Regularity

If you ever saw “Meet the Ancestors” from Wedmore…

The two home signals work in unison, and presumably the slotted distant signals do. The slotting is an arrangement where if the distant signal is cleared by the signal box in advance, it will not show as such unless the home signal is cleared for entry into the section. (In this context, the “home” signal is for entry into the section between two signal boxes, so is acting as a starter or advanced starter.)

Strange looking beasts…

Signalman won’t be popular with anyone, but first S&T for bending their locking, at 2’12”, he pulls off the shunt/subsidiary signal for exiting the yard, despite having pulled the signal for entry into the yard, thus signalling opposing moves!

We forget that we view things from a long lens. Most importantly, wheel arrangement is not the be-all and end-all of lomotive design. As the SDJR 2-8-0s showed, the boiler and firebox need to be balanced to provide steam in a manner which suits the work, steady pulling versus hard work in bursts followed by coasting downhill. Secondly, in the early- to mid- Edwardian era, the Midland’s top locos were in the same league as most of their peers. Even by 1914, most railways were using predominantly 4-4-0s and 0-6-0s, and many had 4-6-0s which frankly weren’t what they were intended to be. Finally, the various MR 0-6-0s, particularly of the 3F power class, were good steamers and free runners even at 60mph, and this would be very fast for the day. It is only with hindsight, and a perhaps blinkered view by some to make the LMS the “greater Midland” (and even here, I am not so sure this was as much the case as people think; just two key people in influential positions, who are strong minded enough to do the job, but lacking in the humility to listen to other viewpoints, is all it needs to stifle development*) that we come to see the MR as being somehow beleaguered by a small engine policy. It wasn’t. It worked, it made money for its shareholders, but it did not leave it in the best place the the 20s and 30s: it required Josiah Stamp to sort that out. One could argue that a slightly smaller dividend, with more capital investment in strengthening the infrastructure, would have been better in the long-term, but since when have most capitalists been interested in anything beyond a few years? (Typically, 5 at the outside.) * Or waste time trying to prove how effective nationalisation might have been, had it come 25 years earlier, with a range of about a dozen classes. That idea came from a Crewe man, who had been sidelined by the LMS** to engage a more forward-looking CME in the form of Ivatt. ** They him a double-promotion to a vice-presidential role, to stop him from designing 12 new classes of steam engine. *** *** The new nationalised railway simply offered the role to the most “senior” person with a mechanical engineering background. A privately run single, national company would have put it out to open competition.

Making mistakes is how they became experienced…

BTW, I totally agree with that: railways were businesses. But that way of operating did not necessarily suit other railways, such as the LNWR, because it was run differently from the start.

Well, ok: but something of that size, designed for different requirements (I.e. a different firebox/boiler arrangement, such as the Stanier 2-8-0) would have suited. It was an illustration of the concept: testing a loco designed for the SDJR on the Midland mainline was bound to prove ineffective - as the CME would (or should) have been well aware. Simplest way to block development: set up an unfair test.

Hence the use of several diesel locos under a single control via multiple-unit capabilities. In point of fact, GE in the USA produced a single unit capable of developing 6,000 bop, but most sales were for units of roughly ¾ the power: it is more flexible to couple up 3 units of lower power than 2 units of higher power. In pre-WW1 days, the additional costs of two crews were seen as a small price to pay for this flexibility. However, if there was a regular traffic flow sufficient to justify a larger loco, then it would be wasteful to have two locos to maintain/support/crew rather than a larger single unit - a single SDJR 7F would make sense in place of two 3F 0-6-0s, for example.

Now that my copy of the book has arrived, I must say that in respect of it being a “modern Madder Valley”, it is amazing, even given one or two of the locos appearing a bit odd to me. I love the conversion of a Kirtley outside framed 0-6-0 into a 4-4-0: to me, that works better than say, the Adams radial where a new cab, or maybe some side tanks, might have been more convincing. To be honest, I also felt a few of the models were a bit “modern” (the observation car, for example) and that was more of an issue for me than anything else. It is extremely lovely, very whimsical, and judged on its own terms, entirely wonderful.

Numbered (possibly uniquely) as 0, this was one of many former EWJR locos to bear the number 1 whilst owned by said railway company: I have a 3D printed body for this, and also some 3D printed wheel centres to try out - when I get the log cabin finished and everything sorted out to be able to do some modelling…

Steve Cook did that for his G1 diorama, “Dungeness Siding”, about 15 years ago, in response to me saying it was a shame that wasn’t possible. Can’t remember what he used, but it smelt like seaweed. Richard Chown used colt’s foot oil, or similar, and wire wool, heated in a tin can, to create the pungent aroma of poor quality coal, for his small French S7 layout, Courcelle (Part), at about the same time. I dare say there have been others, but I have long since learned not to say something isn’t possible, at least to some people.

US national interest always come to the fore with US politicians and businesses. Nothing wrong with that, except for two things: 1) It is often a short-term view, aiming to ensure the USA’s economic hegemony over the world; 2) When dealing with the USA, other countries should bear this in mind and ask, “What’s in it for them?” Their 20th Century foreign policy was dominated by one thought initially: rid the world of European-based empires. That worked well: providing the UK with materials and materiel before joining in for two world wars returned ownership of their economy from British investors, then ransomed the British economy to the USA. The USSR was the last such empire to fall: instead of war, the USA simply outspent the USSR on weapon development and made sure that other economies were only allowed to grow if it would be broadly supportive of American interests. I am not criticising this: by and large, the American policy for the 20th century was obvious and clear, and it was undoubtedly successful by many measures, certainly the appearance of economic control over the world, but I am not sure if they have a coherent policy for this century, beyond “containment” of military or economic threats. Even if they have that, there has been a lot of inconsistency in its application.

As a child, I had a copy of the Hamlyn Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Railways, by Hamilton Ellis, no less. One thing I remember from it was a quoted conversation with Sir William, when asked about the tradition of loco building/design going back to Dean. “Dean?” he barked. “It was Gooch, man, Gooch.” Maybe for Swindon, maybe for the 4-6-0s, but the genesis of the smaller locos was Wolverhampton, not Swindon. Wolverhampton’s basic designs, updated new modernised with pannier tanks, formed the basis for the 1600 pannier tanks and the 4800/5800 tanks. The Armstrong goods led naturally to the Dean goods, thence the 2251 as a final development. The prairies led to the modules, but the prairies started off in Wolverhampton.

Yes. Started in (Continental) Europe,band based a lot on the various ownership arrangements of German railways, allowing for the major livery changes to provide some greater distinction between more recent memory. I am not sure if it is for the convenience of the manufacturers, so much, as for the convenience of buyers who can’t be bothered to do a bit or research/reading up, which does ultimately benefit the manufacturers, I suppose. To illustrate how awful it is, though, Hornby has Era 6 as “Pre-TOPS”, which covers 1957 (when dieselisation had barely started) to 1971, when diesels were blue. But TOPS numbering was introduced in 1973, and took a year or so to complete. Era 7 (“TOPS”) covers 1971, 2 years before TOPS came into existence, to 1986. At the start of this period, the WR was still running a lot of diesel hydraulics, and by the end of it, the APT had been and gone, but they weren’t seen together… If anyone asks me what era I am modelling, the answer is simple: 1904. I give the same answer to “What Epoch?” But I expect arguments: I have been accused of making up the EWJR, because the person asking what railway I was modelling hadn’t heard of it, and been told that, “You must be modelling the NBR, because you have interlaced sleepers instead of point timbers.” My interlocutor refused to accept that the other Scottish companies, the NER, The Furness, and many others also did this. Because he hadn’t read that anywhere.

D289: the vehicle of the doomed!

If it wasn’t for this part of the forum, I am not sure I would bother.

It’s certainly a novel way to describe the “lugubrious bloody-mindedness” that characterised the town and people of my birth, and which I have inherited - whether by nature or nurture, I know not and care even less!

It’s a mindfield, and Stephen’s the only one with a cognitive map!

Nepotism. Another “virtue” of the Victorian era…

If you download the image and then repost it, it is a breach of copyright. If you post an embedded image (I.e. a link to a photo on another site) then it isn’t a breach. If you do the latter and acknowledge the host, then it’s more polite, but still not a breach.

Slowly…

Will it still be possible to buy/order this with an etched chassis kit?

They handled lots of coal traffic, yes, but very, very little of it originated on the GER system and as you say, the GER preferred the various coal trades to provide their own wagons.