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Loco Parts - The Birth of a Railway Tycoon

ThePurplePrimer

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ThePurplePrimer

ThePurplePrimer

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I have been trying to come up with a theme for my first railway for a good while now and never seemed to quite get a fix on something that inspired me.

 

I realised just how much I had been enjoying GWRob's thread ' A Nod to Brent'. Not only was it a nice layout with equally nice rolling stock but it now also had a backstory with characters that seemed to have lives of their own - and sometimes pretty 'interesting lives at that. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69664-a-nod-to-brent/

 

Then I remembered a post that seem innocent enough from our very own Andy Y - where he said "I'm not advocating getting you to turn into some kind of fantasist" - but ...

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/80066-branch-line-terminus-keeping-it-interesting/&do=findComment&comment=1272877

 

I started to see if I can work out how my planned railway might have come about and suddenly all the pieces started to fit together ...

 

The Birth of a Railway Tycoon

 

Miss Prudence Stephanie Dalton always knew she wasn't at all like the other girls in the convent school. Although they were all orphans, just like her, it is probably fair to say that she was the only one who was more interested in drills than dolls and had always considered any kind of tool to be the perfect toy. The only other thing she showed any interest in was her money box, a box that became heavier with each passing year as she saved every last penny of her allowance - she had often asked who provided for this allowance but had soon become tired of the shrugged shoulders and eventually she stopped asking but kept saving all the same.

 

Unlike some of the girls, she knew almost nothing about either of her parents. All she knew was that her mother had died giving birth to her and her father was little more than a rumor. She suspected it was more likely he had been a simple soldier rather than a colonel in reality but whenever he was referred to by the nuns, which wasn't often, it was always as "The Colonel".

 

As she grew older she became increasingly interested in her parentage but as much as she pried and cajoled, the nuns would never speak of her mother and would usually respond to any request for information about her with nothing more than a pitying shake of the head.

 

On the other hand there was that single occasion, when someone let slip, that her father was in fact an Englishman and had been here to "inspect The Railway". When people in these parts mentioned "The Railway" it meant only one thing - the Clogher Valley Railway, but why a colonel should be interested in the railway was never explained to her.

 

It was a well known fact that the nuns provided a first class education and the girls that left the convent and just maybe County Tyrone itself, were well equipped in both mind and spirit. She was no exception and was bright, with a real head for figures and tenacious to boot. There were many who thought she would go far - as far as any girl could of course.

 

At Last 1936 had arrived and now she was 16 she was allowed more freedom to roam. Poppy (as she was by now know to all ) found herself drawn more and more to the railway that was the only link to her past. As she spent more and more time around the line she began to make friends with many of the staff, who in the main, were happy to explain their part in the railway to her. From the lad who raked the boilers to the clerk who tended the books she made friends with them all. She took all of it in, and it was even joked that she knew their jobs so well that she could take the place of any of them, not that girls did such things of course.

 

The boilers were interesting enough, but the accounts, now those were fascinating. The railway had customers, it had plenty of customers in fact, but had only made profit in one single year of its entire existence and the reason for that was as plain to see as the freckles on her nose - the railway was reckless with it's spending. She could see potential savings everywhere she looked unlike those with the chequebooks and so it continued to slowly decline.

 

Poppy's 18th birthday was met with more excitement than most of the girls in the convent school but that's was hardly surprising. Most we're destined to either stay in the convent or be found places in the surrounding towns and villages as either teachers, nurses or governesses but there was every chance that they would spend the rest of their lives within County Tyrone. Somehow Poppy knew that something more exciting waited for her.

 

As she was presented with a parcel, that once unwrapped was bound to be a thoughtful but modest gift, she was also handed a letter. The faded envelope suggested that it had been written some years prior and a burst of excitement run through her. She was sure she knew what the letter would contain, the letter would contain answers.

 

After a deep breath she carefully opened the letter and after a second of these deep breaths she started to read ...

 

Now this isn't at all what she was expecting. The letter was from a solicitor, it was from a solicitor in England requesting that she visited their offices at her earliest convenience. That was it - no reason was given just an address. This letter contained no answers at all, she thought, just more questions.

 

The journey had been difficult and slow but now she was here she decided that Kent seemed a nice enough place as did the offices at 180 The High Street, belonging to Carnell Gorham & Warner, who she had been told, was the very finest solicitors in all of Tonbridge.

 

She was shown to a room were she met Mr Warner for the first time, it wouldn't be their last meeting.

 

Mr Warner explained that she had been left a considerable sum by a benefactor and while it would leave her comfortable for some time, it was far short of anything that could be considered a fortune. He also added that it came with two simple conditions. Firstly she was to study until she was 21 and at the end of that time she was to be qualified for a "serious profession" so she would be able to stand alone and provide for herself when the money that had been left to her had run out. The second condition was both simpler and at the same time more difficult - she was never to ask who her benefactor was - never !

 

When asked if she had a profession in mind she was surprised to see Mr Warner with an expression that could easily be mistaken for a smile as she answered his question.

He hardly looked like the kind of man that often smiled in the course of his work, if at all. "I would rather like to be an engineer and actually I do know a little about railways, so maybe that ?".

 

He explained that if she was serious, she would need to be accepted into The Institute of Civil Engineers and before she would even be considered by the institute she would need to complete an apprenticeship with a railway company. He added that he had "some connections" with a railway company and would write to the Rye and Camber Tramway to make the arrangements and that she should be ready to start the position by the end of the month.

 

Her time at the railway passed quickly. She was a quick learner, which was just as well as there was a lot to learn. With the three years completed she anxiously waited to hear from the institute and was surprised to learn that her application had been accepted straight away. Mr Warner however , seemed not to be surprised, not at all.

 

Mr Warner sat behind his desk quietly as he wrote the documents out. He was as calm as Poppy was fidgety and while he tended to some paperwork she flicked nervousely through the five dusty books that were perched, unloved, at the end of the bookshelf. Mr Warner explained that a company had been set up in the name she had requested - 'Consicio et Prudentia' and that funds had been placed into the company as they had previously discussed. He also showed her copies of the paperwork that granted her the rights to build her very own railway. The act for this railway had originally been passed as long ago as 1877 but had never been started let alone finished.

 

Now she had her own company and was soon to embark on building her very own railway empire and that was going to start with the Loose Valley Railway.

 

As she started to collect together the paperwork laid out on the desk in front of her, Mr Warner suggested she also took the dusty books she had shown such an interest in. The books had been sat on that shelf since 1797 when the firm had bought the building from the previous owner, one Frank Austen, who had been the cousin of the author. She happily took the books, she loved to read but had never read these.

 

She couldn't help but smile at her own joke as she looked down at the documents for her company. Consicio et Prudentia - this was the motto of County Tyrone where she had grown up and now it would be her motto also.

 

She smiled again as she read the words - Consicio et Prudentia - Wisdom and Prudence

 

>>>>>

 

To be continued - assuming anyone is still awake

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ThePurplePrimer

ThePurplePrimer

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Time to Kill

Poppy had time to kill while various documents laboriously made their ways backwards and forwards across the country to be signed, countersigned and witnessed. There seemed to be a lot of paperwork involved in running a railway and while that didn't phase her in the least, she was impatient to get started.

The one thing she could do was start to plan in more detail what would be required and when. One of the first things that would need deciding would be the gauge of her railway and the type of traffic she should aim for.

The Loose Valley Railway would be mainly a goods line and would initially serve the water mills that were based in the valley and had been for hundreds of years. The mills mainly produced paper of high quality and at least one was still involved in the making of hand made paper. One of the mills had recently restarted the production of gunpowder and it's transport by rail would require special thought. It was hoped that two of the mills that had closed immediately after the war might be reinstated with the introduction of the railway.

Applications had been made to build an interchange with the Standard gauge Tovil goods yard but she had been lead to believe by Mr Warner that she should be prepared for a long wait for the required permissions to be granted, if indeed they ever would be.

No matter, she had thought to her self, there was opportunity to expand in other directions by serving the many small farms who produced soft fruit, apples and especially pears that were used on the other side of the Medway for the making of perry.

Poppy was no fool and although she realised that goods would be the main source of income there was money to be made in a small passenger service to get workers to the mills and to the many factories in Maidstone itself from the surrounding villages.

Before they had settled on the dormant act for the Loose Valley Railway, another dormant railway act had been very briefly discussed but it was decided early on that a proposed route between Tovil and Headcorn was far too great a task for her first railway. Yes her first. It was quite clear that Poppy had ambitions far beyond this initial little railway and she would be bearing that in mind when she would be sourcing her first locomotives.

Secretly she had decided that one day she would build that line out to Headcorn and take in trade from the quarries at Boughton Monchelsea. The stone from this quarry had been sought after for centuries, in fact the original workings were considered to be Norman. Wisdom dictated that there was a good profit to be made by gaining the transport of that trade. The stone from the quarry had been used in the building of both Westminster Abbey the Houses of Parliament and fetched a good price. That stone needed to get to London and she was determined it would get there via Tovil and would arrive at Tovil via her line and that she would share in their profits.

Due to the nature of the geography in the Loose Valley and the tight twists and turns that it would enforce it was quite obvious that a standard gauge line wasn't going to be suitable. All her previous experience had been with 3' narrow gauge systems so was easily decided that narrow gauge was the sensible option but her line would be in 2' gauge. This gauge would provide the ease of laying they would need and with many mines and quarries starting to close across the country there would be locomotives readily available and best of all in Poppy's mind, they would be cheap!

One item she would be buying new was a small engineers trolley as this would be needed at the very early stages of the lines construction. A letter had been sent to a company in Frome, Worcestershire who had much experience in the building of such vehicles but had been told that at present they would be unable to provide one in the required gauge but they would start work on drawings for one that they would forward on as soon as possible.

Rough drawings had been started to demonstrate the simple modifications that would be required to any loco that would run on the LVR (she had now started to refer to it as such now) and these were mainly the addition of tramway style coverings for the wheels and motions. The line would cross cross a few small lanes and there was no money in the pot for gated level crossings at this stage and the regulations enforced on her insisted on these additions to the locos. The locos on the Coghor Valley Railway had these fitted so she knew what she needed but had yet to decide between the very simple but unattractive cow catchers fitted to the CVG locos or the far nicer ones she had seen in the photographs of the locos on the Lynton and Barnstaple line. She was in turmoil, cheap or pretty?

With the aid of some watercolour paints that she borrowed she had designed a simple livery and now thought to possible names for her first loco. Other lines used many different ways to identify their locos but she was sure she wanted them to have names rather than just numbers, she spent all day worrying about numbers. Maybe she would give them names of local rivers or maybe names of birds, she couldn't decide. In any case she had chosen the livery at least and had now returned the borrowed paints and brushes and commended herself on the savings made by not buying her own.

It wasn't all work though and Poppy was now on her second reading of the first of the books that she had been given in Tonbridge.

Pride and Prejudice had been completely enthralling and she had easily fallen in love with the characters. As she started to read it again she realised that she had stumbled on the name of her first locomotive. The first named character in the book would be the namesake of the first loco on the LVR. The first loco would be called Elinor.

She was highly amused when on the very same day the drawings of the engineers trolley arrived for her approval and she read the company's name emblazoned on the blue prints.

It seemed even the humble trolley was to have a name. The trolley, when it arrived, would be christened Mr Wickham.

Yet another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. All the locomotives fitted with skirts would be named after the female characters in Jane Austen's books and all those without skirts would be given the men's names from the stories.

As she dozed off she started to dream about what a very fine locomotive indeed Mr Darcy would surely be.

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Andy Y

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Then I remembered a post that seem innocent enough from our very own Andy Y - where he said "I'm not advocating getting you to turn into some kind of fantasist" - but ...

Take no notice of me Rob, you're doing just fine and it's a captivating back-story which has accompanied the second cuppa of the morning. Was 'Poppy' Dalton the founder of the Loose Womens' Institute?

 

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/loose-womens-institute

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ThePurplePrimer

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Will there be a Barming branch?

Interestingly and amazingly at this point in history Barming had three branches of the women's institute.

 

As most of you know that Barming is built on a fairly steep slope that runs down the the Medway and is basically a thin and long parish.

 

The branch nearest the river was known as the lower barming wi - the one at the top of the hill was known as the upper barming wi and the one in the middle quite simply as the middle barming wi.

 

The middle branch was located on the least steep part of the hill and seem to be most popular with the oldest ladies in the village. They enjoyed the walk down to the lower barming ( or L.Barming as it was known ) branch but hated the walk back home. Those that tried to make it to the upper barming branch ( U.barming ) often turned back exhausted before even arriving at the hall.

 

The one in the middle was of course "just right" and so was made up entirely of a membership of ladies over the age of 80 and half of them well into their 90s. It is unclear if this statistic had anything to do with branch commonly being referred to as the M.Barming Group

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Edge

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A nice little story :) I always think it is nice to put a little Keaton the bones of a fictional or freelance railway.

 

All of my railways were built by Ibis I Rail, an eccentric millionaire who must have rivalled the great colonel himself for the frequency with which he set up new railways.

 

His wayward son left for America, and there founded the Wolfhound Pass Railroad near Arthurstown :)

 

It's all a bit of fun really, so go for it. I look forward to the next instalment

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ThePurplePrimer

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Cobblers

 

Frankly Poppy was furious !

 

Mrs Clarke, the housekeeper of the guesthouse wasn't the most organised of women but this was considerably more infuriating than the time she had sent Poppy's boots to be mended and forgotten for a few days which cobbler she had used .

 

This was worse, by far.

 

This time Mrs Clarke had taken a letter for Poppy while she was out and "mistakenly" opened it. That in itself would have been excusable but after "taking a quick glance" she had somehow managed to lose the letter. She claimed to have searched high and low for it and would continue to do so but when Poppy noticed the newly lit fire in the hearth she decided that would certainly be a fruitless task.

 

Further quizzing only managed to extract a few single word answers as to the contents of the letter. "Engineer" , " Telegraph " , "Position" and she couldn't be sure but she think "broach" was mentioned " or was it coach?"

 

Poppy's face reddened a little more. 

 

She had placed, at considerable expense, a number of adverts in the London papers for a railway engineer, an engineer with 'experience in the design and manufacturing of  railway locomotives, passenger coaches & goods rolling stock'. It was reasonable to assume that this letter had been the only reply to the advert and now she had no idea who the man in question was or how to contact him. As she lifted her head from her hands she noticed that the now quite tearful Mrs Clarke was holding a photograph. "This was in the envelope" she said and handed it to Poppy. She turned it over, nothing, no name, no address, nothing.

 

Over the next week or so she showed the photograph to everyone she could find that she knew had any connection to the railway industry but all drew a blank. He obviously wasn't a well know designer at all but she was desperate - what to do ?

 

>>>>

 

post-20732-0-89531000-1395222259.jpg

 

Can you help Poppy?

 

This is the photo. Remember he isn't a known engineer but maybe one of you knows his name ?

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ThePurplePrimer

ThePurplePrimer

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Poppy received two phone calls who both offered the same name to the copies of the photograph that had been forwarded to various places where Mr Warner's staff had deduced he might be known.

 

The name they gave was Stan Dorsmein but both declined to leave their own name.

 

Oddly both the people who thought it was him said exactly the same thing when asked if he was in fact a railway engineer - they both responded with "Sort of " ?

 

Anyway a letter has now been written to this Mr Dorsmein and the postman has been given instructions that her mail is to be handed only to her in future. Poppy also made a note to buy kindling next time she was out.

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ThePurplePrimer

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Stay on the line :

 

Poppy was delighted to receive the telephone call from Mr Dorsmein so soon after sending the letter.

 

The conversation however was proving to be difficult as the line was awful and kept breaking up causing Poppy to only hear either the beginning or the end of most of his sentences. The war was playing havoc with the telephones. Occasionally she would hear only the middle of the sentence but she persevered in spite of the fact that distorted his voice to the point that he almost sounded foreign.

 

She tried as best as she could to gather the details of his previous experience but it was extremely difficult in the circumstances and she wasn't entirely sure she was understanding him properly.

 

The facts as best as she could gather is that he had been working abroad for some time and had only arrived back in England recently.

 

When she asked him about his railway experience he replied by saying he had been involved in the design and running of various "transportation systems" for his previous masters and has best as she could tell this had involved some form of mining as he mentioned some tunnels and the fact that much of his work had been underground.

 

She tried to get more details but the line was now getting worse and worse but he had appeared to have worked on multiple versions of this system for his previous employer as she clearly heard him mention V1 and V2 in his reply. The line now was almost unbearable but she heard him say he had left because his "previous employer was losing ... " - She never heard the end of the sentence so assumed he meant either money or customers ?

 

Poppy enquired if he was able to provide at least one reference and was amazed when he replied "9". Then when asked if he could forward them on he replied that he had lost his papers on the boat. It was all getting quite confusing and the poor phone line was starting to get unbearable. She tried to ask for the name of a reference but all she could hear clearly was a single word of his reply. This was getting ridiculous now - He clearly hadn't worked under Robert Stepheson but she was certain he had said "Rocket".

 

At last the line improved and stopped breaking up completely but amusingly still made Stan Dorsmein sound like he had an accent. She decided to offer him the job there and then and he accepted gratefully. He would be expected two start in two weeks time.

 

The LVR had secured it's first employee.

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ThePurplePrimer

ThePurplePrimer

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The LVR will very shortly start on the acquisition and even building of its locos and rolling stock

 

The vast majority of it will be rebuilt and / remodelled items she will buy in from various sources. Some of it might be bought new for the railway but most will be reused and repurposed.

 

She is intending to fit makers plates to the locos and is at the design stage of those. She is considering calling this part of her railway empire Phoenix Engineering.

 

This is of course a little bit obvious but it fits that operations practices so well she is seriously considering it.

 

Luckily back in 1942 where Poppy is right now the pedal out of the Loose Valley to the local shop is the only time she will think of the word that has become such an awful buzzword. Phoenix Engineering will be rebuilding, restoring and re purposing. Fortunately it will be 60 years before some berk calls it upcycling.

 

>>>>

 

So how do we feel about Phoenix Engineering as a name - I want to order some etched makers plates in but obviously need to decide on a name first

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ThePurplePrimer

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Hi john

 

Are you suggesting that you think it's a good idea as there are plenty of companies called phoenix or that it's a bad idea because of that fact ?

 

My extremely extensive research ( a few minutes in google ) suggests that there isn't a railway engineering company called that

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