Compound2632

Why not combine your visit to this meeting with going on to the Midland Railway Society South-East Area meeting, Earley St Peters Church Hall, Earley, Reading RG6 1EY, 14:30 - 17:30 on the same day? Open to members of all Line Societies, Associations, Circles, Study Groups or whatever in the vicinity. I know I'll be trying to get to Didcot in the morning, though I'm the organiser of the MRS event! If that doesn't appeal, Pendon's just down the road.

It comes down to which side has the longest pikes.

Just so. Damaged is a bit of an understatement! Burnt out in an intense fire on the night of 25/26 October 1940, courtesy of the Luftwaffe. The rebuilding and trackwork alterations in the 1966 photo were carried out in 1947/8. Looking at the two photos again, I see the layout actually gained an extra tandem in the rebuilding.

My maternal grandfather, as a corporation housing department foreman, was in the thick of that. He was born in Arklow but emigrated first to Liverpool then Birmingham to escape the civil war. He had a story about meeting his boss, the Clerk of Works, at a University of Birmingham graduation ceremony. The boss was rather full of his own son being a graduate and said something along the lines of 'Fancy seeing you here, Jack", to which my grandfather took great satisfaction in replying that this was the third such ceremony he had attended. Of his five children, all went to university, my mother, the youngest, the last, as a mature student in the late 70s.

These shows the trackwork after the post-war rebuilding of Birmingham Central Goods as a parcels depot rather than general goods station. The original layout, rather than having a tandem to the right of the three-throw, had a pair of the latter side by side: [Embedded link to Warwickshire Railways mrcgy928.] The Midland was rather partial to both.

You have to wonder whether all that froggery didn't offset any saving in using a stub switch.

In other words, US-style rail transport of coal in 50-ton gondolas with continuous brakes, hauled by Mountains or similar, is only feasible with the widespread closure of smaller goods stations and a switch to large-scale domestic distribution by road. In one's AU, is that really a price worth paying just for the sake of justifying bigger engines?

These have less detail than the Midland carriage marshalling books, which have enough information that one can usually identify the carriage diagrams - per the example posted above.

I'm pretty sure that a three-way, with overlapping switches, would only have been used in goods yards and would not appear, even trailing, on a running line. A tandem is like a tandem bicycle, one behind the other. What do you call a bicycle made for three?

Good to see a laid hedge modelled. Is it genuinely sheep-proof though? Is there any drystone walling in the area? As to the difference in pasture, there would be a number of factors, including whether the field was ever mown for hay or had had cows in it. I suspect the better pasture was always used for sheep, so kept well trimmed and fertilised, stimulating new growth. I look forward to DCC skipping lambs. Perhaps the poorer pasture could do with some thistles and cowpats?

Probably qualifies as sexist. If started at the fourth paragraph, might pass.

Every Kelvinside mantel had a pair, I'm sure...

Discreetly drawing attention to the - ahem - colour of the solebars...

I've found the efficient way to deal with this is to book something that you know will be of interests along with the thing that only might be of interest. Look at the speculative stuff first; if it turns out not to be interesting you've got the rest of the day to work on the definitely interesting stuff. But I have the advantage that I'm only 90 minutes away by stopping train, so it's not too big an expense.

Yes, that example is really two three-ways superimposed - or a tandem point and its mirror image superimposed.

Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night - at least with poor fuel and an inexperienced fireman.

But that's only one step in the handling process. I don't know about that. There was plenty of coal being transported by rail from the East Midlands and Yorkshire to London and places south thereof - a good 150 miles - and even further down to the South West. Where you got your coal from depended on what you were using your coal for. What is evident is, that however crazily inefficient the system looks to us now, it was efficient enough at the time.

Yes indeed - one sees them every day passing through Reading.

But that is driven by factors outside of the railway itself - the change from coal to electricity (and natural gas) in providing energy for industrial and domestic use.

Right, found it. My book is a collection of Rous-Marten's Railway Magazine articles, edited by Charles Fryer and published by Patrick Stephens Ltd in 1990. In October 1902, he wrote an article describing the new Johnson compounds, noting their affinity with the Worsdell No. 1619 - W.M. Smith does not get a look in. There he states that No. 2631, the Leeds-based engine, was working the 10:06am from Leeds and returning with the 3:55pm Glasgow Diner. The down train, originating at Leeds, had portions for Barrow, Glasgow, and Perth. It divided at Skipton and at Hellifield the two Scottish portions added carriages from Liverpool and Manchester and the Edinburgh train shed the Barrow carriages. It's unclear which half No. 2631 worked but the Edinburgh portion was van / compo / third (Leeds-Perth) / compo (Liverpool-Perth) / compo (Manchester Perth) - all M&NB 50 ft carriages per previous post) / Midland van, probably D530 (Manchester-Perth); load given as equal to 8.5 or about 130 tons tare. The Glasgow portion was a heavier proposition, so perhaps what the Compound took: brake compo / compo (Manchester-Glasgow) / van / 2 compos (Liverpool-Glasgow) / 2 compos / third / van (Leeds-Glasgow), all M&GSW 50 ft carriages apart from the vans, which were 6 wheelers, and the brake compo, a Midland 48 ft lavatory non-corridor carriage. This was equal to 12.5, about 200 tons tare. The return train was the 1.30pm from Glasgow. The formation of this had changed slightly from the photo in my previous post, being now all M&GSW bogie vehicles: van / third / third dining / first dining / compo / brake compo, equal to 11 (the diners being counted as equal to 2.5), about 170 tons tare. In November 1903, Rous-Marten wrote a 'performance' article. This is not reproduced complete, so I rely on Nock's Speed Records on Britain's Railways for the the information that the engine that attained 92 mph - 'several successive quarter-miles' in 9.8 seconds; one could wish he'd timed half-miles or even miles - was No. 2632. The train was the 11.50am from Carlisle to Leeds, about 240 tons, he says. In the Summer 1902 marshalling book, this was the 11.55am from Edinburgh and Glasgow to London: Midland slip compo brake (Edinburgh-Bristol) / brake compo / compo (Edinburgh-London, M&NB stock) / brake compo / dining compo / 12-wheel third kitchen diner / third / 6-wheel van (Glasgow-London, all M&GSW stock except the third diner), equal to 12, about 200 tons tare. The formation may have changed by the summer of 1903, or Rous-Marten may have been allowing 40 tons for passengers, luggage, and dinners. He also mentions another run from Hellifield to Carlisle with an afternoon express of 250 tons, in which 88 mph was attained coming down from Aisgill. This was probably the 1.30pm from London, the opposite of the 1.30pm from Glasgow described above, with a pair of 1893 diners and with the addition of a M&NB brake compo for Edinburgh, equal to 12.5, about 200 tons tare, according to the 1902 marshalling book. The 92 mph descending from Ribblehead is, I think, the highest speed for which Rous-Marten gives details prior to City of Truro's 100 mph in April 1904; he says it beats the 90.3 mph he got on the Nord with a de Ghlen Atlantic (another compound!) but he alludes to single quarter-miles at 90 mph and 91.8 mph (i.e. 10 seconds and 9.8 seconds on his stopwatch, which had a resolution of 0.2 seconds) with a L&Y Aspinall Atlantic. Elsewhere he alludes to getting 96 mph with a GW Atbara and a Midland Johnson Belpaire, but he gives no details.

I'm looking for my book of Rous-Marten articles. Meanwhile, here's a taster: posed photos, in Wye Dale in the Peak District, of the new corridor trains of 1899 for the afternoon Scotch expresses. These represent the extremes of the weight range. Glasgow express, made up of M&GSW Joint Stock: 31 ft passenger van number 203 (Lot 454, D568 - the corridor version of D530); 50 ft corridor third class number 203 (Lot 449, D564); 60 ft third class dining carriage number 1 (Lot 310); 60 ft first class dining carriage number 62 (Lot 365); 50 ft composite corridor carriage (Lot 450, D565); 31 ft passenger van (Lot 454, D568). The 12-wheel dining carriages are those built for the introduction of dining services on the London-Glasgow trains in 1893, modified with gangways to connect with the rest of the train. They remained on this duty until 1921. Note that the passenger brake vans were originally built with gangways at one end only; this was soon changed! [Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 64393.] Edinburgh express, made up of M&NB Joint Stock: 31 ft passenger brake van (Lot 454, D568) and 50 ft luggage composite (Lot 451, D468) (Bristol to Edinburgh); 50 ft brake composite (Lot 452, D566), 50 ft brake third (Lot 449, D564) and bogie dining carriage (Lot 440, D563) (London to Edinburgh); 50 ft luggage composite (Liverpool to Edinburgh); 50 ft luggage composite (Manchester to Edinburgh); 50 ft luggage composite, 50 ft luggage composite (all four Lot 451, D468) and 50 ft passenger brake van (Lot 453, D567) (London to Aberdeen). [Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 64394.]

No dining carriages of any sort? Ah, well.

Now you've got me on one of my specialist subjects... i suppose for this engine, we should be looking at 1902, for the summer months of which the Midland Railway Study Centre has a copy of the Anglo-Scottish marshalling book. There were morning, afternoon, and night trains between St Pancras and Glasgow, some with through carriages for Stranraer and for the Ayrshire Coast, and Edinburgh, some with through carriages for Aberdeen, Perth, and Inverness. Most of the carriages were M&GSW or M&NB Joint Stock, unlikely to be in your box of carriages; the later Bain 54 ft clerestories are likely to be the closest match. I'll have a rummage to try to work out which trains the first pair of compounds were used on.

There was, in 1919, a plan put forward by a Mr A.W. Gattie for an improved method of goods handling, known as the 'Gattie transport system', which I've not found very much out about but would appear to have been some form of containerisation. it attracted enough attention to be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, with a report published in December 1919. In a parliamentary debate, it was claimed that ' that the North-Eastern Railway Company asked Mr. Gattie to inspect their Hull Station and report on the possibility of installing his system there, and that Mr. Gattie reported that it would be necessary to clear away the existing station, thereby involving a capital outlay which the North-Eastern Railway could not undertake?' [https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1919-07-17/debates/724ebbb0-49cf-4f28-a666-a88f1a719fd9/GattieTransportSystem] It also completely ignores the subtleties of the coal industry: that many small communities required relatively small quantities of several different types of coal, from different seams within one coalfield and from different coalfields. Such small communities, or the coal merchants who served them, could not afford to have money tied up in large stockpiles of coal. One man could unload an 8-ton wagon in a day's work, hence avoiding demurage charges; the wagon would be back on its way to the colliery within a couple of days of arrival. It would take the same man a whole week to unload a 50 ton wagon which would be out of circulation for that length of time, tying up capital unproductively. How could that possibly be more efficient? What it all comes down to is that these big mineral engine fantasies depend on the MGR principle of operation, with a single large colliery supplying a single large customer. That was achieved in the 1970s, the customer being the CEGB, but by that time steam was dead. The conversion to electricity, with the National Grid, ought to have gone hand in hand with railway electrification - that's where governments chose to muddle through rather than tackling the problem. But I remember those MGR trains thundering through the centre roads at Oxford station in the 1980s, Class 56 roaring away at the head. A better engine for the job than any Mountain you can devise.