Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

I have just tried a quick search of The London Gazette, in which you would expect any awards of medals or mentions in dispatches to appear; but there is nothing relevant I could see for an Edward Thompson between 1914 and 1930. I may be searching it wrong of course!

 

His obituary in The Engineer mentions it.

Be advised though, the London Gazette is *the* most dreadful site to search on the entire internet. As a case in point, I have never been able to find either my commission or my two subsequent promotions. I know they happened, because I was there. I've also seen them in print copies of the Gazette at the time. Nevertheless if you believe the online search results none of them ever happened.....

 

I will happily furnish you with a copy when I am back at the laptop, although to be honest it's literally just his name, rank and regiment on two separate pages together with hundreds of other names.

Took two weeks and lots of emails to find the copies required, and I can't publish it in the book though it confirms the details. The website to find them on is dreadful, frankly.

 

Can you point me in the direction of what edition, please? I have obituaries from a number of sources but I didn't know there was one in that publication.

 

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Special:MemberUsers?file=images/e/e2/Er19540723.pdf (Requires registration)

Tom

 

Brilliant, thank you Tom.

 

wot he said - that's where I've seen it too.

 

Thank you for the offer although if it is literally just his name I am happy not to see it. That website is indeed terrible!

Have you considered contacting his regiment (or its successor)? No doubt they would have more detailed records which you might be able to access.

 

I imagine that delving into the archives of the Headquarters Staff of DG (Transportation) in France in WW1 is the stuff DPhils are made of by themselves! It'll all be in the National Archives, though conceivably some might have wound up at either Chatham/Gillingham* or Minley in the care of the RE. Logically any not in the National Archives would have been at Longmoor once upon a time.

The RE Archive is in Gillingham, but I know from experience that principal training establishments have a habit of aggregating interesting stuff into random filing cabinets well away from the clutches of archivists.

Can I plead with @S.A.C. Martin not to go down that road too far if he wants to publish the book this century...

 

I think once I release it I will take a two week holiday and leave my phone at home so I can’t see all the hate mail as it comes in...!

 

This might interest Thompson fans, at least those who don't avoid facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/podtrak/ph...361181449369/1064354060383405/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/podtrak/posts/1064355130383298

 

Pedant mode perhaps BUT the model is spoiled by the wrong shape of the smoke deflectors and the exclusion of the GN badge on the nameplate; am I simply nit-picking ?

 

I love it. It’s one of LBSCs Hielan Lassie locos. I owned one (sold it sadly). Really regret that decision. One day I’ll build another.

 

So - keeping you all in the loop - the National Archives. Last stop on my Edward Thompson writing.

Spent last Saturday there and now have to go back after realising there’s so much more information available.

The interesting thing that screamed out to me on Saturday was one of the files on record - a whole folder dedicated to the rebuild of the D20 class.

Fine - maybe there would be an indication of the argument oft repeated by railway historians between Gresley and Thompson?

Nope.

Dozens of letters, some drawings, notes - all quite good natured - Thompson asking a direct question about frame replacement - “is it worth it?”

Then there were several big folders on locomotive failures and mileages. Some very interesting stuff there. Too much to go into now, but it could almost present a book within itself.

In the context of Thompson’s work one stat was interesting. 1943, annual mileages for loco classes. A2 - one loco - 45,000 miles. P2 - 5 locos - average 25,000 miles. I’ve rounded up these figures to nearest thousand. Thane of Fife was the A2 and in service to provide a direct comparison to the P2s.

I don’t believe it is as simple as “higher mileage equals more reliable locomotive” as is normally the case either - the stats I’ve got to hand now include days in service, days in works, etc, across the whole LNER fleet.

That’s for almost all of the war years and Thompson/Peppercorn reigns too.

I found a similar documents for 1933 and 1938 which will provide what I feel is a fair “control” to put the war years in context.

Most sobering was a letter from Stanier to Thompson regarding LMS statistics on availability. This led to a confidential circular amongst the mechanical engineers from Thompson asking them to prepare some statistics.

It should have been obvious perhaps, but it seems now that the railways companies had to prepare locomotive and rolling stock availability reports to central Govt. Thompson was quite clearly worried about the LNERs in 1941. As CME he reported directly to Govt on such matters.

It’s fascinating what I’ve found thus far. In my bibliography I’ll include the file numbers for others to read at their leisure.

 

A quick sample showing the incredible amount of work I am doing in the evenings for this project this summer...!

Although I only have stats for classes A1, A3, A4 and P2 here, I have copies of the documents giving the full availability figures for the entire LNER locomotive fleet. Every single class, every single stat, from 1942 up to 1947. Including the diesel and electric classes.

For the purposes of the Thompson book I am only collating the Pacific classes plus the P2s, but the ultimate aim is to copy all of the information and turn it into a handy booklet, for anyone who wants or needs the information for their own work.

I also intend to provide comparison graphs to illustrate certain points. They say there are lies, damned lies, and statistics - well, I will do my best to interpret them in a fair and accurate manner. I don't believe - as has been the case in the past - that the "high mileage" figures for shopping locomotives on the LNER tell the whole story of a classes' worth.

Truly, the amount of information available when one looks for it, is mind blowing. I am enjoying the trips to the national archives immensely.

EDIT:

Here is a table giving the definitions for what each column means.

 

An interesting comparison between A3 and A4 between SAW (Kings Cross ?) and SCO (Haymarket?) with a similar number of locomotives for the A3s; the A3 figures suggest Kings Cross was the better operator of A3s but Haymarket the better operator of A4s. Unfortunately this table has no date information hence the inability to identify external factors (e.g staff, shed facilities, services operated) that could influence the statistics.

 

So to clarify the "area codes" - these I have transposed from the original tables and have used for ease in inputting the data.

SAW - Southern Area Western Section
SAE - Southern Area Eastern Section
NEA - North Eastern Area
SCO - Scottish Area
WHL - Whole Line

WHL is made up of all the other codes' data and provides the average for that class across the whole of the LNER.

We don't have a shed by shed mileage report, but the figures are interesting and they do show some pretty significant things. The Scottish A4s, as was intimated by you, I think, Fred, many moons ago were by far the most consistently reliable across the war years. It's fascinating stuff I think.

Combine this with the other document I found - the desired mileages for shopping for each class - and the picture becomes a bit more complete.

Then throw in some of the engine cards from the NRM and the truth comes out a bit.

All in all - some really interesting stuff.

EDIT - as I note I haven't said this previously - the above table is for 1942.

 

Yes I was looking at that. I guess you really need the diagrams to distinguish the causes. For example Edinburgh--Newcastle 200 days a year is 50,000 while KX -- Grantham 200 days/yr is 8,000 miles less. And maybe the ratio of freight to passenger work was different both between locations and loco types? That would probably show up more with the V2s.

Ah just read that is for one year only--- could the P2 result be a one-off for that year, small numbers.....?

 

I do think there is something in that in terms of what work is available for locomotives. I do not think it is any coincidence that higher mileage locomotives also coincidentally did high mileage diagrams.

There are however some valid comparisons to be made between differing classes on the same work with wildly different mileages.

I haven't transposed it all yet - that's an ongoing project - but it is notable that Thane of Fife's first two years in traffic as an A2/2, according to the stats, make it the highest mileage individual Pacific outside of the Scottish A4s and also double the mileage of the P2s that were still extant and being used on the same diagrams, by the same crews.