62613

55 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

So I wonder what the typical interval between trains was in the 1880s/1890s when the line was taking not only the MS&L's own traffic, including the London expresses via Retford, and the Midland and Great Northern goods traffic? The situation presumably eased with the opening of the Midland's Dore & Totley line - the Great Northern decamped to that, no doubt pique at the MS&L's London extension being a factor!

The Midland originally ran Peak Forest - Chapel en le Frith - New Mills - Romiley, round the Hyde Loop to Hyde North Junction, then via the MS & L; then they built a cut - off from Romiley to Ashburys; and then when Central was built, via New Mills S.J., Cheadle Heath and Chorlton. That's my understanding, anyway. 

On 11/02/2023 at 21:22, DenysW said:

In the 1890s the Great Eastern fitted a fair number of it locos to burn 'oil', actually a byproduct tar from making towngas. They changed away when costs moved to favour coal.

 

One of the costs involved with electrifying the Great Central's (then MS&L's) Woodhead route was that the two individual single-track tunnel bores were not big enough for overhead power lines, so needed replacement (done post WW2).

 

Looking at my new-to-me Southern Pacific cab-forward model loco I wonder if the correct steam answer to the Worsborough incline was actually a very powerful (for UK loading gauge) oil-fired cab-forward instead of banking. Say 3000 hp (the Southern Pacifics are 6,000 hp) as a result of being within UK loading gauge. Much longer than UK norms, but if the locos are solely getting used in big trains up the incline from Wath upon Dearne without banking to a marshalling yard at the top of the hill the capital cost is the mashalling yard and two 130' turning circles. At the marshalling yard the trains would be split into small enough units for successful braking on the way down into Lancashire, as the LMS did with Garratts working up through the Derbyshire Peak to Chinley.

 

A class of six to ten locomotives designed any time after about 1910 once boiler technology could do the power.

I always thought that one of the reasons for the electrification was to eliminate steam working through the tunnels - they were very restricted; it's said you could touch the tunnel walls from the cab, without leaning out. The specific problem was that the top of the gradient was at the eastern end, IIRC; hence anything going Manchester - Sheffield had to keep steam on. B.R inspected the tunnels in 1948. They found that after 100 years of being subjected to the effects of the steam locos, they were in very poor condition, and the best thing to do was to bore a new tunnel.

What happened to the 12 - wheel Pullmans in C1407. They look to be in a very sorry state!

8 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

From what I remember from a book I read some years ago (one of those provided by the Flying Tabnab for onboard use), the amidships engine in that class was an exhaust gas turbine with no astern turbine fitted.

The wing engines were four cylinder triplexes and such beasts can of course be reversed at a fearsome rate when required.

In terms of turning another thing to do would perhaps have been to leave the starboard engine full ahead, but with the port engine full stern and the rudder hard to port. That might have induced a faster turning moment, aided by the port engine trying to screw the stern around to starboard. But then what's to say the impact would simply have only been further aft in an area perhaps more critical such as the boiler rooms or main engine room, thereby potentially losing electrical power or causing structural failure earlier than they did. But that's all easy to think about in the cold light of day a century on.

That there was only one rudder and that it was woefully undersized as was usual for the era didn't help matters either.

Mea culpa! I had the engine types the wrong way round.!

Going to Glasgow; what for? Some sort of relief, or special?

There was a line from the vicinity of Hazlehead station to the Hepworth pipes factory. Could the sidinga mentioned have something to do with that

6 minutes ago, SHMD said:

The last time I went over that viaduct (two weeks ago, past Asda), the only OHLE on it was the Woodhead 1500DC stuff!

 

There are still a few (all?) 1500DC Portals, at the Guide Bridge end.

I always'd wondered if the were going to use them again here.

 

 

Kev.

 

I could imagine that they are at least as good as the ones up to Hadfield! Still a shame that the Guide Bridge East to North curve doesn't seem to be being wired; Stalybridge - Hadfield service, anyone!😁

On 04/02/2023 at 17:47, peanuts said:

trip to ikea at Ashton today mast with arms all place in through the former OAGBjn sight  and could be seen marching off into the distance past Ashton station lots of progress to be seen 

The masts past IKEA have been in for quite a while; at least late summer. What appeared to be new about 3 weeks ago was that the return wire seems to be installed on both sides of the Manchester line. Just on the Stalybridge side of the Whitelands Road overbridge, on the Guide Bridge line there are two goalpost masts close together. Query; is this likely to be for an OHNS? 

After a trip into town this afternoon, the masts appear to run past Guide Bridge yard, but I'm not sure if they go much beyond the end, onto the viaduct past Ashton.

5 hours ago, OnTheBranchline said:

The two biggest issues:

1) The helmsmen accidentally steering the wheel the wrong way - probably didn't help. 

2) Throwing the engines into stop/reverse - cut down on the ship's ability to maneuver. 

1) Instinctive; turning the wheel the same way as you want the rudder to act was a fairly new thing at the time, IIRC.

2) Stopping the engine(s) and using the screws as a brake is a recognised way of slowing a ship more quickly. In that respect, going astern doesn't have the same effect, as the screws would still be thrashing about, even if the engineers had had time to do it. Would it have been possible to do that with the (VTE) centre engine at all? I don't know.

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Yes - and generally had fewer anti-aircraft guns than battleships, but they did make up for this in having their own aircraft - the best defense often being a good offence.

 

One often overlooked carrier conversion was the USS Langley CV-1. Converted from a fleet collier (USS Jupiter) in 1920 it served in the second world war - which surprised me since I had never heard that until reading it recently.

 

It didn't last long. Ferrying P40s from Fremantle it was redirected, from heading to Colombo, to Java in the Dutch East Indies when it was attacked and damaged by IJN Mitsubishi GM4 (Betty) bombers*  from Bali in late February 1942.

 

* Betty (and other) bombers were used against Force Z in December 1941.

 

The linked account is interesting on how the bombers experimented - their first efforts being avoided by course changes until they changed their tactics to bracketing the target. The Langley was not sunk by bombing, but being disabled and dead in the water was scuttled.

 

Didn't the same or similar happen to Yorktown and one of the Japanese carriers after Midway? Yorktown was scuttled on the 5th June, and the Japanese was spotted drifting and burned out on the 6th, and sunk by a US submarine?

22 minutes ago, OnTheBranchline said:

It was - the battle of the north cape was the month before (Dec 1943).

 

of course, Adm Halsey denied us the chance of one final bb battle at the battle of Samar. 

Thought Surigao Strait was part of The Batlle of Leyte as well, so October 1944, no?

2 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Not true.  Royal Oak and Barham were sunk by U boats, Hood, Scharnhorst and Bismarck by other battleships (though the latter had been incapacitated by aircraft).  Queen Elizabeth and Valiant were fortunate to be moored in shallow water when subjected to underwater attack.

 

Aircraft carriers were - and are - just as vulnerable to air attack as surface ships.  Battleships became obsolete because the range of their main armament (guns) was a fraction of that of the aircraft carrier (aircraft).

There's also the battle of Surigao Straight; probably the last action ever between battleships

To get back onto capital ships; what would the R.N. have looked like in 1939 if all four planned Hood - class battlecruisers had been completed? The other three were all laid down, work suspended 8.1917, and cancelled 10.1918. Almost starting an "Imaginary navies" topic!

35 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Also Furious.

The case of the Furious was quite curious, as she'd already been converted by 1918 to fly aircraft to and from her foredeck.

11 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The USN converted hulls of the planned Lexington Class battlecruisers to be the USS Lexington and USS Saratoga. Their scrapping as battlecruisers on the ways in 1922 was related to the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 rather than a prediction of the obsolescence of battleships.

 

It turned out well for the USN, despite their disdain for the abrasive gadfly Billy Mitchell whose assertion:

Was ultimately proven correct in essence even if only 132 or so B-29s were around the cost of an Iowa Class battleship.

The British did the same with the large light cruisers Glorious and Courageous, only they were complete rebuilds. Weren' the Japanese Akagi and Kaga the same?

17 hours ago, ERIC ALLTORQUE said:

The Japanese had a third battleship of the Yamato class what was stopped and the hull used for Shinano a huge carrier,i think they got the message when they sunk PoW AND Repulse.

POW and Repulse were sunk by land - based planes, though.

18 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

 

Of the German heavy units, many were tied to their bases due to a fuel shortage. U-boat fuel was given priority as they were seen as producing more 'cost' effective results. So ships such as the Tirpitz were not usually fueled to allow them to have free rein in the open sea, either to act as offensive weapons or to evade RAF attacks. Limiting a ship's mobility and opportunity to create a threat to an enemy is the fastest way I know to turn an asset into a liability (or target as our friends in the silent service would say). 

The German navy was operated as a "Fleet in being"; as long as the likes of Tirpitz, Gneisnau, Lutzow, etc., were swinging round their anchors in Norwegian fjords, the RN had to retain enough capital ships of their own in European waters to counter them. This is one reason for the need to sink Tirpitz as quickly as possible in 1944; to release the fast battleships (KG5, Duke of York, etc.) for the forming Far East Fleet.

On 04/02/2023 at 22:26, Ozexpatriate said:

Besides the Suez Canal?

Not really. It never operated as intended during the war. All shipping was going round the bottom of Africa or through the Panama Canal. Any unloading of Empire army supplies and troop was done at Red Sea ports, which after May 1941, was a British lake.

7 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Gunnery control is probably the most overlooked aspect of warship design. It's a very technical subject, and rather mathematical, which may explain why very few specialised books on warships and/or naval history approach the subject in any detail, let alone more generalized works.

 

However, if we imagine two ships, each manoeuvring at speeds of 25 - 30 knots and zigg zagging, at ranges of typically 10 - 20 miles trying to hit a target which really wasn't very big then it starts to become clear just how difficult it was, it was necessary to:

 

-establish range;

-establish heading;

-caculate relative speeds;

-calculate deflection;

-control guns to bring them on target and correct elevation by communicating with the gun turrets;

-fire;

-monitor shell fall and correct. 

 

Then your ship rolled or pitched or did both, Just as the gunnery officer pressed his button to fire the guns, and all your calculations were for nothing! It's why British (at least) battleships fired their guns to give the fall of shot a "spread", rather than all be concentrated at the same range. The fall of shot spotter had three choices on his machine: "Short", "Straddle" and "Over", which tells its own tale.

On 04/02/2023 at 20:54, Ozexpatriate said:

Variations on the theme of "Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics and sustainability in warfare"*

 

* Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) - November 11, 1979

I think that General Sir Archibald Wavell mentioned something similar in his Lees - Jones Lecture, On Generalship, in 1938. Does anyone know where you could obtain a copy.

I'd agree with JJB; the Germans didn't really do grand strategy, in that there was no overall plan as to what would happen next. There was no steady plan to allocate or procure the raw materials required for the war effort; there was no - one allocating personnel to specific tasks. Even what was produced seems to have been don almost on a whim.

Hitler ordered the invasion of Norway because he thought the British and French were going to invade, and cut off his source of prime Swedish iron ore (Churchill had been advocating for this in the British press since November 1939, as a means to aid the Finns against the Soviets). He was right; the invasion force was actually embarked on several British cruisers when the German invasion occurred; they had to be quicly disembarked. He sent Rommel to Libya because he couldn't bear the thought of his ally Mussolini being humiliated; there wasn't anything of real strategic value for the Germans in North Africa. He invaded Yugoslavia after a British - backed coup toppled a leader who was more or less allied to him, there was a follow - on into Greece and then Crete, just because British Empire troops were in both places. The casualties incurred by the Germans in the invasion of Crete quite probably saved Cyprus and, long - term, Malta.

Note also that the sea - borne part of the German invasion of Crete was a complete failure, even though they had undisputed air superiority, and that the majority of the garrison escaped.

16 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

An interesting viewpoint, strategically, though I think most people at the time - including Goering? - would have taken a tactical perspective. 

 

I think I agree that Brits would have been aware that the immediate threat of invasion had been defeated. Was there a widespread appreciation of the extent to which US production would contribute to eventual victory? 

 

Whilst Churchill believed this and worked hard to achieve US support, the Battle of the Atlantic determined how valuable this output was. 

The only way the UK could have been defeated after June 1940 was at sea; if the Germans could have interrupted shipping to and from home ports, so that we couldn't feed ourselves or carry out military operations. They came close to that really only twice, in the summer of 1942, and for a couple of months in spring 1943

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The decisive weapon wasn't radar itself, it was the system of fighter control of which radar was only a part. 

 

The other decisive weapon was math. The German's had to grind down the RAF and achieve some sort of air superiority whilst maintaining sufficient force to protect the invasion, and do it quickly. The numbers game was against the Luftwaffe from the outset considering relative force numbers and time available if the invasion was to have been launched in 1940 (or even 1941) although it was still a hugely difficult battle for the RAF to fight.

It was as much an intelligence failure as anything that the Luftwaffe failed to appreciate how the British defence system actually operated; they had plenty of opportunities, in that they could actually listen to the fighter controllers directing their planes.

Has anyone mentioned the Zero yet? Had its faults, but in the opening months of the Pacific war, it was a terror to the Allied air forces  

11 hours ago, russ p said:

 

I don't think it's the same ferry landing but the last picture of last lot is screaming to me "Carter ya car needs a wash!"

It isn't. That's the North/South Sheilds ferry landing. I think the one in Get Carter was the Wallsend ferry. Nice to see Break 'em and Cowans' cranes in the background of the Harton Staithes photo. Is the large building on the left of the first in that set the remains of St. Hilda Harton pit? I don't remember that at all!

On 31/01/2023 at 10:13, Oldddudders said:

ISTR the pub outside the refinery was called The Cat & Cracker!

It was in Grain village. You could get a taxi from the (shipping) berth to the pub. I think the last time I was there was in October 1974 after a long slow trip from the Gulf round The Cape.

On 27/01/2023 at 12:42, jbqfc said:

I think this is getting towards "Certain age" territory😚