| Ossie
Nock: the Annie S. Swan of railway literature?
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Oswald Stevens Nock was a highly prolific author: his output was exceedingly variable in quality and his most obvious lack (highly evident in his "autobiographies") is that of self-criticism. Biddle contributed a biography on him to the Oxford Companion to British Railway History. He notes that he lived from 1904 to 1994 and worked for Westinghouse. He claims that Nock's knowledge was "prodigeous", but notes imbalance in his output. He failed to record that Nock was educated at the quaintly-named Giggleswick [School] (the source of the name for 45538 which always caused a late tea for KPJ when it was on the front of the 4.47 Manchester Exchange to Hull). M.A. Vanns (author of books about railway signalling and on the railways of Newark-on-Trent) has contributed an excellent biography (but questionable bibliographical appreciation) of Nock in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which notes that Nock was born in Sutton Coldfield on 21 January 1905 and died on 21 September 1994 in Bath. Vanns states that there were 140 books. Prior to 21 April 2018 this page lacked any mention of Line clear ahead which is a genuine autobiography and covers both his ducation and career as a signal engineer at Westinghouse. It also includes his residences, children and his model railway powered (like George Dow's) by clockwork..
If Nock had not completed Ahron's British steam railway locomotive it might have been possible to assert that Nock's greatest contribution was in recording locomotive performance. The quotation taken from Out the line gives a clear indication of how Ossie was able to achieve such a prodigeous output. There it is clearly shown that the primary aim was to maximize income, rather than to make a lasting contribution to railway literature: hence the repetitive style and padding. He was not as some writers state a highly authorative writer except on railway signalling (where he was a professional engineer) and on locomotive performance. His earlier works tend to be better written than the later ones. There is ample evidence that he read considerably less than he wrote.
R.A.S. Hennessey. 'Sparks' – the electrical consultants. Backtrack, 2008, 22, 564-9 notes that Nock attended lectures on electrical engineering by Philip Dawson.
In the early 1930s the great slump prevailed. There was little work for Westinghouse—so little indeed that many of us lived in fear of being discharged. To try and augment my small salary I began writing articles about railways. The great majority of those early efforts earned nothing more than the editor's rejection slip; but one day I took a long shot, and it came off-and in due course I arrived at Euston with an engine pass in my pocket, to collect data for a commissioned article. My first efforts were directed towards the Railway Magazine, of which I had been a reader almost from my cradle; but, tempted by an advertisement which, if I remember rightly, was headed 'More Profit from Writing', I took a correspondence course in journalism, and gathered some pretty caustic comments upon my first efforts at writing popular articles. That course eventually taught me two important things: the need for a compelling, arresting opening paragraph and, when I was writing round technical things, to have a plentiful leavening of human interest. While the second of these necessities was essential for the popular press, it was anathema to professional engineers, who regarded it as a waste of valuable space, and quite unnecessary padding. So at first I had to learn to develop two styles, and truth to tell I had little success with either! .
The Railway Magazine was the first to publish an article of mine, entitled 'Carlisle, a Station of Changes', in its January 1932 issue, and to convirice a somewhat reluctant editor of its attractions I had dashed up there on a winter's night to spend a Saturday morning photographing the trains. I must have been very enthusiastic about railways then, because I find on referring to my travelling diary of the period that I went north from Euston at 12.35 a.m. on the Night Scot, and logged the running in detail. The only section over which the record is missing is from Crewe to Preston. Forty-five years later I am/.wondering how I managed to keep awake! The conditions on arrival could not have been worse. It was cold, windy, and a mixture of sleet and rain was driving in through the open ends of the station all the morning. Steam was blowing all over the place. In desperation I took many photographs, but the majority were hopeless and, by early afternoon, wet and chilled to the bone, even I gave up a,nd caught the 2.42 p.m. express back to St Pancras. I sold the article, embellished by three photographs which dearly showed the climatic conditions of the day: but as for 'more profit from writing' the fee I eventually received barely paid for my frugal meals on that trip, let alone the return fare from London to Carlisle and back-even at 1931 weekend rates!
My first real success, though not exactly so financially, was when I sold one of my correspondence course exercises to the London Evening News, and it was published early in 1932 as a mini-feature under the heading of 'Hyde Park's Ghost Trains', over the cryptic initials 'C.K.S.'. I was doing something of a tightrope act at the time as far as my own professional work was concerned. My immediate boss at the time was a difficult man: intensely possessive, and jealous that no vestige of credit or prestige should come out of his department unless directly attributed to him. I felt, and from the experience of a far more senior engineer than myself with some justification, that any attempt to augment my income at that stage would have brought a veto, if nothing worse. So everything except my contributions to the 'little' Railway Magazine, which was regarded as a bit of a joke in some professional circles, had to be written under a pen name. At one time I used my second name, Stevens, prefixed by two letters from my surname, CK; other contributions were under the pseudonym of 'Railway Engineer'. The modesty of my success in those early days may be judged from the number of articles other than in the Railway Magazine that I had published. From the beginning of 1932 up to Easter 1934 there were just sixteen, and of those four were in our local paper at Watford.
There was another side to my early efforts in journalism. With the enthusiasm generated by that correspondence course I worked hard to try and develop something other than articles with a railway slant, and my love of the country and keenness on purely pictorial landscape photography came to my aid. I found an occasional market in the Motor, although while I was a driver I could not afford a car! In accepting my small articles I do not think the editor ever discovered this. Still writing as 'C.K.S.' I had such articles as 'A Lonely Scottish Lido', 'The Gateway of the Lakes' and 'The Country of St Abb', while the Riley Record published 'The Lower Eden Valley'. Almost the last of these, and perhaps in retrospect the best, appeared under my own name in the Glasgow Herald in November 1934, 'Autumn in Moidart'. But by that time the more technical side of my authorship was beginning, and such time as I could spare for writing became devoted more and more to railways. I must now tell how I came to take the 'long shot' that opened up a collateral Course in my life that has led so far to more than eighty, not articles, but full-length books.
With a few short mini-features I was lucky enough to catch the eye of Wilson Midgley, features editor of the Star. Beginning in June 1932 he took 'Signs for the Colour Blind' from me. Then followed 'A Robot Railway', 'Pacific 1933', 'East London's Searchlights', 'Speed Up to Paris'—in the course of about two years. 'Pacific 1933' was his re-titling of a piece on the first Stanier 'Pacifics' of the LMS, which came out that year. I forget what my own title was, but Midgley skilfully parodied the title of Honnegger's well known fantasia 'Pacific 231', which was played recently to excellent effect at the musical night at the Albert Hall, organised by British Railways at the time of the 150th Anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1975. Anyway, right back in March 1934 I wrote to the Star and asked if they would like an article describing a footplate ride on 'Pacific 1933'. Midgley did not actually commission an article, but his reply was encouraging enough for me to ask the LMS for the necessary permission, and to my delight they gave it —not only for the 'Pacific', but to ride any other engine, between Euston and Edinburgh, where I was intending to spend the Easter weekend, that year. I was certainly going in at the deep end. Drivers of those days started as cleaners, and had their first rides round the shed yard. Engineering pupils started their footplate experience on light duties; but here was I going to ride the engine of the Royal Scot express, on Special Limit timings, with the train up to maximum load. I was scared stiff, as well as being exhilarated. I remember the odd feeling of showing the guard my pass, changing into my old works 'slop' in his van, and then leaving my luggage with him and walking up to the front end-empty-handed except for my notebook and watches.
The engine was a 'Royal Scot' 4-6-0, No. 6137 Vesta, taking the train right through to Carlisle. The driver and fireman, broad Cumbrians who had worked up to London the previous day, could not have made me more welcome. I have often thought since how lucky I was to ride with Billy Charlton and Arthur Baker on my very first trip. More than forty years later, when my footplate mileage, all over the world, is getting near to six figures, I have found that a footplate pass and a love of engines will quickly break down all...
His Recollections of steam was a modest summer Saturday spent at Whiteball Summit observing the holiday traffic reached from Bath by car. Railway Wld , 1968, 29, 347
The rest is largely history (much retold in Out the line);. although Cox (Locomotive panorama V. 2) noted that the activities of Nock and Allen: "I for one, would like to pay tribute to all the faithful and accurate recording and comment in their monthly articles, which, designed primarily for the lay enthusiast, have always interested and often helped the professional locomotive engineer."
Rutherford (Backtrack 12 222) wrote "on re-reading some [KPJ's emphasis] of his work it becomes clear how a good a writer he was — clear, straightforward sentences coupled with the ability to explain technical matters in simple terms". He added that "it is disappointing, in looking through his massive output, to find so little on railway signalling". Subsequently, Rutherford has been more critical: see his observations on Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway..
KPJ has produced an extended review of his Scottish Railways (below), but remains uncertain as to the extent to which Nock needs to be condemned as a "bad writer". He rarely noted sources, and tended to work on thin foundations, making maximum use of personal anecdotes. One suspects that many worked tirelessly on his behalf, not least his wife, Olivia, who may have fleshed out thin drafts. His total output was certainly excessive and has misled many into thinking that this is a sign of "authority". The few works which were compiled by him as continuations of earlier works are seldom as thorough as their predecessors.
Andrew Dow Memories of a railway childhood page 89 wrote: On one occasion we bumped into O S Nock, whom Dad had known since before the war. He had an extensive model railway at his Bath home, but although he was a signalling engineer with Westinghouse, the layout had no signals at all. I don't think Dad got on with him very well for a variety of reasons; my mother, who had met him when he came to the LNER Press Office from time to time, always referred to him as Pialina Bland. He was regarded as an upstart by Cecil J Allen, according to lan Allan. Cecil J Allen's own nickname, no doubt only behind his back, was The Pope of Shepperton.
Repetition
In his Premier Line Nock could write: "Crewe was certainly kept busy during the Whale regime. London and North Western locomotive policy at this time was, as always, one of quantity production."
and
"It was a magnificent achievement to get 365 large new passenger and mixed traffic engines on the road in the space of five years. There was no recourse to outside builders."
Long digressions
An example of this in the Premier Line is the excursion into the name Luck of Edenhall (Samson class No. 90) which was a family heirloom quoted in a ballad by Uhland translated by Longfellow. So what!
Some authors are exceedingly prolix: Nock wrote over 140 books, plus over 1000 articles in magazines. Thus, it is essential to attempt to capture some of their strengths and weaknesses by an initial examination of a single work, or by a gradual examination of a limited range of works. Nock's Scottish Railways1 has always been a treasured personal possession. An examination of the somewhat diverse reasons for this should illuminate why books are sometimes "special" in an illusive way, and one which is not fully amenable to rational explanation, although book ownership is a contributory factor as multiple handling is essential.
Scotland, and its railways, have captivated several authors, notably Hamilton Ellis, and some Scots, notably John Thomas and W.A.C. Smith. The normally staid Michael Bonavia2 was capable of wondering whether: "Scotland would have done better for herself with a Scottish Railway Company". The primary reason for the magic of Scotland is the terrain which tends to be difficult, other than within the Central Valley. Even here the quest for a level route for the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway led to a remarkable piece of engineering with its great, sweeping viaducts and majestic rock cuttings which appear to go on for miles. Furthermore, even this billiard-table route enjoys panoramas of hills and distant mountains and its entrance into Glasgow is via a spectacular incline which has caused too many generations of inappropriately diesel-powered trains to cough and splutter their way to the surface at Cowlairs. It is the ultimate inter-city route as it connects the heart of Glasgow to what is obviously central Edinburgh. Queen Street Station is adjacent to George Square and the City Chambers. The route into Waverley cleaves the Old Town, with its Castle, from the New Town. Elsewhere, the railways had to do battle with mountains, or with crossing vast tracts of water, notably the Firths of Forth and Tay. The intractable Firth of Clyde was the scene for intense inter-railway rivalry by steamer for traffic from small communities situated on its rocky shores. The attempts to enter Scotland, or should it be to leave Scotland as the Edinburgh & Berwick was the first true endeavour, by rail caused Parliament to intervene, as in its wisdom, it could only perceive the need for one route, although as is so often the case Parliament's wishes were ignored.
Nock was fortunate in his choice of publisher, namely Nelson. Ronald Nelson, was a keen enthusiast and shared the author's passion for recording locomotive performance. At least one of the logs of locomotive performance reproduced is accredited to Nelson. Author/Driver McKillop was on the footplate for an Edinburgh to Newcastle run where the driver worked the regulator of the A3 Hyperion "in a most artistic way". Unfortunately, one has to look elsewhere, but again in a book by Nock3, for the same driver's remarkable performance with a D49 on a 435 ton Newcastle-Edinburgh train. This appears to be one of the very few great runs recorded with this class of locomotive.
Nock's Scottish Railways begins with an historical preamble; and is followed by chapters which describe the place of railways in Scottish industry, commerce and sport; an outline of passenger services; a description of the "great scenic routes"; the Clyde Coast; Scottish railway engineering and architecture; traffic control and signalling; locomotive building in Scotland up to 1922; Scottish locomotives after the Grouping; Scottish locomotives at work; and a Scottish miscellany. An appendix tabulates locomotive performance on several trains.
Nock takes the reader back to a lost world of herring traffic and sheep specials. "In August 1949, for example, no fewer than 29,650 sheep and lambs were forwarded by rail from Thurso in four days, and eleven special trains were required. This was, however, surpassed by the record of Lairg, on 17 August 1949, when 26,000 Cheviot sheep and lambs were exposed for sale in one day! Sheep for the south had to be despatched from the little country station on the single-track southward to Inverness. The regular station staff of three clerks, three porter-signalmen and one porter, in addition of course to the stationmaster, was heavily reinforced for the occasion; an engineers' department dormitory carriage provided sleeping accommodation for the extra staff..." It is now difficult to know whether the number of staff at Lairg, or the number of sheep, or the efforts made on behalf of them seem so far off. Perhaps, it is sufficient to be amazed that it is still possible to travel to the tiny population of Lairg by rail, although sheep have long abandoned rail for road. Similarly, Nock details the effort expended on the fish catch: "The departures from Aberdeen are timed generally so that fish will arrive in time for early markets." Now the traveller on the M6 or A1(M) will be overtaken, or overtake, those juggernauts emblazoned with the words "Fraserburgh" or "Peterhead" as they head south to catch the markets for their dwindling supplies of cod and haddock.
It is sometimes possible to forget that Nock's professional expertise was as a signalling engineer who worked for Westinghouse. There is an excellent chapter on this topic which takes the reader back to a time when the differing methods of the pre-grouping companies were still evident.
At a first glance all lower-quadrant semaphore signals look much alike, but it was really astonishing to see how greatly the arms of the old Scottish companies varied in detail, among themselves as well as in comparison with those of the English companies. The North British had the triangular-shaped spectacle glasses in which the old signalling firm of Stevens and Sons specialised; the Caledonian arms had adjustable spectacles, and in the ‘clear' position they came off to a much steeper angle than those of most other Scottish railways. The Highland used the McKenzie and Holland pattern semaphore in conjunction with those extraordinarily elaborate 4-foot-high pinnacles that looked as though they had been designed to match the adornments of Indian and Burmese temples. But from the operational point of view one of the most salient characteristics of Scottish signalling, as practised on the Caledonian, North British and Glasgow and South Western Railways, was the use of a truly green glass in the spectacles. There is, of course, a good deal of yellow in the light from an ordinary oil-burning signal lamp, and many railways sought to counteract this by using a strong blue-green glass in order to display an orthodox bright-green light. On the Scottish lines the light displayed at night was often quite a pale yellow-green.
The same chapter (7) also describes some of the then recent power signalling systems installed at Glasgow St. Enoch and Central stations and at Edinburgh Waverley, all of which have now been displaced.
Nock also described the Glasgow Central Railway, promoted by the Caledonian to give direct access from the main line at Rutherglen to its interests west of the city on the north bank of the Clyde. This is now the Argyle line:
The central portion of the line ran under the very heart of the city , and its construction involved some exceedingly difficult engineering. Where it ran beneath streets, underpinning of the buildings on either side had to be carried out on a vast scale; sewers had to be diverted, and on some sections the nearness of the river caused trouble, in that the tunnels were made through sand that was affected by the rise and fall of the tide. Charles Forman was the engineer, and he had this unsavoury task on hand at the same time as he was building the West Highland Railway.
It is hoped that the quotations demonstrate that the author was highly capable of conveying a modest amount of technical information in a very readable manner, a quality which would be demanded by a publisher like Nelson. Furthermore, the same author had several books published by Batford, a publisher which sought a mass market with simply constructed, readable books on British topography and historical buildings. Within this context the logs of locomotive performance with their tables of regulator and cut-off settings may have been somewhat out of place in Scottish railways, although in themselves they are models of how such data should be presented for maximum clarity.
The book is illustrated with black and white and colour plates, and line drawings. The plates are excellently printed and are based on three sources: one Dufaycolor of preserved Caledonian locomotive 123 taken by Kenneth H. Leech; five based on water-colour paintings by the author, and eight water-colours of locomotives by V. Welch. Two of the author's watercolours are unusual: one is of the main "heraldic" devices for Scottish railway companies which forms the frontispiece and the other is of the ex-North British paddle-steamer Waverley on the Lochgoilhead and Arrochar service. The Nock and Welch watercolours are very different in style: the former have that relatively washy look that sometimes makes watercolour an inappropriate medium for railway subjects; the latter would be difficult to identify as watercolours and have a quality more akin to oil-paintings as the colour is dense except in highlighted areas. Subsequently, Nock was to consider his painting in a self-indulgent autobiography4 which included not only his railway-related work, but other studies (of landscapes) which did not justify more general circulation, although their reproduction does hint at a blindness within his character.
The black and white plates include an excessive number relating to the bridge wash-outs, and consequential repairs, following the East Coast floods of 1948. Nevertheless, from a personal standpoint these are welcome as a reminder of a circuitous journey on the far-from non-stop Flying Scotsman via the Border route to Carlisle, then via the Settle and Carlisle to Leeds City and onward by an extraordinary route going east, then south over what appeared to be freight-only routes, and eventually reaching Kings Cross, very late (behind Seagull, I think).
Many railway books present a picture of the past, but Scottish Railways is relatively unusual in that its past is now long departed, and much of the then present, like the sheep and fish traffic, has also disappeared. Even the passenger traffic has greatly changed. Express commuter trains no longer run from Largs. The Argyle line is a far cry from the steam trains which lingered into the early 1960s and gave some idea of what conditions must have been like on the Inner Circle in London. On the positive side, Nock would have been surprised to be able to travel to King's Cross and Paddington from Glasgow Central, and a Eurostar notice was still there in the year of the Millennium.
1. Nock, O.S. Scottish railways. London: Nelson,
1950.
2. Bonavia, Michael B. The four
great railways.
3. Nock, O.S. The locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley.
London: Longmans, Green, 1945.
4. Nock, O.S. Another facet – painting in water
colour. Edinburgh: Pentland Press, 1993.
Biddle contributed a gloss on Nock in the Oxford Companion
Conclusion
The real problem is that Nock's ratio of writing to reading is highly skew. It is all too obvious that many essential works, of which he must have been aware, had not been read, and that he placed far too great a reliance upon his own recording of locomotive performance and casual acquaintances amongst railway officers to throw together his texts which can frequently be readable. Nevertheless, future writers should treat his material with caution, and in fairness to future readers and writers should note specific works quoted. Errors may not abound, but they are present.
Other commentators
Andrew James. An appreciation of performance
writing: a tribute to Cecil J. Allen and O.S. Nock.
Backtrack, 2014, 28,
100-3
Patents
917,426 Improvements relating to electro-mechanical display units
with Westinghouse Brake & Signal. Published 6 February 1963.
895,055 Improvements relating to control desks for railway signalling
systems with Westinghouse Brake & Signal. Published 26 April
1962
Professional papers:
Institution of Railway Signalling Engineers (via Nock's
book on Institution)
The relationship between signalling and brake power in the handling of modern
traffic (October, 1949): also Institution
of Locomotive Engineers Paper No. 491.
Signalling from the drivers' point of view (March,
1956).also Institution of Locomotive Engineers
Paper No. 557
Power interlockings—past history and future prospects (December,
1956).
The protection of facing points—a survey of practice at home and overseas
(February, 1959).
The design of signalling apparatus (January, 1962).
Bond. R.C. and Nock, O.S. 150 years of uninterrupted progress in railway engineering. Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1975, 189, 589-622.
This is a far from complete listing
Another facet – painting in water
colour. Edinburgh: Pentland Press, 1993.
This must be his worst book, yet perusal of it should be essential
for anyone who considers that he is a major authority on
anything.
Branch lines. London: Batsford, 1957.
184p. incl. plates.
Part of Nock's "Batsford" output intended for the general
reader.
Britain's railways at War, 1939-1945.
London: Ian Allan, 1971. 224pp.
This is not quite Errol Flynn, but one finds that Nock intrudes too
far: this is not the place for personal memories. Otherwise there are some
interesting observations, some good photographic illustrations and some pointers
towards deeper studies, notably Robert Bell's
British locomotives at work. London, Greenlake
Publications, 1947. 260p. incl. 58 plates. (incl. 1 col.) 86 illus., 30 diagrs.
(incl. 22 s. els.), 13 maps.
British locomotives from the
footplate. London, Ian Allan, 1950. [viii], 244 p. incl. 32 plates.
56 illus., 44 tables.
The earlier British locomotives at work covered Nock's pre-WW2
footplate experiences: this volume is mainly concerned with WW2 and subsequent
journeys. The chapeters are as follows: 1. The Great Western Two-cylinder
4-6-0s: "Saints" – "Halls" – "Counties": 2 The L.N.E.R. "Green
Arrows": 3 The Bulleid Pacifics::4 Great Central Expresses, 1948-9 (A3 and
B1 performance on Master Cutler and South Yorkshireman:5 The
Great Western "Kings": 6 Stanier 4-6-2s of the L.M.S.R.: 7 Peppercorn Pacific
Workings:(mainly A1, but also Gresley A1 on through Edinburgh to King's
Cross working: 8 Veteran Four-coupled Engines of the Southern:(T9; I3:
superheated E class and L1: 9 The Stanier Class "5" 4-6-0s:(very varied
including Bristol to Birmingham, Perth to Aberdeen Down Postal, and The
Pines Express over the SDJR) 10 The West Highland Line (K2, K4 and V4):
11 Scottish Expresses-Midland and G. & S.W. Route (rebuilt Royal Scots
in comparison with Claughtons):12 The "Stars" and "Castles" of the
G.W.R.
British locomotives of the 20th century. Volume
1. 1900-1930. Patrick Stephens. 1983. 255pp.
Difficult to be certain as to how Nock viewed this as compared with
the following one: he used the preface to be fairly critical of the Ahrons
work, especially for the series of articles in The Railway Magazine,
yet as usual fails to provide guidance to his own massive output. Sources
are rarely specifically cited. There are several excellent summarizing tables.
The very large number of detailed working drawings is one of the strengths
of this work, although the smallness of some diagrams (notably the GWR Star
on p. 155) makes interpretation difficult. He supports the work of the Claughton
class. On page 129 he notes that "F.G. Smith... was one of the most advanced
thinkers of the day in locomotive design" and this obviously led to
Adrian Vaughan's rather trite remarks about the HR
River class episode..
Contents
Preface
1. The scene in 1900
2. Evolving practice in design
3. 4-4-0 The British passenger locomotive
4. The 0-6-0 tender engines
5. Tank engines: 8-wheeled or less
6. The 'Atlantics'
7. The 8-coupled freighters
8. The large express and mineral tank engines
9. 4-6-0: the emergent premier locomotive type—I
10. 4-6-0: the emergent premier locomotive type—II
11. 'Pacific', 'Prairie', another 'Decapod' and 'Mogul'
12. Picturesque survivals in the early 1920s
13. Grouping 1923: its first effects, in retrospect
14. Interchange trials: 1923-6
15. The Gresley 3-cylinder designs
16. The bridge stress committee and locomotive design
17. In the steps of a master: GWR and Southern
Bibliography
Index
The following quotation (page 215) is significant:
"...than Sir Henry Fowler himself, who was in the audience. He took the
manuscript of the paper back to Derby with him, and promptly scrapped the
design of the valve gear of the new 2-6-4 tank engines then on the drawing
boards. He also laid aside the plans for a 3-cylinder compound 4-6-0, and
began work instead on a 4-cylinder compound 'Pacific', on the lines of the
Bréville type recently introduced on the Northern Railway of France.
Details of the cylinder losses measured on these locomotives were communicated
by Monsieur Bréville himself in the written discussion on Diamond's
paper.
The year, nevertheless, was 1926, and train working on the LMS and everywhere
else was disrupted, first by the 'General Strike', and then by the prolonged
coal strike. To save fuel, the strict piloting regulations on the West Coast
main line of the LMS were waived, and the ex-LNWR locomotives, particularly
'Claughtons', took very heavy loads without assistance, and on schedules
little or nothing decelerated from normal times. The success with which they
did so, and the readiness of the footplate staff to drive and fire the engines
appropriately hard impressed the Superintendent of Motive Power, not to the
extent of relaxing his natural antipathy to anything except Midland engines,
but to oppose his former chief's plans for the 4-cylinder compound 'Pacific',
which he considered quite unnecessary. The fact that a larger-boilered
'Claughton' was being planned in the Crewe drawing office encouraged him
in this view.
However, the construction of two compound 'Pacifics' had already been authorised
and the frames had been cut. Swift action was necessary; the weighty influence
of the operating department prevailed with the high management and Fowler
was instructed to stop work on the' Pacific'. Plans for the enlarged 'Claughton'
went quietly ahead, but significantly enough for Cecil J. Allen to mention
this development in The Railway Magazine in November 1926. To have
written thus he would need to have been in possession of the information
by the latter end of September.
In the meantime events had been moving in the very highest echelons of the
LMS. By that time Sir Guy Granet had succeeded Lord Lawrence as Chairman,
and there is evidence to show that he was growing increasingly concerned
about the interdepartmental rivalries which seemed to be bedevilling progress,
particularly in the locomotive departments. While appreciating the loyalty
of the former Midland men to the precepts of operation originally propounded,
and brilliantly executed by Sir Cecil Paget, he began to form the opinion
that a blend of North Western and Midland practice would be more appropriate
to the prevailing conditions in the later 1920s. It is known that Granet
was a close personal friend of Sir Felix Pole, General Manager of the GWR
and it is unlikely that at some time he did not confide his misgivings,
particularly on the vexed question of motive power. It is also equally likely
that Pole, always anxious to publicise the merits of his own company, suggested,
'Why not try one of ours?'. Whether this was the precise sequence of events
cannot be said for certain; but in fact arrangements were made for a 'Castle'
Class 4-6-0 to be loaned to the LMS, and Fowler was instructed to subject
it to dynamometer car trials between Euston and Carlisle"
Much is asserted that may not actually have taken place: for instance, there
is doubt as to whether frames were cut for the compound Pacific. It is unceratin
whether Fowler was so influenced by Diamond's paper to advocate modifying
the tank engine design (although he may have been more involved in locomotive
design than some have alleged: he was ceratinly interested in the effect
of the K class derailment at Sevenoaks). The real difficulty is that Nock
does not indicate the degree of uncertainty in his statements and this is
a trap for later writers..
British locomotives of the 20th century. Volume
2. 1930-1960. Cambridge: Patrick Stephens. 1984. 256pp.
"My great friend, the late Roland Bond" (Preface), but was this
reciprocated?" The great Hawksworth Pacific saga. Nock could be glibly
inaccurate: on page 60 it would be implied that no further tests were performed
on Fury after the Carstairs accident: in fact further tests were conducted
under Stanier. See extract from page 74.
On page 110 Nock goes completely
against the grain by stating that the [Gresley 2-8-2 P2 class] locomotives
rode well.. Too well received
in Railway Wld., 1984, 45,
238.
British Railways at War, 1939-1945. London: Ian Allan. 1971.
224pp. + plates.
Although the first person singular is still over-used it does not
quite reach Errol Flynn proportions: nevertheless, Nock's style is sometimes
intrusive.
British Railways in action. London, Nelson, 1956. xii, 228
p. + col. front. + 48 plates. 93 illus., 2 diagrs., 73 tables.
British Railways in transition. London,
Nelson, 1963 xiv, 193 p. + col. front + 51 plates. (incl. 3 col.) 95 illus.,
tables, maps.
Reviewed fairly savagely by "HS" in
Railway World, 1964,
25, 78.
British steam locomotives. St. Ives:
Photo Precision, 1972. 39pp.
Ottley 10463 extracted from British steam
locomotives in colour (1964) and Steam
railways of Britain in colour (1967) both largely the work of Clifford
and Wendy Meadway (illustrators) and publiished by Blandford
Press
British steam locomotives in colour.
Blandford Press, 1964.
British steam locomotives at work.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1967. 276pp + 48 plates. 94 illus., 14 tables.
A resumé of much of his recording of locomotive performance,
including some of his "classic experiences", such as the B17 on the overnight
newpaper train from Marylebone to Leicester.
The British steam railway locomotive, 1925-65.
London, Ian Allan, 1966. 276 p. incl. front. + 6 folding plates.
335 illus., 86 diagrs., 170 tables.
This work is designed as a sequel to E.L. Ahrons' similarly entitled
work. In addition to surveying the stated period, it also surveys the period
which was lightly sketched by the earlier author. The work was well received
by both The Railway Gazette and Engineering.
Author's
Introduction.
British steam railways. London, A.& C. Black, 1961. xvi,
326 p. + col. front. + 55 plates (incl. 7 col.) 96 illus., 39 diagrs., 3
maps.
A connected series of "pictures" of the steam railway period.
British trains, past and present.
London: Batsford, 1951. x, 118pp. + plates (including colour)
Preface makes it clear that was intended for the general reader and
presented "what appeared to [him] the salient points of engine and carriage
design". Colour plates includedAbraham Solomon's The Return and Cuneo's
oil painting used at the top of this page.
Reviewed Locomotive Mag., 1951,
57, 181
The Caledonian Dunalastairs and associated
classes. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1968. 159pp.
The Caledonian Railway. London: Ian Allan,
1963.190pp.
The Preface gives some hint of Nock's ruthless working methods with
his thanks to Orchard the Scottish Region's Chief Civil Engineer; Robert
Hoggt's the Scottish Region's Archivist and to Colin Neil Mackay where Frank
Jones presumably made arrangements for Nock. Also gives just a hint that
Olivia Nock was a major component in the writing: "filling in those words
that were in spirit rather than in the letter!" Some further consideration
to this book is given under
McIntosh
The dawn of world railways, 1800-1850. London:
Blandford, 1972. 179pp.
Illustrated by Clifford and Wendy Meadway. Fig. 180 is incorrect:
see Jack on LNWR liveries.
Fifty years of railway signalling: in celebration
of the Golden Jubilee of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers,
1912-1962. London: Institution of Railway Signal Engineers, 1962.
222pp + col. front + 32 plates.
Includes lists (by author and by subject) of Institution's papers,
but without volume or page numbers. Portraits of some of the Institution's
office holders. Reviewed by R.R.
in Rly Wld, 1963, 24, 118.
Fifty years of Western express running.
Bristol: Edward Everard, 1954. xii, 353 p. + col. front. + 60 plates
(incl. 7 folding & 7 col.). 89 illus., 15 diagrs.
This, and the book, amount Maunsell produced by the same "publisher"
(Everard was not a traditional book publisher) were produced to a much higher
standards than most of his books and appear to show that Nock was seeking
something extra in book production methods at that time. See also Sixty
years of Western running for an austerity version of the same text with
a small amount of additional material.
Reviewed in Locomotive Mag.,
1955, 61, 84..
Four thousand miles on the footplate. London, Ian Allan, 1952.
viii, 223 p. including 32 plates. 62 illus., diagr., 55 tables.
From the footplate: reminiscences of the last years
of steam. London: Granada, 1984.189pp.
Begins with the South Western (but the Glasgow &) and his work
at St. Enoch on its resignalling and meeting David L. Smith in 1945 (by no
stretch of the imagination "the last years of steam!). Excellent colour
photographs, many from the post-steam period
Great locomotives of the GWR.
Wellingborough: Patrick Stevens, 1990. 231pp.
Reviewed in Railway
World, 1991, 52, 506
Great locomotives of the LMS.
Wellingborough: Patrick Stevens, 1989. 279pp.
This book contains some very interesting observations on the famous
E.L. Diamond paper and the
reaction of Fowler to it (Nock argues that Fowler ordered the new 2-6-4T
being designed at Derby to incorporate long travel valves and that Fowler
would have incorporated French ideas in his compound Pacific). Why Nock takes
this revisionist stance is not clear, although he does not cite Cox
(except for his J. Instn Loco. Engrs
history). In the main the book is restricted to passenger designs, and
the first 180 pages are given over to pre-grouping developments. An appendix
includes an after dinner address made by Nock at the Crewe Dinner in May
1971. Nock refers to "Tommy Sackville" twice in this book: the reference
should be to Sackfield. This
book has been advertized on the Internet for £28 as being "rare", etc.:
it is very doubtful if the book is worth more tha £5 in terms of information
content.
Great locomotives of the LNER.
Wellingborough: Patrick Stevens, 1988. 231pp.
Whilst this book contains some very interesting observations on locomotive
performance which may have been "lost" elsewhere, it must be judged as giving
a highly superficial picture of steam locomotive development by the
LNER. Inspection of this volume coincided with inspection of Brian Reed's
first Loco Profile LNER non-streamlined Pacifics — in his brief
24pp Reed encapsulates vastly more about the A1/A3 design than Nock does
in his meandering book. Nevertheless, Nock is useful for bringing some humanity
into the book, such as the encounter between Bert Spencer and his great boss
after Gresley had travelled on the footplate of the modified Pacific (with
long travel valve gear) and the Great White Chief had ordered the entire
class to be modified immediately.Reviewed in
Railway World, 1988,
49, 588..
Great locomotives of the Southern Railway.
Wellingborough: Patrick Stevens, 1987. 216pp.
Colour photographs mainly from R.C. Riley. Contains several detailed
working drawings reduced to minimum scale. This was probably the best of
the four volumes in the "Great" series and may be indicative that Nock was
happier when working within a smaller compass.
Great Northern 4-4-2 'Atlantics'.
Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens, 1984. 136pp. (Classic
Locomotives No. 2)
Suffers from some contorted passages. It is the usual mixture of
locomotive performance, anecdotal comments and extracts from more significant
sources without citations. Nevertheless, some useful material is
contained.
The Great Northern Railway. London, Ian Allan,
1958. [viii], 192 p. + col. front. + 32 plates. 71 illus., 60 tables,
11 maps, 2 plans.
Claimed that results of the 1923 comparative tests of Gresley and
Raven Pacifics were published for the first time: see Chapter 14.
Reviewed Locomotive Mag.,
1958, 64, 100
Great Western in colour. Blandford Press. 160pp. illus.
throughout
Reviewed in Railway
Wld., 1979, 40,
94
The Great Western Railway in the nineteenth
century. London: Ian Allan, 1962. 200pp + col. front. + plates.
In some respects an unusual book for Nock in that it begins with a
short bibliography which cites MacDermot, Holcroft, Chapman, Rolt (his superb
biography of Brunel), Ahrons (Locomotive and train working in the latter
part of the 19th century), Foxwell and Farrer (still to enter the portal
of Steamindex) and most surprisingly Tuplin (Great Western steam).
Thus it is a rather better than average work and from it is possible to gain
some impression of what the broad gauge must have been like, although
unfortunately for those interested in the broad gauge per se the book also
includes the Company's "narrow gauge" activities. It is excellently
illustrated.
The Great Western Railway in the twentieth
century. London: Ian Allan, 1964. 212pp. + col. front. + plates
Like the above begins with a very thin bibliography. Includes a portrait
of Viscount Churchill, the decorative Chairman of the GWR.. Reviewed by J.T.
in Railway Wld., 1964,
25, 353
Great Western 'Saint' class
4-6-0. Cambridge: Patrick Stephens, 1983.
Ottley 17969.
The Gresley Pacifics. Newton Abbot: David
& Charles, 1982 . 284pp. (originally published in 2 parts)
GWR steam. Newton Abbot: David &
Charles, 1972. 239pp.
The GWR Stars, Castles and Kings.
Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1967/1970.
Two Parts: subsequently available as combined volume. Ottley 11981.
Reviewd very thinly by J.P. Moss in
J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 1971,
17, 76. also by MJ. in
Rly Wld. 1967, 28, 406. and Part 2 by HTSB in
Railway Wld, 1970,
31, 561.
The Highland Railway. London: Ian Allan,
1965. viii, 177p. + col. front. + 32 plates. 66 illus. (incl.
6 ports.), 2 diagrs., 10 tables, plan, map.
Historic railway disasters, 3rd ed..
London: Ian Allan, 1983. 294p.
First published in 1966:
Harry Jack (Rly Arch. 30
42) notes that gives incorrect date for Abergele accident.
Reviewed (noting additions) in
Rly World, 1983, 44, 317
Historical steam locomotives. London:
Adam & Charles Black, 1959. 162pp. + col. front. + 32 plates.
From very early days until the beginning of the Churchward era/Ivatt's
Atlantics. Error on page 77:Stroudley Lyons class was a tender 0-4-2
not tank type as stated. Criterion for inclusion, with one minor exception,
was that a member of the type had been preserved. On page 94 David Jones
is described as a "young Welshman": according to
Marshall he was born in Manchester...
History of the LMS. I. The first yearss, 1923-30.
London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982. 94pp
History of the LMS — 3.(1939-48).
London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982. 95pp
Reviewed in Railway
Wld., 1983, 44, 522
History of the Great Western Railway. Volume
3. 1923-1947. London Ian Allan, 1967. 268pp
Ottley 11795. Continuation of MacDermot as
revised Clinker.
A hundred years of speed with safety : the inception
and progress of the Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company Ltd., 1881 -
1981. Salisbury: Hobnob, 2006.
Posthumous work edited by Stuart Angill
Irish steam: a twenty-year survey,
1920-1939. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1982. 207pp.
This is probably one of his better books, yet on pp. 133-4 he managesd
to put up two hares without giving any indication of where he got his
information, or where he mentioned them in a more appropriate context::
"It was at this time also that the practice of naming locomotives began,
the selection of titles being made by Miss Ida Pim, a niece of the Chairman
of the company, Frederick W. Pim. More recent instances ofladies choosing
titles for locomotives that may be recalled were those of Mrs C. B. Collett
selecting names for some of the Great Western express locomotives in Churchward's
day, and of Mrs Violet Godfrey, daughter of Sir Nigel Gresley choosing names
for some of the famous A4 streamlined Pacifics of the LNER.
Ida Pim had an almost obvious choice for the first new locomotive turned
out by Richard Cronin, for the 2-4-2 tank No 3 was completed on St Patrick's
day 1898. Naturally it was named St Patrick, and the five subsequent
locomotives of the class that became GSR F2 were made by conversions from
William Wakefield's 2-4-0 tanks that dated from 1884".
Interesting observations on Gresley's daughter and Collett's wife, but they
add little to Irish locomotive development and are highly detached from their
correct context.
The "Kings" and "Castles" of the Great Western
Railway. London, Ian Allan, [1949]. 72 pp. incl.. 16 plates.
32 illus., 4 diagrs. (incl.2 s. els.), 9 tables.
A concise account with accent on performance. Reviewed
Locomotive Mag., 1949,
55, 176.
The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway: a concise
history. London: Ian Allan, 1969. 159pp.
This is not a typical Nock book as less attention is given to locomotive
design than might be expected and performance is scarcely mentioned. There
is a considerable amount of material on the Company's officers, shipping
services and on electrification. Includes portraits of W. Jenkins, G. Roberts,
W. Yates and W. Barton Wright.
The last years of British steam: reflections, ten
years after. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1978. 143pp.
Interesting for Nock's views on the Britannia class and its problems
(notably slipping at speed) and on the rebuilt Royal Scots. Book itself is
interesting for its implication on page 107 that the work of the rebuilt
Bulleid Pacifics would be discussed: "told later in this book" and it was
not!
Line clear ahead: 75 years of ups and downs.
Cambridgre: Patrick Stephens, 1982. 217pp.
This is an important book in that it is an autobigraphy and includes
his education and career as a railway signalling engineer at Westinghouse
and records his friendships. There is a bibliography listing his own works
and an index. More about his wife, Olivia, his children, his homes, especially
those in Bath.
LNER steam. David & Charles. 292pp.
Reviewed by G.M. Kichenside,
Railway Wld, 1969, 30, 414
LNWR locomotives of C.J. Bowen
Cooke. Truro: Bradford Barton, 1977. 112pp..
The material on the Claughtons and the 4-6-2Ts is not included in
the L.N.W.R. Precursor family.
The L.N.W.R. Precursor family: the Precursors,
Experiments, Georges, Princes of the London & North Western Railway.
Newton Abbot (Devon), David & Charles, 1966. 160 p. incl. col.
front. 158 illus. (incl. 6 ports.), 17 diagrs., 75 tables, 5 plans. (David
& Charles locomotive monographs).
This is certainly one of the author's best books. It captures Nock's
excitement at the performance of the George the Fifth 4-4-0s: on page 91
he wrote that the class has a "special place in the eventful history of express
train operation over Shap. In relation to the total engine weight, there
have never been more competent locomotives on the line... There were times,
indeed, when the virtually impossible was attempted.".
Locomotive practice and performance: highlights from the celebrated
Railway Magazine articles. Vol. 1: The age of steam, 1959-68.
Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens, 1989. 320pp.
A badly structured book with a pretentious sub-title (the age of steam
was in terminal decline during the period covered). The book lacks an overall
survey of the famous series: C.J. Allen is virtually ignored. The arrangement
is chronological with an arbitrary within each "year". The index is a prize
example of "how not to".
The locomotives of R.E.L. Maunsell,
1911-1937. Bristol: Edward Everard, 1954. 192pp.
Includes detailed arrangement drawings.
The locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley.
London: Longmans, Green, 1945.
This originated as a series of articles in The Railway Magazine.
It is one of the author's more satisfactory books, possibly because he was
forced to be concise and the format forced him to re-evaluate his own already
publshed material. A new edition of this published by Patrick Stephens in
1992 is reviewed in Backtrack,
1992, 6, 222 by John van Riemsdijk.
The locomotives of the L.N.E.R.: standardisation
and renumbering. London: LNER, 1947.
Thompson standard types plus classes to be maintained. Also tabulated
data on all locomotive types and lists of named locomotives.Ottley 6298.
Review in Locomotive Mag., 1948, 54, 98 notes that it is a
second (revised edition): this is correct as KPJ has both somewhere.
Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway.
London: Ian Allan. 1954. 199pp.
Rutherford,
Michael. A Brief Survey of the Irish 4-4-0. Part 1: Genesis
— or how the Irish designed a "Crewe" 4-4-0 and exported it back to
England. Backtrack, 2006, 20, 360 critices Nock's
interpretation for the early departure of McDonnell from the NER and
on page 363 notes that "Nock makes a number of points none of which makes
much sense." The Publisher's Note on page vi should be noted: "By an unfortunate
oversight the title of an existing publication by John S. Maclean was selected
for this book" and then thank Maclean for allowing Ian Allan to retain the
duplicated title. This failure is the strongest indication that Nock's
bibliographical awareness was doubtful..
.Reviewed by W.H. Bett in Rly
Wld., 1954, 15, (168) vi
The London & South Western Railway.
London, Ian Allan, [1965]. vi, 165 p. + col. front. + 34 plates incl.
2 folding). 69 illus. (incl. 7 ports.), 4 diagrs., 37 tables, 2 plans, 5
maps. Bibliog.
Main lines across the border; with
Eric Treacey. London, Nelson, 1960. xvi, 155 p.4- front. + 62 plates. 116
illus., 27 tables, 4 maps.
The Midland compounds. Dawlish: David
& Charles. 1964. 160pp incl. col. front. 159 illus. (incl. 5 ports.),
l6diagrs. (incl. 3s. els.), 64 tables. (David & Charles locomotive
monographs).
Quite thorough: quotes Cox for mechanical development, Powell for
performance in service, Johnson for impressions of driving and
Tuplin
Out the line. London: Paul Elek, 1976. 163pp.
+ plates.
Important autobiographical reminiscences:
significant quotation from.
The pocket encyclopaedia of British steam locomotives in
colour, with 192 locomotives illustrated by Clifford and Wendy Meadway.
London, Blandford Press, 1964. 192 p. 192 col. iIIus., 6 maps.
A selection covering the period from 1825 to 1960, which aims to show
most of the important liveries.
The pocket encyclopaedia of world railways: steam railways of Britain
in colour; illustrated by C. and W. Meadway. London, Blandford Press,
1967. 195 p. 194 col. iIIus.
The Premier Line: the story of the London &
North Western locomotives. London: Ian Allan, 1952. 239pp. including
plates.
By a hair's breadth the mighty LNWR was even more favoured by the
author than the Great Western. See
Preface.
The railway engineers. London: Batsford,
1955. 256pp.
See extract and comment thereon. This book
raises a serious problem in introducing
John Steele into the Trevitick story,
but as usuaul Nock gives no indication of where he read about
Steele.
Railway race to the North. Ian Allan. 1958.
168pp. also another edition 1963. 176pp. + plates
Ottley 1495. Includes a colour frontispiece
of Caledonian Railway No. 70 passing Kinnaber Junction passing NBR 4-4-0
based on a painting by Jack Hill. Plates include many excellent well reproduced
portraits.
The railway enthusiast's encyclopedia. London,
Hutchinson, 1968. 341 p. 178 illus., 60 tables. Bibliog.
This work has been criticised for its lack of balance and the absence
of an index (see Modern Railways, 1969, 25. 29). Concerning
balance: the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway receives as much attention as
the LNWR, and the short chronology omits the Stockton & Darling'ton centenary
whilst noting that of the Great Western. Over one third of the book is related
to steam locomotives. Pp. 74-188 survey British development with a series
of illustrations and notes on individual designs. The arrangement is not
obvious, however, and reference to individual designs is a tedious process.
To further illustrate the lack of balance, pp. 189-97 survey electric and
diesel progress. Pp. 201-23 contain a glossary. Many of the keywords are
ineptly chosen. Whilst "pump, air" and "pick-up gear" are entries - headings
for "valve gears" and individual named gears are omitted. "Reversing gear",
"cut-off" and "conjugated valve gears" and certain motion components are
included, however. There is a bibliography. In the sections on locomotives
sixteen books are listed, of which a
dozen were written
by the author of the encyclopaedia. Includes thumbnail biographies of 93
"personalities" which excludes Beyer, who seems to be excluded from elsewhere
in the book. Further indication of Nock's lack of true ability in
authorship.Reviewed by MJ in
Railway Wld., 1969, 30, 132. .
Railways at the turn of the century. Blandford Press,
1969.
With colour illustrations by Colin and Wendy Meadway: see letter from
John Bushby in Backtrack, 2020,
34, 413: very cheap online
Railways of Asia and the Far East. .Adam
and Charles Black. 226pp + 32pp
Railways in the transition from steam.
Blandford Press
Reviewed by K.H.S. in
Railway World, 1974,
35, 436
Reviewed by HLBM in
Railway World, 1979.
40, 147.
The railways of Britain, past and present.
London: Batsford, 1947. 120pp.
Remarkably until upgrading the Webb web page to enhance its patents
listing KPJ had made no comment on this book hereat. It is a remarkably elegant
book fully up to the superb standards set by Harry Batford for his series
of popular accounts of "things British". It includes some excellent coloured
illustrations and a wonderful dust jacket. On pp. 88-9 there is the following
delightful account of Webb's foot-warmers..
Returning once more to creature comforts it is surprising to find that for nearly thirty years after the inception of passenger travel by rail little or no attempt was made to warm the carriages in cold weather. And yet another thirty years elapsed before we had progressed beyond the primitive foot-warmer-water-tight boxes of oblong shape filled with hot water. These were originally supplied only to first-class passengers, but even so became quite useless when the water cooled down. F. W. Webb, when Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Western, applied his inventive genius to the problem of carriage heating, and from 1880 passengers enjoyed the use of a novel form of foot-warmer in which the heat was generated by the chemical action of soda acetate. The vessel containing this compound was heated in a vat of boiling water, prior to use, and the recrystallisation of the salt as it cooled down gave off latent heat. It was the job of porters at intermediate stations to shake up these gadgets when they had cooled down so as to restore warmth; the process invariably provoked conversation between passengers, often breaking down the frigid silence of convention observed for hours between fellow travellers. It has even been suggested that Webb's foot-warmers were the prime cause of our modern figurative expression "to break the ice".
Scottish railways. London: Nelson,
1950.
This work is the subject of detailed analysis
in the section on Nock's authorship
The Settle and Carlisle Railway: a personal story
of Britain's most spectacular main line. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens,
1992. 255pp.
Usual list of acknowledgements to the great and the good: Roland Bond,
E.L. Diamond, and Derek Barrie. As evidence that he was anything but authorative
he introduces the highly controlled tests of the B1 class on this route by
underlining his own observations: "I rode on one of ther first of the class,
then stationed at Ipswich, northwards to March, and in a letter just afterwards,
and of which I have still kept a copy, I stigmatised the engine as "a viscious
kicking little brute"". The book contains many of his attempts to elongate
his texts: "Not very long before the period which will be under review in
this chapter"; "the speed must have been almost if not quite 60 mph" and
"With the evident intention of reducing the cost of transporting locomotive
coal (preface to use of Cumberland coal at Durran Hill)"
60 years of West Coast express
running. lan AIIan. 264pp.
Reviewed by Basil K. Cooper in
Railway World, 1976,
37, 535
Sixty years of Western express running.
London: Ian Allan,
This is an "updated" edition of Fifty years of
Western express running which lacks the original attractive colour
plates and includes a short section on the performance of locomotives fitted
with enlarged superheaters and double chimneys. The index is that from "Fifty".
Disgracefully there is no reference to Edward Everard who printed (to a higher
standard) and published the earlier work.
The South Eastern and Chatham Railway. London: Ian Allan,
[1961]. 198pp.
The Southern
King Arthur
family. Newton Abbot: David
& Charles, 1976. 96pp.
Includes both Urie and Maunsell two-cylinder 4-6-0s of classes N15,
H15 and S15. The logs of locomotive performance were not set and were left
in original typescript.
Southern steam. Newton Abbot: David
& Charles. 1966.
Reprinted as Pan Book 1972. Reviewed by HS in
Rly Wld, 1967 28,
312 who is highly critical of Nock's failure to address the Leader class
fiasco "still too early"
Speed records on Britain's railways: a chronicle of
the steam era. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. 1971.
Reprinted as Pan Book 1972. Includes an appendix given over to City
of Truro's exploit approaching Wellington. Also the LMS
Coronation run of which Nock is highly critical of the
excessive speed on the arrival at Crewe. Mallard's epic flight is
given less attention. Ottley 10935
Standard gauge Great Western 4-4-0s. Newton Abbot: David &
Charles, 1977/8. 2v.
Part 1. Inside-cylinder classes, 1894-1910.
96pp.
Part 2. Counties to the close,
1904-1961. 1978. 96pp.
Typical Nock: mixture of development with performance and quite a
lot of padding. Part 2 reviewed cooly jn
Railway Wld., 1979,
40, 188
Steam locomotive: a retrospect of the work
of eight great locomotive engineers. London: British Transport Commission,
1958. 59pp.
Mainly of interest of who the eight selected were: Robert Stephenson,
John Ramsbottom, Edward Fletcher, Patrick Stirling, Samuel Waite Johnson,
Dugald Drummond, Churchward and Gresley. Edward Fletcher would seem to be
difficult to justify as there were several comparable alternate candidates:
Matthew Kirtley. and James Holden, for instance. One might also question
why the British Transport Commission was paying Nock to produce such a work.
Further thought in 2011: Fletcher could be justifiable as his work is
well-represented in the NRM collection. Later editions of this work fail
to show commection with exhibition in Shareholders' Room in Euston iin 1955:
see Locomotive Mag., 1955,
61, 97..
Steam locomotive: the unfinished story of steam locomotives
and steam locomotive men on the railways of Great Britain. London,
Allen & Unwin, 1957. 233 p. + 36 plates. 106 illus. incl. 29 ports.)
A general survey.
Steam railways in retrospect. London, A. & C. Black, 1966.
xx, 268 p. + col. front. + 55 plates (incl. 7 col.). 106 illus., 2 diagrs.,
4 tables, 3 maps.
A bed-time book.
Steam railways of Britain in colour.
Blanford Press, 1967.
Main input by Clifford and Wendy Meadway
(illustrators)
Underground railways of the world.
London: Adam & Charles Black, 1973. 288pp..
Now very out-of-date, although it is sometimes interesting for what
was novel in the 1970s. In spite of the title most of the book is devoted
to lines in London.
William Stanier (1964)
Nock's personal contact with his subject appears to have been limited:
nevertheless, this is one of Nock's better books and adds something to our
understanding of the stature of Stanier.
Reviewed in Rly Wld,
1964, 25, 314.
Contributor to Ransome-Wallis Concise encyclopaedia of world railway locomotives.
Little by little we learned of the great project of Hawksworth's new express passenger lcomotive for post-war traffic, which was most unfortunately stillborn. Nothing was published about it, and Hawksworth himself shut up like an oyster when anyone even suggested there had ever been such a proposal; but at one time, within the shrouded walls of the Swindon drawing office, it was at one time a very lively issue. The two draughtsman principally concerned, who both rose to high office elsewhere in after years, told me that they had the sketchiest instructions from the then Chief Draughtsman, F.C. Mattingley. A 'Pacific' was to be designed carrying a boiler pressure of 280 lb per square inch, and having 6 foot 3 inch coupled wheels, but otherwise carrying as many standard features as possible.
The legend of Stirling on the Great Northern Railway went a good deal further than the ranks of the amateur enthusiasts. He was a father figure to the men of the Locomotive Department and any successor would have to tread warily. The railway's great partner, the North Eastern, had been through a tempestuous epoch when the immediate successor of Edward Fletcher, another father figure in the locomotive world, was unduly hurried in instituting some (admittedly needed) reforms. Yet in February 1896, at the half-yearly meeting of the Company, in explaining the Board's choice of a successor to Stirling, the Chairman, the Hon F.L. Jackson, afterwards Lord Allerton, said, 'We hold, as directors, that it is our duty, in the event of a vacancy arising, not necessarily to limit our selection to servants or officers of the Company, but it is our bounden duty to try and make the best appointment we can'. And they went to the very same Irish railway from which the would-be iconoclast of Gateshead had come; not only that, but to a man who had been appointed by and served under the ill-fated McDonnell (Fletcher's successor), and who was already steeped in. the precepts that had been so successfully established on the Great Southern and Western Railway at Inchicore. This extract comes from the first chapter of Great Northern 4-4-2 'Atlantics': the text is needlessly contorted and the florid quotation from Jackson should have been paraphrased. Furthermore, the name of McDonnell, with whom Ivatt may have been being compared, is withheld for far too long.
When writing of the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway I have already mentioned Edward Fletcher. At the time the Liverpool and Manchester was opened, in 1830, he was a young man of twenty-three, and already engaged up to the hilt in locomotive engineering. Then there was Alexander Allan, two years his junior, who joined the Stephenson's at Forth Street works, Newcastle, in 1832. One can well imagine how the new form of travel appealed to the younger generation of the day, though the attitude of many parents was indifferent, if nothing else. In her girlhood my mother knew an old lady who recalled vividly the opening of the Grand Junction Railway. The quiet Cheshire countryside where she lived was agog wi'th excitement as the day approached, so much so that her father deemed it wise for his family not to attend. The younger generation protested, but Papa was not to be moved; threats of disobedience were followed by counter-threats, and when the day dawned she and her two brothers were locked severally in upper rooms in that big country house. How she escaped, and had a splendid view of the opening of the railway is a longer story than can be told here! Some years later the man she married, a draughtsman in Crewe works, was associated with the great invention of water troughs. Those were the days of John Ramsbottom, one of the greatest locomotive engineers of the mid-Victorian period, and one revels in the story of him as a lad of sixteen journeying from Todmorden into Manchester to see the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. While Alexander Allan went to Stephenson's, Ramsbottom joined the new firm of Sharp, Roberts and Co. in Manchester and was there when competition was keen for orders and the whole industry was new and thrusting.
Should one use this text to build an image of John Ramsbottom? The veracity of the story is dependent upon the recollections of the very young and the very old. Reed would also be critical of his over-emphasis of the role of Allan!
Extracts from Vann's bibliographical appreciation
Unfortunately the economic depression soon led to redundancies at Westinghouse and, although he stayed with the company, he decided at the beginning of the 1930s to turn his interest in writing into a commercial activity (italics added by KPJ). His first successful piece, entitled ‘Hyde Park's ghost trains’, was published in the Evening News in 1932. Two years later, in April 1934, a suggestion to The Star newspaper gave him the opportunity officially to ride on the footplate of the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway's newest express steam locomotive.
By the time of his death...Nock had written over 140 books, a remarkable achievement considering that the first did not appear until he was forty. Although he was no academic when compared to the railway author Jack Simmons, his books were nevertheless based on sound research (KPJ based almost entirely upon existing published records) and on knowledge acquired from inside the industry (KPJ but which lacked depth). If they had faults—repetition and a bias towards locomotive performance were two which later critics seized upon—they arose because the author was an enthusiast who infused all his texts with his own experience. His work was always accessible and engaging. He was never a controversial writer but his strong views sometimes surfaced in his work. He was critical of the way in which Britain's railways had been nationalized in 1948, for example. ... He did, however, manage to avoid the hazard of nostalgia (KPJ: a highly questionnable assertion) and as a true supporter of railway travel he delighted in genuine improvements to railway services. .... His books and articles inspired a generation of railway enthusiasts.
The British steam railway locomotive, 1925-65.
This is reproduced as in the book except that hyperlinks are inserted
where appropriate
"Of all those who worship at the shrine of the steam locomotive there
has never been one more devout and more learned than the late E. L. Ahrons
... " So wrote Loughnan Pendred in opening a Foreword to Ahrons' classic
work: "The British Steam Railway Locomotive: 1825 to 1925." That book was
the republication, in book form, of a series of articles specially commissioned
by The Engineer in celebration of the Railway Centenary. It was a
tremendous task, superbly done. As Pendred said, in 1927: "Take it for all
in all, it may now be said without the slightest fear of contradiction that
it is the most complete, the most accurate, the most detailed history of
the British steam locomotive between 1825 and 1925 which has ever been
written."
When Ian Allan asked me to consider taking up the story from the year 1925,
and carrying it through to the end of steam in Great Britain, or very nearly
to the end, I must admit that the pleasure of receiving such an invitation
was mingled with some apprehen- sion. Ahrons remains unique in the field
of railway literature; and although the scholarly work that I was to follow
did not include any of those delight- fully humorous touches that so
characterised the equally famous series of articles in "The Railway Magazine"
there can never be a second " Ahrons ". In another respect however my task
has been easier. Throughout the period covered by this second book I have
been a professional engineer closely connected with railway work, and have
the clearest personal recollections of the first appearances of most of the
locomotives concerned. Ahrons on the other hand traced his story from a time
more than 40 years before his birth.
My period covers most of the "grouping" era on the British railways, and
the subsequent time of nationalisation. In consequence I have had far fewer
different locomotive classes to describe. It has been nevertheless a period
of great significance in design, construction and testing, and I have been
fortunate in seeing a great deal of the work at first hand. I made my first
runs on the footplate in 1934 and there is no express passenger locomotive
class built since 1925 of which I have not had first hand
experience—except, of course, the unconventional and experimental designs
described in Chapter Nine. There is nothing like the footplate for getting
the true" feel" of locomotive work, and to my experience in this respect
have been added many opportunities of travelling in the dynamometer car on
some exacting and exciting test runs.
Over the years, through my membership of professional institutions, and through
my literary work I have come to know many of the leading figures in the
locomotive world, not only on the home railways but also in the locomotive
building industry; and in several of my chapters I have sought to pay tribute
to the great firms, steeped in history, who have done so much to foster the
export trade of this country in steam locomotives. It is a sign of the times
that, one by one, these famous firms have begun to drop out of the picture:
Kitsons, Hawthorns, Robert Stephen- son, and most poignant of all, North
British. Now, at the time of writing, Beyer-Peacock also have ceased the
manufacture of locomotives, leaving, among the major works only Vulcan and
Hunslet in the field, to carry the old traditions into the new age.
Many locomotive men by their enthusiasm and readiness to " talk shop" at
any time have contributed indirectly to this book, and I would like to
acknowledge the help I have received on many occasions from
R.C. Bond, K.J.
Cook, E.S. Cox,
Sam Ell,
J.F. Harrison,
F.W. Hawksworth,
H. Holcroft,
H.G. Ivatt,
R.G. Jarvis,
T. Matthewson-Dick,
R.A. Riddles,
C.T. Roberts and
B. Spencer, while among the contractors
I must mention with gratitude John
Alcock of Hunslet, A. Black of North British, and
W. Cyril Williams and
Maurice Crane of Beyer-Peacock.
Nor must I forget those who are no longer with us, who by their interest
and encouragement have helped me at many times:
Sir Nigel Gresley,
R.A. Smeddle,
T.S. Finlayson,
Edward Thompson, and, to me the most
treasured memory of all, Sir William
Stanier.
I began this preface with a quotation from that great Editor
Loughnan Pendred of The Engineer. Now, among
journalists and authors, editors are apt to be regarded as a race of bogey-men,
vigorously wielding the blue pencil-that is when they are not cheerfully
attaching a rejection slip to one's most cherished MSS. But Pendred wrote
most charmingly of Ahrons in that preface, and in following Ahrons perhaps
I may add a word about Pendred, who in 1931 reached the pinnacle of his
profession with his election as President of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers. It was through the commissions I received from him to write in
The Engineer, and the help and encouragement he was always so ready
to give that I gained much of the first hand experience of steam locomotives
that provides the background to this book. I am no less indebted to his son,
Benjamin, who succeeded him as Editor-in-Chief of The Engineer, and
who has continued the association in the same delightful way, even though
my more recent contributions have been of the diesel and electric age. Thus
the name of Pendred, in many ways the architect of the first volume, has
been indirectly, but no less effectively associated with the second .. Loughnan
Pendred always regretted that the exigencies of the press hampered Ahrons
in painting the majestic picture of 100 years' development, against the
background of so vast a canvas. I, on the other hand, am most grateful to
my own publisher, Ian Allan, for giving me a virtually free hand, over the
shorter period of 40 years, from 1925 to 1965. I must also express my thanks
to the various Regions of British Railways, and to member firms af the Locomotive
Manufacturers Association for supplying between them many hundreds of photographs
from which the book has been illustrated. The Councils of the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers and of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers have
kindly permitted me to reproduce certain drawings that have appeared in the
proceedings of those Institutions, and I am also much indebted to Mr. B.W.C.
Cooke, Editor of The Railway Gazette for allowing me to reproduce
a number of drawings from that journal and from The Railway Engineer.
My thanks are no less due to Mr. C. R. H. Simpson
who read the proofs, and made a number of suggestions that I was glad
to adopt.
Lastly I am, as always, much indebted to Olivia my wife, for coping so well
and so quickly with the typing, in this case of a long and unusually intricate
manuscript.
Silver Cedars,
High Bannerdown,
Batheaston,
Bath.
O. S. NOCK. March 1966.
It would be difficult to give a precise explanation as to why the
locomotives of the London and North Western Railway held, and still continue
to hold such a fascination for so many enthusiasts. Collectively they have
been described, a little unkindly perhaps, as a " rough job "; they were
painted black, at any rate from 1873 onwards, and the majority were not renowned
for thermal efficiency. But there was something intensely alive about them.
They shrieked, they roared, they threw fire sky high; and they were nearly
all named—not in any precise orderly system but with a delightful
promiscuity. Above all, they belonged to " The Premier Line," " The Royal
Mail Route," and the traffic they handled was prodigious. When business took
my parents from Reading to Barrow-in-Furness, and I, as a young railway
enthusiast, said au revoir to the spacious elegance of the Great Western,
I soon succumbed to the spell cast by those fiery black engines tearing through
Carnforth on the Scotch expresses.
All that was many years ago. As railway experience grew that early enthusiasm
became tempered with knowledge of the weak points in some of the most noted
designs, the reasons for the sluggishness of the 4-cylinder compounds, and
the roughness of the " George the Fifths " as the time approached for general
overhaul. But even when it comes to a critical examination of all these points,
and with the knowledge of what Churchward and other master engineers have
done then and since, one still stands amazed at the work done by the " George
the Fifths," and no less that of the " Claughtons " in pre-grouping days.
In this book I have tried to present the continuous story of Crewe locomotive
development from its earliest days. The story would have been impossible
to compress into a single book were it not for the Crewe tradition of
quantity-production, and the fact that relatively few locomotive types are
involved over this period of 76 years. Even so, I have not attempted to give
a complete register of constructional work at Crewe, though all the named
engines are listed, and from these lists one can trace how names were handed
down from one generation of engines to another.
Many friends have helped me in the making of this book. At the height of
my boyish enthusiasm I bought Mr. C. Williams's 1912 register
of L. & N.W.R. locomotives; it is still one of my cherished possessions,
and has an encyclopaedic value today. With my present book Mr. Williams,
as usual, has been untiring in coping with occasional "teasers" I have put
to him. I only wish it had been possible to include some of the reminiscences
of friends who knew the older engines in their last days : the kind of experience
Mr. Edward Little, for example, gained of the "Lady of the Lake's" on the
Oxford and Bletchley line in 1904-6. Perhaps we might have a collection of
reminiscences of the L. & N.W.R. at a later date. For the same reason
I have had to omit reference to the long controversy around he Webb 3-cylinder
compounds that raged in the correspondence columns of Engineering
in 1885, and which Mr. Webb signalised by naming one of the "Dreadnoughts"
Argus, after his anonymous opponent. Messrs. Kenneth H. Leech, W.
J. Reynolds, P. B. Whitehouse, and W. H. Whitworth have between them supplied
me with many photographs—many times more than I could hope to use, and
I am particularly indebted to Mr. George Dow, Public Relations and Publicity
Officer of London Midland Region, for extracting some most important dimensional
details from the Crewe records, and for supplying some unusually interesting
photographs.
I have made very full reference to the files of The Engineer, Engineering,
The Locomotive, and The Railway Magazine, and many of the runs
detailed in this book are from records compiled by the late C. Rous-Marten
and by Cecil J. Allen. I have also made refer-ence to the writings of E.
L. Ahrons, and R. E. Charlewood, and to books written by E. E. Robinson and
H. F. F. Livesay. My thanks are due to the Council of the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers for permission to use the drawing of the original Webb
" 18 inch " express goods engine; and to Messrs. Edward Arnold Ltd. for
per-mission to use the drawing of the " Claughton " smokebox and front-end
castings from the book Steam Power, by my old teacher, Professor W. E. Dalby,
F.R.S. Mr. Stewart Dewsbery has very kindly put his remarkably complete railway
library at my disposal, while I am no less indebted to the Librarian of the
Bath City Library and his assistants for their unfailing courtesy in extracting
from their inner-most archives volume after volume of The Engineer
and Engineering.
Some data concerning the locomotive exchanges of 1909 and 1910 is taken from
the series of articles I wrote in The Railway Magazine of 1936-7,
and I am glad to repeat the acknowledgment I made there of my indebtedness
to Mr. C. B. Collett, to Sir William Stanier, and to Sir Nigel Gresley, for
information they gave me to use in those original articles. I am no less
indebted to Mr. B. W. C. Cooke, Editor of The Railway Magazine, for permission
to use that data once again, and for his further help in connection with
photographs.
All in all, the writing of this book has been a very pleasant task, in the
old memories it has revived, but no less for the triumphant manner in which
the Bowen-Cooke express engines emerge from a critical engineering analysis,
balancing their undoubted weaknesses against their brilliant optimum performance.
Lastly, I am more than grateful to Olivia, my wife, for typing the whole
long manuscript at top speed, even if she did re-christen the "Precursor"
No. 1111 Cerebos! To my pleasantries she merely replied, " Well, see
how it runs '."
Cerebos was a tradename for household salt [KPJ]
Ian Allan Driven by steam was brief in his assessment, but said much about both men. "Ossie Nock was far less formidable than any of the other authors. He was super to deal with. He would quickly agree terms without a haggle and always delivered on time: we would often make up a book together with scissors and paste and he never complained about anything. He is a real publisher's dream and even does his proof-reading superbly although he is now well into his eighties. He was such a prolific writer that Cecil would always comment that he could not possibly be doing it all himself, 'obviously he has someone to devil for him.' Which was not so, I am" sure.
Updated: 2021-09-14
© Kevin P. Jones