Pre nationalisation preferences....

There is a current and thriving pre-Grouping scene today - where 'period' trains can often be seen being hauled by live steam locos from the likes of SECR, L&BSC, MR, HR, GER, GC, LNWR and inevitably the GWR. I talk of the Gauge 1 Model Railway fraternity where locos are generally coal, meths or gas fired (and battery powered examples too) and controlled by radio or good old fashioned 'catch me if you can'!

 

'The Race to the North' by OS Nock, Ishould think out of print now, but you may be able to pick one up if you do a search. Great read.

 

Ah yes, the two minute loco changes at York. Train stops, shunter drops in between, unhooks first loco, off into loco siding, second loco backs on, couple up and away. I'm pretty certain the shunter must have stayed down "between" while the first loco went and the second came back on, vac ejector already running so the pipe started to pump out the moment the two bags were connected. Hairy, but that's what it took...

Great book, as Black Jim says, well worth getting a copy.

Tom

 

Pretty average for a Salisbury loco change from what I've read.

 

LOL! But its also the 87mph , or something like that, cant remember without checking, average of Hardwicke for so many miles! the stuff of legends!
Talking of books, I've 'ordered' an Xmas pressie of 'The London Brighton & South Coast Railway' , The Bennett Colection, By Klause Marks, so we'll see if thats any good on the 25th. I love looking at these old photos anyway!

 

It's a beautiful book (but then I am biased...)

Bonus points for anyone that can find the photograph therein of the driver who knocked down and killed my great-grandfather...

Tom

 

Hav'nt found that, but I agree ,it is a beautiful book! I like that period generally but i've always had a liking for the Brighton Line!

 

Plus I forgot to add , all the royalties from this book go to the Bluebell extension fund. Another good reason to look it up!

 

Taff Vale Railway. says it all, really.

Ian

 

No not really, tell us more.

 

The period between 1900 and the "big four" grouping interests me, particularly when the Victorian designers were really pushing the boundaries of what they could achieve, with rather variable results! Very little front line motive power survives from this period - the unsuccessful express passenger designs disappeared all too quickly as the next generation of engineers came through, and the few designs that were successful were run into the ground. So things like the North British Atlantics, Cardeans, Hughes Dreadnoughts, Claughtons, Highland Rivers, G&SWR 4-6-4 tanks, L&SWR "Paddleboxes", North Eastern atlantics, GCR 4-cylinder 4-6-0s etc. etc..

 

It's a good point about unsuccessful designs generally being very quickly scrapped, and the successful ones run into the ground...

Worth recalling that, with the provision of toilets, corridors, enhanced dining facilities etc that average train weights went up markedly between about 1880 and 1920. A thirty ton corridor bogie coach of 1920 probably seated hardly any more passengers than a five or six compartment 6-wheeler of 1890, but weighed nearly twice as much. So a state of the art front line express engine of the 1880s, such as a Stroudley Gladstone, would be pretty well relegated to secondary passenger work, or scrapped, well before the First World War. Similarly, front line engines of 1900 were mostly gone by 1930, unless they could be transformed in some way by rebuilding. The Drummond T9s are a case in point: in later years they had a tremendous reputation as free-running express engines - but one wonders whether any would have survived beyond about 1945 if they hadn't receievd a new lease of life through superheating during the 1920s. The transformation of the Wainwright D and E class to the Maunsell rebuild D1 and E1 was similarly effective in enabling the locos to keep pace with the dramatic increase in train weights they were expected to pull.

Tom

 

I voted LNER, but if I am honest I prefer the pregroup era, especially the Great Central. Having said that, there's not really a pregroup, or indeed a grouped company that I dislike. It's more a question of priority. A man can only have so many books/models/whatever.