What was a "Chip engine" better known as?

[Chris116]

My mother lived in Stockport and Portpatrick before she married my father. Once I was known as a railway enthusiast she was always trying to get me to find out what steam locomotive her father had referred to as being a "Chip engine".

 

At a question and answer session during a special weekend at the old Clapham Railway Museum I raised the subject but no one could give me an answer. I have twice in the past five years also asked at the NRM York but without success.

 

The only details she could give me were that it was a small black locomotive, on questioning her she thought it was probably a tender locomotive, which to her young eyes had a tall chimney and a large done. I think it was a locomotive seen around the Stockport area but she died in 1995 and I did not think to ask her where she had seen them. My father who died in 2011 thought it was Stockport but was not sure. 

 

Has anyone else ever heard of a steam locomotive being given the "Chip engine" nickname or was it something her father made up. I never met him as he did not want his daughter marrying the son of a priest for some reason that my mother did not understand.

 

The older I get the more my failure to find the answer to a question she asked me when I was a teenager annoys me. If a model of the locomotive is made RTR then it would be my next purchase and given that I run a preservation railway in model form it would be named "Kathy" in her memory.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

[Tom Burnham]

The term "chip engine" seems to have been used from around the 1880s to the 1920s for a mobile apparatus for frying potato chips.  Could that be a general nickname for a small, old loco in the same way as some were called "coffee pots" or indeed "kettles"?

[Titan]

Are you sure it is "Chip" and not "Ship"?   The Manchester Ship canal had it's own railway system for a while using amongst others 0-6-0 engines with flangeless wheels on the centre axle. I believe that this connected up with the Chershire Lines Committee Lines. If one of these got as far as Stockport would it have been referred to as a "Ship" engine?

Edited November 29, 2022 by Titan

[Dava]

Steam tram locos and later Sentinel shunters of the Y1/Y3 type were sometimes colloquially known as ‘fish and chip vans’. 
 

The Wigtownshire Railway under Thomas Wheatley had some vertical boiler  tram engines in the 1880s, they were not successful. They came from the Manchester area. The Portstewart Tramway ones in County Antrim both survive if you want to see one in Cultra or Hull transport museums.

 

Dava

 

[pH]

Could it have been a ‘chip van’? That was a nickname given to steam railcars. Some of those, built for the CLC and operated on CLC services by the LNER, ran on local services from Stockport.

 

https://www.lner.info/locos/Railcar/sentinel.php
 

(The reference to CLC cars operating around Stockport is in the ‘Railcar Operations’ of that page.)

 

Dava posted some of this while I was typing.

[Dava]

5 minutes ago, pH said:

Could it have been a ‘chip van’? That was a nickname given to steam railcars. Some of those, built for the CLC and operated on CLC services by the LNER, ran on local services from Stockport.

 

https://www.lner.info/locos/Railcar/sentinel.php
 

(The reference to CLC cars operating around Stockport is in the ‘Railcar Operations’ of that page.)

 

Dava posted some of this while I was typing.

The Sentinel railcars were also known as ‘camel cars’ in Scotland, my father rode one in Fife and on the Leslie branch in the 1930s. It took a while to work out that the name derived from the coach bodies being built by Metropolitan Cammell! 
Funny things, these names.

 

Dava

[Steamport Southport]

3 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

The term "chip engine" seems to have been used from around the 1880s to the 1920s for a mobile apparatus for frying potato chips.  Could that be a general nickname for a small, old loco in the same way as some were called "coffee pots" or indeed "kettles"?

 

Almost certainly. Like a potato or spud engine but had a fryer. Usually found in town centres or at fairgrounds.

 

Seems to have been more a Northern thing. You often find them lurking in the background in those books with loads of old town street photographs.

 

Can't find a photograph, but they were like a small traction engine.

 

 

Jason

[Wheatley]

The Sentinel loco allocated to Ayr (as produced for Model Rail) was known as the 'chip cairt' according to 'LMS Engine Sheds', so its use as a generic term for any small thing with a boiler fits. 

 

One of Wheatley's tram engines was reported to have ended up at a hotel in Stranraer, mot a million miles from Portpatrick, where it was used as a stationary engine to chop fodder for horses. 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Wheatley

[APOLLO]

 

Brit15

[Steamport Southport]

They were similar to these, but often bigger and sometimes self powered.

 

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/for-the-last-sixty-years-thomas-reay-and-his-father-before-news-photo/1151425185?adppopup=true

Edited December 1, 2022 by Steamport Southport

[Trog]

Could it have been an engine used for local trip workings, misheard.

[Chris116]

1 hour ago, Trog said:

Could it have been an engine used for local trip workings, misheard.

I don't think my mother's father knew much about railways from what my mother said and therefore doubt that he would have tried to explain about trip working. If I had ever met him I might have found out more but it never happened. 

 

I suppose the best that is possible now is to find a small tender loco which probably had a small boiler and could therefore have a longer chimney than most similar locos have. If such a loco was around the Stockport area just before WW2 then there is a good chance we have found the "Chip engine" and if there is a ready to run model then the preservation society that run services on my layout will have nameplates fitted saying "CHIP".

[phil_sutters]

18 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

I suppose the best that is possible now is to find a small tender loco which probably had a small boiler and could therefore have a longer chimney than most similar locos have. If such a loco was around the Stockport area just before WW2 then there is a good chance we have found the "Chip engine" and if there is a ready to run model then the preservation society that run services on my layout will have nameplates fitted saying "CHIP".

 

[Steamport Southport]

As suggested above a loco that is seen as old and not very powerful being forced to pull trains well over its capability. Probably that exuded a few sighs when it turned up just like some multiple units do today.

 

Stockport was LNWR and CLC so maybe something like an old 0-6-0 or small tank engine. Loads of them still about then.

 

Probably need to look at the allocations of the local sheds and see if there is anything that stands out.

 

 

Jason

[Wickham Green too]

Just a thought ( careful now )  -  Stockport's not a million miles from the Cromford and High Peak .... could 'CHIP' have been a local nickname for the C.& H.P. ???!?

[br2975]

"The Dock Street Chip Cart" was a nickname given to an absorbed ( ex Newport (South Wales) Alexandra Docks & Railway Co. ? ) GWR saddle tank used to shunt in Newport Docks during the 1920s.

[Chris116]

On 02/12/2022 at 09:41, Wickham Green too said:

Just a thought ( careful now )  -  Stockport's not a million miles from the Cromford and High Peak .... could 'CHIP' have been a local nickname for the C.& H.P. ???!?

Given that 58850 has a chimney and dome that are taller than the cab it is a good candidate when you add the possible nickname connection. Sadly the only model I know is the old GEM kit which I suspect is not anywhere near modern standards and if built and painted by me would be an embarrassment, remembering how the BEC and GEM kits I built in TT3 as a teenager turned out.

[Wickham Green too]

Though their spheres of operation were pretty limited, I'm sure the North London tanks would make a popular r-t-r model ....... and there were more of them than 'Lion', class 89 and GT3 put together !

[Chris116]

56 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Though their spheres of operation were pretty limited, I'm sure the North London tanks would make a popular r-t-r model ....... and there were more of them than 'Lion', class 89 and GT3 put together !

Another plus is that one is preserved on the Bluebell Railway which I can get to easily by train so I can have a good look at the real thing and a manufacturer could measure it up!

Edited December 5, 2022 by Chris116

[Nick Holliday]

2 hours ago, Chris116 said:

Another plus is that one is preserved on the Bluebell Railway which I can get to easily by train so I can have a good look at the real thing and a manufacturer could measure it up!

Although not RTR there is this https://www.cdc-design.net/nlr-75-class-park-tank.html which fits on an Electrotrain chassis. Their other products have received positive reviews, bit I’ve no idea about this particular one.

Ace Products also have recently introduced an etched kit in 4 & 7mm, although their products can be “challenging”.

[Chris116]

1 minute ago, Nick Holliday said:

Although not RTR there is this https://www.cdc-design.net/nlr-75-class-park-tank.html which fits on an Electrotrain chassis. Their other products have received positive reviews, bit I’ve no idea about this particular one.

Ace Products also have recently introduced an etched kit in 4 & 7mm, although their products can be “challenging”.

Thank you for that information but I don't have time or skills to produce a kit built loco that is also painted to my satisfaction. I will await our wonderful manufacturers doing their thing to empty my wallet.

[Nick Holliday]

17 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Thank you for that information but I don't have time or skills to produce a kit built loco that is also painted to my satisfaction. I will await our wonderful manufacturers doing their thing to empty my wallet.

As I understand it, the loco body would come already painted black, but without numbers or lettering, which CDC can add for a modest fee. It may fit directly on the Electrotren chassis with the minimum of work. Others in the range can have their appropriate proprietary chassis fitted within a few minutes, however there is no information currently displayed showing the work required for the NLR loco, but it may well within your skill-set.

[Chris116]

35 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

As I understand it, the loco body would come already painted black, but without numbers or lettering, which CDC can add for a modest fee. It may fit directly on the Electrotren chassis with the minimum of work. Others in the range can have their appropriate proprietary chassis fitted within a few minutes, however there is no information currently displayed showing the work required for the NLR loco, but it may well within your skill-set.

Once again many thanks. I will have to look into that.

[Steamport Southport]

On 02/12/2022 at 09:41, Wickham Green too said:

Just a thought ( careful now )  -  Stockport's not a million miles from the Cromford and High Peak .... could 'CHIP' have been a local nickname for the C.& H.P. ???!?

 

Miles away and hardly a place where random people are going to visit.

 

I have a strange feeling we are looking too far South.

 

On 29/11/2022 at 20:39, Chris116 said:

Portpatrick

 

Would have been loads of ancient locomotives up there.

 

 

Jason