Creating a believable freelance pre-Group company

[Regularity]

<sigh> I need to go to Sweden now!

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Johnson044 said:

Oh Mama!!!!! What a parade of lovelies!

 

Nr 13 is just so beautiful.

 

Well, aside from the fact that I

 

 

I quite agree. Such an elegant, balanced, beautiful design (No.13, not Jo Lo). 

 

 

[CKPR]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

<sigh> I need to go to Sweden now!

 

[Corbs]

A few from the SJ museum at Gavle in 2017 before the refurbishment.

 

[Andy Kirkham]

How about these as the basis for a rather more up-to-date pre-grouping company?

 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Andy Kirkham said:

How about these as the basis for a rather more up-to-date pre-grouping company?

 

 

Very British-outline locos for a German builder,  Mind you, the North British album Johnson044 referred to has quite a few British locos built according to North American practice.

[Tom Burnham]

Well of course Borsig of Berlin built a batch of L class 4-4-0s for the SE&C in 1914 which were substantially identical to the British built locos (I believe they had a different design of superheater). Borsig didn't get paid until well after the war.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Tom Burnham
Typo corrected

[Johnson044]

The very fact that we're on this thread means that we are not averse to some form or degree of alternative history. An parallel world where a more peaceful alternative to WW1 was found (and, logically WW2) could mean that the great turn of the century locomotive famine led to the little Henschell moguls coming here instead of the Baldwin and Schenectady ones.

[Johnson044]

Various authors have had a go. In "Pavane" Keith Roberts creates a really not too far fetched scenario where, following the assassination of Good Queen Bess the Spanish Armada conquers and Europe is plunged into a very repressed (but arguably very much more peaceful) world where steam power develops and anything electrical is deemed to be heretical.  However the two world wars just don't take place. It's a darn good read.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pavane-S-F-MASTERWORKS-Keith-Roberts/dp/1857989376

 

Ben Elton creates a much darker series of possibilities in "Time and time again" with a time traveller repeatedly going back to before the Great War to try to prevent it by taking out the Kaiser and Gavrilo Princip, each time leading to him returning to a less and less pleasant present day.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Again-Ben-Elton/dp/0552779997

 

...there are (or were) of course many 009 layouts set in Wales, where the locos and stock were from Germany - but the narrow gauge fraternity are, as we know, far more liberated than we standard gauge folk. There are whole RM threads devoted to this very topic.

 

The little Henschell moguls would look well in Midland livery (or Ledsham and Hereford green come to that).

[Johnson044]

I suspect Philip Pullman's alternative Oxford will not know the global carnage of the two wars either.

 

[Corbs]

There was a interesting theory I heard on Hardcore History where the BEF loses and gets kicked out of Belgium in 1914, the French are surrounded and defeated again, having to sign peace terms with Wilhem's Germany.

But I am getting sidetracked. I did, however, like the look of some of these British (and others) built standard gauge locos in Uruguay, many by Hawthorn Leslie, which have that 'familiar but different' feeling of so many export types. Would need a bit shaving off the sides to make them fit the UK, though.

https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/urug00.htm

 

Looks not unlike the Australian 'Standard Goods' 2-8-0s.

https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/pics04/urug61.jpg

 

Black Hawthorn 0-6-0T

https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/oldpics/urug1.jpg

 

Hawthorn Leslie 2-8-0

https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/pics05/urug070.jpg

 

Beyer Peacock mogul with outside Walschaerts

 

A pretty 'off the shelf' Manning Wardle appears in this video too.

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Corbs

[Johnson044]

The Uruguayan moguls and 2-8-0 are entirely plausible possibilities for the UK - in fact I'm not entirely sure that their loading gauge wouldn't be quite reasonable. Just a quick re-adjustment of politics, change of personality or a bankruptcy somewhere- i.e. the fickle hand of fate - and they could be a "cancelled order".

[Corbs]

I rather like the ROD-style bogie tender too

[Edwardian]

55 minutes ago, Johnson044 said:

Various authors have had a go. In "Pavane" Keith Roberts creates a really not too far fetched scenario where, following the assassination of Good Queen Bess the Spanish Armada conquers and Europe is plunged into a very repressed (but arguably very much more peaceful) world where steam power develops and anything electrical is deemed to be heretical.  However the two world wars just don't take place. It's a darn good read.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pavane-S-F-MASTERWORKS-Keith-Roberts/dp/1857989376

 

Ben Elton creates a much darker series of possibilities in "Time and time again" with a time traveller repeatedly going back to before the Great War to try to prevent it by taking out the Kaiser and Gavrilo Princip, each time leading to him returning to a less and less pleasant present day.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Again-Ben-Elton/dp/0552779997

 

...there are (or were) of course many 009 layouts set in Wales, where the locos and stock were from Germany - but the narrow gauge fraternity are, as we know, far more liberated than we standard gauge folk. There are whole RM threads devoted to this very topic.

 

The little Henschell moguls would look well in Midland livery (or Ledsham and Hereford green come to that).

 

Best option would be to let the Great War start - because otherwise prevention might have been mere delay - but then shoot Ludendorf as he demanded the surrender of Liège. leading to an early decisive German defeat in the West.  

[Johnson044]

....and perhaps locate and put an early end to corporal carpet-chewer whilst we're about it.

[whart57]

On 19/07/2021 at 13:54, Johnson044 said:

Various authors have had a go. In "Pavane" Keith Roberts creates a really not too far fetched scenario where, following the assassination of Good Queen Bess the Spanish Armada conquers and Europe is plunged into a very repressed (but arguably very much more peaceful) world where steam power develops and anything electrical is deemed to be heretical.  However the two world wars just don't take place. It's a darn good read.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pavane-S-F-MASTERWORKS-Keith-Roberts/dp/1857989376

 

Ben Elton creates a much darker series of possibilities in "Time and time again" with a time traveller repeatedly going back to before the Great War to try to prevent it by taking out the Kaiser and Gavrilo Princip, each time leading to him returning to a less and less pleasant present day.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Again-Ben-Elton/dp/0552779997

 

The Ben Elton book is a good read. The better for the fact that Elton has actually done some reading up on German politics of the 20s and 30s to deliver the various outcomes that turn out to be worse than what actually happened. Elton's time traveller is also being targeted by another time traveller as a subsequent loop of history has him down as the Kaiser's assassin who must be stopped.

 

I have to say though that Keith Robert's Pavane is complete ahistorical nonsense. In the grand scheme of things the Spanish Armada's failure hardly mattered. The battle to complete the Reformation and create a protestant Europe hardly involved England at all. The main battles were fought in Germany with another fight between Swedes and Poles over the Baltic and the smaller confrontations of the Dutch Revolt and the civil wars in France.

 

Had Elizabeth I been assassinated in late 1587 or early 1588 then James of Scotland, who was already a young man of 21, would have continued the protestant line and there is no reason why the Armada would have been any more successful. If Elizabeth had been assassinated before Mary Queen of Scots was executed in early 1587 then there would no doubt have been civil war in England which the Spanish would no doubt have intervened in, but the outcome, whatever it was, wouldn't have affected the wars in Europe.

[Johnson044]

15 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

The Ben Elton book is a good read. The better for the fact that Elton has actually done some reading up on German politics of the 20s and 30s to deliver the various outcomes that turn out to be worse than what actually happened. Elton's time traveller is also being targeted by another time traveller as a subsequent loop of history has him down as the Kaiser's assassin who must be stopped.

 

I have to say though that Keith Robert's Pavane is complete ahistorical nonsense. In the grand scheme of things the Spanish Armada's failure hardly mattered. The battle to complete the Reformation and create a protestant Europe hardly involved England at all. The main battles were fought in Germany with another fight between Swedes and Poles over the Baltic and the smaller confrontations of the Dutch Revolt and the civil wars in France.

 

Had Elizabeth I been assassinated in late 1587 or early 1588 then James of Scotland, who was already a young man of 21, would have continued the protestant line and there is no reason why the Armada would have been any more successful. If Elizabeth had been assassinated before Mary Queen of Scots was executed in early 1587 then there would no doubt have been civil war in England which the Spanish would no doubt have intervened in, but the outcome, whatever it was, wouldn't have affected the wars in Europe.

Without doubt Pavane is Historical bunkum and founded on weak research - but the characters - for me anyway - convince, and the descriptive work is superb, detailed and evocative. Admittedly, railways, although mentioned, are limited and scorned by the drivers of the road trains pulled by enormous Burrell road locomotives. However, the imagery which his writing conjures up of a 1968 where mechanical contrivances have been developed to the n'th degree to carry out tasks otherwise simply managed by electricity is great.

 

As I say, there are probably many authors who have constructed alternative histories. I just like the idea of one of those Henschell locomotives in one of the pre-grouping liveries. It just feels plausible. 

[Corbs]

This is a shameless plug for my own video, but if you are interested, this episode of Railway Mania featuring Anthony Dawson is especially interesting with regard to early rail and steam development.

Points of note:

The impact of the Napoleonic wars on locomotive development

Christian dissenters having to make their own way in the world (knock-on effects from the civil war etc.)

 

I think this is relevant to the topic as all railways, even freelance ones, need to start somewhere.

 

 

 

 

18 minutes ago, Johnson044 said:

Without doubt Pavane is Historical bunkum and founded on weak research - but the characters - for me anyway - convince, and the descriptive work is superb, detailed and evocative. Admittedly, railways, although mentioned, are limited and scorned by the drivers of the road trains pulled by enormous Burrell road locomotives. However, the imagery which his writing conjures up of a 1968 where mechanical contrivances have been developed to the n'th degree to carry out tasks otherwise simply managed by electricity is great.

 

As I say, there are probably many authors who have constructed alternative histories. I just like the idea of one of those Henschell locomotives in one of the pre-grouping liveries. It just feels plausible. 

 

In a similar vein this Nissan Leaf ad from 2011 is like that but with gasoline engines, though I am guilty of severe off-topic-ness!

 

 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Corbs

[whart57]

6 hours ago, Johnson044 said:

Without doubt Pavane is Historical bunkum and founded on weak research - but the characters - for me anyway - convince, and the descriptive work is superb, detailed and evocative. Admittedly, railways, although mentioned, are limited and scorned by the drivers of the road trains pulled by enormous Burrell road locomotives. However, the imagery which his writing conjures up of a 1968 where mechanical contrivances have been developed to the n'th degree to carry out tasks otherwise simply managed by electricity is great.

 

As I say, there are probably many authors who have constructed alternative histories. I just like the idea of one of those Henschell locomotives in one of the pre-grouping liveries. It just feels plausible. 

 

One idea I have seen trailed as a potential alternative history is to ask what would have happened if the scientists and engineers studying electricity had discovered the dynamo before Watt and the rest perfected the steam engine. (Or if Watt's patent stymied steam engine development to the point a steam locomotive was not built before someone like Maxwell had made an electric locomotive)

[Johnson044]

In turn we would presumably see an early development of the centralised generation of power - the dark satanic mills running on electricity along with the railways would need to get their electricity from somewhere and this would have to be generated somehow. This is getting wonderfully Steampunk- despite all the volts. 

 

BTW - anyone see "The Current War"? Supposedly set in C19th America - but the railway bit filmed - you've guessed it - at Horsted Keynes!

[whart57]

After posting that previous one I remembered that in the early years there were many experiments - all failed - with atmospheric railways. That makes me think that if electric traction had been available that the civil engineers who actually built the railways would have jumped at it.

[Johnson044]

Gradients could certainly be much fiercer than for steam traction.

[1165Valour]

I remember an idea I had for a "Birmingham & Peterborough Direct Railway" - and I'm sure if I look hard enough, I'll find a real proposal along similar lines. It would very likely be a bustling trunk route, not to mention satisfy my desire to include as many other companies as possible via junctions. There's a wicked part of me that would the various lines between Birmingham and Peterborough to remain independent until the 1880s, to be merged into a mega-Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway!

Edited July 30, 2021 by GWRSwindon

[CKPR]

2 hours ago, GWRSwindon said:

a "Birmingham & Peterborough Direct Railway"

Having had to travel by train  from Ludlow to Cambridge for work a few years ago, the existence of this line in reality would have been very welcome, which I think can taken as evidence of it being eminently 'believable'. 

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, GWRSwindon said:

I remember an idea I had for a "Birmingham & Peterborough Direct Railway" - and I'm sure if I look hard enough, I'll find a real proposal along similar lines. It would very likely be a bustling trunk route, not to mention satisfy my desire to include as many other companies as possible via junctions. There's a wicked part of me that would the various lines between Birmingham and Peterborough to remain independent until the 1880s, to be merged into a mega-Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway!

More or less travelling to on the LNWR Rugby then on via the Avon and Welland Valleys to run into the GER station at Peterborough.