Castle Aching

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

“It is the Vale of White Horse, not the White Horse.”

 

So it is!

 

Why?

No idea, but it is what it is.

[Annie]

Standon goods yard possibly circa 1907.

 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

59 minutes ago, Annie said:

Standon goods yard possibly circa 1907.

 

 

Interesting. At the bottom right is a section of very overgrown track - I wonder where that led? While over at the left there's a wagon loaded with what looks like bales of sticks, I wonder what they were for.

 

And over at the far left in that isolated siding are what look like makeshift dumps for coal. And is that a hay wagon towards the bottom left? 

 

Interesting how the line comes off to enter the siding on the left and then continues to rejoin the main line so the single line running can handle traffic from both directions. Another photo that has all sorts of modelling possibilities.

[TT-Pete]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Standon goods yard possibly circa 1907.

 

I sometimes look at stock-crammed yards on layouts with a critical eye and think "Nah. That's not prototypical, there's no way you'd have that many wagons..."  :^)

[TT-Pete]

16 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

While over at the left there's a wagon loaded with what looks like bales of sticks, I wonder what they were for.

 

Look like bales of thatching reed to me.

 

There's one really overloaded open wagon next to the cattle wagon in the middle of the shot.

Edited October 19, 2019 by TT-Pete
I carn't spel proper.

[Annie]

57 minutes ago, TT-Pete said:

 

Look like bales of thatching reed to me.

 

There's one really overloaded open wagon next to the cattle wagon in the middle of the shot.

There was a paper mill nearby so it's likely that's a load of bales of old rags for making paper.

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

Standon goods yard possibly circa 1907.

 

I wonder if the very short section of track pointing directly at the signal box is there to encourage the signalman to be more careful?   It doesn't look as if it could accommodate more than a single wagon.  I suppose it might be an alternative to ordinary catch points.

 

And that section of platform.  HOW many benches? 

 

2 hours ago, TT-Pete said:

I sometimes look at stock-crammed yards on layouts with a critical eye and think "Nah. That's not prototypical, there's no way you'd have that many wagons..."  :^)

 

Got to keep them somewhere, and if you've just completed that ultra-realistic goods rake, you want people to appreciate your efforts!

 

 

 

[Donw]

A simple trap point might have allowed a derailed wagn to run on off track into the signal box. I would imagine the proper buffer stop would give more protection.

 

Don

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Annie said:

Standon goods yard possibly circa 1907.

 

I would say a bit later than that, due to the preponderance of large GE lettering. A lot of official photos were taken circa 1911, so maybe then?

3 hours ago, TT-Pete said:

 

I sometimes look at stock-crammed yards on layouts with a critical eye and think "Nah. That's not prototypical, there's no way you'd have that many wagons..."  :^)

But not in the coal siding, which is relatively sparse. Also note piles of coal and no bins.

the wagons may be simply stored there: I have seen photos of other GE goods yards (e.g. Stoke Ferry) rammed full of wagons, and there is no way that the needs of such an area required that much traffic most of the time. The flows of agricultural goods are seasonal, though, and therefore holding a reserve of stock to cope with this at rural stations makes sense.

[Edwardian]

In an hour the unsuspecting Great Western Society will be opening the gates of Didcot to Yours Truly.

 

A lifetime’s ambition to visit....

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

1 hour ago, Donw said:

A simple trap point might have allowed a derailed wagon to run on off track into the signal box. I would imagine the proper buffer stop would give more protection.

 

Don

 

If it were on mine I'd probably use it as an excuse to store another engine ready fro the fray. But as you say it's probably a more upmarket trap point. That overgrown siding at the far right really has me curious. 

[Nearholmer]

Looking at “disused stations” there was a big corn mill served by a siding to the right and behind the photographer, and the map shows a big mill pound on the river, so my guess would be either that the siding served a long-disused river wharf, or was something to do with engineering the river to make the pound ....... I haven’t got time to delve into NLS maps now, but early editions of the OS might give a clue.

[ChrisN]

29 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

In an hour the unsuspecting Great Western Society will be opening the gates of Didcot to Yours Truly.

 

A lifetime’s ambition to visit....

 

You certainly have a nice day for it.  I hope you have a good time.  If it is damp mind the track crossings if they have water on them, they can be a bit slippy.

[Compound2632]

58 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

In an hour the unsuspecting Great Western Society will be opening the gates of Didcot to Yours Truly.

 

 

Tapemeasure. Panelling!

[Dave John]

Going back to the goods yard picture. Since there was a paper mill nearby could it be bales of esparto grass? Regularly carried by the CR for paper making in Scotland. 

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, Annie said:

Standon goods yard possibly circa 1907.

 

 

That is a lovely picture - what is it about Great Eastern station layouts? They always seem to be all over the place - loopy!

 

I'm not up on the details of GER wagon lettering but clearly pre-pooling as there's not a non-GE company wagon in sight (I can't off-hand recall when the GC/GN/GE pooling arrangements started but before the Great War). There are a couple of those Holden covered goods wagons - he must have taken the drawings with him from Swindon:

 

 

A couple of POs too - Exhall Colliery and M.M. Marshall - interesting discussion of these in the caption to this photo on the Disused Stations website. The caption also states that there's a "Southern Railway" wagon but I don't see that - it must have time-travelled off when it saw me coming.

 

5 hours ago, TT-Pete said:

 

I sometimes look at stock-crammed yards on layouts with a critical eye and think "Nah. That's not prototypical, there's no way you'd have that many wagons..."  :^)

 

One can never have too many wagons.

 

5 hours ago, TT-Pete said:

 

Look like bales of thatching reed to me.

 

There's one really overloaded open wagon next to the cattle wagon in the middle of the shot.

 

Load to the loading gauge, per the instructions of the time. There's a splendid account of the work of the Crewe Tranship Shed in 1907, by the LNWR's Crewe Goods Agent, F.W. West*, in which he describes wagons being loaded up then compared with the loading gauge at the shed exit before being sheeted over. Here are some Midland examples that accord with West's description of loading methods:

 

 

 

 

NRM DY 2492 - 2494, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum. Presumably taken to illustrate a staff manual; I wonder if a copy survives?

 

*in E. Talbot, The LNWR Recalled (OPC, 1987).

[Hroth]

With all the jolting and jerking that goes with an unfitted goods train, I'm amazed that anything survived the journey packed like that!  In particular, is it just me, or does the wagon in the middle picture look a little down at the right-hand end?  It looks unevenly loaded, and I'd be worried about the empty carboys in the middle of the load surviving too!

 

Apart from that, it seems that model goods trains need a bit more loading, beyond a few planks stacked in a corner of a wagon.  At least the sheeting means that nothing need be individually modelled, a few awkward lumps and bumps will do...

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Hroth

[Compound2632]

21 minutes ago, Hroth said:

With all the jolting and jerking that goes with an unfitted goods train, I'm amazed that anything survived the journey packed like that! 

 

 

West's article describes how the wagon loader building up a mixed consignment would carefully pick the order in which items were packed, mentioning specifically larger or heavier crates at the end and angled in over the sides. Note how things are stacked so as to slope inwards. I suppose the sheet would be sufficient to hold lighter items in place but there might also be ropes as well. I need to remind myself whether it was usual to put the ropes on under or over the sheet - I think the latter. A high load like these might need two sheets, in which case the instruction was to make sure the overlap was facing away from the direction of travel. 

 

The lost art of wagon loading!

 

EDIT: I'd known for a while that it's the same wagon, No. 88181, in the second and third photos but I've just noticed that we see both sides between the two photos! In the background, another D299 open on the left and a covered goods wagon on the right. Tucked away in the shed, a L&YR wagon with the triangle-in-circle mark - so almost certainly in the unpainted wood "livery" used before the L&Y went over to grey c. 1902. No. 88181 was photographed on 14 February 1903 and 138073 a few days earlier, on the 9th.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Compound2632

[Metropolitan H]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

---------------------- (C, you must show your enamelled box of the right horse)------------------------

 

As requested by Nearholmer hear is a photo of my small silver and enamel box - made by me about 15 - 20 years ago! The picture is significantly bigger than life-size, the long axis of the box is only about 50mm.

 

Now for the interesting question: - "Is the Uffington White Horse" really a Horse or is it supposed to be a Dragon"??

 

We will never know, but as the best close view of it is from the nearby "Dragon Hill" - I am led to wonder whether the old people (3000 years ago or before) were celebrating a more mythical beast, with the White Horse naming being a more recent terminology??

 

I find Uffington Castle / the White Horse area including the Blowing Stone and Wayland's Smithy a magical place and have done since first being taken there by parents on a train to Uffington from Reading or on a bus along the spring line road from Wantage.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Metropolitan H said:

 

Now for the interesting question: - "Is the Uffington White Horse" really a Horse or is it supposed to be a Dragon"??

 

We will never know, but as the best close view of it is from the nearby "Dragon Hill" - I am led to wonder whether the old people (3000 years ago or before) were celebrating a more mythical beast, with the White Horse naming being a more recent terminology??

 

 

But do we know that people in Iron Age Britain had the concept of a dragon? (The Anglo-Saxons certainly did; there's the dragon in Beowulf that I think is the progenitor of our modern popular image of a dragon, thanks to Tolkien's Smaug who was closely based thereon.) My understanding is that horses in this style are a common feature of Iron Age proto-Celtic art. And how old is the name of Dragon Hill? The popular etymology would have it as the place where St George slew his dragon - a good long way from Asia Minor, though.

[Martin S-C]

7 hours ago, Annie said:

Standon goods yard possibly circa 1907.

 

What a spectacular photograph. Why haven't I come across this delightful view before? So unusual to see photos taken specifically of goods features and not of a loco and train with snippets of goods information in the background.

Wonderful notable things:

Sheeted opens loaded so high they are higher than the cattle wagon adjacent. Animal feed perhaps since it would need to be protected from rain.

The bundles of sticks which might be for fencing or even they could be reeds for basket weaving? I can't see any lines securing them so perhaps these have been removed preparatory to unloading.

Next to that an open that might be carrying bricks or cut stones/slabs (or slates?).

 

I can't identify what is in the Mitchell wagon adjacent. Looks like coal but probably isn't as there's a dedicated coal siding. Big blocks of something. Peat maybe?

On the far left the two GE opens are probably carrying animal feed, or it could be thatching reeds/grasses. The fact its unprotected from the weather tends me to think the latter.

The almost complete absence of dark colouration/dirt inside most of the opens. The right foreground one and the two GE opens this side of the thatch look like they may have carried coals or other dirty loose produce at some point - maybe beets or turnips or some animal feed with lots of soil on it.

 

Coal stacks were apparently more common than we think and coal merchants might just pile up different grades straight from a wagon onto the ground beside it in order to get rid of the wagon to reduce hire charges. The coal pile would either then slowly reduce as it was bagged up for sale or be recharged with the next wagon load. Coal bins tended to get used where space was more restricted (loose piles take up more ground than bins as this scene illustrates).

One open wagon has been unloaded from its drop doors well down the yard where you wouldn't think there was room to turn a horse and cart. Maybe its contents were barrowed away.

Note extremely clean and tidy ballast and a complete lack of weeds and grass at the stop block.

 

Ladder against the platform rear fence for maintenance of lamps possibly. Or it could just be left there as a convenience. One would think a lamp man would rest it against the lamp he was servicing.

 

Platform seat partly down the end ramp - an uncomfortable place to sit as you'd slide off!

 

Overgrown track this side might have led to a private siding that's now out of use?

 

Hornby uncoupling ramp

[Martin S-C]

18 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Here I am, comfortably ensconced at the George in the delightful, and delightfully named, Dorchester on Thames.

 

 I’ve had a wonderful day and I must thank Andy Y and Phil Parker for organising a really grand day out. Many thanks to the Pendon volunteers who looked after us right royally and gave us great insight and privileged access. Andy Y put it very well when he said that we were given a more immersive experience of Pendon than is generally the case. It was great to meet other members of RMWeb, including valued CA parishioners.

 

 I now have a very big smile on my face

 

So pleased you enjoyed it. Now you can understand why the Madder Valley is my own inspiration and also about the only inspiration I need. Pendon is indeed a jewel and largely unsung as well.

[Annie]

48 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

What a spectacular photograph. Why haven't I come across this delightful view before? So unusual to see photos taken specifically of goods features and not of a loco and train with snippets of goods information in the background.
 

And that's exactly why I thought I'd post that photo Martin.  

[Martin S-C]

14 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Those two pictures must have been done at different times, or at least, in carriages in different livery. One has the large 3 and carriage number on the door, the other, the word THIRD. The first is good reference for the upholstery - note the fabric round the door frame - and blinds. Can anyone with knowledge of Southern carriages track down No. 990?

It could be artistic license. The word "THIRD" might have conveyed something the artist wanted to, moreso than the digit "3". The interior fittings look similar and are certainly not outside the scope of artistic interpretation/memory etc.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Martin S-C

[Nearholmer]

Back to Standon: I've had a squint at the maps. 

 

New corn mill, built adjacent to the railway sometime after 1896 (1901 on a date-stone over the door - it is a block of flats now, rather nice two-bed flat for sale at £350k if you fancy living in it), served by the siding in the foreground of the photo. It looks to me like a "railway age" steam mill, supplementing the older water mill on the other side of the river. The overgrown bit of track isn't shown on any edition of the maps, but the outline of the water's edge was tidied-up, possibly from bank to wall, to fit everything in, so my "temporary track for engineering purposes" theory seems plausible.

 

I think that the photo must have been taken from an upper floor at the back of the 1901 mill, and I even wonder whether the company photographer got sent down there to record the new siding installation for the staff magazine or or a goods brochure ("pack the sidings with wagons; make it look busy"). Everything does look very new around the siding.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Nearholmer