Castle Aching

[Hroth]

Just now, Edwardian said:

See, look what you've done now.  I have a vision of a bunch of Methodists, having eschewed the Demon Drink, getting stoned on opium. 

 

I was going to say....   Oh, not Poppyland again!!!

 

Next it'll be the Wroxham Zombie Apocalypse.....

 

Perhaps the one explains the other.

[Compound2632]

Whilst googling the WZA, I came across this:

 

 

Aylsham station c. 1880, from the Bure Valley Railway website. I think that's an Adams 61 Class 0-4-4T with the absurdly-low bunker? 4-wheel carriages. Is the ballast up to the tops of the rails, at least in the station area, or is that just the poor quality of the photograph?

Edited October 6, 2019 by Compound2632

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Aylsham station c. 1880, from the Bure Valley Railway website. I think that's an Adams 61 Class 0-4-4T with the absurdly-low bunker? 4-wheel carriages. Is the ballast up to the tops of the rails, at least in the station area, or is that just the poor quality of the photograph?

 

I wouldn't blame the original photgraph too much, it would have been taken using a plate camera, probably using the dry plate process rather than the earlier wet plate technology.  Given the edges, I would suspect that the original image was fairly pin sharp. 

 

However, the photographer would not have had the range of focal lengths that nowadays are so easily available; imagine taking the image from that location with a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera, or towards the "wide angle" end of a digital camera zoom, so the loco and  station would comprise a fairly small section of the actual image obtained. 

 

Unless the original negative plate is still available, what we see in the picture is probably a cropped and photoshopped section of an original print from the negative, it does not have the correct aspect ratio for any of the common plate sizes.  And unless the print had been kept in archival conditions, the image would have been degraded anyway over time.

 

So, its blurred and less detailed in places, but I'd blame the modern graphic designer who sliced and diced it for the website!

[corneliuslundie]

It's not just church schools which only used surnames. It was standard in all secondary schools in Cardiff in my time, which caused continual confusion since my surname is David.

And re clergy, we have a Venerable Baz, or to put it more correctly the Venerable Archdeacon Barry Wilson. Mind you he is less venerable than most of the denizens of CA,

Jonathan

[wagonman]

52 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I wouldn't blame the original photgraph too much, it would have been taken using a plate camera, probably using the dry plate process rather than the earlier wet plate technology.  Given the edges, I would suspect that the original image was fairly pin sharp. 

 

However, the photographer would not have had the range of focal lengths that nowadays are so easily available; imagine taking the image from that location with a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera, or towards the "wide angle" end of a digital camera zoom, so the loco and  station would comprise a fairly small section of the actual image obtained. 

 

Unless the original negative plate is still available, what we see in the picture is probably a cropped and photoshopped section of an original print from the negative, it does not have the correct aspect ratio for any of the common plate sizes.  And unless the print had been kept in archival conditions, the image would have been degraded anyway over time.

 

So, its blurred and less detailed in places, but I'd blame the modern graphic designer who sliced and diced it for the website!

 

I would guess that it was mostly sky that was cropped off. Dry plate? Possibly though it has the look of a Calotype – very unlikely at that late a date.

 

As for the ballast, several railway companies were in the habit of burying the sleepers in ballast. Aylsham station  was only a terminus from 1879 to 1881 when the line was extended to Foulsham and, eventually, County School.

 

 

[Andy Kirkham]

8 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Overstrand....

It rang a bell....

 

One of Boulton  Pauls (formerly of Norwich)  lethal designs and the last Biplane "medium" bomber in the RAF, seeing brief service in the late '30s.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_%26_Paul_Overstrand

 

Seeing as that wasn't bad enough, they then went on to produce the "Defiant"....

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant

 

 

At the risk of pontificating on a subject I know little,I have the impression  that Boulton & Paul, along with Blackburn enjoyed a kind of charmed existence, continuing over many years to receive government orders for new designs despite producing nothing but duds.

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I think that's an Adams 61 Class 0-4-4T with the absurdly-low bunker? 

 

And how come Adams' Great Eastern engines are such ugly ducklings:

 

 

[GER Soc website]

 

... when he produced such lean and elegant swans as soon as he got to Nine Elms?

 

Frankly, the same might be said of Johnson on his removal to Derby.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Likewise in ignorance, it struck me that the RAF's search for decent 'planes in the 1930s mirrors BR's search for decent Diesel locos in the 1950s.

 

In both cases the customer was expecting slightly more than could be had from a fragmented supply industry made-up of many relatively inexperienced firms all trying to keep-up with fast-moving technology, and in both cases the customer, aided and abetted by The Ministry behind it, was vacillating over exactly what it wanted, getting ready to win the war that had already finished, without knowing exactly how it wanted to fight the next one.

 

It took a literal war to clarify things for the RAF, and to get decent aeroplanes, and a complete financial meltdown to get clarity around BR, and a half-decent locomotive fleet.

 

So, the Bolton-Paul Overstrand (which looks like a mid-air collision between a Lancaster and two Tiger Moths) was, in my mind, roughly the equivalent of a BR Class 21.

[Nearholmer]

I wonder if the answer with Adams was a bit of help from Beyer-Peacock.

[brack]

23 minutes ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

At the risk of pontificating on a subject I know little,I have the impression  that Boulton & Paul, along with Blackburn enjoyed a kind of charmed existence, continuing over many years to receive government orders for new designs despite producing nothing but duds.

Boulton & Paul produced the gun turrets for an awful lot of allied bombers in ww2, there was more to them than just the defiant and a few obsolete 30s designs (frankly everything the RAF built in the interwar period looked incredibly dated as soon as monoplanes appeared and the luftwaffe (oops, condor legion) showed what modern air power could be in the spanish civil war.

 

Blackburn produced plenty of ineffective fleet air arm fighters/fighter bombers (pretty much everything the FAA ordered in that line was crap until they realised you could just navalise a spitfire or import US carrier plane designs). However the Buccaneer was good.

Both companies most significant contributions might well have been building other companies designs - B&P churned out an awful lot of sopwith camels and blackburn produced most of the fairey swordfish.

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I wonder if the answer with Adams was a bit of help from Beyer-Peacock.

 

Well, yes, quite. In previous discussion of Beyer-Peacock 4-4-0s, the notable change from Met Tank-esque front ends to the Adams style was noted, following on from Beyer Peacock building Adams' first LSWR engines. But maybe we should be looking more closely at the Gorton drawing office. I've increasingly come to feel that traditional locomotive history has been far too compartmentalised by company and has focused too much on the chiefs. There's a web of connections and significant figures too often overlooked, going back to Charles Beyer and on thorough engineers such as Edward Snowball and Walter M. Smith.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

And how come Adams' Great Eastern engines are such ugly ducklings:

 

... when he produced such lean and elegant swans as soon as he got to Nine Elms?

 

Frankly, the same might be said of Johnson on his removal to Derby.

 

 

When Adams moved to the LSWR, he acquired a chief draughtsman called Pettigrew, whose designs for the Furness had similar lines...

Edited October 6, 2019 by Regularity
I am particular about apostrophes, but autocorrect isn’t.

[Hroth]

9 hours ago, wagonman said:

I would guess that it was mostly sky that was cropped off. Dry plate? Possibly though it has the look of a Calotype – very unlikely at that late a date.

 

Some sky, slightly more foreground is my guess.

I initially thought a calotype but the date and the slow speed of calotype media rules it out; the collodion (wet plate) displaced the calotype in the 1850s and the dry plate replaced that (especially for keen amateurs) by the 1880s.

 

The other thing is that it might be an 1880s image treated using the bromoil process, which became "popular"* by the 1910s, and was in many ways a return to the aesthetics of the calotype, possibly a reaction to the precise images of conventional photography.

 

See the image of the Forth Bridge on the RPS site, which shares many of the characteristics of the Aylsham photo.

http://rps.org/special-interest-groups/archaeology-and-heritage/blogs/2014/june/bromoil-process---a-brief-history-and-overview

 

* Amongst "photography as art" aesthetic types...

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Hroth
clarification

[Donw]

7 hours ago, Regularity said:

When Adams moved to the LSWR, he acquired a chief draughtsman called Pettigrew, whose designs for the Furness had similar lines...

 

Without knowing the WHO that was my thought. I cannot imagine the Chief Engineer doing the actual drawing so the draughtsman would have had some leeway in interpreting the instructions from above.

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

Compound

 

my take on all history, indeed everything, these days is that it’s as important, if not more so, to study the connections (interactions actually) as it is to study the nodes. But then, I think I’m just slow to catch-up on this point; ‘proper’ historical studies, which a lot of railway histories aren’t, have done this for a long time, especially good biographies. 

 

Kevin

 

 

[Edwardian]

16 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Whilst googling the WZA, I came across this:

 

 

Aylsham station c. 1880, from the Bure Valley Railway website. I think that's an Adams 61 Class 0-4-4T with the absurdly-low bunker? 4-wheel carriages. Is the ballast up to the tops of the rails, at least in the station area, or is that just the poor quality of the photograph?

 

A wonderful picture, and I hope there is a special place in Hell for those of the Bure Valley Railway who bulldozed it so they could play with their toy trains.

 

 

If the picture is 1880, it must be shortly after opening. 

 

As for the locomotive, we must picture it in black.

 

It could be an Adams Class 61, or, indeed, the earlier Johnson Class 134. The height of the tank and sweep of the cab-side cut-out argue for the Adams class, though the rectangular window on the Adams cab I have confirmed only on a Johnson loco so far. 

 

There were 30 Johnson Class 134 locomotives built 1872-1873, said to have been the first 0-4-4Ts in England fitted with side tanks. Originally built with just weather boards, Adams fitted half-cabs and rear weather boards. One picture (below) confirms that the Adams cab fronts had rectangular windows, as does the loco at Aylsham.

 

 

By 1880, I suspect that the Class 134s had lost the Johnson brass safety valve bonnet and the dome with Salter valves, making them even closer in appearance to the Adams locomotives. There are no Slater springs evident in the Aylsham picture.

 

Adams built 50 Class 61 0-4-4Ts between 1875 and 1878.  They appear broadly similar to the rebuilt Class 61s.

 

The key recognition features are not easy to spot in the Aylsham picture, due to the angle of view.

 

Most obviously, the Johnson locos had 5'3" coupled wheels, which, to my mind, are proportionally more satisfying than the 4'10" wheels of the Adams class.

 

The cab side sheet is deeper on the Adams.  Where, as here, oval number plates are worn, they sit between the coupled and trailing wheels on the Johnson locomotives, but overlap the rear coupled wheel on the Adams.

 

Logically, one might expect the Class 61s to feature rectangular cab windows, but the only pictures where this feature may be glimpsed appear to show round spectacles, including the as-built view on the GERS site: Class 61. 

 

Also, broadly similar were Bromley's 60 4'10" 0-4--4Ts built 1878-1883, but these were still being produced for front-line suburban service, so I preclude them as candidates here.  Interestingly, although the practice of using the order number for the initial Lot as the class designation seems to be applied consistently from T W Worsdell onward, the Bromley 0-4-4Ts were also so treated, known as the E10 class.  

 

EDIT:

 

Post scriptum, this identification issue has been nagging me.  I believe that I can come off the fence and say that Stephen is absolutely right to identify the loco at Aylsham as an Adams Class 61. 

 

Looking at an enlarged version of the Aylsham picture, and taking account also of the shadow cast on the embankment, I would say that:

 

- The height of the tanks matches the 61 better than the lower tanks of the 134.  Note that the rear weatherboard appears to extend to the same height as the tanks. Not so on the Johnson.

 

- The long, low sweep of the cab cut-out better matches the 61, though it must be said, at this angle the distance between the cut-out and the cab front is severely foreshortened, suggesting the 134

 

- The cab windows are a neutral factor.  Those on the Adams cabs fitted to the 134s seem to have been rectangular, but logically the Adams cabs on the Adams 61s would be the same. I enlarged the picture of the 61 on the GERS site and, on second look, I think these are rectangular too.

 

 

- The sand boxes (below the valance behind the rear coupled wheels) are much more prominent on the 61s than on the 134s, and I believe we are seeing a a characteristic Class 61 sandbox in the Aylsham picture.

 

- Hard to tell in the oblique view, but I think the oval number plate on the tank side is above the rear coupled wheel, suggesting a Class 61.

 

- Though rather more subjective, I think the coupled wheels look to be relatively smaller Adams ones.

 

If anyone differs in their assessment, or has further and better particulars, please do post. In the meantime, that concludes the submissions on behalf of the Class 61.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Edwardian
Further thoughts

[Edwardian]

Some pictures from the weekend:

 

Dunstan Harbour (4mm LNER 1930s):

 

 

Grenfield (4mm LNER 1930s). A nicely observed corner:

 

 

Shildon (4mm).  This is the Shildon MRC's permanent layout at the museum:

 

 

Ludlow (2mm):

 

 

West Pinfold (4 mm LNER 1920s-1930s).  This had no information displayed, but looks like GNR in Yorkshire to me:

 

 

Back to 2mm, because we'll always have ....

 

[jwealleans]

Dunstan Harbour - LNER 1930s?   Really?

[Edwardian]

16 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

Dunstan Harbour - LNER 1930s?   Really?

 

Out of period running, clearly

 

[Edwardian]

Returning to the genteel climes of CA, earlier I expressed the view that, on aesthetic grounds, that I preferred Johnson's Class 134 to Adam's Class 61 Class.

 

6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

A wonderful picture, and I hope there is a special place in Hell for those of the Bure Valley Railway who bulldozed it so they could play with their toy trains.

 

 

If the picture is 1880, it must be shortly after opening. 

 

As for the locomotive, we must picture it in black.

 

It could be an Adams Class 61, or, indeed, the earlier Johnson Class 134. The height of the tank and sweep of the cab-side cut-out argue for the Adams class, though the rectangular window on the Adams cab I have confirmed only on a Johnson loco so far. 

 

There were 30 Johnson Class 134 locomotives built 1872-1873, said to have been the first 0-4-4Ts in England fitted with side tanks. Originally built with just weather boards, Adams fitted half-cabs and rear weather boards. One picture (below) confirms that the Adams cab fronts had rectangular windows, as does the loco at Aylsham.

 

 

By 1880, I suspect that the Class 134s had lost the Johnson brass safety valve bonnet and the dome with Salter valves, making them even closer in appearance to the Adams locomotives. There are no Slater springs evident in the Aylsham picture.

 

Adams built 50 Class 61 0-4-4Ts between 1875 and 1878.  They appear broadly similar to the rebuilt Class 61s.

 

The key recognition features are not easy to spot in the Aylsham picture, due to the angle of view.

 

Most obviously, the Johnson locos had 5'3" coupled wheels, which, to my mind, are proportionally more satisfying than the 4'10" wheels of the Adams class.

 

The cab side sheet is deeper on the Adams.  Where, as here, oval number plates are worn, they sit between the coupled and trailing wheels on the Johnson locomotives, but overlap the rear coupled wheel on the Adams.

 

Logically, one might expect the Class 61s to feature rectangular cab windows, but the only pictures where this feature may be glimpsed appear to show round spectacles, including the as-built view on the GERS site: Class 61. 

 

Also, broadly similar were Bromley's 60 4'10" 0-4--4Ts built 1878-1883, but these were still being produced for front-line suburban service, so I preclude them as candidates here.  Interestingly, although the practice of using the order number for the initial Lot as the class designation seems to be applied consistently from T W Worsdell onward, the Bromley 0-4-4Ts were also so treated, known as the E10 class.  

 

EDIT:

 

Post scriptum, this identification issue has been nagging me.  I believe that I can come off the fence and say that Stephen is absolutely right to identify the loco at Aylsham as an Adams Class 61. 

 

Looking at an enlarged version of the Aylsham picture, and taking account also of the shadow cast on the embankment, I would say that:

 

- The height of the tanks matches the 61 better than the lower tanks of the 134.  Note that the rear weatherboard appears to extend to the same height as the tanks. Not so on the Johnson.

 

- The long, low sweep of the cab cut-out better matches the 61, though it must be said, at this angle the distance between the cut-out and the cab front is severely foreshortened, suggesting the 134

 

- The cab windows are a neutral factor.  Those on the Adams cabs fitted to the 134s seem to have been rectangular, but logically the Adams cabs on the Adams 61s would be the same. I enlarged the picture of the 61 on the GERS site and, on second look, I think these are rectangular too.

 

 

- The sand boxes (below the valance behind the rear coupled wheels) are much more prominent on the 61s than on the 134s, and I believe we are seeing a a characteristic Class 61 sandbox in the Aylsham picture.

 

- Hard to tell in the oblique view, but I think the oval number plate on the tank side is above the rear coupled wheel, suggesting a Class 61.

 

- Though rather more subjective, I think the coupled wheels look to be relatively smaller Adams ones.

 

If anyone differs in their assessment, or has further and better particulars, please do post. In the meantime, that concludes the submissions on behalf of the Class 61.

 

 

 

Both these classes were out to pasture by the time CA is set (1905), so are candidates to chug around with my Eveleigh Creations 4-wheelers.   

 

Not sure when the first 134 Class locos were withdrawn, but this was at least as early as October 1903, with the last going in 1912.  I could do with knowing the dates the various class members were withdrawn so that I can choose one extant in 1905.  I would be on completely safe ground with the Adams 61s, withdrawn 1906-1913.

 

Anyway, the evolution of the 134s can be followed below:

 

In original condition, as delivered in 1873, this is No.196 according to C Langley Aldrich, and 197 according to the GERS site:

 

 

Now we have a drawing of No.186 in original condition, below which is a drawing showing the Adams half-cab and stovepipe chimney (No.191):  

 

 

Here, then, is No.164 in similar Adams condition:

 

 

Now with these drawings we are into the post 1886 Ultramarine blue period. The locos show the classic GER safety valve covers.  The replacement dome is in the original position on No.188 and in the photograph of No.135 below.  On No.165 we have the dome mounted forward and an enclosed cab and coal rails, suggesting a later condition. 

 

 

No.135 in late, probably final, condition, from the GERS site. Captioned as mid-1890s, she was withdrawn in October 1903. She is a cross between the two drawings above inasmuch as she has the dome in its original position, as with No.188, rather than mounted further forward, and has a cab rear sheet and coal rails, like No.165.

 

Note in relation to all three how the R/H cab side sheet cut-out extends further to the rear than on the left.

 

It is a pity that No.135 went in 1903, given the existence of a photograph in the correct condition.  If anyone has any other pictures of the class, please let me know.

 

.

 

EDIT: I see that HMRS has a couple of pictures, neither class member identified by the look of it; one in original condition in a view of Hoe Street.

 

The other is said to be at Sudbury and dated to c.1900. It is also said to be an 1896 rebuild; the cab spectacles are round. 

 

HMRS Link

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Edwardian
Further information

[Regularity]

6 hours ago, Donw said:

 

Without knowing the WHO that was my thought. I cannot imagine the Chief Engineer doing the actual drawing so the draughtsman would have had some leeway in interpreting the instructions from above.

 

Don

Lots of instances of this, Don.

Although Wainwright had his name on the SECR designs produced under his aegis, it was Surtees who designed them. They were to all intents and purposes LCDR designs, but with the final elegant outline produced by Wainwright. The C was a natural development of the B series, and the C of the M series. Similarly, the H from the Chatham R class.

Fred Russell on the GER moved from being the chief draughtsman to General Manager, and created the timetable for the Jazz service!

[Edwardian]

14 minutes ago, Regularity said:

 

Although Wainwright had his name on the SECR designs produced under his aegis, it was Surtees who designed them. They were to all intents and purposes LCDR designs, but with the final elegant outline produced by Wainwright. The C was a natural development of the B series, and the C of the M series. Similarly, the H from the Chatham R class.

 

 

Indeed. The draughtsman strikes back; "designed by R R Surtees 1899", and that's Surtees's signature. 

 

[Compound2632]

On the larger railways at least, the Locomotive Superintendent was the manager of inter alia a large drawing office staff. Here's the Derby LDO, undated but probably c. 1906*, taken, it would appear, to illustrate a new lighting installation - vapour light:

 

 

NRM DY 2871, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

 

*Undated in the Derby Registers index, but between blocks of photos taken 1906/7. Note pride of place given to a large print of a photo of a Deeley compound in works grey.

 

[Buhar]

It is really hard to know the extent to which CMEs/Superintendents worked on aesthetics themselves or whether Chief Draughtsmen were the real designers.  It's difficult to imagine anyone having much sway over a martinet like Dugald Drummond and some changes like cab cut-out shapes seem to have been no more than a new chief's stamp on an existing design.  Maybe some CMEs concentrated on steam passages and heating areas and then asked the draughtsman to join the parts together neatly.  Equally one can imagine someone like Johnson, pencil in hand, creating the lines and proportions he wanted from the bare bones of a functional design.  Nothing too big, mind, our trains look better with two little ones one the front.

 

The possibilities for knowing what the chief wanted or even for some collaboration are clearly there, but the Victorian/Edwardian workplace was very hierarchical and clearly some talented folk needed to get away from their mentors in order to make a career.  The Great Man view of history isn't helpful in this regard, but it is often all we have.

 

Alan

Edited October 7, 2019 by Buhar
stray "s"

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Buhar said:

Nothing too big, mind, our trains look better with two little ones one the front.

 

 

Not in Johnson's day. His engines were big by the standards of the time and individually, masters of their tasks. The rot set in on the Midland, as elsewhere (notably the North Western), with the introduction of corridor carriages, dining carriages and other such passenger amenities that increased the train weight per passenger.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Compound2632