Castle Aching

[nick_bastable]

steady on declared the town clerk we are almost back to subject of model railways 

 

Nick 

[sem34090]

"Objection!

 

I echo what Mr Bastable, sorry, the Town Clerk has suggested here. Whilst wishing to remove the previous topic of discussion I'm afraid that we are straying far too close to the topic of railways!"

 

Missenden returned to his seat. Again.

[Compound2632]

steady on declared the town clerk we are almost back to subject of model railways 

 

Nick 

 

Not model, but...

 

In the opening chapter of George MacDonald Fraser's novel, Mr Franklin has just disembarked from the Mauretania:

 

'Once outside the Customs shed, Mr Franklin paused to examine the railway timetable board; there were, he saw, five companies competing to carry him to London on Monday. After some deliberation, he decided on the London and North-western, which undertook to convey him to Euston in something over four hours, via Crewe and Rugby, for 29 shillings first-class. Just under six dollars, in fact. It was the fastest train, not that that could matter to a man who had not taken the special vestibuled boat-train for Atlantic passengers which was even now pulling out of Riverside Station with a shrilling of steam.'

 

I can't off-hand find a good photo to post here of the magnificent 12-wheeled elliptical-roofed end-vestibule carriages built at Wolvertion in 1907-8 for the American Special boat trains, though I think we were shown a splendid model of one a few dozen pages back. GMF had evidently done his research. So: FIVE companies? Apart from the London & North Western, there would be the Midland and Great Central of course, both running over the Cheshire Lines and then across the Pennines to Derby and Sheffield respectively; the Great Western from Birkenhead; but the fifth? Was the Great Northern still in the field for Liverpool traffic after its old ally the Money Sunk & Lost had Gone Completely?

Edited December 7, 2018 by Compound2632

[Hroth]

The departure from Liverpool Riverside would have been less than impressive.  The motive power at that date would have been a pair of Webb Coal Tanks (3021 ‘Liverpool’ and 3186 ‘Euston’), the heaviest locos permitted to cross the swing bridges across the docks until 1950, and would have proceeded at a walking pace, led by a pilot man on foot bearing a red flag until the train had left the dock estate.  The climb through the tunnels to Edge Hill, where an express loco would replace the tanks, would have been equally slow.

 

In our eyes it would be a fascinating journey, but a newly arrived transatlantic passenger might not have enjoyed it so much!

 

As for the five companies, they were intended to be the LNWR, the GNR, the LYR, the MS&LR and the MR but due to operating difficulties, the LNWR had a practical monopoly.

 

Lots of info: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_riverside/

Edited December 7, 2018 by Hroth

[Nearholmer]

In Bradshaw April 1910 the L&Y table shows a few trans-pennine trains into Liverpool Exchange to have connections from King's Cross, for some the change seems to be at Holbeck, but one is an L&Y/NER train to Newcastle, with the change I think at York. So, I suggest that the fifth candidate might be the L&Y, although the journey times are dreadfully long.

 

Nowadays, weird L-shaped trips involving crossing the Pennines sometimes get thrown up by National Rail Journey Planner, especially if one has just missed a train by the obvious route to London and there is a longish gap until the next one. They sometimes give a significantly earlier arrival in London than waiting for the next obvious train, but sometimes only a couple of minutes earlier, and involve travelling in trains that can get seriously overcrowded.

[Compound2632]

Liverpool and Euston were modified Special Tanks - Ramsbottom's saddle tank version of the DX goods 0-6-0, perpetuated by Webb. 

 

The opening of Mr American is set in 1909, by which time the M&SL had become the Great Central, offering its own service to Marylebone where once it had combined with the Great Northern to run a highly competitive service to Kings Cross via Retford. The L&Y/Great Northern combination does seem a bit of a long way round!

 

That Disused Stations article reminds us that although only the LNWR ran boat trains from Riverside, it wasn't a LNWR station but the property of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board. The LNWR's monopoly on its use didn't translate into a monopoly on transatlantic passengers to London. It seems it was common not to rush straight off to London but to pause for a day or two - although Mark Franklin has decided to go on by the North Western, he spends a few days in Liverpool first, putting up at the Adelphi Hotel. In Henry James' The Ambassadors (1903), Strether has a holiday in Chester to acquire a sense of Englishness before going on to London, then Paris. Great Western or North Western from Chester, I wonder?

[Argos]

Surely that's not open to debate?

 

London North Western every time, it is after all the Premier Line :-)

[Compound2632]

Surely that's not open to debate?

 

London North Western every time, it is after all the Premier Line :-)

 

Wherever it ran... Now when Mr Franklin goes down to Castle Lancing, he takes the 11am from St Pancras*, of course, to Ely via Cambridge. At Ely he takes a Norwich train, alighting at the (unnamed) stop after Thetford. It's then a two-hour journey in a rather slow gig** to reach the home of his Norfolk ancestors.

 

*The Great Eastern's West End terminus...

 

** Where's the WNR when you need it?

Edited December 7, 2018 by Compound2632

[runs as required]

Back to contemplating 5 companies running to London from Liverpool Landing Stage: LNW/GW/MR/GC

Wouldn't the 5th be the GNR - but as a Cheshire Lines constituent from Liverpool Central .

There were GNR Kings Cross - Sheffield expresses in 1902 - with through carriages to Manchester Central . i understood these ran via the Retford curve into Sheffield Vic, thence through Woodhead, Guide Bridge and onto the CL past Tiviot Dale, Stockport  

dh

[webbcompound]

Back to contemplating 5 companies running to London from Liverpool Landing Stage: LNW/GW/MR/GC

Wouldn't the 5th be the GNR - but as a Cheshire Lines constituent from Liverpool Central .

There were GNR Kings Cross - Sheffield expresses in 1902 - with through carriages to Manchester Central . i understood these ran via the Retford curve into Sheffield Vic, thence through Woodhead, Guide Bridge and onto the CL past Tiviot Dale, Stockport  

dh

The GWR didn't run into Liverpool. They had a goods station, which still stands at Albert Dock, but no trains in. Nearest passenger service would be Birkenhead with a connection via the Mersey Railway under the river to Rock Ferry  where you might pick up trains out of Birkenhead Woodside for Paddington (GWR) although you would be just as likely to get a train to Euston (LNWR). After 1910 you could get a train of LSWR stock to Bournmouth from Birkenhead Woodside, although it would be hauled by a GWR loco, or possibly a LNWR loco as far as Chester

Edited December 8, 2018 by webbcompound

[Martin S-C]

It looks big because she's moved.

In the same manner, the two lads either side of her are not wearing stockings over their faces and about to become the Smallest Mail Cart Robbers in the West.

 

If I know the plot lines our Jenny gets involved with, she's probably hiding under the postie's mail bags and going to elope with him.

 

EDIT: and so as to bring something worthwhile to the discussion, for modelling purposes I note that many modellers will strew their fence bottoms with a lot of long grasses and weeds, but here we see that the grass verges on both sides of the road are both minimal and very short. I imagine this is because people walk everywhere in these times and usually by the side of the road to avoid vehicles/mud/droppings so the grasses get trodden down and the earth pounded hard (which discourages growth) and secondly due to all the horse traffic any verge grasses that get anywhere near juicy and tender get eaten in short order.

 

So go carefully with your PVA and electrostatic grass applicator along your village streets.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Martin S-C

[Nearholmer]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before somewhere in this thread, but, copying from Wikipedia's section on the Mersey Railway:

 

"As well as some through working of carriages from the Wirral Railway at Birkenhead Park, in the summer of 1899 a through service worked from Liverpool to Folkestone Harbour; carriages were taken to Rock Ferry, and there attached to a GWR Paddington express train; the carriages were slipped at Reading before being taken on to Folkestone attached to another train.^[15] Connecting ferries and trains allowed Paris to be reached in under 15 hours.^[16]"

 

Stretching a point, this might be read to say that the GWR did, briefly, because it ceased at electrification of Mersey Railway, have a Liverpool terminus.

[Compound2632]

The GWR didn't run into Liverpool. They had a goods station, which still stands at Albert Dock, but no trains in. Nearest passenger service would be Birkenhead with a connection via the Mersey Railway under the river to Rock Ferry  where you might pick up trains out of Birkenhead Woodside for Paddington (GWR) although you would be just as likely to get a train to Euston (LNWR). After 1910 you could get a train of LSWR stock to Bournmouth from Birkenhead Woodside, although it would be hauled by a GWR loco, or possibly a LNWR loco as far as Chester

 

I was thinking of Birkenhead as the Great Western's Liverpool terminus - as indeed I think the Great Western thought of it. (Apologies for the inelegant quantity of cogitation in that sentence.) I can't see why else the bag end of the Wirral would be the ultimate destination of down Paddington expresses! (Apologies to any Wirralonians.)

 

The unanswered question, FOR 1909, is whether there was still an express service between Liverpool* and Kings Cross, via the Cheshire Lines (in which the Great Northern was a 1/3 partner with the Great Central and the Midland). Any such service would still be worked by the Great Central, probably as far as Grantham. That was the point of locomotive exchange in MS&L days - Ahrons describes some very lively working by MS&L enginemen over the stretch of the Great Northern main line south from Retford, Sacre's and Parker's engines putting in at least as good a turn of speed as any Stirling single. But I'd assumed that once the London Extension opened, that old alliance fell apart?

 

*Any Liverpool station; we've established that Riverside was exclusively LNWR.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Compound2632

[webbcompound]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before somewhere in this thread, but, copying from Wikipedia's section on the Mersey Railway:

 

"As well as some through working of carriages from the Wirral Railway at Birkenhead Park, in the summer of 1899 a through service worked from Liverpool to Folkestone Harbour; carriages were taken to Rock Ferry, and there attached to a GWR Paddington express train; the carriages were slipped at Reading before being taken on to Folkestone attached to another train.^[15] Connecting ferries and trains allowed Paris to be reached in under 15 hours.^[16]"

 

Stretching a point, this might be read to say that the GWR did, briefly, because it ceased at electrification of Mersey Railway, have a Liverpool terminus.

And you can get the carriage in 4mm from Roxey. The diminutive size of these slip carriages (38'6 composite with four passenger compartments) is indicative of how much traffic the GWR expected on this route.

[Hroth]

I'll have to look into it, but I think there once used to be a through carriage that left Seacombe station (opposite the ferry terminal to Liverpool), which proceeded via the Wirral Railway to West Kirby Joint, where it would be taken to Hooton, and attached to a train to Chester and thence to London Euston.

 

I don't know why anyone in their senses would run (or use) such a service, it would take longer and would be well beaten by direct services from either Liverpool Riverside*, Liverpool Lime Street or Birkenhead Woodside.

 

* Riverside Station was owned by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (or what ever they were called then) and was their metals until the line ran into the tunnels that climbed to Edge Hill.  It was operated by the LNWR because, apart from other connections via the dock railway system, theirs was the only direct connection to the main line system.

 

 

This might reduce the "Informative/Useful" quotient as, having looked it up, I find I've misremembered a couple of details, one minor and one major....

 

The minor detail is that the service ran from New Brighton but consisted of two carriages, still near a ferry terminal and taking the same route.

The more important detail is that this ran between 1923 and 1939 and so would not have been "useful" for pre-war transatlantic passengers!

 

Apart from that, it was apparently a well-liked service.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Hroth

[Regularity]

"Objection!

 

I echo what Mr Bastable, sorry, the Town Clerk has suggested here. Whilst wishing to remove the previous topic of discussion I'm afraid that we are straying far too close to the topic of railways!"

 

Missenden returned to his seat. Again.

Ah, a classic example of the triumph of experience over hope!

[Nearholmer]

Having now consulted the trusty April 1910 Bradshaw ............ The CLC main line table shows all of St Pancras, K+ and Marylebone times for quite a few trains through to Liverpool, and, surprisingly to me, the K+ timings are not so poor as to suggest that they would be completely uncompetitive.

 

Because I don't know railway geography north of the midlands at all well, I can't tell from the calling points which trains originate at which London terminus, and Bradshaw being Bradshaw doesn't use distinct typefaces to distinguish through and connection. There are some trains that are definitely GC, shown with no St Pancras or K+ connections, running via Manchester Central (set-down only thereafter).

 

Doubtless further squinting at pages for individual companies could solve the riddle, but I've only got a few minutes now between family commitments.

[Compound2632]

Having now consulted the trusty April 1910 Bradshaw ............ The CLC main line table shows all of St Pancras, K+ and Marylebone times for quite a few trains through to Liverpool, and, surprisingly to me, the K+ timings are not so poor as to suggest that they would be completely uncompetitive.

 

Because I don't know railway geography north of the midlands at all well, I can't tell from the calling points which trains originate at which London terminus, and Bradshaw being Bradshaw doesn't use distinct typefaces to distinguish through and connection. There are some trains that are definitely GC, shown with no St Pancras or K+ connections, running via Manchester Central (set-down only thereafter).

 

Doubtless further squinting at pages for individual companies could solve the riddle, but I've only got a few minutes now between family commitments.

 

Midland trains would certainly stop at Derby as this was the engine-changing point. There might also be a stop at Cheadle Heath to combine / divide Manchester and Liverpool portions (before the opening of the New Mills - Heaton Mersey line in 1901, this was done at Marple). 

 

Kings Cross trains would probably stop at Grantham to change engines. The other likely stopping-place is Sheffield, though of course this is also on the route of Marylebone trains. The latter would call at Leicester and/or Nottingham, I presume. It looks as if only the Midland trains avoided a reversal at Manchester Central.

[Denbridge]

But how much time have you spent in the US?  Say 2 weeks per visit so 38 weeks of your life - say 3/4 of a year.

Compared with your entire life of...?  Lets say 39 years (just because the sums are easier.

 

If the rates of violent crime in the UK and the US were the same (and they are not) you would be 52 times more likely to see a crime in the UK than in the US. [ 39 x 4 / 3]

 

I had a similar problem with a major customer who made a common plastic item found in most houses.  He complained that our product had half as many breakages more than our competitor when the moulding was ejected from the mould.  We asked how much he bought from us compared to the competitor.  We supplied 80% of his needs and the competitor just 20%, so our higher rate of failure based on a daily/weekly rate was in fact about 0.4 of the other company based on units produced.

in 2016 to pick one period, I spent 10 months of that year in the US. Over 15 years I guess I've spent a total of probably nearly 8 years. So I'm not a tourist and I do speak from 1st hand experience. Unlike most who go by 2nd hand anecdotes and/or the media.

[corneliuslundie]

I have now consulted my GWR timetable for 1902, I find that one could obtain through fares from Liverpool to GWR destinations via the Mersey ferries. The Birkenhead and Chester table mentions connections via the Mersey Railway.

But there is also a page headed AMERICA (via Liverpool), It gives the sailing times for nine shipping lines. The GWR terminus is again Birkenhead but reference is made to the relevant timetable pages which give times for both Birkenhead and Liverpool (Landing Stage and Central). 

Interestingly, the 8.30 from Paddington has times in bold type for both these Liverpool "stations", as do the 9.50 and the 9.45 which overtakes the later train before Oxford. There is also a 2/10 and a 4/55,bothl having times for both Liverpool stations.

I can't help with GCR or GNR timetables.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

One doesn't readily associate the Great Western with Lancashire but it certainly had an eye for both Liverpool and Manchester traffic.

 

I do like that Folkestone through coach - a bogie carriage just a whisker over five inches long at 4 mm scale - and have salted it away in the back of my mind for the (fantasy) South Eastern / Huntley & Palmers layout...

 

To clarify the whole Liverpool question, here's a RCH map:

 

 

The North Western comes in from the east straight down the hill to Lime Street with parallel lines to the docks; the Cheshire Lines has made a pincer movement round the city, with the main line coming in along the Mersey shore to the original terminus at Brunswick, extended to Central, and from the north, off the Southport line, to Huskisson and the northern docks; the Lancashire & Yorkshire only served the northern side, coming in to Exchange station. All three passenger termini (and the Mersey ferry) were only a shot cab ride from the Customs House and the Adelphi Hotel.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Compound2632

[Hroth]

Ah, a classic example of the triumph of experience over hope!

At least we've abandoned calculating engines* for now and are back to railways, even though its not exactly the quiet byways of West Norfolk....

 

 

* Speaking of Liverpool and calculating engines, did you know that it was once common practice to build Differential Analysers from Meccano?

[Compound2632]

At least we've abandoned calculating engines* for now and are back to railways, even though its not exactly the quiet byways of West Norfolk....

 

 

* Speaking of Liverpool and calculating engines, did you know that it was once common practice to build Differential Analysers from Meccano?

 

Ah but you see, we're building up to that D508 48ft clerestory square-light non-corridor lavatory brake composite that appears (at certain phases of the moon) in the Midland Railway Carriage Marshalling Book for summer 1905 as the Liverpool Central - Atchingham through carriage (with reversal at Castle Aching, if I've got the geography right?*) which would, with minor adjustment, have saved Mark Franklin from going via London and GMF a great deal of plot.

 

*Is this map still current? It's consistent with this one, which also shows the connection to the M&GN, by which the above through carriage would come; presumably also shown on the next page to this of the RCH Junction Diagrams book - a collector's item, since it's been removed from many surviving copies.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Compound2632

[Nearholmer]

Finally, no, I don’t think the GNR was running direct services to Liverpool in 1910, but I do struggle with Bradshaw, so wouldn’t swear to it.

 

Changes were at Retford and/or Manchester, some of the latter involving transfer between stations across town.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Martin S-C]

 deleted.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Martin S-C