Midland Railway Company

[Compound2632]

13 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Then comes the signal box to mount it on?

 

Ex-Midland boxes seem to be quite plentifully available, or have been. But, @Tricky, the Midland Railway Study Centre has a collection of Midland signalbox name-boards if you want to study the exact shame and size and fixing position of each letter, along with spacing. (Though I would be cautious and check that none of these are LMS replacements.)

[Tricky]

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ex-Midland boxes seem to be quite plentifully available, or have been. But, @Tricky, the Midland Railway Study Centre has a collection of Midland signalbox name-boards if you want to study the exact shame and size and fixing position of each letter, along with spacing. (Though I would be cautious and check that none of these are LMS replacements.)

Fortunately, the original one recently came up at auction and I was able to obtain a hi-res image of the whole board, which I used to scale off letter spacing and fixing. 
Additionally, Dave Harris has been very helpful in supplying photos of some of the study centre collection. 

[Tricky]

22 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Then comes the signal box to mount it on?

 

Dave

Indeed. I think Network Rail have been slow in deciding what they are doing with a handful of suitable candidates for the VoBR to purchase. 

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Fortunately, the original one recently came up at auction 

 

Which does make me wonder (not expecting an answer, of course, as it's between you and your customer) how the price of a new replica compares with the auction price of the original?

[Tricky]

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Which does make me wonder (not expecting an answer, of course, as it's between you and your customer) how the price of a new replica compares with the auction price of the original?

Well, I can in fact answer this question very accurately - mine is by way of a charitable donation! 

[MartinRS]

On 11/08/2021 at 08:13, Tricky said:

Back to the subject of water tanks, I’m building another one, based on the one I believe at Sheffield. This one is unusual as it straddles a platform. I have only been shown one photo where it’s in the background and has some sort of hut on top. I wonder if anyone has any more info on it?

An Ordnance survey 'revision point' (rp) is shown adjacent to the water tank on older OS maps. The best way to go to the maps is via the  https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/724214 web page. Then go to 'More Links for this image' and click on the 'old-maps.co.uk' link. I did a search to find out what 'rp' indicated on an OS map and found the https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/newsroom/blog/see-historic-photos-ordnance-survey-timepix webpage from 2018. It links to the https://www.timepix.uk/ site which is going to publish photos of all 'revision point' photographs. So far only 114 photos of a 1 km square of Sheffield are online. When OS and Timepix get round to publishing the pictures for the Sheffield Station revision points more clues might emerge as to the function of the shed.

 

In any event the Timepix site looks like it is an important resouce for anyone wanting historic photos. It says on the Timepix site, 'Watermarked images are free to share.'

[Regularity]

NLS shows it as a tank, too:

https://maps.nls.uk/view/125651257

 

[technohand]

Dear All, Something different for people looking for small buildings of Midland Stations etc. All are available to down load from the Midland Railway Study Centre website

East Langton(first station north of Market Harboro'

12353   Original Contract plan for stations of 1875

12366   Original Contract plan for Goods Shed 1875

12247   Cycle shed and racks “drawn in an Art Deco style” 1935

Helpstone and Ketton (Syston to Peterboro'

77-13505            Architects plan of station building 1862

77-13503            Architects plan of lamp room 1878

77-13504            Another plan of station building 1872

77-13524            Plan of timber footbridge

77-13522            ditto

28038                  Station and goods yard layout 1903

Please remember these drawings are subject to copywrite and can only be used for private use and study purposes.

Regards

Tony

[Tricky]

Here’s the water tank finished, with my best guess on the hut on top. 

 

[lezz01]

Very nice Tricky mate.

Regards Lez.

[MR Chuffer]

Saw this today elsewhere - from the NuCast list 09.21.pdf, item NC012 - 4mm MR/LMS Kirtley 2F/1F 0-6-0, Christmas come early......

[lezz01]

A link would be nice mate.

Regards Lez.

[MR Chuffer]

10 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

A link

The PDF in this post.

[lezz01]

Thanks very much MR Chuffer.

I've found it already as it happens. £30 cheaper than they're going for on eBay right now. That's really good news. I might just be able to have a small fleet of them now. You can't have too many Kirtley DF goods if you model the Midland.

Regards Lez 

[MR Chuffer]

7 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

they're going for on eBay right now

And then there's that P4 kit built K's Midland railway 0-6-0 Kirtley Goods steam locomotive that's going for £265 "as a Project only"... Haha

[queensquare]

On 21/09/2021 at 18:30, Tricky said:

Here’s the water tank finished, with my best guess on the hut on top. 

 

 

Thats lovely, I do like the two tone livery on Midland tanks - very attractive. heres my interpretation of the top of the water tower at Bath - I just went with a walkway. I suspect the hut on yours is bigger than my tower! 

 

Jerry

 

[lezz01]

2 hours ago, MR Chuffer said:

And then there's that P4 kit built K's Midland railway 0-6-0 Kirtley Goods steam locomotive that's going for £265 "as a Project only"... Haha

There's a guy in Italy who seems to have the entire K's range and he's doing them for really, REALLY silly money £211.89 + £21.27 P&P for the Kirtley. I paid £130 for mine and I still have to buy wheels for it. Then I found out that Nu-cast were going to reissue it. Hey Ho that's the trouble with eBay. The week after I got a Norton 3130 class with Sharman wheels and motor/gearbox for the same price that LRM are doing it for the kit only so it's swings and roundabouts I guess.

Regards Lez. 

Edited October 6, 2021 by lezz01

[Compound2632]

24 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

There's a guy in Italy who seems to have the entire K's range and he's doing them for really, REALLY silly money £211.89 + £21.27 P&P for the Kirtley.

 

How much was it FS paid for each of theirs in 1906?

 

But those who go on about Midland small engines should consider that from a modeller's point of view the Ks Kirtleys are 14% bigger in Italy than in Britain.

[Compound2632]

Nick Wheat has drawn my attention to a door for sale by auction: https://auctions.rogersjones.co.uk/auctions/7983/rogers10360/lot-details/023b5dcf-b2d4-4609-b6e1-adc000e990d2.

 

I'd say that c. 1890 is a bit wide of the mark; c. 1899 - c. 1904 might be closer. It's in the general style of the internal doors of the first class areas of Clayton's square-light clerestory carriages, as this example from Drg. 1403 in the Study Centre collection, Item 88-D1871:

 

 

This is a carriage not built, see Lacy & Dow, Midland Railway Carriages Vol. 1 p. 158. However, the drawing can be taken as typical of a first class dining saloon door, 2'1" wide. There's a good photo of a non-corridor first class compartment in the same style, Lacy & Dow, Midland Railway Carriages Vol. 2 Fig. 195A, p. 170, from which it is clear that the doorplate and lower panels are in the same style the one  on sale; however, that one has a higher waist - the carved panel is above rather than below the level of the door handle, also the detail of the carved panel is different. This door also looks narrower. Looking through other drawings that only show plan views of the interior , I think it could well be a side corridor door, dividing the first and third class sections of a corridor composite, or the firsts from the brake of a brake first (though I note it has the fancy panelling on both sides). These were 1'10" wide. I think the glazed upper part, if original, might fit with it being a door in the corridor. The first side corridor first class or composite carriages were those built for the Midland & Glasgow & South Western and Midland & North British Joint Stock in 1899-1900; the next were the first corridor vehicles built after Bain took over in 1903-4; these carried over many features from Clayton's square-panelled clerestories but the interior panelling became a bit more austere by the time the first round-cornered panelled vehicles were built.

 

I've squirreled away the photos from the auction house website!

[DenysW]

Just displaying my ignorance here, I'm afraid.

 

Did the MR double-up the use of its power classifications as route-availability classifications? Thus a Fowler 4F 0-6-0 has the route availability for an axle loading at 16 tons (or near offer) included in the spec for where it's the correct loco. It would explain the (later) LMS continuation of building the 4Fs - if their 5F/5P design was not just modestly bigger, it was appreciably more route-restricted.

 

Possibly the same in reverse for GWR who definitely had route restrictions, but don't seem to have formally used power classifications.

 

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Just displaying my ignorance here, I'm afraid.

 

Did the MR double-up the use of its power classifications as route-availability classifications? 

 

Consider a Spinner with 18½ tons on the driving axle but in power class 1 and you'll soon see there's no correlation. (The use of the P, F, etc. suffixes was an LMS refinement as far as I'm aware.)

[Dave Hunt]

The Midland's power classification was based simply on boiler pressure and cylinder volume. Following on from trials commenced in 1907, by 1910 a centralised control system was in operation throughout the Railway, one of it essential features being the locomotive power classification. Maximum loads for a particular class of engine over a given route were designed so that the poorest engine of that class could maintain section timings so controllers' and shed foremen's lives were made simpler and holdups because of differences in performance due to maintenance cycles were, at least in theory, eliminated. The locomotive weight and axle loading were not part of the classifications so each locomotive type had to be cleared by the Civil Engineers for a particular route.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

I have a question. Can anyone tell me when:

 

a. Coal stacks became commonplace at MR locosheds.

b. The practice of painting the coal stacks white began? 

 

It's for my MPD layout, which is circa 1906.

 

Dave

[Compound2632]

26 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

I have a question. Can anyone tell me when:

 

a. Coal stacks became commonplace at MR locosheds.

b. The practice of painting the coal stacks white began? 

 

It's for my MPD layout, which is circa 1906.

 

Dave

 

 

Kentish Town shed, c. 1900 [Embedded link to MRSC Item 99-0750].

 

Kentish Town might be a special case - Robert Weatherburn and all that. This photo, catalogued as after 1872 but probably a typo for after 1892, shows an apparently unwhitewashed stack:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC Item 65156].

[Dave Hunt]

Thanks Stephen. Looks like I can make the stacks then decide later what colour to paint them?

 

Dave