Imaginary Boardrooms

[Corbs]

It's interesting to note the relative sizes. At first glance they look too tall to fit, but it is the width that is the constraint. Or is it? It's 10-15cm extra each side.

 

Do you remember this 4 cylinder Baldwin 'might have been' for the GCR that was very nearly a reality?

 

Image by Robin Barnes

 

Makes me think about making a 'Big Five' at the grouping - if the GCR had combined with some of what in real life became the LNER and the LMS, and possibly the Metropolitan? Then they could continue their existing style and (since they are fictional) possibly buy exotic locos from the British loco manufacturers.

Did the GCR have a large loading gauge?

 

 

The London Extension was built to accommodate Berne loading gauge, but I am not sure about the rest.

 

 

I don't think the GCR would have been big enough - but if the grouping had happened earlier before the Midland-LNWR merger the Midland might have remained separate and entered the great race to the north in the '30s from London to Scotland via the Settle-Carlisle-Waverley route.

 

 

I mean what if a fifth company had been formed using the GCR as a north-south basis, e.g:

GCR

Met.

L&YR

SMJR

some others

 

Then there is another company to get involved in express trains, plus they have control of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

 

 

A logical alternative partner for the GCR is the GWR - they already had a joint operation.  Stir the LBSCR in, and award them the HR as topping.

 

Other three groups based on:

MR, LSWR and GSWR;

LNWR, L&Y, SECR and CR;

NER, GNR, GER, NBR.

 

That's competitively superior in making the groups of more similar size, nobbling every group with unprofitable lines, 'donates' Maunsell to the LNWR based group as they sorely need a competent loco designer..

 

 

This would undoubtably have helped the MSWJR at grouping, it got put into GWR who promptly ran it down, they just wanted the others NOT to have it.. Had the MR (who were owed money by the MSWJR) and LSWR been grouped the MSWJR would have been a vital link and porbably improved...

 

 

How would the GW/GC/LBSC connect with the Highland: more sensible to put it in with the LNWR group.

 

The other alteration would be to put the Rhymney into the LNWR group, and something similar such as the Taff Vale with the Midland-based group, providing competition for Welsh coal traffic, and access to/from Cardiff for 3 of the groups.

 

GNoSR with the East Coast group.

 

 

So do we end up with the Central and Western Railway, the Great Midland Railway, The London and Northern Railway and the London, Eastern and Scottish Railway?

 

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't mind having a go at a Super 8!

 

 

The Taff Vale were well on their way to amalgamating a group of Welsh-based companies, notably the Taff, Rhymney & Cardiff Railways. The Barry were dead-set against it, seeing it as a larger competitor. The geography of the Taff valley above Cardiff would have much changed, had the amalgamation gone through.

 

Ian.

 

 

That's their problem to sort out! Purchase or trade of running rights will do it.

 

 

If you didn't mind splitting up any of the pre grouping railways, then with a few short links,  goGC to  leeds NE leeds- harrogate in through the mass of North Eastern railways, then back out through  to the NBR and the Waverley route running rights through to just north of perth and the Highland.

 Possible back then but highly uneconomic..

 

 You can plan all sorts of imaginantive routes using this.. http://railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php

 

 

I did wonder about that. Did any lines get transferred at the grouping?

 

Just copying and pasting the conversation from the locomotives thread.

 

Did any pre-grouping lines get split up to go to different members of the big four?

 

 

 

[Poggy1165]

The Baldwin would have been a fantastic loco had it been built, but it would have involved opening up a tunnel or two before it could do its job, which was basically to haul South Yorkshire coal to Immingham. Then there would have been the little issue of getting it to Gorton for servicing/repairs, as they couldn't really have opened up Woodhead!

 

The GCR loading gauge was a lot less generous that some folk believe, and the London extension was not built to Berne gauge, which had not been invented at the time. I have the facts and figures somewhere, but in plain terms most of the GCR (including Manchester-Nottingham) was more generously built than (say) the assorted Scottish lines, but less so than the GWR. Some of the backwaters, like the Buckley Railway, had very constricted loading gauges indeed.

[Compound2632]

There wasn't any transfer of lines at the Grouping - witness the large number of joint lines that continued to be joint. There were some odd moves like giving the Midland Railway's route to Southampton (the M&SWJR) to the Great Western.

 

Grouping of some kind would have happened even without the Great War, by force of changed circumstances. The LNWR and LYR amalgamated a year before the grouping and their eventual amalgamation with the Midland was the natural progression from the working agreements that began in 1908. Likewise the Great Northern, Great Eastern, and Great Central were working towards a much closer relationship from around the same time - the Great Northern and MS&L having been long-term partners as far as Lancashire was concerned, before the London Extension was built.

 

Rather more interesting is the failed amalgamation between the Midland and the Glasgow & South Western, tried three times - in the 1870s, the late 1880s, and mid 1890s - the latter when both companies had the same chairman. The proposal was that the new company would be called the "Midland & Scottish Railway", with a rose and thistle as its emblem. The North British might have entered into the combine too, notwithstanding its East Coast connections. 

Edited January 24, 2018 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

The Baldwin would have been a fantastic loco had it been built, but it would have involved opening up a tunnel or two before it could do its job, which was basically to haul South Yorkshire coal to Immingham. Then there would have been the little issue of getting it to Gorton for servicing/repairs, as they couldn't really have opened up Woodhead!

 

The GCR loading gauge was a lot less generous that some folk believe, and the London extension was not built to Berne gauge, which had not been invented at the time. I have the facts and figures somewhere, but in plain terms most of the GCR (including Manchester-Nottingham) was more generously built than (say) the assorted Scottish lines, but less so than the GWR. Some of the backwaters, like the Buckley Railway, had very constricted loading gauges indeed.

 

Plus the through continental traffic via the Channel Tunnel would have to clear the Met's restrictive gauge.

[Corbs]

It just occurred to me, the amalgamated GCR/GWR railway.....

 

[runs as required]

This is a repost from Imaginary Locos (as suggested by Corbs)

The Black Hat on 18 Sept  2018 said
I was under the impression that the only area of the LNER never to post a loss during the companies whole operation was the NER area, whereas the rest of them at some point - did.

 

PhilJW on 18 Sept said 
The original intention on grouping was to have five companies, the 'big four' plus a separate company for Scotland until it was realised that such a company would not be financially viable. Of the companies that made up the LNER the GER was the most efficient considering it had very few mineral sources or industry in its area. In fact the GER railway posed a financial problem in a surprising way, part of the grouping agreement was that wages would be set at the highest rates (for the grade) of each group. The GER generally paid the highest rates, as much as 10% more than some of the other LNER companies. The cost of bringing the wage rates into line would have affected some of the lines in Scotland in particular.

 

1. I've read that Scottish companies were heavily capitalised from the very outset by English companies: the Caledonian by the LNWR,; the NB by Hudson's Yorkists. The Midland, not to be left behind, financed the G&SW; and the NB - particularly as a large investor in the Forth Bridge
   .
2. I've always wondered why the Tyne Dock - Consett line was not electrified like Shildon while the going was good.. The weight of traffic (like the Newcastle Quayside electrification) was uphill, not downhill like Shildon to the Tees.
    
3. Much is still made hereabouts of the 'heroism' of the miners in the 1926 strike. They de-railed the Flying Scotsman at Cramlington. Chopwell in NW Durham declared itself an independent Communist Soviet
    
4. Jack Simmons writes " the GER was poor through no fault of its own". What is he referring to?

dh

Edited September 18, 2018 by runs as required

[The Johnster]

The Rhymney, as TPH says close to amalgamation with the Taff Vale at the grouping, was more or less owned by the LNWR, who had bailed it out from near bankruptcy following it's failure to meet the cost of building Caerphilly Tunnel in order to develop their own route to Cardiff Docks.  They'd attempted to recapitalise with a share issue and the LNW bought the shares; a bargain for the Premier Line.  It continued to run as a separate company despite it's very close links with the LNW, though.  The LNW had a warehouse on Cardiff Docks and kept a loco at the Rhymney's East Dock shed to work it.

 

The Barry had close enough links with the GW to be allowed to hire brand new large prairies to work the Cogan branch (the main Cardiff commuter traffic) prior to the gouping, despite being virulently opposed during it's construction by the TV, which was originally a Bristol based enterprise and shared many boardroom appointees with the original GWR.  This meant that the first GWR loco to haul a passenger train into it's Clarence Road terminus in Cardiff's Dockland was driven by a Barry crew and hauling a Barry train!  The GWR also lent brand new small prairies to the Rhondda and Swansea Bay, another railway with close links to the Taff Vale, and these locos (I think there were 3 of them) were supplied in the R & SB's red livery.

 

Amalgamation into bigger, more economically resilient, concerns that could take advantage of economies of scale and achieve greater control over suppliers and customers, was a common theme following the end of the Great War, and some sort of grouping would certainly have occurred amongst Britain's railways without government intervention, though it would have looked very different as each 'group' would have attempted to cover as much geographical territory as possible in head to head competition with the others.  This would have proved disastrous in the Great Depression as they all chased the same diminishing traffic and resources!

 

If you want to play 'what if' with this scenario, the result would almost certainly have been that all railways would have been nationalised and traffic pooled with the institution of WW2 emergency regulations in the autumn of 1939, and would have remained so after the war.  Maybe it's just as well things happened as they did...

Edited September 18, 2018 by The Johnster

[Ravenser]

This is a repost from Imaginary Locos (as suggested by Corbs)

 

 

 

1. I've read that Scottish companies were heavily capitalised from the very outset by English companies: the Caledonian by the LNWR,; the NB by Hudson's Yorkists. The Midland, not to be left behind, financed the G&SW; and the NB - particularly as a large investor in the Forth Bridge

   .

2. I've always wondered why the Tyne Dock - Consett line was not electrified like Shildon while the going was good.. The weight of traffic (like the Newcastle Quayside electrification) was uphill, not downhill like Shildon to the Tees.

    

3. Much is still made hereabouts of the 'heroism' of the miners in the 1926 strike. They de-railed the Flying Scotsman at Cramlington. Chopwell in NW Durham declared itself an independent Communist Soviet

    

4. Jack Simmons writes " the GER was poor through no fault of its own". What is he referring to?

dh

 

I think what's meant is that the GE served the poorest areas of London with an extensive suburban network, and a very rural region with no heavy industry in an era of chronic agricultural depression. The markets it was constrained to serve had little money in them. Hence it was never going to prosper like the Edwardian NER or the South Wales railways of the same period

 

I suspect Consett might have followed Shildon - except the going didn't stay good. Shildon-Newport went live in either 1913 or 1915. If someone's car had not taken a wrong turning in Sarajevo and peace had lasted another 5 years perhaps it would have happened

[lanchester]

I think what's meant is that the GE served the poorest areas of London with an extensive suburban network, and a very rural region with no heavy industry in an era of chronic agricultural depression. The markets it was constrained to serve had little money in them. Hence it was never going to prosper like the Edwardian NER or the South Wales railways of the same period

 

I suspect Consett might have followed Shildon - except the going didn't stay good. Shildon-Newport went live in either 1913 or 1915. If someone's car had not taken a wrong turning in Sarajevo and peace had lasted another 5 years perhaps it would have happened

A thought re electrifying Tyne Dock - Consett. Whereas the SW Durham pits feeding in to Shildon-Newport had many different owners, and so presumably wouldn't all go bust at once, even in a recession, Tyne Dock- Consett electrification would basically be serving a single company - a lot of investment to write off if CIC went bust (as of course its predecessor had done in the 1860's). That thought might have influenced the NER's enthusiasm for risk?

[brack]

At that point in time were all of the supplies needed for Consett coming from Tyne dock? If the limestone was coming from weardale and the ironstone from Cleveland the traffic wouldn't be concentrated in the same way it was post Ww2.

 

Shildon-newport - Newport was a captive trade in one cargo between what was essentially 2 marshalling yards, no shunting, no lineside sidings.