Imaginary Locomotives

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, Murican said:

Fair enough if it pertains to real-life. But I have wondered what a S&D heritage line could be like if it were an analogue of sorts to the Great Central heritage railways in a reality where the GCR is still active as a mainline mostly for fast freight and occasional passenger trains.

I guess a preserved S&D of any reasonable length might come at the expense of another nearby real-life preserved line. Would there be room for a preserved S&D and the WSR, and the ESR, within an hour's drive of each other? Would they be able to compete for footfall, funding & volunteers?

Edited September 25, 2023 by rodent279

[MrWolf]

13 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

I guess a preserved S&D of any reasonable length might come at the expense of another nearby real-life preserved line. Would there be room for a preserved S&D and the WSR, and the ESR, within an hour's drive of each other? Would they be able to compete for footfall, funding & volunteers?

 

I've always thought that it's a pity that the Garstang & Knott End Railway didn't survive long enough to become a preserved railway.

 

It ran from the small market town of Garstang to the seaside terminus at Knott End across the road from the still extant ferry to Fleetwood. At Garstang it was close to the A6 and M6 and of course had a link to the WCML at Garstang & Cattrall.

 

The intermediate stations were simple structures and the only major bridge was that over the Preston to Lancaster canal near Nateby crossing.

[Murican]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

I guess a preserved S&D of any reasonable length might come at the expense of another nearby real-life preserved line. Would there be room for a preserved S&D and the WSR, and the ESR, within an hour's drive of each other? Would they be able to compete for footfall, funding & volunteers?

I suppose in the case of the West Somerset, it does raise the question of if it could have remained a viable line under BR had someone more competent than Beeching been put in charge. I know someone on alternatehistory.com who could have an answer.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Murican

[Murican]

2 hours ago, rodent279 said:

I guess a preserved S&D of any reasonable length might come at the expense of another nearby real-life preserved line. Would there be room for a preserved S&D and the WSR, and the ESR, within an hour's drive of each other? Would they be able to compete for footfall, funding & volunteers?

UPDATE: Apparently, the alternatehistory.com story that inspired many of my ideas here has the Taunton to Morehead line remain a part of BR. So in such an alternate time some if not most of the WSR stuff could end up at this hypothetical S&DHR.

 

In such a scenario, I could easily see the two class 33 diesels end up on it. They do have Southern heritage after all.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Murican

[DenysW]

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

That's a very interesting graph. But what I want to know is, is that early 20th century increase in receipts per goods loco mile unique to the LNWR or replicated across the major companies?

LNWR Accounts neatly quote all the required information in a single place, reliably every year. I will look at the Midland and L&Y today at Kew and check what they do. I feel the Midland doesn't, but the L&Y may, but split up. I'm also looking at Board of Trade returns to see if they cover any gaps.

 

Oh, by contrast the LNWR receipts/passenger mile did not change to 1912.

 

We should also remember that the receipts/passenger were consistently in the range 18-21 d/passenger (excluding seasons) from 1860 to 1912, meaning that the majority were travelling 1-2 stops, third class (assumed: 1d/mile, third)

Edited September 26, 2023 by DenysW

[DenysW]

10 hours ago, Murican said:

If not the S&D, what other pull-up lines could be good tourist railways?

The S&D was cheaply built with severe-for-steam gradients. It wasn't for fun or as a release from the Midland's shackles that Derby provided it with 7Fs.

 

Also: the UK does pretty very well in nice weather, and parts do bleak very well in bad weather, but splendid, majestic or awesome - not really.

[rodent279]

8 hours ago, Murican said:

UPDATE: Apparently, the alternatehistory.com story that inspired many of my ideas here has the Taunton to Morehead line remain a part of BR. So in such an alternate time some if not most of the WSR stuff could end up at this hypothetical S&DHR.

 

In such a scenario, I could easily see the two class 33 diesels end up on it. They do have Southern heritage after all.

Yep, I suppose if the WSR remained in BR ownership then a preserved S&D might be plausible. It would certainly give steam and diesel enthusiasts a spectacle!

[rodent279]

2 hours ago, DenysW said:

We should also remember that the receipts/passenger were consistently in the range 18-21 d/passenger (excluding seasons) from 1860 to 1912, meaning that the majority were travelling 1-2 stops, third class (assumed: 1d/mile, third)

Dies that mean it was largely a commuter railway?

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, DenysW said:

The S&D was cheaply built with severe-for-steam gradients.

 

The Watercress Line runs happily over the Alps and in any case the long gradients on the S&DJR were largely confined to the Bath extension (gradient profile here if you squint a bit).  A tourist railway from Wells to Glastonbury sounds like a decent propositon to me.  

 

To return to more imaginative territory, we can redevelop Bath along the lines later proposed by the LMS and GWR, construct a Mendips Base Tunnel and/or electrify the whole route to Bournemouth (Midland system of course).  Later extension of the wires to Derby would see the Lickey flattened as well and I'm sure the Midland would take the opportunity to 'reconstruct' the Lickey Banker as a suitably hideous 1-D-1 electric.  In the present day, of course, the route would still exist as a 25 kV trunk to the south coast (north to south connections across England south of the Thames are notably poor in the real world).

[Murican]

For the record, this is the map that was created by Devvy, the create of the alternatehistory.com TL which I've been using as one of my main sources of inspiration (it's called 12:08 - Redux for those interested). The user basically took this map of the proposed cuts under Dr. Beeching and played around with it. The lines colored in black are the routes that Dr. Beeching tried to close, only for the lines to remain anyway. 

 

Right off the bat, I noticed that the NYMR as it exists in reality would be butterflied. However, I could see an  LNER heritage group still run a few locomotives over that line. Plus, other lines are closed and taken over by heritage groups as the alternate TL goes on.

 

[Murican]

18 hours ago, Murican said:

UPDATE: Apparently, the alternatehistory.com story that inspired many of my ideas here has the Taunton to Morehead line remain a part of BR. So in such an alternate time some if not most of the WSR stuff could end up at this hypothetical S&DHR.

 

An alternative scenario: would the Devon and Somerset from Dulverton to Barnstaple be viable as a tourist line as well?

Edited September 26, 2023 by Murican

[Murican]

2 hours ago, Murican said:

An alternative scenario: would the Devon and Somerset from Dulverton to Barnstaple be viable as a tourist line as well?

UPDATE: Apparently, Devvy had written up his idea that the Severn Valley Railway is longer than in real life. The post explaining this says that since in his alternate timeline more BR lines remain open, the heritage railways that do exist are much longer.

 

To that end, I could see the equipment of the West Somerset Railway being used on the SVR since both are Great Western lines.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Murican

[DenysW]

11 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Does that mean it was largely a commuter railway?

Actually, if anything, the opposite for the LNWR. Where I've already got both numbers (the earlier 1860s) they were above the UK average for receipts/passenger.

[DenysW]

13 hours ago, DenysW said:

I will look at the Midland and L&Y today at Kew

Midland and L&Y both give the numbers in the sections on revenue. I'll crunch & answer properly.

Edited September 26, 2023 by DenysW
Typo. Midland is not Mudland. Wrong colour locos for that name.

[Murican]

Going back to the subject of Imaginary Locomotives, how well would have a Standard 8 fleet of 2-8-0s worked on the Southern Region? My idea behind them was to rememdy complaints about the 9F on the Western Region, but I figured such a locomotive would also work for the Southern Region.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Murican

[Flying Pig]

7 minutes ago, Murican said:

Going back to the subject of Imaginary Locomotives, how well would have a Standard 8 fleet of 2-8-0s worked on the Southern Region? My idea behind them was to rememdy complaints about the 9F on the Western Region, but I figured such a locomotive would also work for the Southern Region.

 

Unless the designers did something radical, a BR Standard 8 would be very similar to a Stanier 8F or an Austerity.  What were the complaints about the 9F that a loco like that would remedy?

[Murican]

24 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Unless the designers did something radical, a BR Standard 8 would be very similar to a Stanier 8F or an Austerity.  What were the complaints about the 9F that a loco like that would remedy?

Never mind I just realized that if my idea for a Standard 2-10-2 were to come about, the easier solution would be to just relocate 8Fs to the Western Region. Or even without said imaginary locomotives do that. To say nothing of the possibility of having a few USATC S160s stay in the UK.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Murican

[Niels]

11 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Unless the designers did something radical, a BR Standard 8 would be very similar to a Stanier 8F or an Austerity.  What were the complaints about the 9F that a loco like that would remedy?

 

Where in UK is 5 times 15.5 tons adhession and flangeless driver better than 4 times 17.5 and a Zara truck up front?

This wonder could better all B1,Black fives and clans and Britaniasas well

And be 10% more frugal and pleasant to man if built as Two cylinder compound with External balance ding

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Niels

[westerner]

Are'nt alot of the recent psts straying onto the Imaginary RAILWAYS thread rather tha imaginary locomotives?

[AlfaZagato]

After nearly 500 pages and 13 years, bound to happen.  People try to justify their mystery locos by building appropriate scenarios.  

[john new]

21 hours ago, Murican said:

Never mind I just realized that if my idea for a Standard 2-10-2 were to come about, the easier solution would be to just relocate 8Fs to the Western Region. Or even without said imaginary locomotives do that. To say nothing of the possibility of having a few USATC S160s stay in the UK.

Or get Swindon to build more of the 2-8-0s they already had, if those had faults design those out but stick with Swindon parts.  All assumes there was the traffic to justify more. 

[Northmoor]

2 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

After nearly 500 pages and 13 years, bound to happen.  People try to justify their mystery locos by building appropriate scenarios.  

It's why I tend to prefer the discussion on the other thread.  This one does tend to get a bit circular, trying to justify locos that weren't created because there was simply no need for them.

[Murican]

13 hours ago, westerner said:

Are'nt alot of the recent psts straying onto the Imaginary RAILWAYS thread rather tha imaginary locomotives?

Probably right. My bad.

[Murican]

On 27/09/2023 at 04:48, Niels said:

Where in UK is 5 times 15.5 tons adhession and flangeless driver better than 4 times 17.5 and a Zara truck up front?

This wonder could better all B1,Black fives and clans and Britaniasas well

And be 10% more frugal and pleasant to man if built as Two cylinder compound with External balance ding

 

Yeah, this was what I had in mind when writing up the idea for the Standard 8 2-6-0.

[Niels]

 

48 minutes ago, Murican said:

Yeah, this was what I had in mind when writing up the idea for the Standard 8 2-6-0.

It will be possible to move the shown single 18 inch outside high pressure cylinder ca 200mm forward and we can then allow first driver set 25mm sideway freedom.

 

Krauss Helmhotz/Zara tracks as well as best boggie.

 

The single 27 inch low pressure cylinder between frames can be moved a little rearwards if neccesary for max axle load.It can eventually be of the kind Stumpf as tested by Raven my hero.

 

The wide box boiler can be placed 25-50mm of centre to compensate for removed cylinder.

 

What livery?

 

It can do the work of most Pacifics and mineral 2-8-0s?

Edited September 28, 2023 by Niels