John_Miles

They are correctly called percolating filter although no fitration takes place, instead the stones ,called media, provide a home for various life forms which chomp on the sewage. The stones are about fist size. The filters should be preceded by an inlet works which contains amongst other things a Venturi flume. Next come settling tanks which are square in plan and set in the ground, there are at least two of these. The filters follow these and they should be around 2m deep and not too large. Again there should be at least two. The filters are followed by further settling tanks which look like the first ones. There will also be a small building (usually brick) which houses a pumping station and in older works (pre-1970s) there would be sludge drying beds which were large flat areas where the sludge from the settling tanks was left to dry - you can imagine how well this worked in winter. These days the sludge is removed by tanker. If possible it would be arranged so that everything would work by gravity. I started my career as a Civil Engineer designing small rural sewage works.

So when I go into my local Morrisons which has a fish counter by the entrance, all the fish are off?

You may manage ti model the physical appearance of fish trains but the smell is what was really noticeable. Compound refers to coal sizes above, the coal mined in that part of the Swansea Valley would be anthracite and it was sold in a variety of grades such as peas, beans nuts and culm. Culm was dust and was used for such things as lime burning. I wonder if the large coal at Gurnos was from elsewhere and was steam or house coal. This would explain the presence of a wagon from Port Talbot.

I just was press ganged into doing some gardening which delayed my perusal of the photo of the brake van. It's not as clear as one would wish but it does look like a Kirtley Brake. The line of wagons in the centre of the view - any idea what these are? The image was taken as the same time as that on page 218 which IIRC is the only view of a Rose Richards wagon and also of a Midland Coal Company wgaon. The latter says it is from Port Talbot. Robin Simmonds who wrote the excellent 2 volume work on the PT has never seen a wagon from this company before and they are a bit of a mystery. Can anyone help?

The £90 photo is the one near the front taken around 1857. The greedy organisation was the National Library of Wales. They have another really nice photo of the original bridge over the Tawe which we decided we just couldn't afford The NRM photos were expensive but much cheaper. I think the reproduction fee was £23 per image. The best organisation was the HMRS (£5) closely followed by genuine enthusiasts such as Roger Carpenter, the Blencowes and Kidderminster Museum. I'm now off to look at that Kirtley brake van - I missed that one. I'm a NZ Sauvignon Blanc man if I drink wine although as Penlan will confirm I prefer beer.

For yet another example of D299 in action, see the latest Backtrack, page 308, Harold Wood (place not a person), GER, 1911.

It was a bogie carriage (NB Just to be pedantic, railways had carriages, not coaches), Clayton, Bain etc were Carriage and Wagon Superintendents.

The origin of the term Civil Engineer comes from the fact that they were not military engineers, hence originally the term civil engineer included what we now call mechanical engineers, electrical engineers etc. IIRC the first breakaway was the Mechanicals in 1847 with George Stephenson as the first president. The electricals etc went later to be followed by all sorts of engineers (aeronautical, structural, chemical, automotive, etc) So before 1847 all non-military engineers were civil engineers and for many years after 1847, some mechanical engineers were members of the Institution of Civil Engineers. For instance, S.W. Johnson was president of the Civils some time late in the 19th century.

​ I remember a strange looking carriage body just south of Skipton during the 1950s. As ever, I asked my father what it was but he was unable to provide an answer. I am colour blind but it seemed to me to be painted a sort of LNER green which looked very incongruous. It was only when I was given a copy of Hamilton Ellis' book that I obtained an answer to my question.

My statement above about bending theory is incorrect. Simple Euler bending theory would have been available to early railway engineers.

Nice one Fred. A cracking show.

I agree with this but on the criteria set in the tests they were better than the opposition. Super Ds were called Bum Burners on the Midland because the short footplate meant that when the firemen turned towards the tender......

In reply to Old Gringo in post 29, my assertions about much of the civil engineering being empirical are correct. What you have forgotten is there were a lot of failures in comparison to modern engineering. If you go back beyond the railway era, there were huge struggles to build long span masonry bridges because they didn't understand them sufficiently. There is for instance a large span masonry bridge over the River Taff in Pontypridd which IIRC took three attempts to build (one has to admire their persistence). Admittedly many of the later collapses of masonry arches were due to bad construction. The reason that many old bridges are still in use is because masonry arches have a huge factor of safety in terms of the original loads they were built to carry. Materials in compression tend to be very strong. For the iron / steel bridges, most will have been replaced or strengthened. Railway Civil Engineers over the years became very adept at adding bits to existing bridges to increase their weight bearing capacity. Also many old bridges will have been replaced. There have been one or two mentions of weak bridges on the Midland. The bridges over the Ouse north of Bedford were originally built in timber. These were placed IIRC sometime around 1890 with iron or steel but these bridges were too weak to cope with the larger engines of the 20th century and so were replaced again. I think this would have been in the 1930s. Simple bending theory did exist in later Victorian times but you only have to look at some of the things they built to realise their understanding was flawed. Also much of mechanical engineering was empirical. Why were there so many dud locos? Because the had no methods of analysis so they followed what they had done before and tweaked it where necessary. My apologies for straying again into Mech Eng. Also there is a comment above about depth of foundations. According to a friend who worked for Notwork Rail here in South Wales, shallow foundations are common and a real worry because of scour from rivers.

The 8' , 8' 6" wheelbase also came from Kirtley. Howveer you can't say there was otherwise a progression from Kirtley's 0-6-0s to Johnsons, so maybe these do owe something to his GER designs? Johnson may have chosen the same wheel diameter because the patterns existed so it would save money??

There are a few issues in the above which I would like to comment on. First masonry structures: Brunel could not have designed the Maidenhead bridge without having a very good idea of the forces in a masonry arch and how to make a compression structure work (the arch has to be tension free). The same applies to those huge retaining walls you see alongside many railways. They wouldn't work if there was any tension. That said the Theory of Structures as we know it today didn't exist in Victorian times and the understanding of materials wasn't that good although they did know to avoid cast iron except in compression (Stephenson was very lucky to get away with the Dee Bridge collapse). I have been very critical of Brunel in other places on RMWeb but in general his structural engineering was very good (note very good not "genius", a much abused word; Einstein and Newton qualify because they changed how we look at the world, Brunel didn't get that far) The comments about the evolution of Soil Mechanics are spot on. It was all empirical. Material was tipped at the angle of repose and what saved it from collapse was that it was then compacted by feet and wagons passing over it, thus giving it a factor of safety, albeit probably a small one. This is why when you travel by train, you frequently see places where cuttings and embankments are being strengthened. There were huge efforts made to balance cut and fill, even to the extent of unnecessarily going through small hills when a long embankment followed. There is evidence however that they didn't always get it right. For example on the Lickey, there seems to have been some extra excavation on the eastern side near the Scout Camp, presumably to make the embankment lower down. Further north near Barnt Green there is evidence of excess spoil being tipped on the east side of the line (this may have come from the opening out of Cofton Tunnel).

I think all styles and fashions have their periods of being in vogue and being considered naff. All things Victorian were considered pretty awful in my youth but attitudes are starting to change and IMHO that applies to Midland gothic. To get back to civil engineering, the Midland was no better and no worse than any other railway. It had some wonderful structures but they were not unique - and I speak here as a professional civil engineer and a Midland fan.

Sadly I'll miss the MRSoc AGM this weekend. I am on operating duty as part of the Cardiff 4mm Group. We have been invited to NEWGOG (Newport Gauge O Guild) with Ynysybwl - we are the non-7mm layout. I know it's Taff Vale rather than Midland but the Taff was a really interesting railway.

The 4-4-0s that Johnson originally provided for the S&D were smaller than the current Midland engines and originally they were given 0-4-4Ts for the through passenger service. I am not sure if these were smaller than the Midland equivalents but there does seem to be a theme here.

The LMS paid dividends (see post 40). To compare it with the GWR is unfair. The GWR largely stayed as it was after the grouping so didn't have the problems of merging three very large companies (two of which were as large as the GWR) and several other quite large companies, with all the competing egos, traditions etc.

What is interesting to me about he GER locos is they had smokebox wing plates - rather Scottish and of course Johnson had spent time in Scotland. The 1102 class also had these at first and there were some 2-4-0s for the GER that had them. In all his later designs, there were no smokebox wing plates so he obviously decided locos looked better with out them - and I agree!!! IMHO there is nothing better looking in locomotive terms than a Johnson loco. Did his GER 0-4-4Ts also have wing plates? Johnson was followed by Adams who later in his career built some very handsome 0-4-4Ts. I wonder if he was influenced by the Johnson engines?

The Ahrons articles on the GE locos were in Railway Magazine for 1918. I've had a look and can't find anything about these engines, he largely concentrates on passenger engines.

The GE society have records in the Essex archive in Chelmsford - may be worth a look online. IIRC Ahrons says something about these but that is the only place I have read about Johnson's GE engines.

The early LMS loco policy was largely evidence based and the LNWR engines, with the exception of the Super Ds were a poor lot. They were heavy on maintenance and coal, some types were known as colliers' friends - the LNWR had a smallish wheel 4-6-0 (19" Goods?) which was supposed to be very heavy on coal. So when you go in for Midland bashing, it needs to be based on more than emotional support for your favourite line. The Midland engines were well engineered and cheaper to run per ton mile than the alternatives - and yes this applies to the 483 class and the 4Fs which come in for such a bashing. While I am being rude about the LNWR, the recollections of engine men fairly consistently say that Derby built 4Fs were better than those built a Crewe.

As Mr Compound aka Stephen Lea, says above the 2Ps or 483 class did some outstanding work on demanding lines such as the S&D and the G&SWR Port Road. Both have long banks and the 2Ps did well so they can't have been a complete disaster.

The LMS did some extensive testing of locos shortly after the grouping to see which types should be proliferated in the future. The main line express engines tested were Claughtons, Prince of Wales, L&Y 4-6-0, Caledonian 4-6-0 and MR compound. The Compound came out best which doesn't say much for the rest. One thing you have to know about the Compounds is that they had quite a large grate area (IIRC 28 sq feet) and so their power output was quite substantial. For large goods engines the test was between a Super D, S&D 2-8-0 and an L&Y 0-8-0. The Super D came out best so we got the Austin 7s. Fowler used to boast he knew nothing about locomotive design (he was a gas engineer). I'm not sure how the 4F was chosen but what was the competition? ​Sorry just seen post above, somebody has already mentioned the goods engine trials.