Castle Aching

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, James Harrison said:

Six 50-foot carriages and a diminutive 2-4-0.  

 

Hardly diminutive. A very big engine for 1889. And of course not a 2-4-0 - a 2-2-2-0 with divided drive - the outside HP cylinders with their Joy valve gear driving the rear axle, the big LP cylinder between the frames, the middle axle. On any other line, an engine if this size would have had a leading bogie - Webb was averse to such things - when he eventually built 4-4-0s they had a radial truck rather than a true bogie; this was one of the many Webb features perpetuated by Whale. And of course the big LP cylinder rather got in the way of a bogie!

 

The Teutonics had the driving axles set at 9'8" wheelbase - giving room for a grate area of 20.5 sq ft and a boiler 11 ft long between tube plates, pressed to 175 psi. Compare those figures with a comparable 7ft 4-4-0 from another "big engine" line - Johnson's 1738 Class of 1885 for the Midland - 8'6" coupled wheelbase, 17.5 sq ft grate area, boiler 10'6" between tube plates, 160 psi.

 

As for short trains, look again at that photo of Jeanie Deans on the Corridor: 13 on, all bogies except possibly the vehicle at the rear that may be a 6 wheel parcels van; three 12-wheel dining saloons: equal to 20½ or about 300 tons tare. The 158 miles from Euston to Crewe is not the most demanding in the country but there are two steady climbs up to Kilsby and Whitmore, over which a stop-to-start average speed of a whisker under 50 mph had to be maintained. 

 

So don't call our Jeanie diminutive again! She was the regular engine on the most prestigious train of the chief railway line in the country. The Princess Coronation of her day. And next time you come across someone knocking Webb's compounds, trotting out all the usual nonsense, just give them Jeanie's statistics and this quote from Charles Rous Marten: 

 

Over and over again I have travelled behind No. 1304 Jeanie Deans in the Scottish Corridor-diner, and in no case did she ever lose a minute of time either way between Euston and Crewe when I was on the train, although the absolutely smallest loads I noted were 256 and 264 tons ... while in all other cases the loads equalled or exceeded 300 tons.

 

As to her name being hors série, she was displayed when new at the 1890 Edinburgh Exhibition so naming after the heroine of The Heart of Midlothian was all part of the LNWR's well-oiled publicity machinery.

 

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Compound2632
grammar

[James Harrison]

I mean of course, diminutive in comparison with what followed, which for some unfathomable reason is what a good many people think of when you mention 'mainline': 70-foot pacifics and ten or eleven-car rakes of 60-foot-or-thereabouts stock. 

 

My point about short trains was in reference to your average run-of-the-mill service, not ones like the Corridor which run maybe once or twice a day which then neccessarily load to the double digits in vehicles. 

 

 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, James Harrison said:

Six 50-foot carriages and a diminutive 2-4-0.  A godsend for those of us who want to model a mainline but think we'd struggle to find the space. 

No. 1945 'Magnificent'.  'Alfred the Great' class.  Unfortunately no-one has made a 'Jennie Deanes' yet for Trainz.  I don't run this engine very often because I don't think my driving skills are worthy of her.

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, James Harrison said:

My point about short trains was in reference to your average run-of-the-mill service, not ones like the Corridor which run maybe once or twice a day which then neccessarily load to the double digits in vehicles. 

 

Ah, yes, of course you have the Great Central London Extension in mind...

 

1 hour ago, James Harrison said:

I mean of course, diminutive in comparison with what followed, which for some unfathomable reason is what a good many people think of when you mention 'mainline': 70-foot pacifics and ten or eleven-car rakes of 60-foot-or-thereabouts stock. 

 

... and not actually carrying that many more passengers. The primary reason the Teutonics had barely a decade in the lime-light was the steady increase in weight of West Coast expresses, as the operating department called for more widespread use of corridor carriages and dining saloons. By the late 1890s Webb was forced to produce bigger engines - the Greater Britain 2-2-2-2s and then the 4-cylinder Jubilees and Alfred the Greats. If the Teutonic 2-2-2-0s are to be thought of as being equivalent to 4-4-0s, the Greater Britains were effectively the first British Atlantics! (Compare them to Ivatt's first Atlantics and remember that Ivatt was trained at Crewe...)

Edited March 21, 2021 by Compound2632
typo - thanks Simon.

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Annie said:

No. 1945 'Magnificent'.  'Alfred the Great' class.  Unfortunately no-one has made a 'Jennie Deanes' yet for Trainz.  I don't run this engine very often because I don't think my driving skills are worthy of her.

 

 

Only 7 bogies? That's a job for a Jumbo and even then hardly stretching the engine. Pile them on! Does anyone do a Wolverton dining saloon?

[rocor]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I've just been watching this several times over as I'm including it in a Zoom talk on early railway films for our club. 

 

James got there first! It's not the Irish Mail! It's a Euston-Watford set of 50 ft non-corridor carriages, travelling on the up slow at Bushey. The engine is quite something though - possibly the most famous locomotive of the 1890s, Teutonic No. 1304 Jeanie Deans, that from 1892 to July 1899 was the regular engine for the Euston-Crewe leg of the down 2pm "Corridor", working back in each evening with the up "Corridor". Here she is on Bushey troughs again, working her proper train, probably in the last week she was on it:

The Glasgow portion, with twin dining saloons, leads with the Edinburgh portion with its 65'6" diner at the rear.

 

The film was made by the William Kennedy Dickson's British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, using 68 mm film - which accounts for the superb resolution. For UK readers, there's an hour-long compilation on BFI Free including this piece and some other railway clips, along with lots of Dutch peasantry (it's a co-production with the Dutch film museum) and also Pope Leo XIII blessing the camera.

 

The LNWR had obviously spotted the advertising potential of the cinema, providing Dickson with not only the trains but possession of the up slow and up fast lines. A shame from their point of view that no-one though to stop traffic on the down slow, but I'm delighted!

 

From the timing between the signals and scaling distances off the OS 25" map, one can work out that if the film is running at true speed, she's doing about 40 mph. From the number of wagons, the down empty mineral train is about 900 ft long and takes 10 seconds to pass, so the relative speed is about 60 mph, i.e. that Coal Engine is trundling its load along the down slow at about 20 mph.

 

For UK readers, the real Irish Mail can be seen here: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-menai-bridge-the-irish-day-mail-from-euston-entering-the-tubular-bridge-over-the. This time the engine is a Dreadnought.

 

 

 

I imagine that by analysing this short film frame by frame LNWR modellers will obtain a large amount of useful information. Such a pity that more railway companies at that time did not produce similar promotion films, what a treasure trove of details they would provide.

[Compound2632]

Just now, rocor said:

I imagine that by analysing this short film frame by frame LNWR modellers will obtain a large amount of useful information. 

 

I have been!

 

Just now, rocor said:

Such a pity that more railway companies at that time did not produce similar promotion films, what a treasure trove of details they would provide.

 

I think the initiative probably came from the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company but the LNWR was very publicity-conscious. It is the dominant company in the surviving footage, partly down to its prestige and partly to where the early film-makers were based. 

 

A crowd-pleasing format was the Phantom Ride, where you get the experience one had as a child of riding in the front seat of a first-generation DMU but with 1890s infrastructure. Unfortunately from our point of view one doesn't get to see much of the actual trains. I'm not sure they can have been that popular with the cameramen, either:

 

[Annie]

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Only 7 bogies? That's a job for a Jumbo and even then hardly stretching the engine. Pile them on! Does anyone do a Wolverton dining saloon?

Unfortunately Ken Green who made these coaches has given up digital coach building for Trainz as he says it's getting too difficult to keep up with the ever increasing specifications for digital models in Trainz.  That's a real pity as he's a real craftsman when it comes to making digital coaches.  He did make a six wheel Caley dining saloon though, but seemed to stop short with a lot left undone when he came to do his LNWR coaches.

 

Yes I know 7 bogies is pretty miserable Stephen, but the station platforms aren't all that long on my Norfolk layout which is what I was using as a test track.  I'll set up for a non stop run over on the joint line with a few more coaches added to the train.

 

Edward Heaps made the digital model of 'Magnificent' and he's another skilled digital craftsman.  His interests lie north of the border so it's not all that often that he builds anything for English pre-grouping railways.

 

 

[Compound2632]

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The very same chap, apparently.

 

Was he the origin of the popular association of firemen and virility, or just conforming to type? (Thinking of the Coit Tower here...)

 

To get On Topic here, is Castle Aching a large enough place for maidens to be swooning in the arms of the fire brigade or does that sort of thing only go on in Achingham?

 

 

[Flying Fox 34F]

Just watched the film clip.  I don’t know if I’m missing something, but I cannot see any head lamps displayed on the Loco?

 

Paul

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

Just watched the film clip.  I don’t know if I’m missing something, but I cannot see any head lamps displayed on the Loco?

 

Correctly observed - all part of the evidence that it was a set-up arranged specially for the filming, not a regular service train. I think it also indicates that absolute possession of the two up lines had been arranged.

 

In Peter Davis' recent book F.W. Webb's Three-Cylinder Compounds, a still from a version of the film , or more likely a still taken from the filming truck with a conventional plate camera, is reproduced - showing Jeanie on the troughs, water overflowing etc. In his caption, Davis states that this photo was used in LNWR publicity for several years. He also says that the filming was done on an early Sunday morning in the winter or early spring of 1900 and that several takes were made. (Absolute possession would enable both the train and the engine and OCT used for the filming to run back wrong line for the next take.) In that caption, Davis assumes that no footage survived, though the book comes with an erratum slip giving the Youtube link and accepting the 1898 date. The Corridor didn't run on Sundays so Jeanie would be available but I do wonder whether the 1900 date might be right, as it's after Jeanie had retired from her front-line duty so Camden might have been more willing to let her out on what would normally be her rest day.

 

It's worth noting that during her time on the Corridor, although she was the regular engine - day-in-day-out six days a week except when at Crewe for overhaul - she was double-manned, with Jesse Brown and David Button taking turns on the round-trip to Crewe.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Compound2632

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

the Greater Britain 2-2-2-0s and then the 4-cylinder Jubilees and Alfred the Greats. If the Teutonic 2-2-2-0s are to be thought of as being equivalent to 4-4-0s, the Greater Britains were effectively the first British Atlantics!

Minor typo there: the Greater Britain’s were 2-2-2-2s...

[Compound2632]

40 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Minor typo there: the Greater Britain’s were 2-2-2-2s...

 

Thanks. Corrected in post. 

[Edwardian]

Apropos Mr Harrison's comment, I tend to think that it was the East Coast mainline where things first went big.

 

On the Great Northern section, 1898 saw the Klondykes, the C1 class of Atlantics, which those LNER types most unhelpfully refer to as C2.

 

 

1898 also saw the massive 12-wheel ECJS clerestories, up to 65' long.  I realise that the WCJS had some 12-wheel diners, but, by the turn of the century on the East Coast, whole trains were formed of these massive coaches, built up to 1905. 

 

 

In the meanwhile, the GNR had made locomotives much vaster in 1903, with, what by the standards of the early 1900s, was the stupendous bulk of the C2 class Atlantics, which those LNER types most unhelpfully refer to as C1.  I don't know, some people!

 

 

 

Thus, by the time of Castle Aching (1905), the principal mainline companies were running some really big stuff. Even the LNWR was gaining large 4-4-0 and 4-6-0 classes by then. In parallel, massive goods locomotives were appearing; in 1901 Ivatt's 0-8-0 'Long Toms', using Klondyke boilers, and the first of Worsdell's T classes of 0-8-0 mineral locomotives.  The LNWR had had 8-coupled goods locos earlier, under Webb, of course.

 

All of this is a great contrast, to my mind, from most services of most railways at the time, which remained on an essentially late Victorian scale for some time, with many companies remaining essentially of this character, including, of course, the West Norfolk. 

 

It is, in a way, a shame that the traveller from London would probably reach the WNR via the GER from Liverpool Street via, say Cambridge, because the contrast offered by stepping off a ECML corridor express at Peterborough Cowgate and then taking the GER from Peterborough station would really bring home the difference as a succession of modest 'intermediate' 2-4-0s hauling 6-wheelers gave you an experience much more typical of the period.   

 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Edwardian
spelling!

[Nearholmer]

Emphasises something else too: how few people were travelling by train in most areas, most of the time. The trains were mostly fairly short, and pretty infrequent, and assuming maybe 70% seat-occupancy on average, they didn’t amount to much more capacity than a large modern ‘bus once every two or three hours.

 

Very different times.

[Compound2632]

Yes, no doubt a bit of a shock to the locals when this lot rolled into Cromer down from Kings Cross:

 

 

But really the West Coast has to take the credit for being first in the field with the long, heavy train. Not just the Corridor; there are plenty of photos from the early 1890s onwards of Webb compounds on equal to 18+. Those ECJS monsters (and indeed Clayton's Midland clerestories of 1896 on) were in response to what Wolverton was doing.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Yes, no doubt a bit of a shock to the locals when this lot rolled into Cromer down from Kings Cross:

 

 

 

 

Let alone the passengers....

 

[Edwardian]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Yes, no doubt a bit of a shock to the locals when this lot rolled into Cromer down from Kings Cross:

 

 

But really the West Coast has to take the credit for being first in the field with the long, heavy train. Not just the Corridor; there are plenty of photos from the early 1890s onwards of Webb compounds on equal to 18+. Those ECJS monsters (and indeed Clayton's Midland clerestories of 1896 on) were in response to what Wolverton was doing.

 

Yes, I imagine train weights would have increased and kept pace between both WCML and ECML, and train lengths increased on both lines, and that was part of James's point.

 

I was thinking more in terms of the bulk of the railway equipment on the ECML expresses, which really got a steroid injection in the period 1898-1903, which left it a relative outlier compared with the British railway scene generally. 

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

I was thinking more in terms of the bulk of the railway equipment on the ECML expresses, which really got a steroid injection in the period 1898-1903, which left it a relative outlier compared with the British railway scene generally. 

 

It was the more dramatic for being a step change, rather than part of a continuous development as on the West Coast. Patrick Stirling had been dead set against anything that increased the dead weight per passenger seat - he held out against bogie stock of any sort for longer than was good for passenger comfort. 

[webbcompound]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It was the more dramatic for being a step change, rather than part of a continuous development as on the West Coast. Patrick Stirling had been dead set against anything that increased the dead weight per passenger seat - he held out against bogie stock of any sort for longer than was good for passenger comfort. 

Although there are those who say that the weight and size of the ECJR stock was needed to compensate for the bumpy track, unlike the Premier line whose track was of high quality. The LNWR introduced quite comfortable 50ft corridor stock from 1897 and the marshalling instructions for 1906 show the 2.00pm from Euston having thirteen of these, whereas the the ECJS trains I have seen (not my area of particular knowledge I admit) don't appear to be of an equivalent length. A lot of the difference in approach I think though is down to the West coast having a single company running to the Scottish border, whereas on the East  side it was necessary for two companies to co-ordinate their efforts.

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

A lot of the difference in approach I think though is down to the West coast having a single company running to the Scottish border, whereas on the East  side it was necessary for two companies to co-ordinate their efforts.

 

Well, really the Anglo-Scottish services were in the hands of just two companies on both the West and East coasts, the North British being out of the picture until Edinburgh. 

 

6 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

The LNWR introduced quite comfortable 50ft corridor stock from 1897 and the marshalling instructions for 1906 show the 2.00pm from Euston having thirteen of these,

 

Or rather, their even more comfortable (wider) WCJS equivalents. But both the WCJS and LNWR 50 ft corridor carriages were developed from the original 42 ft WCJS of 1892. The WCJS always had end brake compartments, eschewing the centre-brake layout of the LNWR types, inherited from the non-corridor 42 ft radials.

 

BTW in the photo of Jeanie on the Corridor, I believe we see three portions, not the two I mentioned: 

• Glasgow: W70 or W71 (depending on handedness) third brake / W15 first / 1892 dining saloon pair / probably 2 x W52 or W53 third / W70/W71 third brake
• Edinburgh: W10 composite dining saloon / probably W31 composite / third brake
• Aberdeen: composite / third brake

A mix of 42 ft, 45 ft, and 50 ft WCJS corridor carriages.

 

I believe the down train was divided in to Glasgow and Edinburgh/Aberdeen portions at Preston, where the Liverpool and Manchester through carriages were attached (and contrarywise in the up direction) but I don't have any idea where the Aberdeen and Edinburgh portions were split - Carstairs?

[Caley Jim]

39 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I believe the down train was divided in to Glasgow and Edinburgh/Aberdeen portions at Preston, where the Liverpool and Manchester through carriages were attached (and contrarywise in the up direction) but I don't have any idea where the Aberdeen and Edinburgh portions were split - Carstairs?

Casserley and Millard's book on WCJS carriages doesn't detail such matters as far as I can see.  Carstairs would be the most likely I think, but I will ask on the CRA forum and see what I can find out.

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

 

Yes, I was wondering where one finds information concerning formations.

 

I'm having the same problem regarding the East Coast.

 

We have good detail for a sleeper service in 1906, as it was the subject of the really awful accident at Grantham in 1906.  Quite a long service for the modeller at 12 vehicles; x5 12-W, x2 8-W (x1 GNR), x5 6-W (x3 GNR).

 

Interestingly, two of the 6-wheelers were ECJS vehicles, and not vans either, a 6-W corridor Third and a 6-W corridor composite. This was the mid-point in the culling 6-wheelers on East Coast services. Ken Hoole makes the point that between the diagram book of 1903 and that of 1909, 50 6-wheelers of 7 types were withdrawn from ECJS.

 

At Grantham, the 6-W lav-composite was a 37' (long for a 6-wheeler) side corridor coach of 1884.  The other ECJS 6-wheeler was a from the final diagram built, corridor lav-third of 1893.

 

In contrast, the Flying Scotsman in pictures seems more like 7-8 coaches, all 12-W, or maybe some 8-W, clerestories, though, in overall length not too far behind the Grantham train, given that an East Coat 12-wheeler was getting on for twice the length of a GNR 6-wheeler. 

 

The accident at East Fortune, also in 1906, involved a 7-coach dining train, for 5 of which we have the numbers, which I shall look up when I next have a moment.  This is more along the lines I was thinking.  Of course, in Scotland behind a NER locomotive, it seems possible that we have a train that has lost a portion we might have seen on the GN section.  The train does form a single portion at East Fortune, bracketed by a brake composite and a full brake, the latter I would guess would be the only 8-wheeler, the first 6 are probably all 12-wheelers (but I haven't checked the numbers on the first five coaches yet, and I must go to work now!).

 

 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Edwardian
spelling

[Compound2632]

Do the GNR Soc have any carriage marshalling documents? I've made considerable use of Midland ones held by the Midland Railway Study Centre - good for long-distance expresses in 1902, 1910, etc. to 1922. I gather there are survivors for some areas of the LNWR and possibly GWR over the same period.

[Edwardian]

17 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Do the GNR Soc have any carriage marshalling documents? I've made considerable use of Midland ones held by the Midland Railway Study Centre - good for long-distance expresses in 1902, 1910, etc. to 1922. I gather there are survivors for some areas of the LNWR and possibly GWR over the same period.

 

I don't know. The obvious thing would be to join the line society and see.  I have relatively quickly found This

 

My aim is to arrive at a 'typical' or appropriate East Coast formation for the c.1905 period. I want to plan something the GNR C1 Atlantic can pull.  This means a train firmly within the 12-wheel clerestory era, and before the new 1914 stock.

 

I don't need to have the exact diagram, though that's a helpful detail, or the exact number.  It just needs to be credible and representative.

 

Turning to the East Fortune train, this was the 2.20pm Down (King's Cross to Edinburgh).

 

It comprised:

 

Dia. 40B 12-wheel Clerestory corridor brake composite, 65'4 1/4'' No.23, a one-off built at Doncaster in 1905

 

Dia. 18C 8-wheel Elliptical corridor third, 53'6'', No.36, built at Doncaster in 1906

 

Dia. 26 12-wheel Clerestory corridor third, 63' 5 1/4'', No. 253, built at Doncaster in 1896

 

Dia. 58 12-wheel Clerestory third dining saloon, 64' 5 3/4'', No. 315, built at Doncaster 1900

 

Dia. 55 12-wheel Clerestory first dining saloon, 62' 0 1/2'', No. 335, built at Doncaster 1902

 

Bogie First class - Both 8 and 12-wheel options

 

Bogie Brake van - This could well have been one of Cowlairs built 8-wheelers built 1901-1903