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Journal of the Railway & Canal Historical Society 2018 Volume 39 Part 4 |
No 231 March 2018
Christopher Lewis and Terence Baddeley. Josiah Clowes, 1735-1794, 'a celebrated engineer'. 202-8.
Tony Sheward. The financial performance of the Big Four. Part 1: the
overall picture, 1923-1928. 209-22.
96pp
Part 2 of this article will provide a more detailed view of the financial
performance of the Big Four in the years 1933-38. Thus, the comments in this
section only give part of the picture. The two sections after the Introduction
give the backdrop against which the financial performance of the Big Four
should be measured. Although the start date for the Big Four's existence
was over four years after the end of World War I, the companies were by no
means restored to their condition before the War. The government compensation
for wartime neglect of repairs and maintenance was only agreed in 1921 and
regarded by the railway companies as niggardly. The post-war economic boom
and slump had also adversely affected the financial situation of the pre-vesting
companies. The Big Four, therefore had much to do to stabilise the situation
as well as deal with the problems of amalgamation. Despite the best efforts
of Lloyd George's coalition government to improve upon the Victorian legislation
on railway rates and charges, the system established under the 1921 Act left
the Big Four with considerable difficulties in competing effectively with
other forms of transport. Of most significance was the link with standard
net revenue in 1913 and the inflexibility of the system for changing rates.
As with all UK companies, the Big Four had to operate within the parameters
of the UK economy. In general terms the economy showed an improving trend
up to 1929, but it needs to be emphasised what a shock the six-month miners'
strike and related ten-day general strike caused to the railway industry.
The Big Four were hit both as bulk carriers of coal and large users of coal,
not to mention the impact of the strikes on their other customers, and of
course the ten-day general strike seriously disrupted their business across
the board. The Great Depression years 1929-32 saw falling demand on a world-wide
basis. The Big Four were particularly affected because the old staple industries
of the Victorian period, which were major customers, suffered disproportionately
and were slow to recover, if at all. The years of economic recovery 1933-37
provided opportunities for the Big Four to grow, but the downturn and the
threat of war in 1938 presented new problems.
The scale of the competition from road transport both in private and public
transport over the years 1923-38 is indicated in the analysis by Stone and
Rowe. Whilst this was undoubtedly a serious problem for the Big Four in
particular sectors, such as door-to-door transport of non-bulky goods over
relatively short distances, the Big Four still in 1938 retained a competitive
advantage in several sectors. As the trunk road network was of relatively
poor quality, railways were a preferred option for both passengers and freight
for journeys over about 100 miles. For heavy and bulky goods, road transport
often lacked the equipment to cope. Although the quality of private cars
had improved markedly since 1923, there were still limitations, such as the
need to decoke the engine of most cars after 1,000 or so miles.
The figures for gross receipts, net revenue and dividends show that for the
most part, despite the shock in 1926, the Big Four had maintained their financial
performance in the period to 1929. It also needs to be borne in mind that
this was the period during which they had made good wartime depredation and
reorganised themselves following the amalgamation. The Great Depression years
were undoubtedly difficult for the Big Four, but they remained profitable
at the net revenue level, although the LMSR and the LNER had to cease payment
of dividends for a few years. By 1937 there had been a reasonable recovery,
although not to the level of 1929.
In 1938 the Big Four were still well-regarded members of the London Stock
Exchange. The LMSR was in fact one of the giants of the Exchange on a par
with the majors in other sectors, such as lCI. They were still organisations
generating large amounts of cash and had regularly paid their debenture holders,
even if their shareholders had fared less well.
Pat Jones. The cast iron girder bridge carrying the Great North Road over Milby Cut, Boroughbridge, Yorkshire. 223-31.
Michael Quick. Frederick Manning: a notorious Great Western criminal.
232-4.
Great Western Railway guard at Taunton . Born on 20 March 1820 and trained
at Taunton as a coach painter. During his period as a guard he was twice
in trouble: on 10 September 1847 he left a horse behind at Bristol which
should have gone to London and a couple of months later for allowing a passenger
to travel in a second-class carriage with a third-class ticket. Manning was
dismissed in 1848 for not apprehending robbers when thefts had taken place
on trains on which he was in charge. On leaving the railway he became proprietor
of the White Hart Hotel in Taunton with his wife Maria de Roux/Raux.
R.F. Hartley. S.W.A.
Newton and the building of the Great Central Railway. 235-47.
Born in Leicester in 1875; died in Beverley in 1960. Photographer
and son of Alfred Newton who owned a photographic business. Photographed
work on the construction of the London Extension of the Great Central Railway
and he estimated that he had taken 3000 photographs of it. About 2250 of
his photographs are housed in the Leicestershire Record Office. Includes
a portrait of Sydney Newton
The Great Central in the 1930s. 248
Reg Harman. Railway war service badges of World War 1. 249
Correspondence . 250
Reviews 252
George Carr Glyn: railway man and banker. David Hodgkins.
xii, 486pp, 60 illustrations on 32 plates, 7 maps, softback, Wolffe Press
Reviewed by Kevin Jones. 253
Glyn, as ennobled as Lord Wolverton, received a fulsome obituary from
an unexpected source, namely Edward Watkin. The following brief extract comes
from near the end of this lengthy tome: 'When the history ofrailways comes
to be written the name of Lord Wolverton will stand out as conspicuously
on the page as, or more so, than that of Stephenson or any of the other pioneers
of our noble industry. Lord Wolverton brought to bear upon its initiation
and progress that which Stephenson never could have accomplished. '
Glyn was a private banker throughout his life and, like most such individuals,
was the product of a banking family whose roots were in the Welsh aristocracy,
but by George Carr's time were mainly in London. For a time he took an interest
in London docks, notably in St Katharine's, then in the London & Birmingham
Railway which of course was a huge undertaking. This interest dominated his
thinking and led him to adopt a monopolist policy: intriguingly Cassen's
work on counterfactual railways is cited in defence of the subject's attitudes,
most notably to establish a link with Peterborough. The 'battles' with other
companies, especially the Great Western, and the significance of rapid access
to Dublin are recorded at length. GIyn's also financed other railways, many
of which, but not all became part of the LNWR.
This is a book of very considerable scholarship, manifested in the extensive
bibliography and in the multitude of footnote references, but its structure
makes assimilation difficult. Thus most of the bank's overseas activities,
notably those in Canada, are treated together towards the end of the book,
but they had emerged far earlier, indeed prior to the L&BR. Thus there
is some repetition and the prime subject's basic humanity fails to materialise.
Understandably abbreviations are sometimes used, but TVR for the Trent Valley
Railway causes one to pause and think Taff Vale. Chapter sub-headings would
have greatly eased the reader's task. It lacks the clarity of the late
Peter Braine's The Railway
Moon which received a very warm welcome in this
journal from Terry Gourvish. In fact Braine
states very clearly that Glyn 'had early appreciated the importance of railways
and took the lead in backing railway development'. The financing of the London
& Birmingham Railway by a private bank must have been awesome: perhaps
we should envisage the Branson or O'Leary HS2 to get some feel of the scale
and risk. It is also strange that Glyn's had not ventured into financing
canals but only London docks, although the risk was offset to a great extent
by the infusion of Liverpool capital where railways were truly born. It should
also be noted that Glyn established the style of management, especially during
his period as Chairman of the London &-Birmingham, which led to the formation
of the LNWR. Another notable innovation was the creation of the Railway Clearing
House. An Appendix records Glyn 's liabilities and assets. There is an extensive
bibliography plus footnote references on most pages and a better than average
index.
The early railways of Manchester. Anthony
Dawson. 96pp, 58 photographs (40 colour), 20 illustrations and maps,
paperback, Stroud :Amberley Publishing, Reviewed by Gerald Leach. 253-4
The opening chapter describes how in the late eighteenth century the
growth and expansion of the local cotton industry led Manchester to develop
and become a large industrial town. It already had the advantage of a transport
infrastructure that contained a network of short and long distance canals
and following the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in September
1830 industrial growth accelerated, which eventually resulted in Manchester
becoming Britain's first industrial city. The immediate success of the Liverpool
& Manchester Railway acted as a catalyst for investors and businessmen
to promote other railways that would Iink Manchester with Leeds, Birmingham,
Sheffield and eventually London. Subsequent chapters provide a history of
three other early railways that were centred on Manchester, namely the
Manchester, Bolton & Bury in 1838, the Manchester & Leeds in 1840
and the Manchester & Birmingham in 1842. A line map for each is included.
The narrative history of each company records the building and opening of
their lines, descriptions of terminal stations, early locomotives and passenger
rolling stock. The final chapter summarizes how Manchester's early raiIways
quickly amalgamated with their local competitors, eventually leading to major
consolidations when they were subsumed within the Lancashire &Yorkshire
Railway in 1847 or the London & North Western Railway in 1846. The history
has been well researched mainly from archive material lodged in Manchester's
Museum of Science and Technology and extracts taken from contemporary newspapers
of the time. The generous selection of illustrations and old postcards are
from the author's collection and together with the photographs, mainly taken
by the author, all combine to provide a good pictorial content which is unique,
interesting and informative. A bibliography is included. There is no index
and no I ists of source references, except for those referring to the newspaper
extracts contained within the text. This compact book provides an interesting
and easy read and is useful for the railway historian in providing some new
information relating to Manchester's early railways.
No 232 July 2018
David Slater. The Corn Brook feeder of the Leominster Canal: evidence for its existence and its rare sump pound function. 266-77.
Tony Sheward. The financial performance of the Big Four. Part 2: From depression to the threat of war, 1933-1038. 278-91.
Alan M. Levitt. A canal as the voice of a major American political movement. 291-3.
Stephen Rowson. Low Water Pier 1870-c1890 : an overlooked railway station at Cardiff. 293-305.
Paul Reynolds. An early toy train in Dombey and Son. 306-7.
Driver Wallace Oakes. 307
Driver Oakes awarded posthumous George Cross for bringing Britannia
locomotive to a halt following a massive blowback near Winsford on 5 June
1965. This brave man had an unmarked grave until a headstone was erected
at St. Matthew's church Haslington in 2018.
Correspondence. 308
New directipns in waterways history. Alan Richardson
Josiah Clowes and the Shrewsbury Canal. Peter Brown
Reviews. 312 -
Cambridge Station: its development & operation as a rail centre.
Rob Shorland-Ball. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Transport, 2017. 180pp.
Reviewed by Philip Scowcroft.
"A well-written book, spicced by the author's often humorous recollections
of his working as a goods porter in vacations 1958-65..."
Railway renaissance. Gareth David. Barnsley: Pen & Sword
Transport, 2017. 330pp. 192 illustrations. Reviewed by Graham Bird.
All re-openings and new lines opened 'since Beeching'. Exclusions
are heritage railways, and a few lines re-opened and later closed, such as
Sinfin and London Underground lines other than CrossRail alias the Elizabeth
Line (still time for it to change its name yet again).
The Hixon Railway Disaster: the inside story. Richard Westwood.
Barnsley: Pen & Sword Transport, 2017. xii, 120pp. Reviewed by Grahame
Boyes
Building on well-established experience in France and the Netherlands,
unmanned Automatic Half Barrier (AHB) level crossings were introduced
experimentally on British Railways from 1961 and in increasing numbers from
1965. On 6 January 1968 a Manchester-Euston express travelling at 75 mph
ran into a 120-ton electrical transformer on a low-loading trailer which
was moving cautiously across one of the new crossings at Hixon, Staffordshire.
Eight passengers and three train crew were killed and 45 injured, six seriously.
Because the Railway Inspectorate had been closely involved in specifying
the requirements to be incorporated in the new crossings and in inspecting
and approving each new installation, it was decided that the accident inquiry
should be held before a judge and the terms of the Inquiry were extended
to inquire generally into the safety of AHBs.
The origin of the accident was the failure by the Ministry of Transport and
BR to communicate the safety procedures effectively to heavy-haulage operators
and to the police. The report of the public inquiry found it 'astonishing
that, though so many talented and thoughtful men had the full facts in their
minds, the essence of the matter did not occur to any of them' . An important
contributory factor was the poor design and location of the warning signs
for road users.
This book is not a straightforward historical description and analysis of
the events surrounding one of the most significant railway accidents of the
British Railways era. The author has instead produced a sensational volume
claiming gross negligence and withholding of information by officers of the
Ministry of Transport and Railway Inspectorate and a 'turf war' with BR.
However, it is clear that the author does not understand that, unlike today,
there was a clear separation of powers between government and the statutory
corporations, with strict limits on the extent to which the Minister of Transport
and his department could interfere in the British Railways Board's responsibility
for managing the railways. BR would have been responsible for planning, design
and installation of the new crossings, taking account of the Inspectorate's
published list of 'requirements' that would have to be satisfied before each
AHB could be passed for opening. Both had equal responsibility to ensure
that the inherent risks were 'as low as reasonably practical' (to use a later
definition of safety management). It is quite wrong to suggest that Colonel
W P Reed, one ofthe inspectors, was in 'operational charge' (p 1), 'day-to-day
charge' (p 3) or 'overall charge' (p 5) of the introduction of AHBs, with
the implication that BR was somehow absolved. Much is made of Colonel Reed's
decision not to make it a requirement for a telephone to be provided at all
AHBs. The author interprets this as a direction to BR not to provide telephones;
in fact BR exercised its freedom of decision in order to provide telephones
at all new AHBs from the beginning of 1966 and commissioned a vandal-resistant
design. In any case telephones were provided from the start at Hixon, so
this was not a factor in the accident. Nevertheless, this seems to have been
the starting point for the author's decision to cast Reed as the villain
of the piece.
The author concludes that the deficient warning signs were 'the single most
important causal factor' and that, if the inquiry had done its job properly,
it would have found that the wording of the signs, suggested by Reed, was
'the essential causal element in the chain of events' (p 12). The author
deserves credit for the time he has spent in reading through the voluminous
records, but his interpretations of the evidence are suspect; they certainly
fail to consider how the circumstances of fifty years ago differed from those
today.
The Tavistock Canal: its history and archaeology. Robert Waterhouse. Camborne: Trevithick Society, 2017, 536pp. Reviewed by Peter Brown.
Joseph Locke: civil engineer and railway builder, 1805-1860. Anthony
Burton. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Transport, 2017. 180pp, 31 illustrations,
hardback,Reviewed by Peter Brown. 317
Joseph Locke is less well known than Robert Stephenson or Isambard
Brunel, the other great ngineers who oversaw the construction of much of
Britairi's railways from the 1830s to the 1850s, robably because his works
were less visibly spectacular. Locke's works fitted with the landscape. He
tried to avoid tunnels, even when crossing mountainous areas such as the
Lake District and Southern Scotland; this meant steeper gradients but he
was more confident than others that locomotives would progressively improve
to cope with these. He believed in detailed specifications for his works,
well communicated and closely monitored. Locke had a deserved reputation
for avoiding unnecessary cost, delivering projects which rarely exceeded
their original budget — issues of importance to investors at the time
but not to posterity.
But Locke's unassuming competence is a problem for a biographer: no major
catastrophes, no real controversies. or has much personal material survived
to reveal the man behind his achievements: no diaries, few letters. The author
appears to have relied on secondary sources (no references are given), hence
this new biography contains no surprises. Locke's sometimes fraught relationship
with George Stephenson is particularly well covered, and his works in France,
Spain and Holland are given deserved attention. Owners of N.W Webster's
Joseph Locke: railway revolutionary (1970) need not buy this new book,
but anyone else wanting a biography of Locke will find it a commendably clearly
written outline of his life and works.
The locomotive pioneers: early steam locomotive development 1801-1851.
Anthony Burton. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Transport, 2017. 192pp, 150
illustrations (20 colour), hardback, Reviewed by Victoria Owens. 317
In his preface Anthony Burton relates how making programmes about
early locomotives for the BBC honed his appreciation of the challenges which
their engineers confronted. His study of locomotive design between 1801I
and 1851 — from Richard Trevithick's experimental hill-climb near Camborne
to the Great Exhibition's celebration of railway technology — combines
technical insight with warm- hearted zeaI.
In the context of the locomotive's British evolution, Burton shows a refreshing
readiness to bring his experience — be it frustration with the
accident-prone replica NoveLty at the 150th anniversary re-enactment of the
Rainhill trials or grasp of the procedure for altering the valve gear - to
bear on his subject-matter. Viewing the new technology in its international
context, he details the near-simultaneous development by Marc Seguin and
Robert Stephenson of multi-tubular boilers —the one for use in the
locomotives of the Saint-Etienne & Lyon Railway, and the other for Rocket
— and recounts the struggle that New Jersey man John Stevens had when
he initially sought to promote the railway idea in America.
The book includes a glossary of technical terms, index and very brief
bibliography. Despite frequent quotation from nineteenth-century material,
it supplies no references. The adventures of Timothy Hackworth's 16-year-old
son John, who escorted a Shildon-built locomotive destined for the Tsarskoye
Selo Railway across Russia before witnessing its ceremonial consecration
in St Petersburg, assuredly deserve to be better known. It is one instance
among many where a footnote giving bibliographic details of the information's
source would have been welcome.
'An immense and exceedingly commodious goods station ': the archaeology and
history of the Great Northern Railway's goods yard at King's Cross, 1849
to present day. Rebecca Haslam and Guy Thompson. Pre-Construct
Archaeology~www.pre-construct.com~, 2016. xxxii, 356pp, A4, 99 photos, 7
maps, 155 plans & drawings, hardback, Reviewed by Grahame Boyes
This immense and exceedingly thorough study by the archaeology consultants
to the King's Cross Central redevelopment project far exceeds all previous
records for the number of words and illustrations devoted to a single feature
of the railway infrastructure - the King's Cross granary, goods shed and
related buildings, extending over less than twenty acres. The buildings in
this complex largely survive, so the archaeological investigation comprised
both building analysis and below-ground excavations. Additionally the research
extended to the railway company records at The National Archives, enabling
the accurate dating ofthe various features of the site and the buildings.
The main text comprises eleven chronological chapters, with a chapter devoted
to each period of expansion and adaptation, the wartime and inter-war austerity
years, and the slow decline from the 1950s. Each is illustrated with a
comprehensive set of scaled coloured plans and elevations, supplemented by
many historical and modern photographs. At the end of each chapter is a synopsis
which relates the evidence that has been gathered to the commercial, competitive,
government and financial influences and pressures upon the railway company,
and discusses how effectively it responded to them.
Whereas these chapters might be likened to a series of horizontal layers,
each corresponding to a period of time, the concluding chapter takes the
form of a series of vertical excavations which look at how the handling of
each of the main classes of traffic - coal, agricultural produce, fish, bricks
and stone, and general merchandise - changed over time. It also compares
King's Cross goods station to its two major rivals - Camden (L@NWR) and Somers
Town (Midland Railway).
Interspersed between these chapters are articles about particular aspects
of the work undertaken at the depot, its traffics and some of its features.
They include one by our member, Tim Smith, who provided specialist advice
on the remains of the high-pressure hydraulic systems that powered sack hoists,
cranes and shunting capstans; another gives a detailed classification of
the bricks used at the site. All this and more have been brought together
in an impressive volume at a very reasonable price.
Edwardian railways in postcards. John Hannavy . Wellington (Somerset):
PiXZ Books, 2017, 144pp, 280 cards illustrated (many tinted), hardback,
Reviewed by Phllip Scowcroft
In the Edwardian era (1901-15) annual postcard sales probably exceeded 500
million. Many featured aspects of railways, then at the height oftheir public
impact. This book has a general introduction followed by regional sections
and gives a rounded picture of the subject: the illustrations, fully captioned,
are not confined to locomotives and roll ing stock but include stations -
even quite obscure country ones - road feeder vehicles, railway ships, accidents
(including Quintinshill) and even a few saucy ones. Useful for dipping into
- the index helps in this.
Cover images:
Front: 'Miss Tox pays a visit to the Toodle family' (an illustration by Phiz from
Dombey and Son) (see p 306).
Back: Tavistock Canal wharf, 1905 (upper); GWR 7333 at Venn Cross on the
Taunton-Barnstaple line, 1961 (lower). From books reviewed on pp 314 and
323 respectively.
No 233 November 2018 (Volume 39 Part 6)
Rowan Patel. The early development of the
Outram-pattern plateway 1793–1796. 326-37.
In association with the Cromford Canal the Peak Forest Railway at
Butterley in Derbyshire. "The stone sleeper is now as deeply associated with
Outram’s name as the pattern of plate rail which he developed. His first
use of stone blocks must have been on the Peak Forest line, excepting any
experimentation conducted beforehand. The first blocks were probably laid
on this six-mile route late in 1795, and the railway opened in August 1796.49
From this point onwards, stone sleepers became standard practice for heavy-duty
railways. Outram was obviously impressed by them, for he always promoted
their use over other forms of sleeper subsequently. The form of railway
illustrated by the Peak Forest line was the result of some three and a half
years of experimentation and development by Outram. He would continue to
refine his style of plateway while conducting other work in the 1790s and
up to his death in 1805. However, by the end of 1796 the typical Outram-pattern
plateway already existed in a form which would go on to conquer many corners
of the country. The remains of these historic lines are today perhaps
Outram’s most famous legacy".
David Slater. The Right Honourable Thomas Harley of Berrington Hall: the driving force behind the Leominster Canal. 337-45.
Robert Humm. FC Santiago & Valparaiso no 23 and
the Leith Engine Works. 346-50
The works official locomotive photograph depicted here (Fig 1) emerged
in 2015 during the great clearout at Station House. I have no idea how long
I have had it — perhaps twenty or thirty years — or where it came
from. So thick was the layer of grime on the glass that it was almost thrown
out with a mountain of other junk. I am glad I relented as it proves, after
cleaning, to be something of a landmark.
No 23 was the first of a class of twelve 5 ft 6 ins gauge 4–4–0s
built by Hawthorns & Co for the Ferrocarril [FC] Santiago & Valparaiso
of Chile. Construction of this privately promoted line, 187 km from the
country’s principal port to its capital, was commenced in 1852. Progress
was slow and work was abandoned between 1857 and 1861. In the latter year
it was taken in hand by the American entrepreneur and engineer Henry Meiggs
who got the line finished and opened by 1863. The FCSV became part of the
State Railway (EFE) in 1884. The earliest locomotives were six passenger
and four goods 0–4–2s built by Hawthorns of Leith in 1853–56.
They were followed by three classes from Slaughter Gruning: three
4–6–0s, three outside cylinder 4–4–0s and five
0–4–2s, delivered between 1863 and 1866. These were subsequently
designated the 1st to 5th classes. The first two of the Hawthorn ‘6th
class’, the subject of our photograph, were delivered in 1868, a further
eight in 1869, and the final two in 1870. The details are as follows.
No Name Works no
23 Llai Llai 386
24 Maquis 400
25 Vichiculen 388
26 Rabuco 389
27 Aranda 390
28 Limache 391
29 Viña del Mar 395
30 Quilpue 396
31 Peña Blanca 397
32 La Calera 398
33 Ocoa 399
34 Montenegro 387
Most were named after towns on the line of route. An interesting feature
is that driving wheel diameter was variously 54 inches (1372 mm), 60 inches
(1524 mm) and 66 inches (1676 mm) and wheel sets appear to have been changed
regularly between members of the class depending upon the type of duty upon
which they were employed. Cylinder diameter was 16½ inches by 24 inches
(419 x 609 mm). No other dimensions have survived. As was the custom in those
days, the locomotives were shipped in a disassembled state, two at a time,
and reassembled at Valparaiso. The long sea voyage, possibly in a sailing
ship, took perhaps three or four months. The class was highly thought of
and most lasted for some fifty years. Soon after the first two were put into
traffic the following statement was made by the Ministry of the Interior
in its annual report:
Llai Llai and Maquis have arrived during this semester and one of them (Llai
Llai) has now been in use for some days. On this topic I am pleased to inform
you that these machines fulfil all the requirements of our line. The
craftsmanship and the materials of which they have been manufactured is of
the best quality, and the details of the boilers and motion are of such a
nature that I believe will prevent future accidents through breakdowns, and
the resulting delay. Recently have arrived the second series of two locomotives,
Vichiculen and Rabuco, identical to the previous ones and very soon their
assembly will get under way.
Despite this glowing report the 6th class were the last Hawthorn locomotives
to be delivered to Chile. Subsequent locomotives were built by Avonside or
in the company’s own Valparaiso shops, the latter in one or two cases
utilising Hawthorns’ spare parts. Most of the class appear to have been
reboilered during the 1880s, and some received new cylinder blocks and tenders.
No 30 was reported to have amassed 70,000 km in service during 1896. Withdrawals
commenced with no 30 in 1914 and several including Llai Llai went
in 1918. The last few were withdrawn in 1921–23. Fifty years’ service
was good going by any account.
Hawthorn locomotives were distinguished by an elaborate works plate, as carried
on the cab side of Llai Llai, consisting of a spear streaming a pennant with
the company’s name displayed on it.
Hawthorns & Co
The Leith Engine Works was established at Great Junction Street, Leith, in
1846 by the well known Newcastle locomotive builders R & W Hawthorn.
Leith is the ancient seaport of Edinburgh and even after the 19th-century
enclosed docks were built, the Water of Leith (the principal river running
through the town) was busy with the smaller type of sea-going vessels. At
that time there was no direct rail link between Newcastle and Edinburgh and
the chief function of the works was to assemble Newcastlebuilt locomotives
for the Scottish railways. After the completion in 1850 of the final rail
link, the Royal Border Bridge, R & W Hawthorn had no further use for
the Leith works and they were sold to new owners who traded as Hawthorns
& Co.
Knowledge of the Leith firm is fairly sparse. James W Lowe in the exhaustive
British Steam Locomotive Builders (1975) notes that company records and
locomotive lists are virtually non-existent but estimates that about 425
locomotives were built up to 1871. They continued to build after that, though
latterly business was largely rebuilding and repair. Most new output was
for Scottish railways and industry, one distinctive product being a design
of 0–4–0 and 0–6–0 well tank with outside Stephenson
valve-gear. Locomotives delivered abroad included some for railways in Germany,
India, South Africa, and, as we have seen, Chile.
Location of Hawthorns’ Leith Engine Works is clearly identified as such
on the 1:1056 Ordnance Survey map of ‘Edinburgh and Environs’ surveyed
in 1852 (Fig 2 on previous page). It was on an approximately triangular plot
of land having its apex on Great Junction Street (nos 204–208), the
main road running from the centre of Leith towards Granton. The southern
boundary was a narrow thoroughfare called Mill Road. The north boundary was
delineated by the Water of Leith, where there was a wharf for inward raw
materials and the export of finished locomotives. The boiler, forge and erecting
shops are shown on the northern part of the site abutting Great Junction
Street and there were further buildings facing Mill Lane. Although a small
internal rail system is shown on the map there is no evidence of an external
rail connection at that time. The works were only a few hundred yards from
North Leith goods yard and it is possible that the relatively small locomotives
of the day were trolleyed through the streets behind teams of horses.
Recently I had a brief opportunity to view what remains of the works (Fig
3). There is not much to be seen on the river frontage, which is now covered
by dense tree growth. The main workshops must have been cleared by the 1940s
and a building of vaguely art deco appearance occupies the Great Junction
Street frontage. But the two-storey range along Mill Lane still survives,
occupied at the west end by a hostelry called Gladstone’s Bar. When
John R Hume photographed it in 1970 (Fig 4) the entire building was still
in industrial use (a wooden extension at the east end was improbably emblazoned
‘The Eldorado Stadium Ballroom’). Hume thought that this was originally
the Hawthorns’ machine shop. One might speculate further that the upper
floor was occupied by the drawing or administrative offices. The place of
Llai Llai in railway history The inside cylinder four-coupled tender
locomotive with leading bogie was the most distinctive passenger type on
British railways for fifty years from the 1870s until superseded by the
4–6–0. General construction did not cease until the last of the
2P Class of the LMS was delivered in 1932. Last of all, and I think last
in the world, were the five U Class built in 1948 by Beyer Peacock for the
Great Northern Railway of Ireland. Thousands of 4–4–0s were built
for every large and many smaller companies, while the Great North of Scotland
Railway used nothing else except for shunting and its small Aberdeen suburban
traffic. Respected companies like the Midland and the South Eastern
&Chatham never acquired anything larger for their express passenger traffic.
Many more 4–4–0s were built for railways abroad, as diverse as
the Dutch Railways, Egyptian State Railways and the North Western Railway
of India.
These 4–4–0s were perfectly suited to British conditions where
relatively easily graded main lines and light wooden carriages were the order
of the day. Mostly they ran steadily and freely and were powerful for their
size. When coaches became heavier and formations longer they could be double
headed without the necessity of replacing numerous turntables required for
longer locomotives. The type was also capable of considerable enlargement.
Locomotive engineers knew where they were with a 4–4–0.
Although the first outside cylinder 4–4–0s (Lowther and Brougham)
appeared on the Stockton &Darlington Railway as early as 1860, the first
inside-cylinder, inside-frame, variant for a British company was a pair built
by Thomas Wheatley for the North British Railway in 1871, numbers 224 and
264 (Fig 5). That was four years after Llai Llai was completed and the writer
can discover no earlier example than the Chilean locomotives built anywhere
in Great Britain. (I exclude from this statement the broad gauge Great Western
Waverley class of 1855 in which the two leading axles were rigid in the main
sandwich frames.) The classic 4–4–0 was developed by Wheatley’s
successor Dugald Drummond on the NBR, the Caledonian and later the London
&South Western. So there is little doubt that Llai Llai stands at the
head of a distinguished Scottish family tree. There might be another connexion
between Wheatley and Llai Llai. Whilst the principal NBR works was the former
Edinburgh &Glasgow Railway establishment at Cowlairs, Glasgow, Wheatley
was also responsible for the original NBR works at St Margarets, Edinburgh.
Now, St Margarets was no more than three-quarters of a mile from Leith. Might
Wheatley have been on good terms with the Hawthorn proprietors and decided
something on the lines of Llai Llai could be an ideal replacement for the
miscellaneous collection of 2–2–2s and 2–4–0s that he
had inherited? Take away the cowcatcher, the huge headlamp and the all-weather
cab (and no self-respecting 1860s Scotch driver would be seen dead in something
as effete as that) and 224 looks rather similar, even down to the stove pipe
chimney.
Illustrations: Figure 1. FC Santiago & Valparaiso no 23, Llai
Llai. [Robert Humm collection]
Figure 2. Leith Engine Works shown on an extract from the Ordnance Survey
1:1056 map of Edinburgh and its Environs’, sheet 12, surveyed in 1852.
[Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland]
Figure 3. The surviving part of Leith Engine Works in Mill Lane. [Robert
Humm, 19 May 2017]
Figure 4. Leith Engine Works, nos 1–3 Mill Lane, showing the Mill Lane
frontage of the works from the south-east. The two-storeyed building probably
housed the light machine shops. [© HES.Reproduced courtesy of J R Hume.
SC 784513]
Figure 5. North British Railway no 224, the locomotive that went down with
the Tay Bridge in 1879.[Robert Humm collection]
Michael Aufrere Williams.The costs of working a failing branch line:
a financial study of the Whitby–Loftus line, 1910–1933. 351-
Increased wages (over the 27-year period under discussion) did, of
course, account for some of the loss but, as has been noted in earlier chapters,
it was the competition from the motor bus, its regularity and convenience,
which caused the decline of passenger numbers and the concomitant losses.
Thus Irving’s assessment of the line, as a ‘financial disaster
of some magnitude’ which he applied to its earliest days, could nevertheless
be said to be valid for most of its existence. Even in the immediate years
before the First World War, it barely made an operating profit and, although
there were one or two good years at the beginning of the 1920s, it soon lapsed
into loss. The question then may be asked why the line was not closed earlier.
Perhaps the key to answering this question lies in the numbers of tickets
collected at each station. As noted above, these were nearly always greater
than the number issued, and thus the idea of the railway providing urban
as well as rural mobility may be seen to have some validity. No doubt it
was only considerable cross-subsidisation that enabled such a loss-making
line to continue to run until May 1958. Its value as a provider of transport
to the seaside for those living in urban environments was high, even though
that value could only be said to have any importance in the short summer
season. Even so, this utility was fast diminishing in the 1950s. Bradshaw’s
Guide for 14 June–4 July 1954 (but with the timetable running through
to 11 September) shows 10 trains in each direction on weekdays and six on
Sundays.35 The final timetable, however, for the winter of 1957–58 shows
only three trains each way (with a Saturdays only evening service from
Middlesbrough to Staithes). This latter timetabling was far more representative
of the line in its latter days than the relatively frenetic summer service.
Official reasons for closing the line
In April 1956 British Railways announced their intention of converting to
diesel traction all the lines running into Whitby, except that along the
coast to Middlesbrough via Loftus. This was followed 18 months later in September
1957 by a proposal to withdraw all services and to close the Loftus–Whitby
(West Cliff) section completely. Both Loftus and Whitby (West Cliff) stations
would remain open. British Railways argued that a net annual saving of
£10,950 could be expected and also that an expenditure of £57,000
on structural maintenance over the next five years could be avoided.36 This
‘structural maintenance’ was for the tunnels between Kettleness
and Sandsend and the Staithes, Sandsend, Eastrow, Newholm, and Upgang viaducts.
The main problem of the line, that of traversing the section between Sandsend
and Kettleness, which had caused such difficulties and expense during its
construction, was to prove its downfall. Photographs taken at the time show
the interim, and surely temporary, maintenance which had been given to the
western portal of Sandsend (Deepgrove) tunnel. Such photographs indicate
the British Railways’ assessment of the need for expensive structural
maintenance was justified.
The figures given by British Railways leave no doubt that there was a very
large gap between operating expenses and receipts on the section between
Loftus and West Cliff. The basic costs, analysed earlier in the chapter for
the years 1910, 1920, and 1933 were exacerbated, by 1956, by falling revenue
and higher wages, even though, out of the very short season, the number of
trains on the line was minimal. The average passenger traffic at the four
stations to be closed (Grinkle had closed in 1939, almost certainly because
of the drastic fall in station receipts) is shown in Table 15.37
David Jones. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century gazetteers of the inland waterways of Britain, 1816–1975: with particular reference to the Stafford Branch Canal / River Sow Navigation. 362-7.
Terry Jenkins. James Garrard – goldsmith and
railwayman. 368-72
To many people the name ‘Garrard’ immediately brings to
mind the name of the former Crown Jewellers: R & S Garrard. Robert (b
1793) and Sebastian (b 1798) Garrard were appointed Crown Jewellers to Queen
Victoria in 1843 and the company continued to hold the royal warrant until
2007. The family name still lives on through the Regent Street shop in London.
Originally a third brother was involved in the business. He was James Garrard
(b 1795) and, after the death of their father in 1818, the three brothers
initially traded as R J & S Garrard. The trio were appointed
‘Goldsmiths, Silversmiths and Jewellers’ to George IV on 5 April
1820, shortly after he came to the throne, and were re-appointed, simply
as ‘Goldsmiths’, to William IV on 16 August 1830 after he succeeded
his brother and became King.
However in 1835, for some unknown reason, James Garrard left the business,
and Robert and Sebastian thenceforth continued alone. James did not sever
all connections with the goldsmith’s trade, but his interests developed
into an administrative and regulatory role. He became an active member of
the Goldsmiths’ Company and served twice as Prime Warden. He was involved,
as senior officer of the Company, in arrangements for the Great Exhibition
of 1851 and was a juror in the class devoted to precious metals and jewellery.
All of this work was unpaid and I was therefore curious to discover how he
earned a living. In 1832 he had bought a large estate in rural Middlesex
called Pinner Place, but he cannot have had sufficient capital to live the
life of a country squire on his private means for long and he must have found
some other form of employment.
After various failed business ventures, the 1861 census shows James’s
occupation (somewhat imprecisely!) as ‘railways’.
His involvement with this new form of transport actually started in the boom
years around 1845, when railway mania was at its height, and lines were being
built all over the UK. His name can be found, for example, as a member of
the provisional committee for the proposed Hull, Birmingham & Swansea
Junction Railway.This line was never built and Garrard’s initial railway
interests turned out to lie not in this country, but in France. In September
1845 he was listed as one of the English Directors of an Anglo-French company
involved in the construction of the Paris to Lyon railway.
The procedures that governed the construction of the earliest French railway
lines were not the same as those in the UK. In the UK, there was no overall
design for the network and many competing companies sought to build lines,
which often led to duplication of routes between towns and cities. In France
a different procedure was followed. The government designated the routes
for the whole country and a series of seven routes, all starting from Paris
and radiating out in different directions, was envisaged. There was no provision
(in the early days) for any cross-country routes. The French government acquired
the land that was needed, and started construction. Before the work was complete
companies were invited to bid for the concession to run a particular line.
A date for the adjudication of the bids was fixed, and the successful company
then owned the concession for a fixed number of years. The price that the
company paid was intended to cover the construction costs and reimburse the
government’s expenditure, although clearly this could not be accurately
calculated while construction was still proceeding. The government then took
a percentage of the operating profits when the line opened.
The route from Paris to Lyon was seen as being potentially extremely lucrative
and many companies intended to bid for the concession. Several of these were
Anglo-French concerns, as the money that needed to be raised was exceedingly
large. One such firm was the Compagnie du Sud-Est, and James Garrard was
one of its English Directors. The company placed its first advertisements
in the British press in September 1845, seeking deposits of £2 per share
for the 400,000 shares on offer (Fig 1). Each share would eventually be priced
at 500FF (around £20) thus raising £8million for the project. The
company was commonly known as the Compagnie Griolet, after its prime mover
and principal director in France, Eugene Griolet. This was a convenient format
and the newspapers referred to the other rival companies in similar fashion
as Compagnie Laffitte, Compagnie Ganneron etc.
As the date for the adjudication drew near in December 1845 it became apparent
that none of these individual companies had raised enough money to make a
successful bid on their own. And so a period of ‘fusion’ took place.
Eleven companies, one of which was the Griolet, eventually amalgamated and
on the day were the only bidders. The adjudicator had no option but to grant
them the concession. The Griolet company was nearly the smallest in the
conglomerate, and was allotted just 27,500 of the 400,000 shares that were
issued (6.87 percent).
The shareholders of each individual company therefore did not receive the
full entitlement they might have hoped for and many were due a refund on
their investments. However, none of the investors should have lost money
on the venture if the refunds were properly made.
Construction of the line proved to be more expensive than at first thought.
It also took longer than expected and it was not only engineering problems
that caused the delay. Social and political factors were involved and had
an impact on progress. There was panic throughout Europe in 1847, for example,
of an impending famine. The potato famine in Ireland is well-known in this
country but there were also poor grain harvests for many years in the 1840s
across the whole of Europe. The economies of countries suffered, leading
to political turmoil: 1848 was a year of revolutions throughout mainland
Europe, and France was no exception. It led, in that year, to the overthrow
of the government, and the establishment of the 2nd French Republic under
the presidency of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. The succeeding years were
relatively quiet but, after four years in office Louis-Napoléon staged
a coup d’état. He was not permitted to seek re-election as President,
and in 1852 he reclaimed the title of Emperor as Napoleon III, thus inaugurating
the period now known as the Second Empire.
Although construction continued during this turbulent period, at the end
of 1851 only the section of railway from Paris to Chalon-sur-Saône
had been completed, and there remained a further 80 miles to finish before
the entire route to Lyon could be opened. The 4 km tunnel at Blaisy, north
of Dijon, had also delayed progress and eaten up money. A fresh appeal for
funds was made in 1852, and a new concession was granted for the unfinished
section. This led to disagreements between all the parties involved, and
the line did not fully open until 1854.7 Meanwhile, concessions for the remaining
sections of the complete route down to Marseille were also negotiated, and
the Griolet company was one of those bidding for the Lyon–Avignon section.
Once again, there were problems. The political situation and economic uncertainty
led the British investors to claim that the costs and predicted income were
incorrect, and they sought to renegotiate the contract. Construction stalled,
but the investors were confident that the French authorities accepted their
arguments. and that a new agreement was imminent. After the coup
d’état in 1852, however, the British investors discovered that
the new government had arbitrarily awarded the concession to a different
(French) consortium. This caused consternation in London, as the original
investors had lodged a large sum of ‘caution-money’ with the previous
government to show their good faith in honouring the terms and conditions
of the contract. A meeting of investors was held in London, and the chairman,
David Salomons MP, was deputed to go to Paris and make the French government
honour their original contract or, at least, return the caution-money. One
can see that Garrard attended this meeting as he seconded the motion authorising
Salomons to travel to France.Salomons was unsuccessful. The new National
Assembly felt no obligation to honour the agreements made by a previous
government. And a direct appeal to Louis-Napoléon also failed. He
replied: Sir, – I sent you the official report on the subject of the
claim which you have addressed to me in the name of the former English
shareholders of certain railway companies. I regret exceedingly that the
result is not favourable to their pretensions, for I should much desire to
attract English capital to France, and to give you personally a mark of my
distinguished sentiments. (Signed) Louis NAPOLEON.
The British investors, with James Garrard amongst them, presumably lost their
money.
There is no way of knowing precisely how and why Garrard became involved
in the construction of French railways. There were many Anglo-French firms
seeking investors, and that alone may have been what attracted him. However,
it is also possible that he was persuaded to invest his money in the Compagnie
Griolet by Monsieur Gustave Odiot. Gustave Odiot was the foremost French
silversmith of his generation. Like Garrard, he came from a family who had
worked in precious metals for generations and both his father and grandfather
had been distinguished silversmiths in Paris – the Maison Odiot was
established there in 1690. It may be that Odiot and Garrard first became
acquainted through their mutual activities as gold and silversmiths. However,
Odiot was also an investor in French railway companies and was one of the
French directors of the Compagnie Griolet.
The friendship between the two men clearly came to extend beyond their
professional interests – and one can appreciate this as Gustave Odiot
was staying with James Garrard at Pinner Place on census night in 1851, and
is listed in the census returns there.
After his experiences in French investments, Garrard limited his railway
interests to the UK. Early in 1848 he became a Director of the Reading, Guildford
& Reigate Railway Company (Fig 2). The chairman of this company was David
Salomons, the same man who had gone to Paris to try and rescue the caution-money
from the Lyon-Avignon fiasco. Garrard’s appointment as a director of
this crosscountry route presumably grew from their common interests in the
affair.
James Garrard then became the prime mover and founding chairman of the Staines,
Wokingham & Woking Railway (SWW). It was apparent that a gap in the network
existed at the time between Staines and Wokingham. Staines was already linked
to London Waterloo, and Wokingham lay on the Reading to Reigate railway just
mentioned. Connecting the two towns would enable through trains to run from
Waterloo to Reading, thus providing an alternative route to the GWR into
Paddington. Parliamentary approval for the line was obtained in 1852 and
construction started in 1853. The line passed through Ascot, and was advertised
as being a convenient method for race-goers to travel to the course. It might
also be worth mentioning that James Garrard’s brother, Robert, had a
country estate in Wokingham. The railway could prove a more convenient way
for him to travel to London! The route from Staines to Wokingham opened in
1856, but the proposed line from Staines to Woking via Chobham was never
built.\
The SWW spawned an offshoot in 1863 with the Sunningdale and Cambridge Town
(now Camberley) branch. This left the existing route at Ascot, and travelled
south through the afore-mentioned towns to Aldershot and Guildford. James
Garrard was the chairman of this company; and he also became involved as
a director and chairman of the MidSussex line from Horsham through Billingshurst
and Pulborough to Petworth which started construction in 1857.
These railways were never viable as separate entities, and were always intended
to be operated as part of a longer route by the larger companies. As such,
they lent themselves to acquisition by these companies and, as early as 1860,
the London Brighton &South Coast railway was considering purchasing the
Mid-Sussex line.15 The SWW was leased to the London &South Western Railway
in 1858, and absorbed by them in 1878. The SWW was therefore still an independent
company in 1870 and Garrard chaired a meeting of the Directors on 11 October
(Fig 3). At the following meeting on 7 November 1870, the Secretary reported
that ‘Mr James Garrard died suddenly on the 3rd inst’. There is
no further comment about his death, which must have been unexpected, in the
Minute Books, or any appreciation of his work for the railway. The lines
with which he was involved are all still in operation, although the section
of the Mid-Sussex line to Petworth no longer exists. The section from Horsham
to Pulborough still remains as part of the route from London to Littlehampton.
And the line through Camberley is one I travelled on many times
as a teenager when we lived in the town. I do not know how profitable –
or otherwise – Garrard’s railway activities might have been, but
in 1855 he found it necessary to mortgage Pinner Place.17 Twelve years later
in 1867, at his request, the ownership of the entire estate was transferred
to his goldsmith brother, Sebastian.18 The terms of the sale allowed James
to continue living in the house until his death and I assume Sebastian Garrard
promptly paid off the mortgage.
James Garrard died on 3 November 1870. When probate on his will was granted,
his effects were valued at ‘under £1,500’. Not a negligible
sum, but much less than the value of the Pinner Place estate. It indicates
that he had had monetary problems in the past, and the sale of the estate
in 1867 was probably necessary to pay off his debts.
Coincidentally, his brother Sebastian died the following week, on 8 November
1870. The probate indexes show that his effects were valued at ‘under
£120,000’. Clearly, being a goldsmith to royalty was far more
profitable than running railway companies!
I live in Pinner, and my house stands on land that was formerly part of the
Pinner Place estate.
Correspondence. 373
Could this be one of Joseph Boughey’s ‘new directions for waterways
history’? Philip Brown
RCHS Journal no 230 (November 2017), pp 142–
Nicholas Hammond writes ‘When the railways continued the tradition of
small masonry bridges, they reverted to the segmental [arch] design, this
was probably due to their preference for skew bridges. It would have been
difficult to design and build a three-centred skew bridge, as the segmental
blocks would involve three-dimensional geometry’. It may be a case of
the proverbial exception that proves the rule but the engineer W S Moorsom
used a three-centred design for the masonry over-bridges on the Southampton
& Dorchester Railway, constructed 1845–47. Three of these still
survive on the closed section of line between Brockenhurst and Ringwood,
including a fine three-arched skew example, the former bridge no 43 (illustrated
below). Clearly the contractor S M Peto’s bricklayers were up to the
challenge!
Inexplicably, whilst bridges 43 and 44 were of 28 ft span, bridge 62 (Crow
Arch) was only 23 feet. This drew comment in Captain Coddington’s inspection
report:
Bridges over the Railway: … The span is generally 28 feet, and there
are 5 bridges of 26 feet span and 4 of only 23 feet. These latter, though
not exactly dangerous, are in my opinion injudiciously narrow, being even
of less width than tunnels are ordinarily made where the enormous expense
attendant upon their construction induces the smallest convenient opening.
The Southampton & Dorchester was of course built mainly as a single track
railway but with provision made for doubling, so the narrow bridges were
not an immediate problem. Philip Brown
155
Nicholas Hammond writes ‘When the railways
Low Water Pier 1870–c1890 : an overlooked
railway station at Cardiff
RCHS Journal no 232 (July 2018), pp 293–305
Stephen Rowson appears to have overlooked two
Andrew Overton
Review : The Hixon Railway Disaster : the
inside story
RCHS Journal no 232 (July 2018), p 313 Richard Westwood
Graham Boyes re sponds
Reviews. 376-
Twenty years under the Channel and beyond? (La Revue
d’histoire des chemin de fer combined volumes 48 and 49) — publication
director Jean-Louis Rohou. Paris: Association pour l’histoire des
chemin de fer, 2018. 518pp, 6 colour photographs, 81 maps, graphs and diagrams,
softback, (for access contact reviewer – see note at end of review.
Reviewed by William Featherstone, Pages 376-7
The rather jokey cover (the artist describes the symbolism of the
various elements at length – the question mark in the title was added
after the Brexit vote result) belies the physical and academic weightiness
of this tome. At over two kilos the 28 papers printed here, perforce written
in different styles and rigour, are crammed with interesting facts and data
relating to this mega civil engineering and transport project. This publication
marks the conclusion of an international interdisciplinary project that was
launched in 2014 at the British Embassy in Paris and encompasses papers from
a symposium on ‘Traffic Flows and Regional Economic Impacts’ held
in Lille in 2015, another entitled ‘Capital and Governance in Major
Infrastructure Projects’ held in London in the same year, and a round
table debate in London in 2016. This academic endeavour therefore spans the
twentieth anniversary of the opening of the Channel Tunnel and the thirtieth
anniversary of its birth by the Treaty of Canterbury.
One thing is quite clear from these papers (those printed are just a selection
of those submitted during the project): that economists and political scientists
continue to find the ‘Chunnel’ endlessly fascinating, and that
there is no shred of consensus as to its impact or financial viability. Before
mentioning a few of the contributions, some generalisations may be appropriate.
Some of the differences in the conclusions reached by different authors are
the result of this being the fruit of such a long programme. The figures
in some cases include only 2014, whereas others reach to 2017 (some sadly
are obviously a rehash of much earlier papers with the minimum of updating).
Dramatic conclusions can follow depending on what is or is not included –
is air traffic capital-to-capital or does it include low cost regional (largely
fed by second-home ‘Brits’ we are told) and are the figures for
the £1 ferry ‘booze cruises’ or not?
One very broad generalisation may be permitted, and one key question quoted.
The generalisation is that the tenor and conclusions of the articles written
by Belgian and French authors is more positive than those written by British
authors – is this our national and natural pessimism coming to the fore,
is it continuing angst at the breach of our historic moat, or is it that
this country has not grabbed the opportunities provided by the Tunnel as
quickly and enthusiastically as our continental neighbours? Judging from
much of this volume the last of these is perhaps nearest the mark. The question
is posed by Professor Roger Vickerman of the University of Kent in his paper
on the wider economic aspects of the Channel Tunnel – ‘the best
test is to ask what would have happened if the infrastructure had not been
developed’ – and it is clear that sooner or later some form of
fixed link would have been necessitated at an even more astronomical cost.
Finally, a brief commentary on some of the more interesting papers published
here. In an opening speech Professor Terry Gourvish, author of the official
history of the Channel Tunnel build, summarizes the five themes of this programme
– transport, geography and economic; financial management of major projects,
regional development, migration and frontiers, and international relations
(he also remarks that writing the history took longer than building the tunnel).
Professor Jim Cohen’s study of failed high speed rail project in Florida
is perhaps somewhat peripheral but Julien Defornoy, of the French Ministry
of Transport, provides a very significant and useful summary of 27 worldwide
public/private partnership projects since the Channel Tunnel (not itself
a PPP, of course). Whilst Roger Vickerman asks if the Channel Tunnel could
be delivered today, Patrick Boeuf and Hugh Goldsmith, of the European Investment
Bank, give a much more positive reading of the figures, and suggest a return
of between 3 percent and 6 percent for the Tunnel in the long term. Their
findings are disputed by Anguera Camos in ‘The Channel Tunnel cost-benefit
analysis after 20 years of operations’ but it all depends what factors
are included or excluded from the calculations; in this instance I would
give more credence to the bankers.
The former Chairman and CEO of Eurostar Group, David Azéma, provides
some fascinating insights into privately financed infrastructure projects.
He concludes that rail projects need to take account of the whole rail delivery
infrastructure; that being more complex, cross-border is always more risky;
traffic forecasts are often wildly biased; and, ignoring forecasts, one should
carry out proper due diligence on how the service will be delivered once
the line is open – not forgetting that ‘one never learns from
history’.
These papers reveal some clear beneficiaries from the building of the Tunnel.
Louis Gilleaux makes clear that it was the catalyst for the modernisation
of much of the Belgian railway system and that although it had a major impact
on ferry traffic from Belgian ports, Zeebrugge took the opportunity to advance
whilst Ostend retreated. Papers on the impact of cross Channel regionalisation
and its impact on the Pas de Calais suggest that lack of energy, finance
and initiative over the years have resulted in major missed opportunities.
In fact there is a clear winner as the title of Etienne Auphan’s paper
– ‘Lille: from a dead end to a major crossroads or how to take
advantage of a new network’ – makes clear. It also reemphasises
how often chance can play a major part in the winners and losers in such
projects. There is no doubt that if Pierre Mauroy, former Prime Minister
of France, had not been mayor of Lille at the time, the rail links would
have avoided the city and it would not have reaped the major benefits that
it has.
From the British side, whilst some papers acknowledge the economic impact
on the hinterland of HS1 and around the Channel Tunnel, there is some reluctance
to see this as an unalloyed benefit. Even if they cannot prove the case,
the suspicion remains that these areas have gained at the expense of others
and so the net benefit is minimal. Perhaps the most closely argued and researched
paper that takes this line is that by John Preston, Professor of Rail Transport
at the University of Southampton, whose calculations suggest that the HS1
corridor is outperforming the national average over key economic development
metrics but has in turn been outperformed by other corridors radiating from
London. He considers that the regeneration benefits envisaged at the genesis
of HS1 have not yet occurred.
As already indicated, this review can only give the baldest summary of some
of the papers in this fascinating volume. The volume of figures and metrics
can be daunting, and, whilst not War and Peace it is a daunting challenge
to read from cover to cover but it is certainly a rewarding exercise. For
anyone interested in any aspect of the Channel Tunnel, in mega civil engineering
project planning, financing, building and service development, and in high
speed rail, this is essential reading.
As the Society’s correspondent with our sister organization in France,
the AHICF, I receive all their publications. The printed version of the volume
under review will not be generally available in the UK. If any readers wish
to borrow it I am very happy to forward it to them provided postage is paid
in both directions. There is, however, an interesting alternative. The AHICF
is proudly advertising that this is their ‘first review in augmented
reality’. In order to take advantage of this it is necessary to have
a smartphone and scans of the cover, spine and back of the review (which
I will happily provide by post or email); one then uses the smartphone to
download the ARzone application and scan the covers in. Contact me at 114
Dunkirk Avenue, Desborough, NN14 2PN or bilcon@kirkfield.idps.co.uk
Gilbert Szlumper and Leo Amery of the Southern Railway:
the diaries of a General Manager and a Director. John King. Barnsley:
Pen & Sword Transport, 2016. 221pp, 40 photographs, hardback, (also available
as an e-book). Reviewed by Stephen Rowson. Pages 377-8
Leopold Amery’s private education allowed his lifestyle to be
funded by collecting directorships. He admitted to knowing nothing about
transport when at the 1932 AGM, despite dissent from many shareholders, he
was elected a director of the Southern Railway. Following Chamberlain’s
fall, in May 1940 he joined the Churchill war government and so resigned
his railway directorship. His autobiography and previous publications of
his diaries have largely ignored what contribution he made to the railway
but John King here uses what he can of Amery’s meeting appointments
to describe, for example, the Southern’s foray into aviation (the Railway
Air Services), planning Lullingstone airport, inaugurating a London to Paris
train ferry service and the abortive attempt to create a London day
trippers’ alternative to Southend at Allhallows-onSea on the Medway.
The more informative diaries of Gilbert Szlumper start in 1936 and King combines
entries by both men to record the Southern’s continuing electrification
programme and their expansion into bus and road haulage services. Unlike
Amery, Szlumper was a career railwayman. He had started with the London &
South Western Railway in 1902 and, following the grouping, was Assistant
General Manager of the Southern Railway from 1925, becoming General Manager
on Sir Herbert Walker’s retirement in 1937. This last event relieved
the fear that Walker was about to reorganise the Southern’s management
structure along the lines of the LMS.
Szlumper’s diaries continue until 1945. By all accounts, including his
own, he was well thought of. The War Office recognised the geographically
strategic importance of the Southern and invited him to be Director-General
of Transportation. From this position he was to supervise and coordinate
railway, inland waterway and dock requirements overseas and at home. He organised
transport of men and equipment into mainland Europe, dealing with issues
as they arose, such as when forces railwaymen should take over from civilian
railwaymen. The retreat from Dunkirk made the position redundant and he was
moved to the Ministry of Transport as Railway Control Officer. Then from
1942 he was Director General of Supply Services at the Ministry of Supply.
Rather than give a transcription of the diary entries with explanatory footnotes,
John King has decided to present his own narrative interpretation with only
some of the diarists’ words appearing within quotation marks. For the
reader who is wishing to get close to these people, this takes some getting
used to. Sometimes one can never be sure what has come from the diaries and
what King has added from his own knowledge of the events and of the people
named. Nevertheless, Szlumper’s candid views on the individuals he worked
with are quoted in full: this is a constant theme of Szlumper’s together
with his own job security and protecting his income. Throughout the war years
he longed to return from civil servants and politicians to his beloved Southern
Railway but that never happened. Missenden had taken over from him in 1939
and when the war ended he would not relinquish that position.
John King is light on his assessment of the two diarists’ personalities
— the introduction could have summarized more the content of the diaries
and what contribution they have made to transport history of these years.
The diaries cover many themes but the inadequate index does not acknowledge
these. The choice of illustrations is excellent.
A history of the Metropolitan Railway & Metro-land.
Irene Hawkes. Manchester: Crécy Publishing, 2018,
160pp, 189 illustrations (4 colour), 20 maps, 6 tables, hardback, Reviewed
by Victoria Owens. page 379
In the 1830s proposals to alleviate London’s acute congestion
by constructing a rail system below street level foundered amid
householders’ concerns about noise, dirt and subsidence. Irene Hawkes’
history of the Metropolitan Railway opens with an account of solicitor Charles
Pearson’s long struggle to convince his fellow Londoners of the case
for building an underground railway from Paddington to the heart of the City.
Although he never lived to see it, Pearson’s – literally –
ground-breaking Metropolitan Railway opened in January 1863.
Part 1 of Hawkes’ book traces its development beyond its underground
origins. Intent on making the Metropolitan a main-line concern, railway magnate
Edward Watkin aspired to connect it with the Manchester, Sheffield &
Lincolnshire line (he was chairman of both companies) in order to open a
direct route from northern England to Paris by way of a channel tunnel. The
plan evaporated but not before the Metropolitan had advanced into
Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex.
Its masterstroke was to secure power to buy and use land for non-railway
purposes, and in the book’s second part, Hawkes relates how it purchased
tracts of pasture around London to develop for housing.
‘I know a land where the wild flowers grow, Near, near at hand if by train you go’
– pledged the marketing men, tempting weary citydwellers with
the prospect of wholesome country living in what soon became known as
‘Metro-land’. Metropolitan advertisements for half-timbered villas,
golf-courses (within easy reach of a Metropolitan station) and hotels serving
cream teas nurtured a taste for ‘bracing air and rural delights’
and a favourite destination for early twentieth century school outings and
cycling trips was Watkin’s Eiffel-inspired Wembley Tower. Sadly, it
was demolished in 1906–7 when it emerged that the foundations were sinking
into the London clay.
As a contribution to socio-railway history, this well illustrated book has
much merit. Sentences opening ‘As we have already pointed out’
or ‘As we will see in another chapter’ sometimes make for ponderous
reading, but its scope and detail are impressive. An appendix lists Metropolitan
Railway locomotives; there is an extensive bibliography, copious reference
notes and a comprehensive index.
The ups and downs of the Clifton Rocks Railway and
the Clifton Spa. Maggie Shapland. Bristol Industrial Archaeology
Society on behalf of the Clifton Rocks Railway
Trust. 317pp, over 430 illustrations (mostly
in colour), hardback, 2017, Reviewed by Peter Brown. page 379
The funicular railway which linked the road by the Avon Gorge to Clifton
was unusual: it was in a tunnel and it was four-track. Financed by George
Newnes as part of a spa development and engineered by George Croydon Marks,
it cost treble its estimate. Apart from on its opening day in 1893, traffic
never reached expectations and it closed in 1934. During the Second World
War the lower part of the site was occupied by the BBC, the upper parts including
a barrage balloon unit and an air-raid shelter. Since 2004 much work has
been done to investigate and interpret the remains and to make the site
accessible to visitors. About a third of the book is devoted to the history
of the railway. This is inevitably limited by the available sources: the
construction and opening are related in detail and some interesting maintenance
records survived in a supplier’s archive, but a financial analysis and
passenger numbers are available only for the period of receivership,
1908–13. The central chapters deal with the spa and with the various
wartime uses of the railway tunnel. Readers who are involved in the preserving
industrial sites and opening them to the public will find the last two chapters
a valuable case study. It may seem churlish to be of the opinion that too
much information is given, but press reports are quoted at excessive length
and reminiscences take over fifty pages. Tighter editing, selecting the key
comments, would have made the book more rewarding to read. And to put the
information fully in context, one needs to have attended an open day at the
site. Nevertheless, this is a beautifully produced book with an incredibly
low price
The early railways of Leeds. Anthony
Dawson. Stroud (Glos): Amberley Publishing, 2018. 96pp, 83 illustrations
(46 colour), 7 maps & plans, softback, Reviewed by Philip Scowcroft.
380
Leeds has an honoured place in British railway history and this concise,
well-written, well-illustrated and relatively inexpensive volume is a first-rate
introduction to its earlier history. We start with the Middleton Railway,
the first railway built with authority of an Act of Parliament, the first
of its kind to employ steam traction and the first standard-gauge line to
be preserved.
The Leeds area has other railway ‘firsts’: the first railway viaduct
(Flockton, 1757) and the earliest public railway (Lake Lock, near Wakefield).
The city was also early in the field with locomotive builders: Fenton, Murray
& Wood, Hunslet, and Todd, Kitson & Laird. The book goes on to detail
the earlier history of main lines to and from Leeds. The Leeds & Selby,
engineered by George Stephenson, came first (in 1834) and with its extension
to Hull and the later Manchester & Leeds (to be the germ of the Lancashire
& Yorkshire Railway) provided railway connection between England’s
east and west coasts. Then the North Midland line (another of George
Stephenson’s) came up from the south and provided a link, ultimately,
to London – a line in which George Hudson played his part. A final chapter
on Leeds stations outlines the main terminals – Wellington, New and
Central – with a mention of the surviving Leeds (City).
The author makes generous use of extracts from a variety of local newspapers
which both aid readability and provide fresh insights. The illustrations
strike a good balance between historic drawings and diagrams and modern
photographs of historic sites. There are no footnotes or endnotes and no
index – not really to be expected in such a short volume – though
there is a short but useful bibliography embracing original and secondary
sources. This is a readable introduction to its subject and readers are unlikely
to be disappointed by it.
Locomotive Builders of Leeds: E B Wilson and Manning
Wardle. Mark Smithers. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Transport,
2018. 199pp, 107 photographs (12 colour), 91 drawings, hardback, Reviewed
by Kevin Jones. 380
The Round Foundry, in Leeds, first known as the Railway Foundry had
a history back to 1811 when it supplied locomotives to the Middleton Railway
and its rack system. This and the involvement of Matthew Murray and John
Blenkinsop is covered in Chapter 1 of this book. There was then a lapse until
1831 when the Foundry began to supply locomotives to a growing railway system,
including the Liverpool & Manchester and Leeds & Selby: this is covered
in the second chapter. Chapter 3 examines the origins of E B Wilson &
Co but half the chapter precedes this by outlining the activities of Charles
Todd, James Kitson and David Laird (their financial backer). John Gray, the
inventor of expansive motion, was indirectly involved as it was applied to
locomotives on the Hull &Selby Railway at his behest. Chapters on the
Jenny Lind type (a seminal development), Crampton locomotives and the influence
of Archibald Sturrock follow. Chapters 7 and 8 mark the end of this activity
whilst noting possible future influences on Manning Wardle policy, which
forms the subject for the ninth and largest chapter and covers the products
of Manning Wardle which were mainly small tank engines for industrial use.
The corporate history follows which briefly summaries the demise of the company
in 1926. This is a history of locomotive manufacture. Little, if any, is
indicated of other foundry activity. The illustrative material has been well
chosen and presented but tends not to be linked to the text on the page upon
which it is displayed. The index is poor and the meagre bibliography fails
to gather many of the textual references to published material. Inexplicably
there is no reference to Lowe’s British
steam locomotive builders (recently reprinted by the present publisher).
Holding the line: how Britain’s railways were
saved. Richard Faulkner and Chris Austin Manchester Crécy
Publishing, 2018, 344pp, 41 illustrations on 24pp, softback, Reviewed by
Ray Shill. 385
In this ‘Goodall paperback’ edition of a book first published
under the Oxford Publishing imprint in 2012, the authors have brought together
a comprehensive account of the history of public railway closures since 1827.
In an extensively researched text the authors have comprehensively brought
together information from a wide range of sources (including trade union
documents) in order to describe all the essential factors in the process
and procedure of railway closures through to the present time, as well as
briefly recording briefly the recent openings and re-openings in the modern
era. It is a book that is a useful source for those interested in following
the history of modern railways. The chapters that deal with the closures
of lines and stations under the British Transport Commission is of particular
use for those times, as is the background to the reshaping of British Railways
under Dr Richard Beeching. The complex period that followed occupies more
chapters in a style approaching on the definitive that mentions closures,
lines saved and the rise of the heritage railway. Notes on rail union
involvement, the many government papers including the Blue Paper of 1972,
the Orange Paper of 1976 and the White Paper of 1977 also receive detailed
consideration. The chilling revelation of how close the railway network came
to drastic pruning during the railway strikes of 1982 and the Serpell review
that followed is a salutatory warning of how our network might have become
under Margaret Thatcher’s government.
Credit is given to the work of the BR Chairman, Peter Parker and the NUR
general secretary, Sidney Weighell. The ‘Didcot scandal’ of 1977
is discussed as ‘an example as a disgraceful example of pro-road industrial
action on the part of the Transport and General Workers Union’. Trades
union involvement, in general, had political consequences, culminating in
the privatisation of the network following the sale of assets such as Sealink,
British Transport Hotels and British Transport Advertising. Yet new roles
for the railways are acknowledged by the authors. Factors such as Community
Rail Development and station openings have cemented a stronger base to the
network. Yet, the legacy of closures has left many areas for concern such
as the absence of strategy for the provision of diversionary routes to aid
maintenance work or to provide alternatives to the times of closure through
accident. The authors conclude that in all the evidence collected in the
book the most relevant observation was the immense danger caused by a concerted
attempt to shrink the network and the role it played in meeting Britain’s
transport needs. Associated with this interpretation were bad planning,
dogmatism, political chicanery, ineptitude and a lack of imagination that
characterised mid twentieth-century railway policy.