Proposed GWR electrification in the 1930s/1940s?

[OnTheBranchline]

How detailed/serious were the predicted calculations of the GWR electrifying the Taunton to Penzance route or was it just a bunch of basic estimates/high level stuff (aka halfhearted)? 

Edited November 14, 2022 by OnTheBranchline

[woodenhead]

If they followed in the musings of Brunel and his atmospheric railway then likely it was be achieved by 100 cats on treadmills chasing 1000 mice also on treadmills who 10,000 elephants believed they were running away from on treadmills attached to a dynamo to create a DC charge to get 1 electric locomotive banker up the Devon banks at 5 miles per hour.

 

However, the boat carrying all the elephants sank and so thanks to the GWR we now have a decidedly small number of elephants left in the world.

 

Until the ship sank, the GWR were deadly serious about electrifying the Devon banks but realised that it would never work without the elephants and there wasn't enough cheese to attract the mice and when it came to the cats, without the elephants and the mice, well they just laid down for a nap.

[Robert Shrives]

Hi Certainly not half hearted by sister has handled documents and a heavy illustrated tome in a commercial archive for Merz and McLellen  along the lines of the LNER version showing  schemes and traction another private scheme that floundered with WW2 . IIRC the idea was a London - Reading suburban network and then a Taunton - Plymouth  scheme for electric traction over the hills.  Likely as assisting locos on many trains so steam loco could heat train in winter.    

Robert 

[woodenhead]

In reality, it was a lack of money I understand

 

 

[woodenhead]

Given the LNER were correct about the impact it would have on the Woodhead route and how BR managed to clear most of the route of steam traction then had the GWR followed similar plans it could have begun an electric revolution on the Railways, the LMS though had chosen 25Kv as their trial on the Lancaster to Morecambe route, given where DC went in the 1950s then it seems the LMS were on the right lines.

 

Had it not been for the war I expect all three would have expanded the experiments, Woodhead had already begun as war broke out and the GWR would no doubt have looked at both the LNER DC and the LMS AC to determine which had longevity.

 

The fact that BR chose to still develop Woodhead after the war when all the signs were that AC was the future was more down to it being shovel ready and it quickly proved to be outdated ruling out any expansion beyond TInsley.

[rodent279]

And I suspect WW2 would have killed it eventually.

[woodenhead]

It does make you think, what would the GWR have adopted.

 

It interfaced with both the LMS and LNER, but it had a more nuanced relationship with the latter sharing lines out from Marylebone up to Princes Risborough.  Had the LNER gone full electric on the GCR route after Woodhead as well as it's plans on the ECML it would have made for an interesting interface with the GWR had they gone AC for routes immediately out of London for it's commuters.

[melmerby]

5 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

the LMS though had chosen 25Kv as their trial on the Lancaster to Morecambe route, given where DC went in the 1950s then it seems the LMS were on the right lines.

6.6kV at 25Hz in 1908 (Midland Railway.) Converted to 50Hz by BR in 1953 (still 6.6kV)

Closed following Beeching Report.

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, melmerby said:

6.6kV at 25Hz in 1908 (Midland Railway.) Converted to 50Hz by BR in 1953 (still 6.6kV)

Closed following Beeching Report.

My bad I saw the 25Hz and read it as 25Kv

[Johann Marsbar]

There was an article on the GWR plans for Devon & Cornwall electrification in (I think...) in a Railway World Annual about 40+ years ago. 

Don't seem to have that book any more, so it must have gone out in a book cull in the last few years.....

[rodent279]

11 minutes ago, melmerby said:

6.6kV at 25Hz in 1908 (Midland Railway.) Converted to 50Hz by BR in 1953 (still 6.6kV)

Closed following Beeching Report.

I thought it was 20kV?

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Robert Shrives said:

... electric traction over the hills.  Likely as assisting locos on many trains so steam loco could heat train in winter. 

If the Southern could fit steam heat boilers in their electric locos, there's no reason the Western couldn't have done so. 

[Robert Shrives]

Wickam G , IIRC and it was over 10 years ago I look at the book it was possible the electric traction was only hill tractors put on and off as assisting traction.  Ok for freight of course.  Mind you having a traction change might have seen more use of steam locos so quite possible steam heat versions like the EM2 was on the cards.  It is good to muse on the idea of GWR colour EM2 hauling trains along the sea wall, or 4 Subs with a motor coach each end to make a 6 car "fast Paddington - Reading in the 1930s peak hours.

Robert 

        

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

I thought it was 20kV?

All the sources I have checked say 6.6kV.

 

This page has more info on the branch:

https://glostransporthistory.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/electrif.htm

[Nearholmer]

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

the LMS though had chosen 25Kv as their trial on the Lancaster to Morecambe route,

I thought I was quite clued-up on the history of electrification, but I’ve not heard of that. Can you point me to more information?

 

EDIT: now read what everyone else has said. Melmerby by is correct.

 

So far as I know, the LMS had no mainline electrification plans, although the Midland did pre-WW1.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Nearholmer

[melmerby]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I thought I was quite clued-up on the history of electrification, but I’ve not heard of that. Can you point me to more information?

 

EDIT: now read what everyone else has said. Melmerby by is correct.

 

So far as I know, the LMS had no mainline electrification plans, although the Midland did pre-WW1.

 

 

I've now found another source (Midland Carriages - Essery & Jenkinson) which states the original electrification (6kV 25Hz) system was closed by BR when the vehicles became life expired and the line was later electrified at 25kV 50Hz as part of the experiments in high voltage electrification.

Mmm. I wonder where they got that info from?

 

I did find a glaring error about a former Midland Steam Railmotor which was later converted to a non powered vehicle. It says it is particularly historic as being the only vehicle that was formerly a SRM that survives in the UK, so who knows?

[Michael Hodgson]

If the GWR had gone ahead with this, it woud have been 25kV DC on the third rail, the live rail being laid 7' 0 1/4" aaway from one of the running rails.

[BachelorBoy]

Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Saturday 20 May 1939

[rodent279]

Wonder how they planned to handle the Dawlish problem?

[BachelorBoy]

8 hours ago, melmerby said:

I've now found another source (Midland Carriages - Essery & Jenkinson) which states the original electrification (6kV 25Hz) system was closed by BR when the vehicles became life expired and the line was later electrified at 25kV 50Hz as part of the experiments in high voltage electrification.

Mmm. I wonder where they got that info from?

 

Some interesting stuff bottom right in paragraph "OWN POWER"

[kevinlms]

28 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Wonder how they planned to handle the Dawlish problem?

An electric motor to provide a vacuum in a tube sealed by grease?

 

Or else an electric train, but using the motors to drive a hydraulic transmission?

[BachelorBoy]

38 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Wonder how they planned to handle the Dawlish problem?

 

Newspaper articles suggest the Dawlish diversion line was still looking likely it would be built, which would remove the electrification issue.

 

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, melmerby said:

I did find a glaring error about a former Midland Steam Railmotor which was later converted to a non powered vehicle. It says it is particularly historic as being the only vehicle that was formerly a SRM that survives in the UK, so who knows?

 

That statement was true to the authors' knowledge at the time they wrote, in 1983/4. The former Midland vehicle had become part of the National Collection, with which one of the authors was intimately connected, and had formerly belonged to George Dow, a very well known figure among railway historians. The project to restore Great Western No. 93 only began in 1998; Essery and Jenkinson may perhaps be excused knowledge of the complete list of what Didcot had stored away in the early 80s. Remember that information was harder to come by in those pre-internet days! So I would hesitate to call this a glaring error, even if it was incorrect. The Midland vehicle was at that time in a much better state to be restored than No. 93, though sadly nothing has been done in the intervening four decades.

[Nearholmer]

Duffy, Electric Railways 1880-1990, which is the “go to” book for the outline of the history of railway electrification, says that the M&M report for the GWR recommended 3000V dc, which is entirely consistent with best practice for long distance schemes in British influenced places at the time. He also says that the report may have been primarily an exercise in talking down coal prices, and seems possibly to have worked.

[kevinlms]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Duffy, Electric Railways 1880-1990, which is the “go to” book for the outline of the history of railway electrification, says that the M&M report for the GWR recommended 3000V dc, which is entirely consistent with best practice for long distance schemes in British influenced places at the time. He also says that the report may have been primarily an exercise in talking down coal prices, and seems possibly to have worked.

3000V DC was common in Europe at the time.