Lner / Southern joint station?

[jonhall]

And back to the OP, don't forget Dover (LNER)*

 

Jon

*As painted on the NRM's PLM/SNCF ferry van.

[billbedford]

The GC London Extension was certainly built to a "Continental" loading gauge , larger than the British norm , and this is frequently referred to in accounts of the London Extension. This must mean that Watkin was serious about the idea of through Manchester-Paris trains - though whether he had fully thought out the implications across London is another matter

 

 

The GC London Extension was built to the same loading gauge as the existing Manchester-Sheffield main line. Had it been otherwise there would have been some sort project to widen/replace Woodhead tunnels. A project for which history remains stubbornly silent.

 

Perhaps one of the 'Must have built to a continental loading gauge' crew would like to tell us exactly what loading gauge the line was supposed to have built to? There is a clue, the NRO holds a very large book of diagrams of civil engineering design details that were used during the construction of the extension. All that is needed is to match the loading gauge in those diagrams with a contemporary continental one and then we can all rest happily.

[chaz]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

 

Returning to the OP I think we can summarise...

 

There never was a joint station where LNER and SR Pacifics could be seen in regular service together

 

The SR Light Pacifics were quite widely travelled, and on occasion were used on "foreign" metals for short periods.

 

LNER V2s and B1s (I believe), but not Pacifics, travelled south when the Bulleid Pacifics were out of use with problems.

 

Various locos appeared in areas where they didn't usually venture on specials, particularly towards the end of steam.

 

LNER and SR Pacifics do share the same metals today on the preserved lines.

 

Rule One applies to any model railway, but wide deviations from reality are, by definition, unrealistic! If that doesn't matter to you then anything goes.

(Very few modellers don't invoke Rule One to cover some departure from the one true way......)

 

Chaz

[The Stationmaster]

The GC London Extension was built to the same loading gauge as the existing Manchester-Sheffield main line. Had it been otherwise there would have been some sort project to widen/replace Woodhead tunnels. A project for which history remains stubbornly silent.

 

Perhaps one of the 'Must have built to a continental loading gauge' crew would like to tell us exactly what loading gauge the line was supposed to have built to? There is a clue, the NRO holds a very large book of diagrams of civil engineering design details that were used during the construction of the extension. All that is needed is to match the loading gauge in those diagrams with a contemporary continental one and then we can all rest happily.

Please refer to Post 44 in this thread in which I gave some loading gauge details for the London Extension 

[Spannerman]

Chaz thanks for the synopsis. Pretty much as I thought, I will have to make it up.

 

However the points arising have been very interesting and certainly pointed me to some good back stories if nothing else.

 

Cheers to you all

 

Nik

[Joseph_Pestell]

Back to the Met line question, remember the original Met was built with very wide tunnels to take broad gauge stock; the track was indeed dual gauge, so there would have been little difficulty fitting continental size stock there. The Met A stock was the widest stock to run on any British railway system!

 

The Widened Lines were built to C1 stock on the St.Pancras bit; York Way and Hotel Curve could only take short suburban stock due to the sharp curves, so no big locos there! Stanier 2-6-2T locos were used on the Midland services to Moorgate.

 

ISTR reading that Watkins' grand plan was for through trains to run from the GCR onto the Met, then via the Circle to Farringdon, then via Snow Hill to the continent.

 

Meanwhile, back to the original question, an A4 ran out of Waterloo in about 1966/67 on a special, so it WAS possible to see an A4 and Buliied pacifics together!

 

 

I have seen many photos of that excursion. It ran to Weymouth.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I think that we have clearly established that there is no suitable location where an A4 would have regularly been seen with a Southern Pacific. It's not even that easy to come up with a "might-have-been".

 

The GC London Extension is one of the more fertile possibilities and, in particular, a link from Watford to Staines/Feltham via Uxbridge with various junctions linking other lines. The through station at Uxbridge, alongside the canal and river, could make quite a compact model with scenic breaks formed by the Oxford and Slough roads. Operationally, it could well be the exchange point for locos on inter-regional trains.

 

Such a link was proposed several times - most recently in a 1948 Government report.

[Clive Mortimore]

While day dreaming on this mornings dog walk I had an idea.

 

What if the Chunnel had been built in the 1920s and a new line built through Kent crossing the Thames in the Purfleet and Grays area of Essex and then went on to link up with the GER at Cambridge? Thus gaining access via Peterborough and the ECML to most northern cities. There would have to be a station near Brentwood that would serve as the locomotive exchange point for the SR and LNER and provide a link to the line to Liverpool Street.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Clive Mortimore

[asmay2002]

What if the Chunnel had been built in the 1920s

The line through the tunnel would have to have been electric.  Probably 1500v dc.  With his electric experience Sir Vincent Raven would have become CME of the LNER. 3rd rail on the SR would have been restricted to ex LSWR lines and probably phased out. The LBSCR overhead would have been retained. The ECML would have been electrified and the Gresley pacifics terminated after the small number of prototypes.

Edited September 14, 2013 by asmay2002

[Spannerman]

While day dreaming on this mornings dog walk I had an idea.

 

What if the Chunnel had been built in the 1920s and a new line built through Kent crossing the Thames in the Purfleet and Grays area of Essex and then went on to link up with the GER at Cambridge? Thus gaining access via Peterborough and the ECML to most northern cities. There would have to be a station near Brentwood that would serve as the locomotive exchange point for the SR and LNER and provide a link to the line to Liverpool Street.

I would reply liking this message if I knew how to!:-)

 

Nik

[ForestPines]

Yet more daydreaming: at a couple of points in the mid-20th century, the national unification of Britain and France was twice proposed - once by Churchill's war cabinet government in 1940, and once by the French government in 1956.  If it had gone ahead - and once the wars that prompted the proposals had been resolved - the new state would have wanted to improve transport links between its island and continental provinces, in order to help unify the national economy.  So that gives us a 50s or 60s Channel Tunnel - personally I like the 50s variant, because the "natural" technology choice would have been 1500V DC, with an expanded fleet of EM1s and EM2s to run it!  However electrifying the whole network would have been a bit too costly - so once again you have lots more potential for LNER classes to work into Kent with through trains to the southern half of the country via the tunnel!

[Jack P]

Might just ask this here - considering all things LNER/Southern


For how long after the war were LNER coaches seen in use behind something southern?

[Suzie]

While day dreaming on this mornings dog walk I had an idea.

 

What if the Chunnel had been built in the 1920s and a new line built through Kent crossing the Thames in the Purfleet and Grays area of Essex and then went on to link up with the GER at Cambridge? Thus gaining access via Peterborough and the ECML to most northern cities. There would have to be a station near Brentwood that would serve as the locomotive exchange point for the SR and LNER and provide a link to the line to Liverpool Street.

 

 

 

...  So that gives us a 50s or 60s Channel Tunnel - personally I like the 50s variant, because the "natural" technology choice would have been 1500V DC, with an expanded fleet of EM1s and EM2s to run it!  However electrifying the whole network would have been a bit too costly - so once again you have lots more potential for LNER classes to work into Kent with through trains to the southern half of the country via the tunnel!

 

I like the idea of a 1500V DC line to the channel, but surely it would go via Cambridge, Lincoln and Sheffield to the north?

[Joseph_Pestell]

Might just ask this here - considering all things LNER/Southern

 

 

For how long after the war were LNER coaches seen in use behind something southern?

 

Ex LNER coaches certainly made it into formations on the S&D so would no doubt have featured with West Country Pacifics. I think probably through until about 1962 but I would need to check some of the many books on the S&D.

[Nick Holliday]

A handful of Gresley catering coaches were transferred to the Southern and were seen in either green or maroon liveries and some survived to be painted in the later blue/grey livery.  Try a Google search for Gresley catering southern 

[chaz]

Was there not an inter-regional service to somewhere on the south coast from somewhere on the ER or NER that used two train sets - one made up of ex-SR stock, the other of LNER Gresley teak? I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't remember the destinations in either direction.

 

As an aside I do remember travelling from WGC to Brighton when I was a kid on a special - a rake of teak with a class 24 diesel on the front. As I recall it rained for the whole day. Brighton prom' with horizontal rain - nice.

[Clive Mortimore]

Was there not an inter-regional service to somewhere on the south coast from somewhere on the ER or NER that used two train sets - one made up of ex-SR stock, the other of LNER Gresley teak? I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't remember the destinations in either direction.

 

As an aside I do remember travelling from WGC to Brighton when I was a kid on a special - a rake of teak with a class 24 diesel on the front. As I recall it rained for the whole day. Brighton prom' with horizontal rain - nice.

Hi Chaz

 

Bournemouth -York services via the GCR were SR and NER stock.

[Trog]

 

The Chemin de fer du Nord was built to a much larger loading gauge than is normally used in Britain - as can be seen any day of the week at Paris Gare du Nord.

 

Wow you mean you can see into the past! 

 

The northern French railways were I believe widened out to the Berne Gauge standard, from their as built loading gauge finishing in the mid 1930's. Just in time for the sudden increase in Franco German rail traffic during the first half of the 1940's.

[Ravenser]

Wow you mean you can see into the past! 

 

The northern French railways were I believe widened out to the Berne Gauge standard, from their as built loading gauge finishing in the mid 1930's. Just in time for the sudden increase in Franco German rail traffic during the first half of the 1940's.

 

Without supporting reference I admit I'm a bit sceptical of this . Significantly altering the loading gauge would be a huge operation involving complete rebuilding of every bridge and platform - which is why it's not an option in Britain

 

While I'm not an expert on French railways , the fact is that the SNCF Reseau Nord /former Chemin de Fer Nord are certainly to the same/very similar loading gauge as the rest of the SNCF today. And I've never come across any suggestion that it was ever different , or that there was a huge interwar rebuilding programme to change the loading gauge. 

 

More specifically I do have quite a substantial book on the Grande Ceinture and nowhere in that does it suggest that there was any difference in loading gauge between the Nord and the other French companies - since the whole point of the Ceinture  was to exchange freight trains between the various lines out of Paris, a significant difference in loading gauge on one , restricting the vehicles it could take , would have been an important operational issue , and I'd expect it to be mentioned . Even more compelling is the fact that for many years the Grande Ceinture was operated by 0-6-2+2-6-0 du Bousquet articulated locos, built from 1910 to an existing Nord design . These things , in the photos, are visibly big, and the width across the side tanks, the height of the cab and the two long tubes mounted on top of a large boiler all look well in excess of anything the British loading gauge could accomodate. But evidently the Nord before World War 1 could take them very happily

 

http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/bousquet/bousquet.htm

 

Finally it seems inherently unlikely that the Nord was built to a significantly smaller loading gauge than other French railways, since as I understand it, all French railways were built by the state , and engineered by the same small pool of government engineers trained in the same Grande Ecole , but then leased to private railway companies to operate. (This certainly applies for the 1840s when the Nord main line  - and the PLM and P-O main lines -were built). I'm struggling to see why main lines built at the same time by the same small group of people for the same ultimate boss, as part of a national programme would be to radically different loading gauges. Especially when the French state , with it's tradition of rigid centralised uniformity, was involved....

 

A programme of modest clearance adjustment in a limited number of tight spots seems possible , but a wholesale rebuilding from something like the British loading gauge to Berne gauge across Northern France doesn't, so I'd be grateful for some specific references.

 

(While obviously quite a large area of Northern France needed reconstruction after WW1, and any loading gauges might have been addressed at the time, the mainline from Gare du Nord to Calais was not in the area of the fighting, except for brief periods around Amiens)  

 

In the absence of specifc details to the contrary, I'd still say that the loading gauge from Calais to Paris was always substantially larger than in Britain, although as built it may not have been exactly the same as the current Berne gauge      

 

[but we're some way away now from the original enquiry about whether big LNER steam and Bulleid Pacifics could be mixed at any location] 

Edited September 19, 2013 by Ravenser

[Dunsignalling]

In the early sixties there was, in summer, a weekly through service between Exmouth/Sidmouth and Cleethorpes via the S&D line. 

 

It was worked by one set of SR (mainly Maunsell) and one of ER (mainly Gresley) stock each of which remained on the other region until the following Saturday. I don't think Exeter were above 'borrowing' the ER set for midweek excursion traffic when it was at their end.

 

John

[The Stationmaster]

 

 

While I'm not an expert on French railways , the fact is that the SNCF Reseau Nord /former Chemin de Fer Nord are certainly to the same/very similar loading gauge as the rest of the SNCF today. And I've never come across any suggestion that it was ever different , or that there was a huge interwar rebuilding programme to change the loading gauge. 

 

 

Rather amusingly there are some things which are in gauge in Britain but out of gauge on the Nord Region of SNCF - they are 3rd rail collector shoes (hence the threat at one time to put a large block of concrete at the entry to SNCF territory at the French end of the Chunnel in order to remove any which happened still to be 'down' when a entered SNCF territory).

 

(At the UK end a similar task for pantographs was carried out, at various times by the station footbridge at Sandling and a signal gantry at the east end of the tunnel.)

[roythebus]

But would Bullied Pacifics or A4s have been out of gauge at those places?

 

ISTR reading that a batch of French electric locos were built to Stephenson gauge for CT use in the early 1960s. As that project never got far under the ground, these locos were then normally used in a certain part of France which WAS built to the Stephenson gauge!

[Nearholmer]

“So that gives us a 50s or 60s Channel Tunnel - personally I like the 50s variant, because the "natural" technology choice would have been 1500V DC, with an expanded fleet of EM1s and EM2s to run it!”

 

Much as 1500V dc would be entertaining, it was well understood by the early 1950s that it was a bad idea when compared with 25kV ac. Indeed, there is a hefty report written for the BTC earlier than that which effectively says: ‘we think 25kV is the way to go, but let’s just wait a bit to see how the French get on.’ The French got on very well.

[Zomboid]

Holy thread resurrection, batman!

 

I have been pondering an idea for an LNER/SR joint station, which I may as well post here... It's basically that the LSWR (or SECR) continued north from Reading, to a station in Oxford, near the Cherwell/ Headington Road area, and at a later date the GCR London extension had a branch built to meet it there.

 

Works best if I imagine that the Reading to Basingstoke line was not GWR and actually branches off the Southern route at Earley and runs to the SWML along the route of the river Loddon. This then provides a route from the GCR north of Buckingham directly to Southampton, hence a reason for its existence.

 

"Oxford Headington Road" could be a terminus, but I prefer to imagine a nice art deco through station in the style of Surbiton, but built from the yellowish stone that much of Oxford is built from.

 

Maybe in a million years time I'll build something along those lines...