Castle Aching

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Is that at all similar to one of those long, thin churchwardian pipes?

 

 

I googled - it's churchwarden not churchwardian but looks more Gandalfian to me.

 

And there I was hoping it would turn out to be another bizarre musical instrument.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Compound2632

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, Edwardian said:

You'l  have to ask that funny little Hobitty guy if that's correct Parliamentary procedure! 

How would he know?

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Oh gawd, she's back.

 

Didn't anyone ever take a photo of a different MR 4-4-0?

[Edwardian]

38 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

How would he know?

 

You have to understand how the Mother of All Parliaments works:

 

- The Leader of the House has an imaginary friend who tells him what the rules are, though in fact, a little old guy in a white dress who sits on a throne a thousand miles away tells the Leader of the House what his imaginary friend says the rules actually mean. This is called "sovereignty".

 

- The Speaker of the House has a real friend, Erskine May, to tell him what the rules are, and a big ego and a little imagination to tell him what they actually mean. This is called "precedent".

 

- The Father of the House didn't follow the rules and so now has no friends. This is called "shameful", even though it means that he can't be whipped any more.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by Edwardian

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Oh gawd, she's back.

 

Didn't anyone ever take a photo of a different MR 4-4-0?

 

Posted as a specific response to a remark made by @Edwardian. Yes, indeed, other 4-4-0s are available, in what James would assert is infinite variety. For example, here's the first member of the 1562 Class, a group of thirty built at Derby in 1882/3, with 6'9" drivers and boiler pressed to 140 psi (Beatrice was of the 1738 Class, a group of 20 built at Derby in 1885/6, similar except having 7'0" drivers and boiler pressed to 160 psi).

 

 

No. 1562 is in original condition, probably green livery, and with the flatter middle part of the splasher. Beatrice has the full reverse curve profile to the splashers, which, I have lately learnt, is attributed by the best Midland experts to Edward Snowball, chief draughtsman at Neilsons, rather than to Johnson, though he took it up. Snowball and Johnson both trained with Charles Beyer early in their careers, so undoubtedly knew each other well.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

I googled - it's churchwarden not churchwardian but looks more Gandalfian to me.

 

And there I was hoping it would turn out to be another bizarre musical instrument.

 

Ceci n’est pas une pipe

[Hroth]

49 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

The Speaker of the House has a real friend, Erskine May, to tell him what the rules are

 

And everyone can pretend to be the Speaker, if they so wish!

 

https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/

 

ORDERRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

 

[Compound2632]

But is not Erskine May, like the Pirate Code, more guidelines than rules? A "Best Practice" guide. That's the weakness (and sometimes the saving grace) of a system that works by long-accumulated precedent.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Compound2632

[ian]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

... long-accumulated precedent.

 

Like this?

[Hroth]

7 minutes ago, ian said:

Like this?

 

Like Parliamentary shenanigans, that's an Improved Precedent!

Edited October 23, 2019 by Hroth
spelin agane...

[robmcg]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

Oh gawd, she's back.

 

Didn't anyone ever take a photo of a different MR 4-4-0?

 

I have planned a nice Johnson 'original conditin' pic for some time, and good photos to copy are rare.

Edited October 23, 2019 by robmcg
typo

[robmcg]

Did someone say 'George V' or was I dreaming?

[brianusa]

That very nice picture of Lady of Legend shows why it was advantageous to curve the frames to fit the tender outline as well as similar treatment at the front.  The final version with the larger tenders I think looked the best although nice to see it as original which in this case is best because of historical accuracy.

       Brian.

[Regularity]

1 minute ago, brianusa said:

historical accuracy

How long have you been reading this thread?

[Hroth]

6 minutes ago, robmcg said:

Did someone say 'George V' or was I dreaming?

 

George V  is difficult, he was a bit like the GWR, entering the Grouping era without changing his name....   Anyhow, LNWR KGVs are pretty well Precursors with superheating.

 

Quote

The Lady ...

 

She'll look interesting when they convert her to an Atlantic....

[Nearholmer]

“it's churchwarden not churchwardian”

 

That was the joke!

[Donw]

Thank you for some of the best pictures I have seen of the Madder Valley. While the detail of the modelling may  be rather finer today. Few layouts comme anywhere near to matching it for composistion and ambiance.

 

The problem with a system based on precedence is that if you do something new and get away with it it creates a new precedent and cannot be undone. Except of course when the supremem court overules something where there is a precedent and in doing so create a further one. There are no rules except those we make up which gain the aceptance of others.

 

Don

[Annie]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

In the Vita Nuova, Dante wrote of his Beatrice Ecce Deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi, which I admit could equally well be applied to Lady of Legend.

'Behold a god more powerful than I, who, coming, will rule over me.'

 

Very appropriate.

[Annie]

On 24/10/2019 at 11:06, Hroth said:

 

She'll look interesting when they convert her to an Atlantic....

Arrgh! - now you've gone and awakened my love of GWR Atlantics just when I'd got it to go to sleep.

(1905 Scott series  Atlantic 'Ivanhoe')

 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Annie
More information

[Edwardian]

9 hours ago, brianusa said:

That very nice picture of Lady of Legend shows why it was advantageous to curve the frames to fit the tender outline as well as similar treatment at the front.  The final version with the larger tenders I think looked the best although nice to see it as original which in this case is best because of historical accuracy.

       Brian.

 

Here we sit, notionally, in the mid-1900s, but actually the other side of decades of the "classic" Great Western 'look', which characterised the Grouping era and the Western Region of British Railways to the end of steam.

 

In terms of motive power, that 'look' is that of Churchward and his inheritors. Didcot is the place to see this; a big War Act shed containing rows and rows of Churchward-Collett types of all shapes and sizes but all having that familial similarity that, for us, is classically Great Western.

 

There is a nod to the Broad Gauge origins at the rear of the site, but almost nothing between the two. There is practically nothing of Armstrong and of Wolverhampton, or anything of Dean at Swindon.  The Lady and the Steam railmotor give us something of the Churchward era itself, but, really, Didcot does not represent the period of, say, 1850s/60s through to 1923.

 

That's no criticism; it preserved what was available and perpetuated what people remembered at the time, though the start of Grouping will soon be 100 years from us and even the 'classic' Great Western will begin to pass from memory. The effect, though, is to rob us of the context in which Churchward's designs first appeared.

 

What I mean by all this is that we inevitably view the GWR through a prism of Grouping and WR when the Churchward-Collett aesthetic was the characteristic look of the line.  As a result, it is pretty hard to imagine ourselves in the mid 1900s and experience what a jarring shock the American-inspired Churchward aesthetic much have been, both on a railway populated by Dean and Armstrong designs, and when compared with other railways of the time.  On lady of Legend, as you say, the straight drop of the front frames and, even more so, the straight footplate under the cab show the new look unsoftened by subsequent application of the draftsman's pen. 

 

Remember, this was 1902.  On other lines, locomotives were getting larger.  For passenger duties these were large-wheeled 4-coupled types; some Atlantics, but mainly 4-4-0s; still the standard express passenger wheel arrangement. Specifically these locos had larger boilers, which caused them to lose some of the elegance of the Nineties, as boiler fittings were squeezed against the loading gauge.

 

Nevertheless, these locos perpetuated the late Victorian style.  The increased heft looked ungainly in some instances.  In others a more powerful, yet graceful, appearance was achieved. Some designers even perpetuated the odd anachronistic design cue, like Drummond with his wing-plates. Complex flowing curves still ruled the day and driving wheels received a decent amount of cover from prominent splashers. The newer designs generally showed continuity with smaller, slim-boilered Victorian designs, which were, of course, still the characteristic locomotives of the day.

 

Against this background, the high footplates above a 4-6-0 wheel arrangement and coned domeless boilers of Churchward introduced a distinctly alien aesthetic at that time.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Very true - look at most contemporary photos of ordinary trains and stations, not the very newest express engines, and especially on the GWR things look quite amazingly antiquated ....... no surprise, given that everything on even a fairly prosperous railway lasts at least forty or fifty years in service, staff included, so the current average service life of everything taken together is always roughly 25-30 years.

 

Some very assiduous train-spotters would already have been prepared for the shock of the new, though.

 

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Very true - look at most contemporary photos of ordinary trains and stations, not the very newest express engines, and especially on the GWR things look quite amazingly antiquated ....... no surprise, given that everything on even a fairly prosperous railway lasts at least forty or fifty years in service, staff included, so the current average service life of everything taken together is always roughly 25-30 years.

 

Some very assiduous train-spotters would already have been prepared for the shock of the new, though.

 

 

Ah yes, the Midland Yankee Moguls. A predecessor of the modern British pastime of outsourcing the manufacture of everything. 

[Nearholmer]

There is a very strong argument to say that, in C19th, the main reason Britain could become “the workshop of the world” (albeit surprisingly briefly in retrospect) was by outsourcing, primarily outsourcing basic food production to the English-speaking colonies and the USA.

Lancashire might also be said to have outsourced cotton production, but that was mainly because of crop failures in the Irwell Delta cotton fields.

[Annie]

39 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Here we sit, notionally, in the mid-1900s, but actually the other side of decades of the "classic" Great Western 'look', which characterised the Grouping era and the Western Region of British Railways to the end of steam.

 

In terms of motive power, that 'look' is that of Churchward and his inheritors. Didcot is the place to see this; a big War Act shed containing rows and rows of Churchward-Collett types of all shapes and sizes but all having that familial similarity that, for us, is classically Great Western.

 

There is a nod to the Broad Gauge origins at the rear of the site, but almost nothing between the two. There is practically nothing of Armstrong and of Wolverhampton, or anything of Dean at Swindon.  The Lady and the Steam railmotor give us something of the Churchward era itself, but, really, Didcot does not represent the period of, say, 1850s/60s through to 1923.

 

That's no criticism; it preserved what was available and perpetuated what people remembered at the time, though the start of Grouping will soon be 100 years from us and even the 'classic' Great Western will begin to pass from memory. The effect, though, is to rob us of the context in which Churchward's designs first appeared.

 

What I mean by all this is that we inevitably view the GWR through a prism of Grouping and WR when the Churchward-Collett aesthetic was the characteristic look of the line.  As a result, it is pretty hard to imagine ourselves in the mid 1900s and experience what a jarring shock the American-inspired Churchward aesthetic much have been, both on a railway populated by Dean and Armstrong designs, and when compared with other railways of the time.  On lady of Legend, as you say, the straight drop of the front frames and, even more so, the straight footplate under the cab show the new look unsoftened by subsequent application of the draftsman's pen. 

 

Remember, this was 1902.  On other lines, locomotives were getting larger.  For passenger duties these were large-wheeled 4-coupled types; some Atlantics, but mainly 4-4-0s; still the standard express passenger wheel arrangement. Specifically these locos had larger boilers, which caused them to lose some of the elegance of the Nineties, as boiler fittings were squeezed against the loading gauge.

 

Nevertheless, these locos perpetuated the late Victorian style.  The increased heft looked ungainly in some instances.  In others a more powerful, yet graceful, appearance was achieved. Some designers even perpetuated the odd anachronistic design cue, like Drummond with his wing-plates. Complex flowing curves still ruled the day and driving wheels received a decent amount of cover from prominent splashers. The newer designs generally showed continuity with smaller, slim-boilered Victorian designs, which were, of course, still the characteristic locomotives of the day.

 

Against this background, the high footplates above a 4-6-0 wheel arrangement and coned domeless boilers of Churchward introduced a distinctly alien aesthetic at that time.

 

 

 

 

Very true James.  The Armstrong and Dean era is a fascinating period of GWR history of which nothing survives.  The Churchward era swept nearly everything that was of the old GWR away.  I'm not denying that Churchward designed excellent locomotives, but for me they hold no interest at all,  The only Churchward engines I have in my digital collection are the Atlantics, everything else I have is of the Dean era or earlier.

[Hroth]

And the only RTR Dean locos are Oxfords recent (and slightly iffy) Dean Goods and, the venerable Triang/Hornby Achilles of which another release is due soon!

 

I forgot, there IS another, the Hornby impression of the Class 2721 Pannier Tank.  Thats a Dean effort too!  They were originally saddle tanks but acquired the panniers after being rebuilt with a Belpaire firebox, so they may be more Churchwardiannny....

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_2721_Class

 

With the forthcoming Hattons 4 and 6 wheel coaches, perhaps some manufacturer should get a grip and produce a Dean loco to haul them.  Seeing as there's been lots of talk about Precedents and T26s, perhaps another 2-4-0 should be added to the list of Desirables, I give you the GWR Class 3206, the Barnum!!!

 

Sooooooo 19th Century!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_3206_Class

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by Hroth
spare word removal and a PANNIER TANK!