Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[lezz01]

Here you go Martin.

They were a lot of hard work but totally worth it although I will say they wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding until I converted them to tender mounted motors with a driveshaft through the firebox door. Sorry about the quality of the first pic it was done with a different camera and is clearly not in focus. Oh yes they are EM.

Regards Lez.Z.

Edited October 17, 2018 by lezz01

[Martin S-C]

 

A 1923 map showing the Proximity of gasworks and rail yard can be found at   http://warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrss3103.htm 

It may give enough info to estimate the size of the gasworks.

I got a failed link from that post Don, but shortening it to this got it to work:

 

http://warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrss3103.htm

 

Very nice Lez, that encourages me a lot.

[DonB]

Martin

Sorry for lousy link ... I did a copy & paste of my search bar, it usually works!

Somewhere on the web there are at least two photos of the Shipton gas works, I'll have a trawl, but we are away this W/E 

 

Edit.. Also on the Warwickshire Railways website is this picture   http://warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrss1002.htm

Showing the Gas holder in the background... looks to be an imposing structure in the village setting! 

Edited October 18, 2018 by DonB

[Martin S-C]

Don, the link wasn't lousy - it was 95% good - I think when you copied it from your browser bar you just accidentally grabbed a space on the end.

I would be interested in seeing those pictures of Shipton gas works.

Have you used the Britain From Above website? Lots of really good aircraft views from the 1920s onwards which if you're lucky can get you some good layout shots of industries pertinent you one's chosen modelling subject. And of course station views. You can join for free which lets you zoom in more, view full page and download images for private use. Here is a rather grainy view of Kibworth gasworks, about 12 miles south of Leicester. I used to live here (one of the houses at the top of the photo in fact) and the gasworks office (the house fronting the road set back behind bushes with two end chimneys) still stands as a private house. There was a long siding from the station (which is out of shot to the upper right) that the locals called "Kibworth gasworks siding" but it was above the works on an embankment. Whether the gas company had coal shovelled down a chute from the embankment into their yard I have not yet been able to discover.

 

For my interests I was delighted to find several aerial shots of Speech House wood distillation works, a compressed copy of which will be modelled on my layout. A couple of CANNOP coal wagons can be seen in their sidings.

 

Edited February 4, 2019 by Martin S-C

[Nearholmer]

I trot this photo out whenever this topic comes up.

 

Siding at the back edge of the goods yard at Berkhamsted, with 18” gauge tramway to gas works. Route involved crossing WCML in a suitably tiny tunnel under the embankment.

 

Other works had big wheelbarrow/cart things to shift coal the few hundred yards from the railway.

[Martin S-C]

Wonderful inspiration to use in a model.

[Nearholmer]

The shame of slow progress? I hope there is none.

 

Photo below shows my junk cupboard (well, one shelf of it) with two coaches and two wagons underway.

 

They’d got to this exact stage and were on the bench the day our son was born. He starts senior school next year.

[Martin S-C]

The beauty of having them unfinished allows your dreams of how good they'll eventually be to remain untarnished. At least that's what I sometimes find.

BTW, had you intended to post this in Edwardian's thread? I don't mind at all if you did and want to move it! I feel flattered that somebody is confusing my humble abode with his.

 

Today's arrival I hope will be very useful. A chance encounter on e-Bay. Its the Eduard 1/72nd kit of 1917 RFC personnel. I think the officer and sergeant(?) will make useful passengers for my line while the ground crew all ooze potential for farm and industrial workers. I can see a use for the men in the heavy boots and protective aprons at my greaseworks and wood distillation plant.

 

 

Edited February 4, 2019 by AY Mod
Image edit

[Nearholmer]

Right!

 

I need to get my brain in proper gear.

 

Yes, somehow I’ve cross-posted.

 

Sorry.

 

Very nice flying chaps.

 

Chocks away!!

[Martin S-C]

Indeed, watch out for the Hun in the sun!

A bit more fettling on the gas tanker wagon. I added some end stanchions from a dead Hornby tanker then scraps of this and that from the bits box for hoses and such. Its not authentic but I feel it looks a bit better now the ends are busier. The plastic Hornby steel stanchions sort of merge under a coating of plastic putty into the model's wooden ones which will make the rivet counters howl but I just squint and think its sort of okay. This project isn't meant to be P4 accuracy or Bob Essery levels of vehicle correctness by any means.

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2019 by Martin S-C

[Edwardian]

Thanks all, I am learning a lot here. To me town gas/gasworks and gas wagons on model railways are really just adjuncts to modelling. Nice to have a little gasworks on a layout (the Peter Denny pocket-sized versions) and the gas wagons are just vehicles that I know were in common use until maybe the 20s, I honestly have not given a great deal of thought to the technology and processes behind it all.

 

Lez - thank you for the heads up. Yes, I was thinking along the lines of using a Gibson frames/chassis as a basis. I tried to build a whitemetal Dukedog way back in the 80s and got the tender built nicely and the chassis and frames and motor working with okay quartering but my soldering iron back then was a nasty cheapie one and it would melt the W/M parts... I never did get it finished.

 

I have the plastic Ratio Johnson 4-4-0 and 2-4-0 Midland kits as well which will clearly need brass chassis and decent motors/gears. I just can't help myself when it comes to smallish late Victorian tender engines.

 

MR_Johnson_4-4-0_01.jpg MR_Johnson_2-4-0_01.jpg

 

 

 

Ah, how I realise what Nearhomer was talking about in the Other Place!

 

He clearly recalled this: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2891240

 

I really must try to keep up!

 

Great work on the tank wagon and the clerestory bash

[Nick Holliday]

Hi Colin

 

It was coal gas, produced in the same manner that town gas was and used for coach lighting. Gas lighting replaced oil lamps in passenger coaches around the 1870s to 1880s I understand. All the bigger railway companies would have their own gasworks to produce their own gas by heating the impurities out of coal with the outputs being coke, tars and oils of various densities and gas. Attached are a couple of photos of the very large gasworks that formed part of the main GW works at Swindon.

 

gas_tower_sml.jpg gas_works_sml.jpg gas_towers_sml.jpg

Photos from my collection.

The gas tanker wagons would be charged up at such facilities, then parked at various strategic places around the system where carriages were stored to charge their gas lighting reservoirs. The GWR used the telegraphic code name CORDON for these wagons and had a later design of nine transverse smaller tanks stored in two levels secured by longitudinal steel straps.

 

Photo copyright 53A Models (James Doubleday)

 

Of course, following a number of bad fires at train accidents, most tragically at Quintinshill in May 1915, which were fed by the burning gas tanks, gas lighting was slowly replaced by electric and at the same time, wooden bodied passenger vehicles by steel bodied.

I'm afraid that it wasn't coal or town gas that was generally used in carriage lighting, but an oil based gas, known as Pintsch Gas after its inventor. When gas lighting for carriages was first investigated, coal gas was tried at first, but it wasn't successful, because it had poor lighting qualities when used under pressure, as required to get a decent period of use on the move, and I believe it also tended to lose pressure quickly, which meant a tank was still half full, but unable to supply the lamps properly. Pintsch gas overcame these problems, and could still provide adequate lighting when almost empty.

Gas lighting was introduced around 1877, but oil lighting wasn't immediately eliminated, and certain stock was still oil lit into, I suspect, the grouping era, especially NPCC such as horse boxes.

The large gas works, as seen at Swindon, were built to supply the works and town. There would have been a separate carriage gas plant, where the naphtha based gas was produced by heating up the liquid for subsequent compression and distribution. This plant was relatively small, and is thus often difficult to locate where it was located. The LBSC had three such plants, one, at Battersea was moved lock, stock and barrel to a new location at Eardley carriage depot, which demonstrates the simplicity of the equipment.

Electric lighting was begun, on the Brighton at least, back in the 1880's, and really took off after 1900. Incidents like Quintinshill and an earlier one on the Midland did accelerate the process, but the former accident was fairly late in the day, but even so gas lighting wasn't eliminated until the fifties.

[RedGemAlchemist]

I'm afraid that it wasn't coal or town gas that was generally used in carriage lighting, but an oil based gas, known as Pintsch Gas after its inventor. When gas lighting for carriages was first investigated, coal gas was tried at first, but it wasn't successful, because it had poor lighting qualities when used under pressure, as required to get a decent period of use on the move, and I believe it also tended to lose pressure quickly, which meant a tank was still half full, but unable to supply the lamps properly. Pintsch gas overcame these problems, and could still provide adequate lighting when almost empty.

Gas lighting was introduced around 1877, but oil lighting wasn't immediately eliminated, and certain stock was still oil lit into, I suspect, the grouping era, especially NPCC such as horse boxes.

The large gas works, as seen at Swindon, were built to supply the works and town. There would have been a separate carriage gas plant, where the naphtha based gas was produced by heating up the liquid for subsequent compression and distribution. This plant was relatively small, and is thus often difficult to locate where it was located. The LBSC had three such plants, one, at Battersea was moved lock, stock and barrel to a new location at Eardley carriage depot, which demonstrates the simplicity of the equipment.

Electric lighting was begun, on the Brighton at least, back in the 1880's, and really took off after 1900. Incidents like Quintinshill and an earlier one on the Midland did accelerate the process, but the former accident was fairly late in the day, but even so gas lighting wasn't eliminated until the fifties.

Wasn't expecting a history lesson this morning. Thanks, that's actually really interesting.

[BWsTrains]

I'm afraid that it wasn't coal or town gas that was generally used in carriage lighting, but an oil based gas, known as Pintsch Gas after its inventor. When gas lighting for carriages was first investigated, coal gas was tried at first, but it wasn't successful, because it had poor lighting qualities when used under pressure, as required to get a decent period of use on the move, and I believe it also tended to lose pressure quickly, which meant a tank was still half full, but unable to supply the lamps properly. Pintsch gas overcame these problems, and could still provide adequate lighting when almost empty.

Gas lighting was introduced around 1877, but oil lighting wasn't immediately eliminated, and certain stock was still oil lit into, I suspect, the grouping era, especially NPCC such as horse boxes.

The large gas works, as seen at Swindon, were built to supply the works and town. There would have been a separate carriage gas plant, where the naphtha based gas was produced by heating up the liquid for subsequent compression and distribution. This plant was relatively small, and is thus often difficult to locate where it was located. The LBSC had three such plants, one, at Battersea was moved lock, stock and barrel to a new location at Eardley carriage depot, which demonstrates the simplicity of the equipment.

Electric lighting was begun, on the Brighton at least, back in the 1880's, and really took off after 1900. Incidents like Quintinshill and an earlier one on the Midland did accelerate the process, but the former accident was fairly late in the day, but even so gas lighting wasn't eliminated until the fifties.

That fits with my initial thoughts of post #240 here:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/135768-nether-madder-and-great-shafting-rly/?p=3335082

 

that Nearhomer later supported, As you note, a small furnace used to crack naphtha would be far less conspicuous than a Coal/town gas plant where storage was at very low pressure, hence the big gasometers and there many by-products to capture and process. The missing link that Nearholmer has referred to was that compression technology had advanced by that time to make Pintsch gas viable for use in lighting,

 

Colin

[tebee]

Wouldn't Naphtha at that time have been made from the coal tar byproduct of town gas production ?

 

You have a reason for having two gas works now !

[BWsTrains]

Wouldn't Naphtha at that time have been made from the coal tar byproduct of town gas production ?

 

You have a reason for having two gas works now !

Prof Wikipedia (usual health warnings attached) refers to an oil based refining industry operating at the time in question and oil would be a better place to start than coal if you wanted to produce naphtha in quantity. Reason far less destructive chemistry required.

[Martin S-C]

Interesting discussion. I expect the GWR gasworks at Swindon just supplied the company's works, though its possible any excess was sold to the town, since there was a Swindon United Gas Co works east of the station on the north side of the line, opposite the Transfer Yard and tucked into the junction with the Highworth branch. This supplied the town, or at least part of it. Just north of here was the sprawling site of the ammonium nitrate works which in WWI supplied propellants for ammunition with long trains of GPVs being set to Woolwich arsenal on a daily basis (or rather, nightly).

Swindon United gasworks in 1969. Transfer Shed on the left.

 

Gasworks map.

 

Ammonium Nitrate works map. I think a compressed form of this would make an excellent industrial layout. The works had its own 2-track engine shed and several industrial shunters, though I don't know of what make these were. I have quite a bit of info on the operations of this facility if anyone's interested. Photos of it however are very hard to find.

[Nearholmer]

Various fractions were ‘cracked’ from crude oil that came from Russia, Persia, California, Scotland, and a few other places. From what I can work out, and I’ve wasted a lot of time not really getting a full understanding of this, there were several ‘light’ fractions, but the names used don’t align to more recent usage, and ‘naptha’ was an elastic term that could mean as much as ‘entire crude’ and as little as ‘painter’s naptha’, now better known as ‘lighter fluid’ (as in those old petrol lighters), and properly called benzine. This was the early fuel for spark-ignition engines, and was also called ‘petroleum spirit’. It’s a lot more volatile than the blended petrols that came slightly later.

 

Lamp oil was also very important (mineral lamp oil replaced whale oil in the late C19th), as was it’s close relation paraffin (which wasn’t a standardised fraction/blend either).

 

Again imperfect understanding, but I think that refining of crude took place in different plants from coal tar distilleries (see CA thread for discussion of that industry).

 

These industries moved forward very fast in the late C19th, and I’ve yet to find a history that contains enough technical detail to be truly interesting, which is odd really, given how fundemental they have been to life for the past century plus. Historians love politics and social change, but seem generally baffled by technical stuff!

Edited October 19, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

And, you’re in luck regarding Swindon, because my ‘study reorganisation project’ reached the stage of unboxing and shelving some books this morning, including the relevant IRS one.

 

The really interesting loco is LSWR 101, aBassett Lowke 112 or ‘Triang Nellie’, and look where it went next!

Edited October 19, 2018 by Nearholmer

[RedGemAlchemist]

And, you’re in luck regarding Swindon, because my ‘study reorganisation project’ reached the stage of unboxing and shelving some books this morning, including the relevant IRS one.

 

The really interesting loco is LSWR 101, aBassett Lowke 112 or ‘Triang Nellie’, and look where it went next!

I smell a crossover!

[Martin S-C]

I smell a double slip!

And with that...



...we need a layout attached to that double slip so I have somewhere to run this little cutie.

[Nearholmer]

That is one very tasteful truck.

[lezz01]

I must admit I would have had a go at lining it...but that's just me.

Regards Lez.Z.

[Annie]

I seriously do like that brake van Martin.  What a lovely unique model.

[Martin S-C]

Lining is beyond my skillset and probably always will be. I suppose I could have used transfers but the idea of all those panels gave me the shakes.

I've discovered that Prickly Pear Products are still in business and he makes an all third and composite GNSR 4-wheelers to go with the brake. The others are equally attractive vehicles with that very old-fashioned look.