Imaginary Locomotives

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, scots region said:

I've been wondering what the impact would be if a rail bridge was built across the english channel in the 1890s. How would the evolution of 20th century locomotive design have been altered by a direct continental influence.   

 

Well, the tunnel was started. I suppose one might have seen a few Nord atlantics...

 

 

Oh.

 

 

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Ohmisterporter said:

Probably there would have been an island mid-channel where the twelve mile British Channel Bridge met the twelve mile French Channel Tunnel.

Rather like this where the Swedes built a bridge and the Danes built a tunnel,

They meet at an island:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund_Bridge

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, scots region said:

I've been wondering what the impact would be if a rail bridge was built across the english channel in the 1890s. How would the evolution of 20th century locomotive design have been altered by a direct continental influence.   

Doubt it would have made any difference at all.  We were locked in to our loading gauge and these were the days of ‘storms in channel; continent isolated’. 

[john new]

Or if the first tunnel had succeeded. Probably rapid adoption of electrics like they used in the US. (St Clair tunnel? - I have the answer but not accessible tonight)

Edited May 8, 2020 by john new

[PenrithBeacon]

I doubt if the technology existed in 1890s to build a bridge or a tunnel across the channel.

Cheers

[Gibbo675]

25 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I doubt if the technology existed in 1890s to build a bridge or a tunnel across the channel.

Cheers

They had the technology to build the pyramids thirty thousand years ago !

[Northmoor]

21 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I doubt if the technology existed in 1890s to build a bridge or a tunnel across the channel.

Cheers

The first tunnel built under a navigable river was the Thames Tunnel and that was completed in 1843.  There was a significant Channel tunnel dig abandoned by the British in 1882 which extended below water level and over 6000ft in length.  The French had constructed almost as far at Sangatte. It was political concerns that stopped further construction, not engineering.

[PhilJ W]

There was a compressed air driven locomotive designed for the 1890 Channel tunnel. It was a 2-4-2 with air tanks resembling a gas tank wagon with a drivers platform at each end.

 

[scots region]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

The first tunnel built under a navigable river was the Thames Tunnel and that was completed in 1843.  There was a significant Channel tunnel dig abandoned by the British in 1882 which extended below water level and over 6000ft in length.  The French had constructed almost as far at Sangatte. It was political concerns that stopped further construction, not engineering.

 

I just like the idea of Nord Pacifics working into St Pancras, or a Merchant Navy at Calais.

[The Johnster]

A Nord Pacific would not have been able to run anywhere in the UK except the GCR London Extension as the loading gauge will not accept it.  And assuming that by some Rule 1 miracle it could, it would have appeared at London Bridge or Victoria rather than St Pancras.  

 

I saw one at Calais in 1966, magnificent beast!

[PenrithBeacon]

5 hours ago, Northmoor said:

The first tunnel built under a navigable river was the Thames Tunnel and that was completed in 1843.  There was a significant Channel tunnel dig abandoned by the British in 1882 which extended below water level and over 6000ft in length.  The French had constructed almost as far at Sangatte. It was political concerns that stopped further construction, not engineering.

The geology of the Thames is very different to the geology of the Channel.

[rodent279]

8 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

They had the technology to build the pyramids thirty thousand years ago !

Not sure about 30,000 years ago.....5000 maybe, but I take your point.

[melmerby]

8 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

They had the technology to build the pyramids thirty thousand years ago !

The first pyramid was built c2600-2700 BC, it was the Stepped Pyramid of Djoser which started out as a square mastaba tomb but had more square structures built on top until it was a stepped pyramid.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, which everybody knows is from about 2560BC.

[Gibbo675]

2 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Not sure about 30,000 years ago.....5000 maybe, but I take your point.

 

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

The first pyramid was built c2600-2700 BC, it was the Stepped Pyramid of Djoser which started out as a square mastaba tomb but had more square structures built on top until it was a stepped pyramid.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, which everybody knows is from about 2560BC.

Sorry chaps,

 

I ought to have clarified that when I said Pyramids I really meant the Bosnian pyramids, which by may also be found on the first page of a Google search result.

 

Don't forget about Gobekli Tepe, even Wikipedia say that it is 12000 years old, and who would argue with them ?

 

Gibbo.

[Northmoor]

4 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The geology of the Thames is very different to the geology of the Channel.

You are quite correct, it's easier in the English Channel. 

The Channel Tunnel was dug mostly through chalk, whereas most of London is on clay.  The Chunnel actually ended up significantly drier than predicted.

[PenrithBeacon]

IIRC the Chunnel was built through a very thin layer of chalk which modern geologists discovered post war. Victorian railway builders knew nothing of it. They wouldn't have stood a chance of completing the Chunnel with the assumptions they were working on.

Victorian engineers, if they were concerned at all about the geology, dug bore holes along the path of the railway which were later enlarged to become service bores and later still ventilation shafts. These techniques weren't available to them for their Chunnel so they were going blind for 20 odd miles. The Victorian Chunnel was a financial disaster just waiting to happen.

Regards

[PenrithBeacon]

This might help, it's from the Wikipedia page on the Chunnel.

 

[PhilJ W]

Back to the oldest structures (even if off topic).

https://www.oldest.org/structures/ruins/

Edited May 9, 2020 by PhilJ W
Fat finger syndrome.

[Northmoor]

59 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The Victorian Chunnel was a financial disaster just waiting to happen.

 

Bit like the one that WAS actually built then!

[PhilJ W]

Compressed air locomotives.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed-air_vehicle

Edited May 9, 2020 by PhilJ W

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

Sorry chaps,

 

I ought to have clarified that when I said Pyramids I really meant the Bosnian pyramids, which by may also be found on the first page of a Google search result.

 

Don't forget about Gobekli Tepe, even Wikipedia say that it is 12000 years old, and who would argue with them ?

 

Gibbo.

The Bosnian 'pyramids' are naturally formed hills and there are geological and geophysical reasons for their being that shape; a local businessman is promoting them as pyramids to generate income for himself.  Gobekil Tepe is more like a mound than a pyramid, a large and impressive pile of earth containing structures inside.  This became a common method of covering chamber tombs and Barrows in the later neolithic periods, and was still being used up until conversion to christianity in Nordic countries.  Neither can be described as pyramids.  

 

A pyramid is a much more complex construction, which requires precise surveying and an understanding of mathematics and geometry.  It is constructed by building from the bottom layer up and incorporating the internal chambers and passageways, which mean that it is built to a pre-determined plan which must be recorded on a suitable portable medium (papyrus for example) which can be used on the site while building is in progress.  Precise alignment of the stones is necessary, as the least error will be multiplied at the next layer.  It must be planned, piling up a mound of earth around a structure is not going to cut the mustard.

 

Planning on this scale requires a centralised society, and the labour requirements require storage and organised distribution of grain on a large scale.  There is no reason to presume that such conditions did not exist elsewhere at earlier periods, and Mesopotamian, Indus, and Chinese civilisations had developed prior to the Egyptian one.  Sea levels rose steadily by about 200 feet from about 12kya to 6kya as the ice melted and much evidence is no doubt lost underwater.  You can see the sea from the Breton menhirs, but it was about 60 miles away when they were put up.  So there may well have been pyramids 30kya, but there is nothing left of them now.

 

My dad, despite being much more intelligent and academically adept than me, was taken in by the psuedo-archeologist Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods and all that; he was also a firm believer in the idea that the Azores and Canary archipelagos were the peaks of the mountains of Atlantis, based on the 200' lower sea levels of the ice age.  In fact these volcanic islands rise directly from the sea bed, do not have shallow seas surrounding them and plunge away to the abyssal depths, leaving no coastal plains to support Atlantis.  So I was brought up with this sort of thing.

[Gibbo675]

12 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

The Bosnian 'pyramids' are naturally formed hills and there are geological and geophysical reasons for their being that shape; a local businessman is promoting them as pyramids to generate income for himself.  Gobekil Tepe is more like a mound than a pyramid, a large and impressive pile of earth containing structures inside.  This became a common method of covering chamber tombs and Barrows in the later neolithic periods, and was still being used up until conversion to christianity in Nordic countries.  Neither can be described as pyramids.  

 

A pyramid is a much more complex construction, which requires precise surveying and an understanding of mathematics and geometry.  It is constructed by building from the bottom layer up and incorporating the internal chambers and passageways, which mean that it is built to a pre-determined plan which must be recorded on a suitable portable medium (papyrus for example) which can be used on the site while building is in progress.  Precise alignment of the stones is necessary, as the least error will be multiplied at the next layer.  It must be planned, piling up a mound of earth around a structure is not going to cut the mustard.

 

Planning on this scale requires a centralised society, and the labour requirements require storage and organised distribution of grain on a large scale.  There is no reason to presume that such conditions did not exist elsewhere at earlier periods, and Mesopotamian, Indus, and Chinese civilisations had developed prior to the Egyptian one.  Sea levels rose steadily by about 200 feet from about 12kya to 6kya as the ice melted and much evidence is no doubt lost underwater.  You can see the sea from the Breton menhirs, but it was about 60 miles away when they were put up.  So there may well have been pyramids 30kya, but there is nothing left of them now.

 

My dad, despite being much more intelligent and academically adept than me, was taken in by the psuedo-archeologist Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods and all that; he was also a firm believer in the idea that the Azores and Canary archipelagos were the peaks of the mountains of Atlantis, based on the 200' lower sea levels of the ice age.  In fact these volcanic islands rise directly from the sea bed, do not have shallow seas surrounding them and plunge away to the abyssal depths, leaving no coastal plains to support Atlantis.  So I was brought up with this sort of thing.

Hi Johnster,

1. I do enjoy a good old game of "two pennyworth".
2. Is it slow going in Cardiff today ?
3. Who would listen to a man that thinks BRCW 104's ugly enough to place in the ugly locomotives thread, they re my favorite bug crates !!!

Gibbo

[melmerby]

16 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

My dad, despite being much more intelligent and academically adept than me, was taken in by the psuedo-archeologist Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods and all that; he was also a firm believer in the idea that the Azores and Canary archipelagos were the peaks of the mountains of Atlantis, based on the 200' lower sea levels of the ice age.  In fact these volcanic islands rise directly from the sea bed, do not have shallow seas surrounding them and plunge away to the abyssal depths, leaving no coastal plains to support Atlantis.  So I was brought up with this sort of thing.

The Egyptian Pyramids from Khufu on are very precisely built.

With Khufu's pyramid, the foundation was levelled using water levelling and the length of the sides are within a few cm of each other, the angles of the 4 slopes are also pretty consistent, showing the designers had a good appreciation of geometry.

 

I read Erick von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods". Very entertaining but utter drivel.

Most of his claims were easily disproved.

[The Johnster]

52 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Johnster,

1. I do enjoy a good old game of "two pennyworth".
2. Is it slow going in Cardiff today ?
3. Who would listen to a man that thinks BRCW 104's ugly enough to place in the ugly locomotives thread, they re my favorite bug crates !!!

Gibbo

It is certainly slow going on the mean inner city streets today...

 

A 104 could have achieved the cathedral west window grace of the original Derby designs, which are crying out for stained glass saints, and BRCW showed what they could do with the 110, but, really...  Mind, my favourite is the 123, which is hardly a beauty queen.  

Edited May 9, 2020 by The Johnster

[Clive Mortimore]

All this natter about the Channel tunnel, didn't they use a more modern version of Brunel senior's tunneling shield to dig it. Of course it was first used to dig the Wapping tunnel. 

 

" Wapping Tunnel, who was the stupid geezer who let all them barbarian Millwall fans bl33ding come across to the right side of the river? I'll give you Brunel".....thank you Mr Garnet.