GCR Line to Birmingham?

[Compound2632]

The idea of using the SMJR (or rather its constituents) as a springboard for a GCR (or rather MSLR or Metropolitan) Watkin-inspired route to Birmingham is a little curious, given that the route was to some extent a Midland proxy (the clue is in the title of the amalgamated company) providing a shot-cut for goods traffic between Bristol and London. Watkin seems to have had a considerable animus against the Midland - there's the curious incident when he popped up as chairman of the Neath & Brecon in 1889, trying to upset the Midland's use of that railway to link the Hereford Hay & Brecon and Swansea Vale lines. On the other hand, it looks as if one can be fairly sure that any line James Staats Forbes had a hand in had covert Midland backing...

[65179]

2 hours ago, Trog said:

 

Well known fact or not it just is not true, the GC extension was built to a middle of the road British loading gauge, and was nothing special.

 

Agreed, if my memory isn't deceiving me one of the many internet discussions (on the LNER forum?) of this established with reference to relevant documentation that the GCR LE wasn't even the most generous loading gauge in the LNER group in at least some respects.

 

Some collated information on loading gauges is available here: https://www.devboats.co.uk/gwdrawings/loadinggauges.php

 

I've no idea regarding its accuracy, but it is suggested most values are taken from original sources.

 

Simon

[TheSignalEngineer]

Running Continental stock to Manchester via the GC, even before the northern French companies complied with the Berne Gauge would have meant rebuilding the Woodhead Tunnels. These and a lot of other structures on the line weren't suitable to put the wires up when the LNER electrified it. Local stations would have had to be rebuilt on the model of the GWR/GC Joint e.g. Gerrards Cross before current layout with loop platforms for stopping trains.  https://images.app.goo.gl/KESUx7T3JknnGzPz9

 

[1165Valour]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

The idea of using the SMJR (or rather its constituents) as a springboard for a GCR (or rather MSLR or Metropolitan) Watkin-inspired route to Birmingham is a little curious, given that the route was to some extent a Midland proxy (the clue is in the title of the amalgamated company) providing a shot-cut for goods traffic between Bristol and London. Watkin seems to have had a considerable animus against the Midland - there's the curious incident when he popped up as chairman of the Neath & Brecon in 1889, trying to upset the Midland's use of that railway to link the Hereford Hay & Brecon and Swansea Vale lines. On the other hand, it looks as if one can be fairly sure that any line James Staats Forbes had a hand in had covert Midland backing...

I readily admit that the scenario laid out is improbable, but the object of this thread was to find a way, any way, to get the GCR to Birmingham, and this seemed the best option.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Running Continental stock to Manchester via the GC, even before the northern French companies complied with the Berne Gauge would have meant rebuilding the Woodhead Tunnels. These and a lot of other structures on the line weren't suitable to put the wires up when the LNER electrified it. Local stations would have had to be rebuilt on the model of the GWR/GC Joint e.g. Gerrards Cross before current layout with loop platforms for stopping trains.  https://images.app.goo.gl/KESUx7T3JknnGzPz9

 

 

To say nothing of the Metropolitan Railway* widened lines!

 

*Chairman: Sir Edward Watkin.

[Edwin_m]

The heartland of the GCR was Yorkshire and to a lesser extent Lancashire and Cheshire, and being a latecomer to the London area with relatively poor connections they picked up very little passenger or freight traffic on the southern part of the Extension.  So a GCR London-Birmingham route would have been competing against two better-established companies with more direct routes (one of which was developed jointly with the GCR...).  Should we actually be thinking of a GCR route from Birmingham to Manchester or Sheffield?  

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Should we actually be thinking of a GCR route from Birmingham to Manchester or Sheffield?  

 

But again, up against established companies - Midland, LNWR, and (with a toe-hold) Great Western.

[TheSignalEngineer]

It's worth remembering that although effectively operated as one line under a selection of running powers, financial sponsorship and Joint Committees, the S&MJR didn't exist as a legal entity until the Act of 1910.

It was built as three lines, the East & West Junction Railway from Towcester to Stratford, the Evesham, Redditch & Stratford-upon-Avon Junction Railway from  Stratford to Broom Junction and the Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester & Midland Junction Railway from Towcester to Olney. 

 

It was always financially strapped, the E&WJR and ER&SJR spending much of their nominally independent life in receivership.  The MS&LR had a major shareholding in the companies purchased in the early 1890s and the GCR had a through coach from Marylebone to Stratford-upon-Avon for a while.

[Compound2632]

This is a close as it ever got to a GCR 2-hour Birmingham express.

 

Still, Chiltern Railways have had the last word.

[1165Valour]

1 hour ago, Edwin_m said:

Should we actually be thinking of a GCR route from Birmingham to Manchester or Sheffield?

The NSR ended up allied with the M&SLR instead of the LNWR?

[TheSignalEngineer]

2 hours ago, GWRSwindon said:

The NSR ended up allied with the M&SLR instead of the LNWR?

The did, on the Macclesfield, Bollington & Marple Railway which gave the MS&LR a route to the Potteries and beyond and the NSR a rout to Lancashire avoiding the LNWR. It linked at Marple Wharf Junction with the Sheffield and Midland Railways Committee route from Manchester to the Midland's Hope Valley and Matlock routes.

[1165Valour]

4 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

The did, on the Macclesfield, Bollington & Marple Railway which gave the MS&LR a route to the Potteries and beyond and the NSR a rout to Lancashire avoiding the LNWR. It linked at Marple Wharf Junction with the Sheffield and Midland Railways Committee route from Manchester to the Midland's Hope Valley and Matlock routes.

Definitely, but the MB&M became an anomaly as the NSR worked more and more closely with the LNWR.

[TheSignalEngineer]

27 minutes ago, GWRSwindon said:

Definitely, but the MB&M became an anomaly as the NSR worked more and more closely with the LNWR.

Everyone needed to co-operate with the NSR as it was in a virtual monopoly position with regard to canals and railways in the Potteries from the mid 19th century to 1923.

[1165Valour]

23 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Everyone needed to co-operate with the NSR as it was in a virtual monopoly position with regard to canals and railways in the Potteries from the mid 19th century to 1923.

True, though even the NSR had to be careful not to anger the LNWR, take the Macclesfield-Warrington line for example.

[TheSignalEngineer]

22 minutes ago, GWRSwindon said:

True, though even the NSR had to be careful not to anger the LNWR, take the Macclesfield-Warrington line for example.

And the Derby to Llandudno excursions.

IIRC the Manchester - Stoke - London trains were part of the deal allowing LNWR freight trains to run to NSR destinations. The NSR got the revenue for stations north of Stoke and a proportion of the fares paid by LNWR passengers using these trains for through journeys not starting or finishing on the NSR.

[1165Valour]

18 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

And the Derby to Llandudno excursions.

IIRC the Manchester - Stoke - London trains were part of the deal allowing LNWR freight trains to run to NSR destinations. The NSR got the revenue for stations north of Stoke and a proportion of the fares paid by LNWR passengers using these trains for through journeys not starting or finishing on the NSR.

Thank you, I suppose my only real point is that while the NSR did its best to have good relations with all the companies it interacted with, it had the closest relations of any with the LNWR, with the latter careful to ensure the Knotty remained faithful.

 

*******

Right then, I think I'll just move on to other GCR ideas, as it seems the Birmingham concept stretches credibility too much.

Edited February 12, 2020 by GWRSwindon

[TheSignalEngineer]

18 minutes ago, GWRSwindon said:

Right then, I think I'll just move on to other GCR ideas, as it seems the Birmingham concept stretches credibility too much.

The MS&LR probably didn't think so when planning the London Extension, but the agreement with the GWR over the Woodford Halse to Banbury Junction link and the GC/GW Joint, plus the GWR using the joint line to cut the Birmingham time to something the Stratford option could never match changed the game.

[Jim Martin]

On 03/12/2019 at 22:26, Nearholmer said:

My impression is that the GCR would have had trouble raising capital for anything exciting once the London Extension was built, because that turned out to be poor investment for shareholders.

 

 

I don't think that's the case. The GCR was able to raise huge amounts of capital for the construction of Immingham Dock and the associated lines.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Jim Martin said:

I don't think that's the case. The GCR was able to raise huge amounts of capital for the construction of Immingham Dock and the associated lines.

 

 

Immingham Dock was a separate company, not the Great Central itself, so money invested in the dock was not at risk from the poor financial performance of the railway company; equally, it did not increase the capitalisation of the railway, which would have been woe to the existing shareholders who would slide even further down the pecking order for non-existent dividends.

[Nearholmer]

Interesting.

 

In fact, I'm getting increasingly interested in how pre-nationalisation railways raised capital for major expansions, what the returns were etc.

 

Was this one dealt with as a separate entity, by any chance?

 

(Compound - your answer was clearly typed before I asked the question, which is pretty good going!)

 

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

(Compound - your answer was clearly typed before I asked the question, which is pretty good going!)

 

I felt the vibrations in the aether.

[DavidB-AU]

Looking at some contemporary newspapers, I don't think Manchester to Paris was Watkin's original or primary goal and may have just been a way to grab headlines. There seems to be much more discussion about the cost and time savings of replacing their own steamers from Grimsby to Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg.

 

Cheers

David

[Willie Whizz]

I forget the details now, but I'm pretty certain I read an article some years back that demonstrated how the 'poor performance' of Great Central ordinary shares, and the resulting implication that the line - even in Edwardian times - was a commercial failure, was actually a red herring.  As I recall the key point was that the ordinary shares represented only a fairly small part of the finances of the Company; the majority of its capital funding, especially for the construction of the London Extension, came from other avenues and the subscribers to that were (at least) fairly adequately recompensed by the standards set by other railway companies around that time.  I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but perhaps this may jog someone's memory regarding this issue.

[1165Valour]

Perhaps have the North Warks line be run as a joint GW/GC venture? 

[Nearholmer]

On 10/02/2020 at 23:38, DavidB-AU said:

One of the issues of Railway Times said he had met with Werner von Siemens in 1880, a year after Siemens demonstrated the first electric railway in Berlin and around the time the tunnel was started. There were electric railways operating or under construction in London and Liverpool within a decade so it would not have been impossible for there to have been a slidey rail main line from Manchester and Birmingham to at least Calais.

 

Another interesting link, he was friends with Leopold and Alfred de Rothschild. Rothschild & Co were part owners of CF du Nord.

I somehow overlooked this post previously.

 

In the early 1880s, there was a quite well-developed proposal for an electrified underground railway across central London, following partly the route that later became the Bakerloo Line and linking to the LSWR or SER.

 

The idea was rather far ahead of available  locomotive technology, but I’m sure that the Siemens team could have risen to the challenge. Edison claimed to have designed a viable locomotive locomotive for it, to be able to haul “four Pullman cars”, but the locos that he designed with his partner in that area were far from entirely successful (despite what many children’s history books say), so possibly a good thing it was never built.

 

Worth remembering that the Siemens Brothers had a major works at Charlton in south London, with Sir Carl Wilhem Siemens (the man who revolutionised steel-making, as well as overseeing an electrical engineering factory)  being a British citizen, and that they had access to the finest minds of the day when it came to electrical engineering science, The Hopkinson Brothers.

 

The Rothschilds would be natural players in this too, especially given that the GCR/Met passes right through their district near Waddesden, and it is easy to join the dots between the potential technical and financial partners through Sir C W Siemens and the Salomons* family, and/or other branches of the Siemens family, who were bankers rather than engineers. 
 

It has to be said that the whole idea got stuck though, after a few yards of digging, because electric traction was too novel for the taste of potential investors in the early 1880s. A parallel would be trying to raise capital for an internet start-up company in 1973.
 

*The younger Sir David Solomons was a prominent electrical engineering and motoring pioneer, a neighbour of Sir C W Siemens (who I suspect ‘took him under his wing’) at Tunbridge Wells, and was latterly a director of the SER, and his family was related to the banking Goldsmids.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by Nearholmer