Schooner's (Mostly Maritime) Musings

[Michael Crofts]

I can't type my reply below the quote from Schooner. Weird. 

I have made an album of images of docks, jetties, harbours - including walls and in some cases sheds. Mostly purloined but a few are my own. Perhaps there might be something in there which is relevant. 

I have been boating for 9 years and have berthed in 58 different places. I never realized until I started seeing them from the water how utterly different they all are, even nowadays when a lot of the elements are more similar than they used to be. If anyone wants a suggestion for a prototype location with specific characteristics I'd be happy to see if I can dredge something up. But of course it's desperately hard to model them because, mostly, they are just so large.

Click on the image to see the album.

 

 

[Annie]

What an amazing photographic resource Michael, - thanks very much for sharing it with us.

[Fishplate]

6 hours ago, Annie said:

What an amazing photographic resource Michael, - thanks very much for sharing it with us.

 

What @Annie said! There are photographs of my home town quays that I haven't seen before. There is also a dockside crane with discontinuous rails which is rather intriguing. A longer wander on a bigger screen is now on my list of things to do. Thank you for the link @Michael Crofts

[Schooner]

Great collection @Michael Crofts, thank you so much for sharing!

 

Also calling @Gedward who may find it useful :)

Edited May 19, 2023 by Schooner

[Gedward]

On 18/05/2023 at 18:04, Michael Crofts said:

I can't type my reply below the quote from Schooner. Weird. 

I have made an album of images of docks, jetties, harbours - including walls and in some cases sheds. Mostly purloined but a few are my own. Perhaps there might be something in there which is relevant. 

I have been boating for 9 years and have berthed in 58 different places. I never realized until I started seeing them from the water how utterly different they all are, even nowadays when a lot of the elements are more similar than they used to be. If anyone wants a suggestion for a prototype location with specific characteristics I'd be happy to see if I can dredge something up. But of course it's desperately hard to model them because, mostly, they are just so large.

Click on the image to see the album.

 

 

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

 

[Schooner]

Absolutely blissful early Summer's day - clear blue sky, gentle breeze, bird song and a lone propeller plane droning along somewhere far off...

 

...so I'm in with a cup of coffee, staring at a screen. The things we do for our art...

 

Some sheds 

This is just going to be a bit of a dump I'm afraid as I scout about for something suitable for the LHS of the 7mm layout

 

Available width scales to 40-45 feet or so - enough for 2 x wagons in the shed, just - and length is of course severely limited...but I've not let that slow me down :) I'd like to have, at least, open sliding doors on the facing end, so we can look into the shed, and see every mm of available space. 

 

Gloucester. Something like this would actually be quite a good call for the little structure at the front of the layout too...or just this, perhaps?

 

W Shed, Bristol

 

W Shed, Millwall

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW046148

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW046147

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW046149

Although more for general arrangement of features than something to copy, likewise

 

This, however, is small but perfectly formed just the way it is

and I like both the wheels and the chocking very much!

 

Has come up before, in relation to the crane which places it on the N quay of the West India Import dock IIRC.  Shed is very much the sort of thing I had in mind when first designing the layout.

 

Hmmm...

 

Not gonna lie, by this point I'd already become pretty seriously diverted

Context

 

Focus. Look at the three stages of enclosure at London Dock

for those who share cross-over thread, this was exactly the trade the then-sloop, later ketch, Ceres was built for, as seen here and in @NHY 581's Sheep Fold

 

Yes, but what about distractions? Getty holds loads of really good lines drawings, for example

...but I can't get at them. Searching does no good at all, I only came across those I've seen tangentially. Most annoying.

 

Anyway, sheds.

 

I like this, to my surprise as it feels very New World even at first glance. A good one to inspire rather than to copy, perhaps

but then I also like this, 'tho it is of no use to me at all

and this, which sort of is

[CTRL] + M

 

I did have a plan for a steam crane on the 7mm - part project, part viewblock - but ideas have since moved on.

 

Close, Bristol, but no cigar. To follow, a nice reminder that not all ships are created equal, but most provide an equally effective view block. For reference (whose?!) the coaster on the 7mm layout is smaller than the open bridge two-hatch coaster in between the two trampers; the trow on the 4mm layout smaller than the pair on the extreme right.

 

Returning downstream to Avonmouth, we find the docks completed and signs of Swindon's ruthless standardisation policy in full swing

Good lamp-post (as opposed to the adjacent lampost), though. We'll be having that, I reckon! Filling and lighting done on the little platform, accessed by ladder?

 

From Avonmouth we can take passage to France, arriving in Boulogne, October 30th 1914

Where we find good sheds (ends recently covered over?) and British Army feed and hay. Another good view block, and possibly of use for @Edwardian's scheme.

 

On piles of stuff, examples little

- a charming collection on Custom House Quay, 1842 - and large

Stacking Wine Barrels in Warehouse. These men are stacking beer barrels in a warehouse.

Make your mind up Getty!

 

The GNR depot and warehouse outside King's Cross is a little mighty, and so is the rail shed on the right. Useful maps on NLS IIRC.

On the inside, things appear just as rosy

...as seen here at Pickford's Camden depot. Both paintings c.1850, allegedly. Makes one wonder how the following dystopian hellscape

could be seen as an "Improvement".

 

Probably getting dodgy ideas from the other end of the line, in Liverpool

(Note: not Wapping, London. Caused a moment's confusion this end.)

 

With that smooth segue into interior views, here's some of Oldham, Birkenhead and back to London. Mostly interested in handling gear, signage, organisation etc

 

Having returned to London, we also find this

wonderful warehouse, this

reminder that Mr Ogle's Plan was not as good as that of Messrs. Cotton and Walker and these moveable loading trestles, which I shall also be nicking

(see those in the background, which appear an older design with solid iron wheels).

 

Sadly, what we don't find is any of this

Loch Carron, Highlands of Scotland, 13 August 1876.

This photograph was taken from the Strome Ferry Hotel, by a photographer doing a tour of England and Scotland in a Pullman train. The party visited Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, Melrose Abbey and Bristol, amongst other places. The coming of the railways made it easier for people to take excursions and see different parts of Britain.

 

And an inexcusable lack of thatched tithe barns

(now tiled)

 

So there you go. 

 

Right.

 

Where were we?

[Hroth]

The Harrier thing was, if I remember correctly, a race, London to? New York perhaps, or something more parochial like Edinburgh.  I do know it was a long time ago...

 

The location was the coal yard at St Pancras station.

 

It was a long time ago, we called them Railway Stations back then!

 

I didn't notice the "context link", amazing I got it mainly right.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Hroth

[Schooner]

A shorter trip today, along what's now called the Looe Valley Line...

...and...

...back...

...in...

...time...

Oops!

Too far, wind it on a little...there! 

What's that?

Hmmm...close, but no...perhaps we cast the net a little wider.

Ah! Not the same vehicles, but very similar stock was built in 1897 for the Selsey tramway, as seen above. For Looe:

With the opening of the connection to Liskeard GWR [9th May, 1901], three new passenger coaches were acquired from Hurst Nelson of Motherwell. They consisted of a composite first and second, and two third class vehicles. They were eight-wheel bogie coaches, and the seating was on the open plan (not compartments) with an American-style verandah at each end of the coach; they were said to be similar to coaches used on the New York Overhead Railway. The three coaches were almost completely destroyed in an accident on 15 April 1906.

 

Available in 1:76 and 1:43 here. Add this, this and this for the cutest passenger service ever?

 

No excuse, sadly. I was wondering about a carriage for Ingleford and got carried away :)

[Schooner]

Genuine railway question inbound. A shock I know, sorry, I should've suggested we all sit down first.

 

We're in LSWR South Devon. It's about 1900. A couple of scenarios:

 

Say I'm a regional producer with a sizable market in Northern France. I would engage the local railway company for carriage of my goods from local yard/depot to the local dock, where it would be put onto a vessel I have chartered for transport across the sea, si?

 

If my market was in North America, say best accessed by sea from GWR Cardiff, would I still engage the LSWR to get my goods there, or would I contact a GWR agent, who would then send empty traffic over LSWR metals to an agreed rendevous and loading point to pick up my goods and transport it to Cardiff Docks, thence overseas?

 

If I was importing raw materials or base components for manufacture, again would I be using the railway company local to me, or local to the import...port?

 

I'm sure this must be in GWR Docks and Marine or at least on the internet, but I'm finding a straight answer ellusive.

 

Thanks :)

[Compound2632]

17 hours ago, Schooner said:

 

This reminds me forcibly of a photo of a Russian Orthodox church carriage, though that did have onion domes. Perhaps this is the Methodist equivalent - chapel on wheels.

 

Ah yes, here we go:

 

 

I'd misremembered the onion domes, though - roof ventilators, or possibly chimneys for a multiplicity of stoves, or to let the incense out.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

16 minutes ago, Schooner said:

Genuine railway question inbound. A shock I know, sorry, I should've suggested we all sit down first.

 

We're in LSWR South Devon. It's about 1900. A couple of scenarios:

 

Say I'm a regional producer with a sizable market in Northern France. I would engage the local railway company for carriage of my goods from local yard/depot to the local dock, where it would be put onto a vessel I have chartered for transport across the sea, si?

 

If my market was in North America, say best accessed by sea from GWR Cardiff, would I still engage the LSWR to get my goods there, or would I contact a GWR agent, who would then send empty traffic over LSWR metals to an agreed rendevous and loading point to pick up my goods and transport it to Cardiff Docks, thence overseas?

 

If I was importing raw materials or base components for manufacture, again would I be using the railway company local to me, or local to the import...port?

 

I'm sure this must be in GWR Docks and Marine or at least on the internet, but I'm finding a straight answer ellusive.

 

Thanks :)

 

Well, I'd start by denying the existence of the LSWR in South Devon, which region I would define as lying between the Exe and the Plym, a region gifted with abundant blessings, chief amongst which was the Great Western Railway. I would not count a johnny-come-lately descent from the North into Plymouth, and I would count everything lying east of the Exe as East Devon, which I suspect is the place you mean because I think you posted a picture of Topsham recently!

 

Having been thus pedantic and unhelpful, I have no idea what the answer to your question is.

 

Bah!

[Northroader]

24 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

This reminds me forcibly of a photo of a Russian Orthodox church carriage, though that did have onion domes. Perhaps this is the Methodist equivalent - chapel on wheels.

 

Ah yes, here we go:

 

 

I'd misremembered the onion domes, though - roof ventilators, or possibly chimneys for a multiplicity of stoves, or to let the incense out.

bit plain, innit?

 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Northroader said:

 

Is that a hearse? Several British lines had a corpse van or two but generally disguised as parcels vans so as not to attract too much attention.

[Edwardian]

 

I agree, rather funereal, but actually the railway version of the Popemobile, complete with trademark large windows for blessing crowds while on the move. No busy Nineteenth Century Pontiff should be without  one.

 

For funerals something more presidential is called for ...

 

[Compound2632]

33 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Does it go round second radius, mister?

[magmouse]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Does it go round second radius, mister?

No problem - 12 of the 16 wheels are flangeless.

[Dave John]

How on earth did a coach that flimsy escape from Motherwell? 

 

Though I do like the 4 bogie thing, why that many wheels ? 

[Edwardian]

12 minutes ago, Dave John said:

 

Though I do like the 4 bogie thing, why that many wheels ? 

 

A vain attempt at a train with fourscore wheels and 7?

 

They never did resolve the issue of the odd number, however.

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Is that a hearse? Several British lines had a corpse van or two but generally disguised as parcels vans so as not to attract too much attention.

 

BR popped Churchill in a GUV but everyone knew what it was carrying.

 

[drduncan]

14 hours ago, Schooner said:

Genuine railway question inbound. A shock I know, sorry, I should've suggested we all sit down first.

 

We're in LSWR South Devon. It's about 1900. A couple of scenarios:

 

Say I'm a regional producer with a sizable market in Northern France. I would engage the local railway company for carriage of my goods from local yard/depot to the local dock, where it would be put onto a vessel I have chartered for transport across the sea, si?

 

If my market was in North America, say best accessed by sea from GWR Cardiff, would I still engage the LSWR to get my goods there, or would I contact a GWR agent, who would then send empty traffic over LSWR metals to an agreed rendevous and loading point to pick up my goods and transport it to Cardiff Docks, thence overseas?

 

If I was importing raw materials or base components for manufacture, again would I be using the railway company local to me, or local to the import...port?

 

I'm sure this must be in GWR Docks and Marine or at least on the internet, but I'm finding a straight answer ellusive.

 

Thanks :)

Apart from agreeing wholeheartedly with @Edwardian regarding east vice south Devon, the answer is probably that good historian’s one : it depends.

 

I think the biggest factor is whether each shipment will be a complete wagon load or a part load, or a small consignment.

 

If a wagon load then the originating railway may well provide the wagon. It might be worked through to a foreign company destination (and incur charges etc via the RCH) or it might work to a recognised transshipment point where it is off loaded and loaded into the foreign company’s wagon.  The nature of the load may well dictate whether through worked or transshipped. 
 

If a part load in a wagon, I think this would increase the likelihood of transshipment.

 

If a small consignment it might go in a road van or station truck type arrangement, transshipped as required to get it to its destination either home company or foreign.

 
Hope this helps

Duncan

[drduncan]

Regarding the maritime aspects. Again this depends on the type of load and it’s bulk. You are unlikely to charter a ship.., (because we’re talking about loads of 100s if not 1000’s of tons…

 

This is the age of break bulk cargo shipping via tramp steamers and cargo liners.  
 

If you had a perishable, high value or quick delivery cargo you might be able to get it on a cargo liner operating a fixed timetabled service via an agent. This would require you to get your cargo to the liner port (by coaster or rail).

 

Tramps (ie no timetable but taking the most economical route needed to drop off cargoes) is more likely (and they tended to be smaller than cargo liners so could get into more places). Greater choice of where to pick up your cargo but you still need to get it there by coaster or rail…

 

Again I hope this helps.

 

Duncan

[Schooner]

Not that it matters, I was simply trying to conjure an image of Not Southampton, but...

 

On 23/05/2023 at 18:51, Edwardian said:

I'd start by denying the existence of the LSWR

Correct. Dapol have yet to release their O gauge B4, so at the moment we are still The Midland in South Devon with the 1528-a-like. Better? Perhaps that was how I was able get@Tricky on board...

 

On 23/05/2023 at 18:51, Edwardian said:

I would define as lying between the Exe and the Plym

Almost correct. Torbay and the Tamar. The Teign and the Exe are quite distinct, lie within Slyme Bay by any definition and, crucially, require some Northing after passing Portland. For once Government has it about right.

 

On 23/05/2023 at 18:51, Edwardian said:

which I suspect is the place you mean because I think you posted a picture of Topsham recently!

Correct! Well...captioned as Topsham and posted as such, but I'm not entirely convinced. Yet to track it down; if not Topsham it'd be a good spot to interrogate.

 

13 hours ago, drduncan said:

I think the biggest factor is whether each shipment will be a complete wagon load or a part load, or a small consignment.

Familiar, reasonable and useful* answer, thank you. Only under exceptional circs would a company send an empty wagon to foreign parts, then?

 

*For working out what foreign wagons might have made it to Victoria Quay, why, and what stories they could tell. None and none then, really. Might have to move it to the Itchen as an outlying part of Southampton Docks...!

 

FWIW

13 hours ago, drduncan said:

because we’re talking about...

...a small coaster, if it's up a South Devon river. In this case

a vessel of 301Gross Register Tons; 117 Net Register Tons (with Douglas IoM standing in for Dartmouth)

which at 1:43 actually scales out to c.270GRT/105 NRT; and I'm tempted to model even that comparative slip of a thing aground with just the bow on the quay, so it can sit along the back edge of the baseboard and make the most of the scarce scenic area. The resulting change of plans might also go some way to explaining the rather strange shunting shenanigans going on around her booked berth...!

 

In coal terms, so my working can be checked,

• 55lb coal per cubic foot
• 100 cubic foot per Register Ton
• c.2.5 tons (Imperial) per Register Ton
• 3-4 Register Tons per coal wagon
• 35-25 coal wagons per small steam coasting collier

...or a fairly typical sailing coaster. Continuing with Ceres as our archetype, at 55NRT but only 85 Deadweight Tons (Imperial) to her marks, that's 9-10 coal wagons.

...but a few more horse carts.

 

An average tramp steamer of c.1900 would be around 8,500DWT...

...which is a fair number of wagons in any metric!

 

And yes, any vessel stopping by a place such as Victoria Quay will have done so only on instruction, definitely no liner service! Although a low-relief cross-river ferry terminal behind a cassette might suggest its own little platform off-stage and excuse a scheduled connecting rail service... :)

Edited May 24, 2023 by Schooner

[Schooner]

a) Sorry, I failed to acknowledge all the excellent images of terrifying carriages. Thank you, they were all new to me. Consider me inspired and appalled in equal measure.

 

b) I'm an idiot, @drmditch's a genius and my wallet is in trouble. 

[drduncan]

Being more used to GRT than DWT and more used to looking at the records for 1914-8 and 1939-45 than 1909 I’d say that 8,500 is a very big tramp pre 1917ish ‘Standard freighter’ design. WW2 Liberty and Empire ships were in the 8000 to 10,000 GRT bracket (without dashing off to consult my books). Around 1900 I’d be expecting an average of 2500-4000 GRT.

 

BTW can you do your calculations for China clay rather than coal for your sailing schooner example. It would be extremely helpful!

 

Duncan

[Michael Crofts]

On 23/05/2023 at 18:51, Edwardian said:

 

Well, I'd start by denying the existence of the LSWR in South Devon, which region I would define as lying between the Exe and the Plym, a region gifted with abundant blessings, chief amongst which was the Great Western Railway. I would not count a johnny-come-lately descent from the North into Plymouth, and I would count everything lying east of the Exe as East Devon, which I suspect is the place you mean because I think you posted a picture of Topsham recently!

 

Having been thus pedantic and unhelpful, I have no idea what the answer to your question is.

 

Bah!

 

Well I suppose it depends what you do end up deciding is South Devon, but here's Plymouth Barbican and a re-post of my photos of the remaining track on Sutton Wharf (can't find my photos of North Quay). Our boat's home berth at present is Sutton Wharf so I stumble over the old rails and uneven setts frequently. Sutton harbour lies off the Cattewater and is definitely in Devon. I'd say it is in South Devon.

 

 

 

The next link is to a small collection of photos of the LSWR's presence on Sutton Wharf. The Sutton Harbour branch opened in 1879 from Friary Station to Sutton Harbour passing under Exeter Street in a tunnel.  It then crossed Sutton Road and ran on to North Quay, then wagon turntables gave access to Sutton Wharf where there remains one of the two remaining bits of original broad gauge track which I know of. Incidentally, one thing which I don't think everyone gets right is model setts. It's normal to depict these with every block the same as every other but in many cases the width was fairly regular (so a row of setts formed a straight line) but the lengths definitely weren't all the same - or all the same colour.

 

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Michael Crofts