Imaginary Locomotives

[PhilJ W]

3 minutes ago, DavidB-AU said:

The Middle Pleistocene land bridge wasn't directly covered by rising sea levels, it was partly washed away by the glacial lake that is now the North Sea spilling over and washing much of it away around 450,000 years ago. It was mostly chalk and loose gravel which didn't stand much of a chance. But even that left a much narrower channel than we have today, possibly only a few hundred metres across and about 100m deep which wouldn't have been an insurmountable obstacle for Victorian engineers. It was a second catastrophic flood from the North Sea around 100,000 years ago that eroded out the Channel. This disappeared again in the last ice age and the last of the land went under water around 10,000 years ago.

 

This is an estimation of the land that would still be above sea level today if that first flood had not occurred 450,000 years ago. A canal would have to be roughly the same length as the distance from London to Southampton at as deep as the White Cliffs of Dover are high, so probably not practical even today.

 

The chalk that formed the barrier would have been lower on the French side, about the same height as the Cliffs the Corinth canal was cut through so a ship canal is a possibility. Also the only outfall for the rivers such as the Thames and Rhine would be to the north and without the scouring the Dogger bank would possibly be a low lying marshy island even today.

[DavidB-AU]

5 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

So if that connection was either not inhabitable because it was marshy, boggy land

 

It would basically be the same as Kent and the Pas-de-Calais.

[PhilJ W]

3 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Where would the pre - war GWR railcars fit into all of this?

AEC/Park Royal built railcars for the CIE to the same side mounted engine design as the GWR railcars. Its possible that they and other manufacturers would be offering 'off the peg' units as they do today.

[PhilJ W]

8 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

So if that connection was either not inhabitable because it was marshy, boggy land, or because it was shallow waters that couldn't easily be navigated by large shipping, Britain would still be an island to all intents & purposes.  Building a rail link would not be an impossible task, even for the early Victorians-think Chat Moss on a larger scale.

It's not difficult to envisage the development of the UK rail network in its early years being largely as it was, but with a rail link to France by the mid to late 19th century. We would still have had a smaller loading gauge in the rest of the country, but a direct connection to France may have made gauge enhancements to the SER & LCDR routes to London feasible & worthwhile.

As I stated above the chalk sinks towards France. The chalk is shaped like the bowl of a spoon with the tip of the spoon the highest point before it was eroded. That tip would have been somewhere in the region of Reading. The North and South downs are the sides of the spoon, or whats left of it after erosion, it originally stretched as far north as the Essex/Suffolk border, indeed chalk can still be found in the area. And as far south as the middle of the English Channel. The chalk also fractured with the western side sinking more than the eastern side. This fracture was just off of the French Channel coast and caused a few difficulties when boring the CT. 

[Corbs]

29 minutes ago, DavidB-AU said:

The Middle Pleistocene land bridge wasn't directly covered by rising sea levels, it was partly washed away by the glacial lake that is now the North Sea spilling over and washing much of it away around 450,000 years ago. It was mostly chalk and loose gravel which didn't stand much of a chance. But even that left a much narrower channel than we have today, possibly only a few hundred metres across and about 100m deep which wouldn't have been an insurmountable obstacle for Victorian engineers. It was a second catastrophic flood from the North Sea around 100,000 years ago that eroded out the Channel. This disappeared again in the last ice age and the last of the land went under water around 10,000 years ago.

 

This is an estimation of the land that would still be above sea level today if that first flood had not occurred 450,000 years ago. A canal would have to be roughly the same length as the distance from London to Southampton. If there was a canal built it would be late Victorian at the earliest (more likely early 20th century as it would be about 1.2 Panama Canals) and require a series of locks as the land would be about 100m above sea level (think about the height of the White Cliffs of Dover). But would there really be a need for a canal? Shipping from Rotterdam into the North Atlantic wouldn't save that much time compared to going around Scotland. It's not like the Suez or Panama canals which avoid having to go around an entire continent.

 

 

Imagine how this may have affected all of Britain's history.

 

No great obstacle for Caesar's armed expedition to Britain in 55BC, perhaps more of his genocidal campaign as seen in Gaul, leading to an earlier conquest (no Boudica, maybe no Britannia).

 

Do the post-Roman tribes like the Franks and the Alemanni expand into Britain?

 

Perhaps a completely different relationship with the Norsemen.

 

I wonder where the borders might end up or if N.France and Britain end up being one state, or perhaps 'Celtic Britain' evolving as everything north of the River Severn-River Welland line, and 'Gallic Area' being South of that and encompassing the Netherlands, Belgium, Normandy etc.

 

What's the knock-on effect? Is there any point in the re-engineering of Holland to provide space when the land bridge provides it, do any of the ports develop in the same way when the access to the Atlantic and the New World involves going around the Celtic Peninsular?

 

Do Caen and Southampton develop as the two major ports as they are in the sheltered bay area?

 

Do we even get the modern railway, since steam traction development was so tied up in the circumstances of the Napoleonic Wars, and the need to feed the growing metropolis of London with coal? Does it come earlier?

 

[scots region]

11 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

 

 

So an interesting thought exercise would be what designs from around ~1921 could have been taken forward into mass production as "standards" for the whole country? Noting that design would still probably have been some regional specialisation dominated by the same CMEs as the Big Four.

 

 

 

In terms of a standard modern design that could be produced quickly in the 1920s, you could do far worse than the class N 2-6-0s. 

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, 62613 said:

Where would the pre - war GWR railcars fit into all of this?

I reckon the GW might have built a railcar version of the A38 auto trailer, and included auto linkage.  Followed by conversion of the steel-bodied A27, A28, and A30 trailers to gangwayed power twin underfloor diesel power, and a multiple control system compatible with the AC railcars; the A38 railcar follow suit.  The Flying Bananas would have been incompatible with this, and lasted as built until they were worn out, late 50s perhaps.  
 

A similar underfloor powered conversion of Collett non-gangwayed compartment stock to that of the A43 and A44 ‘cyclops’ autotrailers takes place in 1953 for the South Wales regular interval timetable revision, into power triple 3-car sets.  These are geared for 50mph running and good acceleration up the gradients of South Wales. 

[Flying Fox 34F]

13 hours ago, rodent279 said:

It would be one heck of a challenge to cut back platforms to allow Berne gauge stock through, whilst at the same time running UK gauge stock. Unless all platforms on a route can be modified simultaneously, how do you safely disembark from a UK gauge coach at a Berne gauge platform? Only with temporary wooden steps. As at the time coaching stock and door positions varied greatly, these would have to be manoeuvred into place for each train.

 

The Nene Valley Railway operates UK and Continental Rolling Stock side by side and have done for 40 + years.  The Mk1’s have wider footboards

 

Paul

[rockershovel]

We certainly wouldn't speak Latin, land bridge or not. The Romans came here and stayed as long as they liked; Latin is now confined to certain professions, the Catholic Church (where it can be found)  and a small proportion of bored Schoolboys. 

[PhilJ W]

12 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

We certainly wouldn't speak Latin, land bridge or not. The Romans came here and stayed as long as they liked; Latin is now confined to certain professions, the Catholic Church (where it can be found)  and a small proportion of bored Schoolboys. 

But many southern European languages have Latin roots. As we are aware language changes over time, we just have to read Shakespeare to realise that.

[KeithMacdonald]

On 08/08/2022 at 11:46, Corbs said:

Imagine how this may have affected all of Britain's history. No great obstacle for Caesar's armed expedition to Britain in 55BC, perhaps more of his genocidal campaign as seen in Gaul, leading to an earlier conquest (no Boudica, maybe no Britannia). Do the post-Roman tribes like the Franks and the Alemanni expand into Britain?

 

Yes, Caesar's armed expedition was limited in resources, so much so that some say it was more of a raiding party than a full-blown invasion (that came later).

 

Weren't some Gauls were already in the Kent area, before the Roman army got there? According to Caesar's own propaganda...

 

Quote

The interior portion of Britain is inhabited by those of whom they say that it is handed down by tradition that they were born in the island itself: the coastal portion by those who had passed over from the country of the Belgae for the purpose of plunder and making war; [Caesar Gallic War 5:12]

 

What Caesar called "Belgae" we might now call Fresian, as both east-coast Brits and Fresians had a common ancestry (and language) from the Doggerlanders that migrated as Doggerland gradually disappeared under post-ice-age rising sea levels (before the final cataclysmic that finished-off Doggerland).

 

These “Gaulic/Celtic” migrations often went eastwards as well as westwards, and sometimes back to places they had been centuries before. But in the meantime their identity could be lost in the mists of time (and historical accounts) because the tribal names have changed in between. Especially when the history is written by somebody other than the Celts. Which is almost invariably the case when we are relying on Roman or Greek accounts.

e.g.

Quote

The Galatians were a Celtic people that dwelt mainly in the north central regions of Asia Minor or Anatolia, in what was known as Galatia, in today's Turkey. In their origin they were a part of the great Celtic migration which invaded Macedon, led by Brennus. The original Celts who settled in Galatia came through Thrace under the leadership of Leotarios and Leonnorios c. 278 BC. These Celts consisted mainly of three tribes, the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii, but they were also other minor tribes. They spoke a Celtic language, the Galatian language, which is sparsely attested.

 

Those "Celtic" tribe names (Tectosages, Trocmii, and Tolistobogii) are not so familiar to us now, but they were from what we now call Southern France.

 

[JimC]

27 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 we are aware language changes over time, 

Two of my favourite language factoids are

 English spelling is so weird because we no longer pronounce the words the way they were pronounced when spelling started to settle down and

By the time of the Roman emperors Street Latin was very different from literary Latin. 

[Flying Pig]

5 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

What Caesar called "Belgae" we might now call Fresian, as both east-coast Brits and Fresians had a common ancestry (and language) from the Doggerlanders that migrated as Doggerland gradually disappeared under post-ice-age rising sea levels (before the final cataclysmic that finished-off Doggerland).

 

These “Gaulic/Celtic” migrations often went eastwards as well as westwards, and sometimes back to places they had been centuries before. But in the meantime their identity could be lost in the mists of time (and historical accounts) because the tribal names have changed in between. Especially when the history is written by somebody other than the Celts. Which is almost invariably the case when we are relying on Roman or Greek accounts.

 

I don't know where you got this but it doesn't match current thinking.  Doggerland was submerged by 6000BC which is before even Neolithic culture reached Britain.  Celtic is an iron age cultural and linguistic identifier going back to 1200BC or a little earlier and even the Proto Indo European language from which Celtic descended is unlikely to have been spoken earlier than 5000BC (and not in Western Europe).

[PhilJ W]

Back on subject.

 

[PhilJ W]

And more.

 

[PhilJ W]

And even more.

 

[tythatguy1312]

4 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Back on subject.

 

 

4 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

And more.

 

 

4 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

And even more.

 

I watch this guy's content for the personality and I strongly advise that you take everything he says with a grain of salt. Whilst I appreciate them providing insight on otherwise obscure locomotives, he does it in a heavy-handed fashion which misrepresents some of the information he talks about, such as accusing British Rail itself for designing sub-par locomotives which were built by independent contractors.

Edited August 10, 2022 by tythatguy1312

[KeithMacdonald]

6 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

I don't know where you got this but it doesn't match current thinking.  Doggerland was submerged by 6000BC which is before even Neolithic culture reached Britain. Celtic is an iron age cultural and linguistic identifier going back to 1200BC

 

Be brave, mon ami!  Rest assured that "Celtic" is a much abused term (of endearment) as there are short-dark "Celts" and tall-blond "Celts" and "current thinking" used to think they were the same.  DNA studies have proved otherwise and have caused "current thinking" to be updated. "Neolithic" is also subject to revision of "current thinking" as (e.g.) Neolithic Norfolk shows people were there in places like Happisburgh for many 100s of thousands of years.

[Hal Nail]

7 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Neolithic Norfolk shows people were there in places like Happisburgh for many 100s of thousands of years.

All from the same family?

 

[tythatguy1312]

On 11/08/2022 at 07:29, Hal Nail said:

All from the same family?

 

I get that this is undoubtedly hilarious but I can't stomach this thread ending on such low brow humour. That's for my twitter arguments.

So what might've happened if other railways followed the Midland's lead for small engines on frequent trains instead of big engines on rarer trains. What possibilities might that create?

Edited August 18, 2022 by tythatguy1312

[AlfaZagato]

Probably earlier, more consistent dieselization.   Everyone was trying to make diesels to match or better the performance of the largest locomotives.  

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

Probably earlier, more consistent dieselization.   Everyone was trying to make diesels to match or better the performance of the largest locomotives.  

Which has been borne out by US practice, of inter-linked multiple locos of medium to medium-heavy capacity. 

[rodent279]

15 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Which has been borne out by US practice, of inter-linked multiple locos of medium to medium-heavy capacity. 

From what I can see, the US, at least in the early days, say into the 1960's, built a lot of diesels in the "type 3" range, maybe extending into the lower "type 4" range, and used them in multiples of upto 4. Were there many type 4 freight jobs on BR that could not have been handled by 2 x type 3's?

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

From what I can see, the US, at least in the early days, say into the 1960's, built a lot of diesels in the "type 3" range, maybe extending into the lower "type 4" range, and used them in multiples of upto 4. Were there many type 4 freight jobs on BR that could not have been handled by 2 x type 3's?

 

I don't think freight was a problem even with the type 4s actually available, although pairs of type 3s could certainly have done the job.  The difficulty was providing enough power for express passenger trains of conventional weight at speeds competitive with the expanding road network and internal air services. Gerry Fiennes calculated that at least 3000hp was needed for this, which is why the Deltics were ordered under his tenure, but that was well above what medium speed engines could provide reliably in 1960.

 

The two solutions that eventually worked for general service were electrification (to which the UK is  resistant to an absurd degree) and the HST.  Note that the latter is actually a rather short train by traditional standards and also that once loco hauled services had to share routes with HSTs they were often shortened too to enable fast timings.

[Northmoor]

9 hours ago, tythatguy1312 said:

So what might've happened if other railways followed the Midland's lead for small engines on frequent trains instead of big engines on rarer trains. What possibilities might that create?

This thread long ago arrived at the conclusion that the focus on inventing bigger and bigger locomotives to run longer and longer trains, was flawed.  For freight, this would result in trains too long for loops (without wagons that could run much faster, safely).  For passenger, the trains would be both too long for the platforms and deposit too many arriving passengers at stations for the facilities to handle.  There are many benefits to running 9-coach trains every hour instead of 16 coaches every two hours; it probably took British Rail about 10-20 years too long to realise that improved train frequency was an important factor in attracting people to the railways.