts, some days not?  Does it depend on the weather?

When you get to a certain age, some days you just accept it, some days your lucky .........

[Nick Holliday]

To be fair to the Wantage Tramway, it started using horses and acquired a Merryweather steam tram as its first motive power.  Shannon arrived, without any skirts, in 1878, but there were a couple of steam tram locos bought later (1880 for one) as per this view from the Getty collection.

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/wantage-tramway-company-steam-tram-engine-no-6-built-to-news-photo/90771979

[Nearholmer]

Being pedantic, I think the first mechanical motive power on the Wantage was Grantham's steam car, which, admittedly, had a Field-Merryweather boiler, like a contemporary fire engine.

 

K

[Nearholmer]

Right, 24 hours have elapsed, and no answers have been offered to the question that I posed in Post 137, so here goes with an answer:

 

Possibly, Northampton, on 3 March 1883, when a locomotive with an Otto silent gas engine (in modern terms, a four-stroke petrol engine, but without a carburettor), was tested on the horse tramway.

 

Equally possibly, somewhere near Croydon, between about 1825 and 1829. There are suggestions that Samuel Brown, who built successful road vehicles and boats powered by his gas-vacuum engine, tried a vehicle on the Surrey Iron Railway, and had firm intent to enter a locomotive at the Rainhill Trials.

 

Unfortunately, no pictures. I only have patent drawings for the former, which I haven't scanned yet (imagine a four-wheeled chassis, with a "hit and miss" engine fixed to it, surmounted by a small zeppelin filled with gas), and I've not found a picture of any of Brown's vehicles yet, although drawings of his stationary engines abound.

 

When anyone points to a picture of an LMS diesel loco, and claims that it is "early" for internal combustion power on rails, you can point these dates out to them. Clever chaps, those Victorians!

 

K

 

Oh, and the picture in 137 is a Luehrig gas tram from c1892, with a two-cylinder "boxer" Otto engine. This one is German, but they were used in GB and elsewhere too, and one is preserved (no engine or gears, unfortunately) at the Cefn Coed museum in Wales.

[Edwardian]

Excellent picture of the Wantage, Nick; looking more than ever Madder Valley-esque.

 

And what a marvellous Grantham steam tram, Kevin.  Are we sure it's Grantham Lincs rather than Grantham PA?!?

 

Also, you appear to have posted a picture of an 0-2-0.  Most impressive!

[Nearholmer]

Grantham was the chap who invented it, not where it came from.

 

Which is a pity really, otherwise we could have a riddle: What was noisy, gave off a great deal of hot air, and came from Grantham?

 

K

[Edwardian]

The first running diesel engine (1892) or the UK's first tractor (1896)?

[Nearholmer]

It wasn't a Diesel engine, and it came from Fenny Stratford, not Grantham.

 

The tractor, I think I might concede on.

 

K

[Nearholmer]

The best compromise is the one on DVLC documents, which I think still say that my (German) car has a "heavy oil engine", thereby neatly sidestepping the whole debate .......... I bet there aren't that many hot-bulb engined cars on the road; a few tractors maybe, but not cars.

 

Anyway, to keep on topic, here is a loco with an AS engine.

 

K

[cornamuse]

With thanks for all the weird and wonderful ...

 

My loco number 3 now with skirts. Nothing flash, but it does hide the sad lack of connecting rods!

[Edwardian]

Apropos horses (standing) raised elsewhere, I have been pondering the working of railway horses and horse-drawn vehicles.

 

Very often a station will have stables, and this facet is now often reproduced in model form. 

 

It may be that the horses thus stabled were in many instances exclusively for the purpose of shunting, a practice that went on well into the Grouping era and, for all I know, beyond.  I recall a picture of Welwyn North (GNR 'Welwyn') in the 1930s.  It is the sort of mainline passing station that suits many modellers' needs.  There was a horse happily engaged in shunting, if memory serves on the ECML running lines!

 

Many of us also like to model railway vehicles; horse 'buses, drays, parcel vans etc, and would not hesitate to plonk one or two about the forecourts or yards of relatively modest stations.  I do not recall buildings to house such vehicles at such stations, however.  They do not seem to feature alongside all those little railway stables scattered about the system.

 

This might mean that, where there are stables, but no cart shed, the horses were there exclusively for shunting.  Alternatively it may mean that horse-drawn vehicles were 'garaged' more centrally, only at larger stations.  They could, of course, change horses at a passing station. Some horse-drawn passenger services were specific to stations, sometimes quite small, so where were such vehicles kept?

 

The answer may, of course, differ with each vehicle types, depending upon the type of onward distribution service they represent.

 

There was a corrugated garage for company motor vehicles at Totnes, but here and elsewhere, was their any pre-internal combustion provision for the stabling of vehicles?

 

I don't recall ever coming across such a structure.

[58herbie]

Apropos horses (standing) raised elsewhere, I have been pondering the working of railway horses and horse-drawn vehicles.

 

Very often a station will have stables, and this facet is now often reproduced in model form.

 

It may be that the horses thus stabled were in many instances exclusively for the purpose of shunting, a practice that went on well into the Grouping era and, for all I know, beyond. I recall a picture of Welwyn North (GNR 'Welwyn') in the 1930s. It is the sort of mainline passing station that suits many modellers' needs. There was a horse happily engaged in shunting, if memory serves on the ECML running lines!

 

Many of us also like to model railway vehicles; horse 'buses, drays, parcel vans etc, and would not hesitate to plonk one or two about the forecourts or yards of relatively modest stations. I do not recall buildings to house such vehicles at such stations, however. They do not seem to feature alongside all those little railway stables scattered about the system.

 

This might mean that, where there are stables, but no cart shed, the horses were there exclusively for shunting. Alternatively it may mean that horse-drawn vehicles were 'garaged' more centrally, only at larger stations. They could, of course, change horses at a passing station. Some horse-drawn passenger services were specific to stations, sometimes quite small, so where were such vehicles kept?

 

The answer may, of course, differ with each vehicle types, depending upon the type of onward distribution service they represent.

 

There was a corrugated garage for company motor vehicles at Totnes, but here and elsewhere, was their any pre-internal combustion provision for the stabling of vehicles?

 

I don't recall ever coming across such a structure.

 

 

Are these the type of structures you mean. Forgive the car plonked in the first building. This was only a temporary measure running the layout in the fifties/sixties era at a local exhibition.

 

Now the layout is purely pre grouping era and buildings and track layout are being changed accordingly.

 

 

Jon. (Holmfirth in Em gauge)

[Nearholmer]

I've wondered about this too, and have come to the thinking that railway delivery carts (probably not the right technical term!) were not provided with cart-sheds in many/all locations, being left parked in yards, under the partial cover of goods-shed a warnings if practicable, when not in use.

 

This hypothesis fits with the fact that carts would be in use for a very large proportion of the time, and were pretty robust things that didn't suffer too much from being left out in all weathers. White vans are the modern equivalent, and few of them get afforded the comfort of a garage.

 

Early "road motors" were given garages, because they were a bit delicate, and would refuse to start if left out in the cold and damp, and the bodywork and upholstery of buses was particularly delicate. Many (most?) buses nowadays live outdoors, but even forty years ago they were delicate enough to merit garages.

 

Kevin

 

Remarkable picture of a "multi-storey horse park" at Paddington here http://www.heritage-explorer.co.uk/web/he/searchdetail.aspx?id=3921

 

And, if you look in the background of this Caledonian Railway photo, you can see carts parked, with shafts turned-up, out in the (terrible Scottish) weather http://photopolis.dundeecity.gov.uk/wc1023.htm

[Metropolitan H]

A couple of comments.

 

1 - Shunting horses were used into nationalised (BR) railway days in a few locations - can't remember which, but know that the reports of the last ones being pensioned off have been in my life time.

 

2 - Drays and carts are better left out in the weather being made of wood, including wheels. If you keep them in the dry the wood shrinks and joints become loose, with steel tyres loosening and falling off etc. (I have recent experience of dealing with the re-introduction of an 1890s built rail vehicle - with wooden frame - to occasional traffic, after 50 years of dry storage. We wondered why the body to u/frame nuts and bolts were loose, till we realised the depth of the timber solebars and headstocks [nominally 12in] had shrunk by about 3/8in).

 

3 - Were the horse-drawn buses serving stations owned by the railways or by the local carriers? - If the later, the vehicles were probably housed away from the railway premises.

 

Any other thoughts?

 

Regards

Chris H

[The Stationmaster]

I can't really see why carts would be parked undercover except possibly for security.  The situation with road trailers was no different in that they were usually left out in the open - there being nowhere else to put them at most goods stations other than the really large covered depots (and photographic evidence indicates that even at those carts and trailers were left outside).

 

Again photographic evidence show that despite considerable investment in motor vehicles horse drawn railway delivery vehicles made it to the nationalised era - I have seen a Post Nationalisation photo at my local station showing a horse drawn delivery vehicle which was presumably used on the town round as it post-dated the shed which had been provided for motor lorries before the war.  In many cases stable blocks were converted to other use leaving little trace of their former use - for example one NCL building at a former goods depot where our (railway) cars) were serviced in the 1970s had previously been a stables but there was little about it to indicate that was the case.

[Nearholmer]

Chris

 

Good point about wood shrinkage, which is presumably one of the reasons that a traditional cart shed is nothing like totally enclosed - they usually have no front, and often the sides don't extend down to the ground. They keep the rain off, but let the, often damp, air circulate freely.

 

Photo of the last shunting horse in action in 1967 here http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=Liverpool%20Street&objid=1995-7233_LIVST_AH_18

 

At Nationalisation BR inherited thousands of dray and shunting horses - I can't find the precise number quickly, but c8000 is a figure in the back of my mind.

 

Stationmaster

 

Indeed. We used to keep all of our cable-train loading/unloading gubbins and sundry other stuff in the former stables at Horsham goods yard. It wasn't easily identifiable as a stable from the outside, but inside it had the characteristic stalls, sloping, cobbled floor etc., and a wooden partition to enclose a tack room.

 

Kevin

[wagonman]

3 - Were the horse-drawn buses serving stations owned by the railways or by the local carriers? - If the later, the vehicles were probably housed away from the railway premises.

 

 

 

A couple of comments.

 

 

 

3 - Were the horse-drawn buses serving stations owned by the railways or by the local carriers? - If the later, the vehicles were probably housed away from the railway premises.

 

Any other thoughts?

 

Regards

Chris H

 

 

At many/most rural stations, at least on the GWR, local deliveries and collections were carried out by the Cartage Agent, a local carrier under contract to the railway company. Normally their horses and vehicles would be kept at their own premises remote from the station. Likewise station 'buses (rare) would have been operated by a hotel or other local business hoping for spin-off trade.

 

 

If the railway company needed extra heavy horses for a particular consignment they would be hired from a local farmer – I'm talking late 19th/early 20th century here. Generally it was only larger or medium sized stations that had their own railway stables.