 |
Journal of the Railway & Canal Historical Society 2021 Volume 40 Part 4 |
No 240 March 2021
Mark Casson. Public service or private profit? British railway policy
1825–2020 (2020 Clinker Lecture). 198-214
The conclusions were summarised using a question and answer format.
The two main questions asked at the outset can be resolved into ten specific
questions, as set out below.
Why did they do that? To begin with, because government regulation compelled
it. Regulations became increasingly strict during the Maturity phase,
1870–1914. Later, accepting public service obligations helped the railways
to win government support when they needed it, e.g. to obtain restrictions
on road competition after World War I.
Did public service obligations reduce profitability? Yes, definitely. Public
service obligations could be very costly. Some, such a safety improvements,
were intended to benefit everyone, both passengers and workers. Other investments
were made for the benefit of first-class passengers, and some of these indirectly
benefited third-class passengers too. But there was a trade-off. Pursuing
public service objectives diverted scarce funds from other forms of railway
investment that would probably have been more profitable for shareholders.
When, if at all, was public service on the railways at its zenith? In 1914.
Before this date the network was still under development, with several major
projects in hand (e.g. the Great Central London extension, Great Western
cut-offs, quadrupling primary routes, and early suburban electrification).
After this date came the war, followed by economic recession. The railway
races of the 1930s were publicity stunts and did not reflect the daily
experiences of railway passengers. The Maturity period, 1870–1914, witnessed
a long period of sustained government intervention with railway policy. It
was this period of consistent policy, rigorously applied, that was mainly
responsible for the zenith of public service in 1914.
How good was the public service provided by the railways? Quite good at the
zenith, but it could have been even better. Passenger timetables show that
express trains on trunk routes ran throughout the day, often using clock
face departures; connections were provided at specialised hubs; and through
coaches reduced the inconvenience of changing trains. High-frequency suburban
services operated in large urban areas. There was a good range of cross-country
services; but these were often slow because the routes were indirect and
relied on the use of secondary lines. The quality of service delivered to
the passenger depended heavily on powerful locomotives and punctuality to
maintain connections.
Did the speculative nature of construction in the Mania period impede the
subsequent delivery of public service? Yes. It burdened the railways with
high fixed operating costs and left them with a limited set of cross-country
primary routes. High fixed costs
Did the railways pursue a public service agenda? Yes. Public service was
a major feature of railway operations, but it was much more important at
some times than at others.absorbed income that could have been used to finance
major investments, such as main-line electrification, which was deferred
for more than thirty years because of capital constraints.
Did public service requirements have differential impacts? Yes. The impact
was greater for passenger traffic than freight traffic; it was also greater
for rural traffic than inter-city traffic. Public service obligations kept
open many rural lines from the 1930s to the 1960s, when they were closed
in the Beeching cuts. These lines provided local employment, a service to
local businesses (e.g. coal merchants) and a skeleton passenger service for
those unable to travel by bus.
Were public service obligations discharged in an efficient way? Not always.
Safety systems, including signalling and braking, were not standardised across
companies, and this complicated the operation of through services. Over-staffing
and restrictive trades union practices did little to improve the quality
of services during inter-war recession, but were tolerated as a form of
job-preservation.
Opportunities to develop an integrated regional or national multi-modal freight
service were hampered both by indecisive government transport policy and
the railways’ reluctance to contemplate road-only services on long-distance
routes.
Who benefited most from public service obligations; workers, managers, or
shareholders? Managers probably benefited most. Workers in general gained
a lot from the legalisation of trades unions and improved working conditions;
railway workers in particular benefited from the safeguarding of their jobs.
Managers gained from the fact that they still had a lot of workers to manage,
and a lot of trains to timetable, even when some trains ran almost empty.
Shareholders gained because, although dividends declined from 1870 onwards,
they benefited financially from the grouping in 1923, and the government
eventually bought them out in 1948 on generous terms.
Overall, what were the main factors that drove the development of the public
service railway? There were four main factors, as illustrated in Table 7.
Economic prosperity. Without prosperity passengers cannot afford the fares
and freight revenue declines; there are no funds for the companies to
invest.
A substantial modal share of traffic. When they had a high modal share, railways
became part of the culture of the country. But when most people travelled
by road, few people cared about a public service railway
Michael Lewis. Fifty years of Early Wooden Railways. 215-20.
Lewis's Early wooden railways
was the product of a Corpus Christi Research Fellowship
in 1963. This article is based on the Early Railway Group Occassional Paper
260 published on 15 October 2020
Samuel Harris, Timothy Peters and Deen Zhang. The construction and life of the Bridgewater Canal tugboat Manchester. 221
Graham Boyes. The United Kingdom Railway Advisory Service; its
rise and fall, 1959–1970. 230
This government-sponsored consultancy was established to exploit British
Railways’ expertise in the promotion of UK exports. At first it was
regarded as a model for other nationalised industries to follow, but experience
showed that the direct involvement of the railway manufacturing industry
had been a mistake. After completion of one major electrification project
in Pakistan, its sponsorship was withdrawn. But, by this time, BR had been
persuaded to form its own independent consultancy subsidiary, Transmark,
which very successfully picked-up where UKRAS had left-off
David Parry. Mr Gladstone, coal and Wrexham’s second railway.
239
Between 1856 and 1866 William Gladstone MP became involved in two
related projects that reflect his views on the power of the major mid-nineteenth
century railway companies. These were the Hawarden Castle estate’s attempts
to exploit its coal reserves and his support for the challenge by the Wrexham,
Mold &Connah’s Quay Railway (WMCQR) to the GWR’s Wrexham area
monopoly. Sir Stephen Glynne’s Hawarden Castle estate included substantial
mineral reserves in the Hawarden and Buckley areas worked by a number of
lessees and largely dependent on tramways and road haulage to access the
Dee Navigation wharves between Queensferry and Sandycroft. Whilst the coal
was of mainly local significance, the clay products were competitive in more
distant markets. Having married Sir Stephen’s sister, Catherine, Gladstone
made Hawarden Castle his country residence and ultimately the Glynne estate
was to pass to the Gladstone family.
The estate had made an unsuccessful mineral investment at Oak Farm, near
Stourbridge, in the early 1840s, which unravelled into bankruptcy proceedings
following the Stock Exchange crash of 1847, threatening the Glynne estate’s
existence. On behalf of his brother-in-law, Gladstone took control of a recovery
plan that imposed a protracted period of austerity on the family.1
This paper draws on Gladstone’s diaries, Hawarden estate records and
other sources to trace his role in these developments over the period during
which he became Chancellor of the Exchequer and attempted to revive state
railway purchase through his Railway Regulation Act of 1844
Obituary (Brian J Goggin). Peter Brown. 249
Born in 1955; died 2020.
Correspondence. 250
Reviews. 253
The Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway the story
of a Welsh rural byway — Peter Johnson. Barnsley: Pen &
Sword Transport, 2020. 232pp, 222 photographs (115 colour), 25 maps &
track diagrams, hardback, Reviewed by Gerald Leach, page 255
The original Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway was a latecomer
to the narrow gauge railway scene. Unlike other narrow gauge railways in
north Wales, whose primary purpose was to provide transport services for
local mineral extraction, the W&LlR was built to satisfy the transport
and commercial needs of the local community and agricultural industry. Plans
for a railway linking the market town of Welshpool and villages in the valley
of the River Banwy dated as far back as 1862. A lack of capital and numerous
disputes about destinations and routes for the line continued for almost
forty years. Eventually in 1896 the introduction of Light Railways Act provided
a new impetus. A new company was formed, a Light Railway Order was granted
in 1899 and work commenced immediately on the construction of a 9½ mile
line linking Welshpool and the village of Llanfair Caereinion. The gauge
was 2ft 6in and the railway opened in 1903. For the first fifty years of
its existence the W&LlR operated as a commercial railway but its rural
location caused a continuous shortfall in the revenue earned from goods and
passengers. From 1923 it operated as part of the Great Western Railway,
continuing after 1948 under British Railways management, solely for carriage
of goods until November 1956, when it was officially closed. Within three
years preservation enthusiasts launched a campaign to save the railway and
established the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway Preservation Company.
This company quickly acquired ownership of the line and transformed it into
a successful heritage railway and popular tourist attraction.
The book provides an informative narrative describing the full history of
the railway. As part of his research Peter Johnson searched the archives
of national and local newspapers and these have revealed some interesting
and hitherto unknown facts about the railway and personalities involved.
Over 200 good quality colour and monochrome photographs and maps are included.
There is a bibliography and index, together with fourteen appendices supplying
useful facts and statistics.
George and Robert Stephenson : pioneer inventors and
engineers — Anthony Burton. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Transport,
2020. 232pp, 50 illustrations, hardback, Reviewed by Victoria Owens. page
255
To anyone with an interest in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
engineering, Anthony Burton’s name is likely to be familiar. A prolific,
often engaging, writer on railway and canal history, his television documentary
about the Rainhill trials has given him something akin to first-hand experience
of the event. He is well-placed, by any measure, to bring new insights to
bear on the Stephensons’ lives and achievements.
However, this book does not live up to expectation and readers should not
get carried away by its cover blurb promise of ‘newly researched
material’. Broadly, in terms of content and organisation, it tends to
follow the pattern — and occasionally to dog the tracks — of L.T.C.
Rolt’s George and Robert Stephenson : the railway revolution
(1960). What is particularly disappointing is that it offers so little
on which anyone who is engaged in serious Stephenson study can build.
The index, which shows signs of hasty compilation, is barely adequate. The
illustrations’ captions are meagre and give no indication of the
pictures’ provenance. While the text often cites letters and other primary
source materials, they are not referenced. Admittedly, the ‘select
bibliography’ includes a couple of recent works by railway historian
Michael Bailey and Burton’s own Joseph Locke (2017) — although,
surprisingly, not his Locomotive Pioneers of the same year —
but it is extremely short and leans heavily towards the nineteenth century.
In the light of the Stephensons’ cultural significance, as well as their
engineering importance, omission of any mention of
John Addyman and Victoria
Howarth’s Robert Stephenson, Railway Engineer (1998);
Simon Garfield’s The Last Journey
of William Huskisson (2003) and
David Ross’s George
and Robert Stephenson : a passion for success (2010) seems
bizarre.
Great Western pannier tank classes: an overview of their
design and development. (Locomotive Portfolios) — David
Maidment. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Transport 2019. 336pp, about 400
photographs (some colour), 50 drawings. Reviewed by Peter Brown. Page
260
Pannier tanks gave better access to the inside motion than did side
tanks, and a lower centre of gravity (hence greater stability) and better
forward visibility than saddle tanks. The Great Western (and British Railways)
built 1,274 pannier tank locomotives, and fitted pannier tanks to 940 older
GWR locomotives and a further 37 to those of absorbed companies. They were
superbly versatile locomotives: in addition to shunting and freight trip
work, they hauled branch line passenger trains, acted as bankers, and
occasionally substituted for ailing locomotives on express passenger trains.
The pannier tank book, in the ‘Locomotive Portfolios’ series, details
the development and activities of the various classes. The illustrations
are well captioned, and many show the locomotives at work. The final quarter
of the book contains the dimensions and weight diagrams of all the classes,
together with a complete listing of building/rebuilding/withdrawal dates
and the places of first and last allocation.
Great Western King Class 4–6–0s: from construction
to withdrawal. — David Maidment. Barnsley: Pen & Sword
Transport, 2020, 260pp. 272pp about 300 photographs (some colour), 4 drawings,
Reviewed by Peter Brown. Page 260
We have also received for notice the book in the same series covering
the ‘Kings’. With only thirty locomotives in the class (or thirty-one
– but the renewal of 6007 after the Shrivenham accident is not mentioned
here) there is no need for tabulating varieties and instead we have a good
number of records of performance, including footplate runs made by the author.
Again, there are many photoographs including some less familiar
views.
Volume 40 Part 5 No 241 July 2021
Peter Johnson. Death on the narrow gauge. 262-70.
That there are most fatalities on the Ffestiniog Railway, 31, can be attributed
to it running more trains, the dangerous nature of its gravity trains and
its routing through built-up areas, particularly at Tanygrisiau and
Penrhyndeudraeth. There was also a tendency to use parts of it, particularly
between Tanygrisiau and Duffws, as a footpath. There must have been more
fatalities, too, as it is inconceivable that it operated without incident
between 1836 and 1845, or that there were no accidents during its construction.
There is good evidence of another fatality during the War, when a woman was
run down by a loco in Tanygrisiau. Bessie Jones, the Tan y Bwlch station
mistress, was riding on the loco and told volunteers about the incident in
the 1950s. A book of local memories (Cofion Ken; Kenneth Griffiths) says,
in Welsh, that the victim was ‘Mrs Jones’ but it has not been possible
to identify her or to establish the date of the accident. Three of the FfR
fatalities appear not to have been registered. Much effort, and some small
expense, put into trying to trace them on the General Register Office index
was not rewarded with success.
The Corris Railway’s proximity to habitation at Corris and Machynlleth
explains why three of its six fatalities were of children. In contrast, the
Nantlle Railway ran through Penygroes and Tal y Sarn but its only known fatality
occurred to a passenger. Three of the Talyllyn Railway’s fatalities
were of children, two of them on the same day, and occurred at Pendre and
Abergynolwyn, both residential areas.
Croesor Railway; Festinog & Blaenau Railway; Glyn Valley Tramway; North
Wales Narrow Gauge Railways; Talyllyn Railway; Welshpool & Llanfair Railway
Anthony Dawson. The tunnels of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway,
1830-1845. 271-86.
Three tunnels: Wapping (1.26 miles long), the steeply (1 in 48) graded
Crown Street (the little tunnel 291 yards) were worked by rope haulage with
Robert Stephenson engines and the Lime Street Tunnel (1.13 miles) with Charles
Tayleur engines. The Cornish boilers were subject to compaints from smoke
pollution. Brakemen were employed for the descents and these were guilty
of excesssive speed and failing to brake sufficiently at the foot. Wapping
only carried freight, but the other two conveyed passengers. Rope working
at Lime Street ceased in 1870, but some locomotive ascents were peformed
before then.
David Jones. The case of the Irish dollars. 287-90.
At about 9.00 am on Thursday 21 June 1804 two barges left Soho Wharf in
Handsworth (Birmingham) for the canal journey to Liverpool. The cargo was
then transferred to a sea going vessel and taken to Dublin. The barges were
under an armed guard of 12 soldiers, accompanied by two Bow Street Officers.
It was an early start for the two steerers, William Barlow and Richard Britain.
Loading the cargo had begun at 5.00 am.
The cargo consisted of newly struck Irish dollars made of silver and worth
between £200,000 and £300,000. They had been produced, not at the
Royal Mint in London but locally at Matthew Boulton’s private Soho Mint
in Handsworth, using the stateof-the-art steam-powered coin presses invented
by James Watt. The Soho Mint had been founded in 1788 (Fig 1).
Robert Humm. Henry Maxwell, an eminent enthusiast.
291-6.
Henry Maxwell was "one of The Great and the Good of the railway
fraternity. They were men, often of wealth and influence, who got things
moving in the early preservation era. They chaired committees, put their
names to appeals, and often acted privately where officialdom seemed to move
too slowly or lacked interest. They made it their business to be on good
terms with senior railwaymen. Occasionally they were themselves senior
railwaymen, such as James Ness, who put the four preserved Scottish locomotives
to regular work in the early 1960s, and George Dow, who saved the Vale of
Rheidol to the annoyance of his masters who saw it as an anachronism overdue
for closure. Their number included Alan Pegler, the saviour of Flying
Scotsman; James Sherwood, the Anglophile American who resuscitated the
Orient Express; Patrick Whitehouse, who made vital contributions to
the Talyllyn, the Dart Valley Railway and the Birmingham Railway Museum;
Viscount Garnock, owner of The Great Marquess; the Marquess of Ailsa,
who stepped in when the Isle of Man Railway was about to succumb; Sir William
McAlpine, the second saviour of Flying Scotsman and owner of the most
extraordinary private railway museum; and Ian Allan, who seemed to be everywhere
all the time, boosting the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch, running special
trains, organising the Great Cockcrow Railway, preserving the Pullman car
Malaga and publicising it all via the books and magazines of his
publishing empire."
Henry William Austin Maxwell (1909–1996) is a far less well known figure,
in fact virtually forgotten. His principal public achievement was the purchase
and restoration of the Pullman car Topaz, now on display in the National
Collection. He lived a discreet existence and there is only one known photograph
in the public domain. Although there are gaps in the story it seems worthwhile
to put his life on record while the opportunity remains. Born in Richmond,
Surrey, on 11 May 1909, Henry Maxwell was the third generation of a wealthy
literary dynasty. His grandfather was the Irish-born magazine publisher John
Maxwell. His grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915), a leading
exponent of the Victorian sensational novel and short story. She dealt with
mystery, the occult, crime and romance, and in the course of a long writing
career produced over 80 full length novels and dozens of short stories. Mary
Elizabeth also produced a large number of children, mostly illegitimate,
before eventually marrying her common-law husband in 1874.
Henry’s father, William Babington Maxwell, was accustomed to wealth
and grew up with rather entitled attitudes. In his early years he dabbled
in publishing without any notable success, but by the turn of the 20th century
had settled down as a novelist. In 1906 William married Sydney Constance
Brabazon-Moore. Their first child, Barbara, was born in 1907 and Henry followed
two years later. At the 1911 census the family was still living with Mary
Elizabeth (grandfather Maxwell had died in 1895) in a vast mansion, Lichfield
House, Sheen Road, Richmond. With 21 rooms and twelve servants there was
little pressure to move away. And to show how much these literary endeavours
earned there was also a spacious summer residence called Annesley House,
near Lyndhurst in the New Forest.
As a transport history footnote we may note that Henry, on his mother’s
side, was related to Col J C T Moore-Brabazon, the pioneer British aviator
and holder of pilot’s flying certificate No. 1. In the Second World
War Brabazon became Minister of Transport in 1940 and Minister of Aircraft
Production in succession to Lord Beaverbrook in 1941. He was ennobled as
Lord Brabazon of Tara in 1942 and the ill-fated Bristol Brabazon airliner
was named after him.
Nursemaids and pushchairs played a pivotal role in the lives of so many senior
enthusiasts, and so it was with Henry. Holidays were taken at Folkestone,
then a fashionable watering place, where the family usually stayed at the
Royal Pavilion Hotel, the most prestigious hotel in the town (back cover).
It faced the inner harbour and had a front row view of the railway viaduct.
In its day the Royal Pavilion had hosted Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,
Sir Joseph Paxton, the Rothschilds and Charles Dickens. The nursemaid in
question also happened to be the daughter of a South Eastern & Chatham
Railway signalman. Thus it was no coincidence that afternoon walks often
gravitated towards Folkestone Harbour station, a picturesque place where
there were the magnificent sights of cross-Channel steamers, the latest express
locomotives, boat trains, and the old wooden lighthouse. It was in 1912,
Henry said, that his eyes first fell upon a South Eastern Pullman car. Nothing
to my mind has ever equalled the richness and elegance of those SECR cars.
They were positively regal, especially so at night when the station lights
played on their ruby flanks. One saw through their shining windows the gleam
of their beautiful inlaid veneers, the sheen of their leather upholstered
armchairs, and the opulent pile of their thick carpets. The majestic Padua
always seemed to me a veritable palace on wheels, and I used to envy
the privileged passengers who rode in it to London.
Later, after the Great War, when allowed out alone, he would frequently watch
the arrival of the evening Boulogne steamer, Victoria, Engadine
or Biarritz, and the departure of the train for London. ‘It was
a spectacle I never tired of and night after night I would station myself
by my chosen vantage point’, watching the pair of R Class
0–6–0Ts leading and a third banking ‘the dark corridors and
refulgent Pullmans’ on the thunderous climb up towards Folkestone Junction
station.
It is not surprising therefore that Henry’s railway affections were
for the railways of south east England, their well maintained locomotives,
boat trains, Pullman cars and cross-Channel steamers. Yet not exclusively
so, as his later poems Main Line Express (thundering through Kentish Town,
Chalk Farm or Bethnal Green) and Mammoth Preserved (Sir Nigel Gresley
at Newcastle Central) indicate. His lifelong objective was maximum
enjoyment.
Other reminiscences of that period included the Maxwells hiring an SECR family
saloon for a journey from Folkestone to the West Country, presumably to the
summer residence at Lyndhurst. His memory of travelling over the SECR–LSWR
connection across the concourse of Waterloo station must surely have been
at fault for that link seems to have fallen into disuse well before his birth.
We are all entitled to our flights of fancy!
Mary Elizabeth died in 1915 and a substantial share of the publishing business
and copyright in the novels would have passed to William and Sydney. Their
horizons broadened and Henry recalled numerous journeys by the luxurious
Blue Train to the French Riviera where they mingled with the haute monde
of the nobility and the stars of stage and screen. Facts about Henry’s
life between the wars are sparse. We know that he was educated at Harrow
and Cambridge. He studied law and was called to the Bar but did not practice.
In 1934 he was registered to vote at Harcourt Buildings, Inner Temple, possibly
during his pupillage. His home address is given as 35 Brunswick Square, Brighton.
By 1936 he was living at 11 Ashley Gardens, Westminster, still with his mother
and sister. The rural sounding Ashley Gardens was a large block of Edwardian
mansion flats adjacent to Westminster Cathedral and convenient for Victoria
Station. Equally scarce are details of Henry’s war record. There is
nothing to suggest he served in the armed forces but it is more likely he
was engaged in the legalpolitical side of the war effort, possibly at a fairly
elevated level. He recounted on one occasion dining with General de Gaulle.
Henry also knew Winston Churchill, perhaps on a personal rather than official
level. It was after all his charismatic uncle John Brabazon who had been
colonel of Churchill’s regiment in India, the Queen’s Own 4th Hussars,
and had assisted in the advancement of Churchill’s military and journalistic
career. Brabazon had been a friend of Churchill’s American mother, Jennie.3
Figure 1. Three class R1 0–6–0Ts head a boat train across the swing
bridge at Folkestone Harbour, the scene of Henry Maxwell’s youthful
train watching [Robert Humm collection].
Post-war the outlines of Henry’s life become clearer. For much of the
1950s he acted as Political Adviser to the board of Imperial Chemical Industries,
at the time Britain’s largest industrial company. It was a post calling
for judgement and discretion but perhaps not too much in the way of tiresome
deskwork. There he must surely have encountered P C Allen, a future ICI Chairman,
a notable railway aficionado and worldwide explorer of minor railways.
Richard Hardy, a lifelong friend, recalled their first meeting in 1953. Henry
had written a letter to the Railway Gazette commending the glittering
appearance of the King Arthur 30768 Sir Balin at Victoria Station.
Hardy got in touch, inviting Henry to Stewarts Lane locomotive depot to meet
the cleaners and footplatemen. At the appointed hour the ICI Rolls-Royce
drew cautiously into the depot and came to a halt beside the canteen. Cars
were in short supply in Battersea in 1953 so the arrival of a Rolls caused
a sensation in itself. But this was nothing to what followed. A tall, bearded
and distinguished gentleman wearing a wide-brimmed Homburg and a beautifully
cut overcoat turned to greet me. Never had we been hosts to such bearded
distinction at our old place for moustaches were out for Chatham men, never
mind beards. He mounted the footplate of 30768 and Hardy introduced him to
the chargeman and the four cleaner boys whose duty it was to keep the locomotive
in perfect order. ‘He spoke to them with courtesy, kindness and generosity,
those fifteen-year old Battersea boys and the elderly, hard-bitten Chargeman,
who had seen it all but had never met a Henry Maxwell.’
Henry had subscribed to The Railway Magazine since buying his first
copy at Waterloo station in 1917. He was himself an occasional contributor
and a personal friend of B.W.C. Cooke, the editor in chief. Always enjoying
the locomotive performance and foreign travel articles of Cecil J. Allen,
the RM’s star writer, Henry was aware that CJA was approaching both
his 70th birthday and the 500th instalment of the ‘Locomotive Practice
& Performance’ series, and decided these landmarks should be celebrated
in style. A grand dinner was arranged by Henry for Wednesday 6 April 1955
at the St Ermins Hotel, adjacent to the RM offices in Tothill Street,
Westminster. One hundred and fifty friends and admirers of CJA’s work
assembled that evening.
It was the greatest ever gathering of prominent railway enthusiasts, writers,
photographers, painters, editors, publishers, engineers and professional
railwaymen. Lord Monkswell, diplomat, railway writer and traveller was in
the chair. O.S. Nock gave an address on behalf of the guests. In reply CJA
referred to the three outstanding elements of his life, music, the Church,
and train travel. He made one rash prophecy, that the steam locomotive in
Great Britain would outlast all those present. Alas, steam was to vanish
within 13 years while at least two of the attendees were still with us 65
years later. On 26 January 1956, on the exact month of the 500th ‘Practice
& Performance’ article, there was a private reception for Cecil
J Allen in the boardroom of the Tothill Press where Henry presented CJA with
a handsome cheque that was the balance of the guest fees from the previous
year’s dinner
Henry wrote or edited three railway books. The first, The Railway Magazine
Miscellany, appeared in 1958 and consisted of an anthology of the first
twenty years of the RM, conveniently covering the period before he became
a subscriber. One wonders whether he had acquired an early run about that
time.
Ten years were to pass before the publication of the next work, a slim 57-page
volume of poetry, A Railway Rubaiyyat from the Golden Head Press, a private
press in Cambridge run by the polymath Raymond Lister. Golden Head published
some 57 books between 1952 and 1970, including reissues of works by Siegfried
Sassoon and Edmund Blunden, so Henry found himself in exalted company.
Of railway verse by recognised poets there is no shortage. In 1966 the
anthologist Kenneth Hopkins gave us two hundred of the better known examples.
They mostly engage the sensuous side of railways as observed by the traveller
or onlooker, the smoke, steam, motion, clatter, the rush of vistas past the
window, life on the platform and footplate. The poet does not need to know
much about the inner workings of railways for this purpose.
Henry is different. He is one of that select band of poets writing with inside
knowledge. He knows a semaphore from a Siphon D, and can recognise a Lord
Nelson when he sees one. It is the reason for his appeal to a rail fan audience,
a notably prosaic and technique-oriented bunch at best. The only others in
his class are the Glasgow & South Western versifiers of the 1890s (Inspector
Aitken et al) and in more modern times Dave Goulder, the footplate
minstrel (‘Pinwherry Dip’, ‘The Day We Ran Away’, ‘The
Rusty Pinxton Line’).
A Railway Rubaiyyat comprises 14 long poems upon those aspects of
railways that appealed to him most. It is written entirely in quatrains,
mostly abba but occasionally abab. ‘Fleche D’Or’, ‘Fog
at Folkestone’ and ‘The Boat Express’ are all upon his favourite
Pullman subjects. ‘Splendour In Decline’ reflects upon a first-class
dining car demoted to a permanent way bothy: ‘Kitchen and pantry gone,
the empty shell of what was once a travelling hotel.’ ‘Lineside
In Summer’ is the country branch line, soon to close. ‘In Time
of War’ turns to the exigencies of life at Newport, Mon, cheered up
by the arrival of a ‘Castle’ from Paddington.
‘The Boat Express’ is in fact Henry’s contribution to the
genre of name-check verse. He manages to list every station from Victoria
to Folkestone, Beckenham and Bromley, then the slack through Bickley and
the slow way round the spur ... ’. It must have been the first time
that Pluckley Brickworks had been immortalized on paper. The purest form
of British name-check verse must be ‘The Slow Train’ by Michael
Flanders and Donald Swan, performed at about the same time as the Rubaiyyat
was written. In the United States name-checks are practically obligatory,
from Ring Lardner (‘if you are going from New York City to Buffalo,
the Lackawanna is the way to go’) to Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry.
In summary Railway Rubaiyyat is a brave try, though somewhat uneven in quality,
yet still well worth reading today if it can be found. It seems to have been
a small edition of perhaps no more than 500 copies and has never been
reprinted.
Henry’s third book is by general consent his best. It is by far the
rarest, the print run being limited to 150 numbered copies. The Canterbury
Remembered is a history of the Southern Railway turbine steamship Canterbury,
built in 1929 specifically for the cross-Channel section of the newly inaugurated
Golden Arrow service from London to Paris. She was launched by Denny
Bros of Dumbarton and had a gross registered tonnage of 2,912 tons. Up to
1,700 passengers could be carried, though in normal first-class only service
the maximum would not exceed 300. Henry commented, ‘What was new and
distinctive about her was the unwonted spaciousness and luxury of her passenger
accommodation and her furnishings. There was an amplitude and luxury never
previously seen upon a cross-channel steamer.’ For Henry it was love
at first sight. In sending a complimentary copy to the locomotive engineer
A.B. MacLeod, Henry explained that he published the book privately as no
commercial publisher thought it a paying proposition. To add to his tribulations
the binder made an utter mess of the job, even the pages not being salvageable,
and Henry had to start again from scratch at vast additional cost, ‘which
has nearly ruined me, I may say’.
As we have seen Henry was the supreme Pullman enthusiast and was dismayed
to discover that no representative Pullman car was to be displayed at the
new Museum of British Transport. The inventory of historic relics was heavily
loco-centric and reflected the interests of most enthusiasts of the time.
Henry decided to act and sought advice from his friend Frank Harding, the
Managing Director of The Pullman Car Co.
Harding offered him the first class parlour car Topaz> which was
about to be withdrawn and still in good condition (Fig 5). This suited Henry
admirably: Topaz had been built in 1914 by the Birmingham Railway Carriage
& Wagon Co for the South Eastern & Chatham Railway. He would have
seen it in his early days at Folkestone and probably travelled in it during
his later years. Henry bought Topaz and had it thoroughly overhauled at the
Pullman Co Preston Park works, the first time a private individual had bought
a railway carriage for posterity. Today Topaz is on display at the National
Railway Museum, repainted with Henry’s agreement in the original SECR
ruby red livery and with replacement or replica fittings (Fig 6). Topaz ran
briefly in the Travellers Fare centenary train in 1979 (was Henry invited
aboard?) and was displayed at the Rainhill Cavalcade in 1980 but with wooden
body and bogie frames does not meet main line standards today.
Henry retired from London in the 1960s to live the life of a country gentleman.
He bought The Red House in the Suffolk village of Coddenham, a late 18th-century
Grade II listed manor house. Visitors recalled it filled with paintings and
Pullman memorabilia, with Henry acting as the perfect host. In his final
years he moved again to the small town of Needham Market, also in Suffolk,
where he died in 1996 at the grand age of 87.
References 1. The life and work of Mary Elizabeth Braddon is recorded in
Mary Elizabeth Braddon : a companion to the mystery fiction by Anne-Marie
Beller (London : McFarland, 2012). 2. H Maxwell, ‘The Folkestone Harbour
branch: some evocations’, The Railway Magazine, December 1953, pp
805–9 3. Andrew Roberts, Churchill : walking with destiny (London :
Penguin, 2018), p 33 4. R H N Hardy, ‘Obituary : H W A Maxwell’,
SLS Journal, July/August 1996 5. A brief account of the dinner can be found
in The Railway Magazine, May 1955, pp 356–7. 6. Railway Archive, 35/36
gives a list of attendees and the background of many of them. 7. Kenneth
Hopkins (ed), The Poetry of Railways (
‘Past Born in Richmond Surrey on 11 May 1909; died Needham Market in 1996.
D F Hartley Steam locomotives from Loughborough. 297-310
Bill Wilson. What were the investment dilemmas of the LNER in the inter-war years and did they successfully overcome them? 310-11.
Correspondence. 312
Josiah Clowes 1735–1794, ‘a celebrated Engineer’ [RCHS Journal
no 231 (March 2018), pp 202–208)]. Josiah Clowes 1735–1794, ‘a
celebrated Engineer’ RCHS Journal no 231 (March 2018), pp 202–208)].
Alan Dance.
Outlandish and undeveloped – the landing place at Bradley Gate, west
Somerset. [RCHS Journal No. 239 (November 2020), pp 170– 181]. Anne
Willis
I wonder whether Tim Edmonds has considered the use of the word
‘gate’ to mean road. This is derived from the old Scandinavian
‘gata’, road or street’, and can be seen in many road names
in the north and east of the country. And yes, Vikings did get to the west
Country.
Tim Edmonds comment
A newly discovered oil painting; Melton Mowbray town and station c1848. [RCHS
Journal no 239 (November 2020), pp163-5]
Following Anne Willis’s letter in RCHS Journal no 240 regarding the
survival of pedlars, in his book In Search of England (1927) H V Morton recounts
meeting an old ‘packman’ near Penzance. The man thought he was
about seventy years of age and carried all his goods on his back. He declined
the offer of a lift as the remote farms he visited were not accessible by
car. Morton described him as ‘one of the last of the Cornish packmen’.
Michael Messenger
The Lake Lock Rail Road
Reviews 315
Cover images:
Cover images:
Front : The gravestone of William Bigmore who was killed when he tried to jump off
a Ffestiniog Railway gravity train (see pp 262–270).
Back : Ronald Lampitt’s panorama of the Folkestone seafront c1952 in a poster for
British Railways. The Royal Pavilion Hotel (twin towers) can be seen centre with the
harbour viaduct beyond. Part of the Harbour station is on the extreme right [Robert
Humm collection] (see pp 291–296).
Front : Two ‘Leitnagel Hunde’, early wooden railed vehicles, from Georgius Agricola,
De Re Metallica (1556) (see pp 215–220).
Back : Pre-1914 expresses on the Great Central and London & North Western Railways (see pp 198–214).
Russell & Hudson Early railway chemistry<<<<
The Blue Pullman story. Kevin Robertson and Mike Smith Manchester: Crécy
Publishing Ltd, 2020, 392pp, 499 illustrations (228 colour), 15 maps, diagrams
& drawings, Reviewed by Graham Bird . page 320
The name ‘Blue Pullman’ was widely used to refer to an innovative
design of diesel multiple-unit train with full air-conditioning, at-seat
meal service and a striking livery. Introduced towards the end of the steam
era, it was aimed at the business market and linked London with Bristol,
Birmingham, Manchester and (later) south Wales. Other possible routes were
considered, but not adopted.
Built by Metro-Cammell, the Blue Pullman was designed to impress and, following
its well-publicised launch in July 1960, it quickly gained a popular following.
Unfortunately it was bedevilled by two underlying problems which were never
satisfactorily resolved: rough riding — ordering soup or coffee was
unwise — and woefully low utilisation, with two of the five expensive
trainsets kept as standbys for most of the time. (On occasion they were used
for charters and excursions.) The Blue Pullman proved, therefore, to be a
dead end in terms of commercial and engineering development. Even so, the
longvanished train’s continuing mystique has been sufficient to justify
the recent creation of an HST-based 'retro' version. One of the joint authors,
Kevin Robertson, is clearly an enthusiast and has written three earlier volumes
on the subject. At first glance the present title’s well-illustrated
ten chapters and twelve appendices appear to offer a comprehensive account
of the train’s conception, design, catering arrangements, operating
procedures and problems, and early demise (the Blue Pullmans saw only thirteen
years’ service). But, as the authors emphasise, much of the relevant
documentary and photographic evidence has been lost, leaving many detailed
questions unanswered. They address this difficulty by including generous
helpings of conjecture, supplemented by reminiscences from contemporary railway
staff, passengers and others. This needs to be borne in mind when assessing
the adequacy of the content and of the authors’ claim that this is the
definitive story of the Blue Pullman. This is a well-produced and very readable
volume with a surprisingly full bibliography, but the index is not quite
detailed enough. Many of the authors’ numerous asides, and some of the
poorer illustrations, might have been better omitted.
London’s Disused Railway Stations : inner south east London — J
E Connor 128pp, 255x225mm, 162 photographs, 27 diagrams, hardback, Capital
Transport Publishing , 2020,
Railway stations serve traffic needs which can fluctuate greatly over time,
and closures happened long before the mass events of the 1960s that dominate
public perceptions. In urban areas closure often resulted from tram or other
competition, and the extensive London system was no exception. This is the
second book by the publisher in a series looking at disused stations in London;
this time those in inner southeast London. It covers some 22 stations built
by the LB&SCR, LC&DR, SER and the London Necropolis Company, many
of which closed within the life of those companies. It does not venture north
of the Thames even to cover such otherwise obvious candidates as Ludgate
Hill and Holborn Viaduct. A further volume on outer southeast London is planned.
Every station covered has been well illustrated by a concise and useful
historical account of its origin, traffic and the reasons behind its closure.
The illustrations generally include images of the station while still open,
contrasting with images taken during closure and afterwards. The slow attrition
of the structures, in the days before modern machine demotion and clearance,
sometimes left neararchaeological remnants of particular interest which are
illustrated by recent or near-contemporary photographs. The author is a prolific
writer on London railways with a particular interest in ‘forgotten’
stations and services. This volume greatly expands on an earlier work published
some years ago in an unfinished series of booklets. The present work and
its companions are organised by area, owning company, then line, a system
requiring good railway knowledge to find a particular station. Research is
thorough and with a good choice of illustrations well served by the
publisher’s usual high standards. Commended to all those with a particular
interest in lost London and its railway services. BRIAN JANES
The London & North Western Railway: F.W. Webb’s
three-cylinder compounds. Peter Davis. 268pp, 217 plates, 52
figures, London & North Western Railway Society, 2020, Reviewed by Kevin
Jones Page 322
A major feature of this extended study of what is generally regarded
as a contentious topic is the exceptionally high standard of the photographs,
many of which were taken during the final decade of the nineteenth century
or during the very early years of the twentieth. Many are of trains at speed
and bear comparison with the work of many well-known railway photographers
of the 1930s or 1950s. The images are sharp and clear and have been excellently
reproduced. They demonstrate that whatever the alleged failings of these
locomotives they could work lengthy trains at high speed even on the demanding
route over Shap.
Placing so much emphasis on the illustrations might tempt the reader to assume
that this is a rather better than average album, but this is a highly serious
study which brings a controversial locomotive design to life.
Following a short introduction to the work of Anatole Mallet which influenced
Francis Webb to adopt compounding there is a chapter on the aptly named
Experiment which was based on the 2–2–2 Experiment
which was tested for nearly a year on the Alsager branch. In 1882 Webb
introduced the double single ‘Experiment’ class and this led to
the Dreadnoughts which followed the same basic layout, but were much larger
and, as the text notes, ‘the first modern engines from Crewe’.
They were certainly capable of hauling substantial loads at realistic
speeds.
This led to the ‘Greater Britain’ and ‘John Hicks’ four-axle
types with impressively long, complicated boilers. They were capable both
in terms of haulage and speed. There were also a few tank engines and many
eight-coupled mineral engines which followed the same pattern : the latter
were highly capable, but had short lives in this form, being converted to
simples and as such lasted almost until the end of steam on British Railways.
Chapter 10 describes locomotives built to this pattern for overseas railways.
The author is committed to a further volume on Webb’s four-cylinder
designs. Each of the eleven chapters is accompanied by many references and
there is also a separate bibliography and an adequate index. There are six
appendixes including one by Mike Bentley on how footplate crews coped with
locomotives which were difficult to start.
Peter Gray’s West Country Railways : images from
the collection of the Great Western Trust; compiled by Amyas Crump and
Kevin Robertson. Manchester: Crécy Publishing, 2020.
224pp, 197 colour photographs, hardback. Reviewed by Matthew Searle. Page
322
The photographic credit ‘Peter W Gray’ will be well known
to those who love the railways of the far south west of England, particularly
the branch lines whose atmosphere he was so skilled in portraying. Here is
presented a substantial compilation of his colour work taken within travelling
distance (on two wheels) of his Torquay home in the last eight years of steam
in the area, generously reproduced at one image to a page with extended captions
based on the photographer’s meticulously detailed notebooks. Those who,
like your reviewer, can identify with the small boys who appear in some of
the pictures watching the trains at stations (or, in one evocative instance,
from the putting green at Dawlish) or who remember the Great Freeze of 1963,
will find this book especially appealing.
Locomotives of the Great Southern & Western
Railway. Jeremy Clements, Michael McMahon and Alan
O’Rourke. Collon, Co. Louth Collon Publishing, Ireland. 2020.
284pp. Reviewed by Kevin Jones. Page 323
This major work is in effect a prequel to the first two authors’
Locomotives of the GSR (Colourpoint, 2008) which considered the
amalgamated motive power stock of the Great Southern Railways. Thus the new
book is a key addition to the locomotive literature of the British Isles,
although relatively few locomotives were manufactured in Great Britain as
most were constructed in Dublin and a few in Limerick. Several of the designers
either came from, or departed to mainland Britain. The sole major acquisition
came from the Waterford, Limerick & Western Railway and included designs
by J.G. Robinson who subsequently became the Chief Mechanical Engineer of
the Great Central Railway. Others included Ivatt, Aspinall, Maunsell and
the unfortunate McDonnell who was much happier at Inchicore than at
Gateshead.
The major source for data are the archives of R.N. Clements, maintained in
Dublin by the Irish Railway Record Society. There are ten chapters and five
appendixes.
Chapter 1, ‘Company history’, is a very useful concise history
of the company. Chapter 2 is designated ‘Design and construction’
and is a broadbrush survey of the way locomotive design emerged within the
company and who was responsible for it. There is a brief section on liveries
which includes four colour illustrations. Chapter 3, ‘Locomotive works
and commercial manufacturers’, gives a full account of activity at
Inchicore.
Chapters 4 to 6 cover individual designs on the basis of passenger tender,
goods tender and tank locomotives. Chapter 7 covers acquired company locomotives
(of which there are not a great many, other than the WL&WR). Chapter
9 covers tenders which tended towards an independent existence. Chapter 10,
‘Amalgamation’, is purely on the companies merged and the effect
of the Civil War. It must be balanced with that of the final chapter of the
earlier book on the Great Southern Railways where the Second World War had
a catastrophic effect with shortages of almost everything vital to keep steam
locomotives functioning.
The Bristol to Portishead Branch, with the Bristol
Harbour Railway and Canon’s Marsh Branch. Colin G Maggs
192pp, 208x128mm, 170 photographs, 9 maps & plans, 26 facsimiles,
softback. Catrine: Oakwood Press, 2020, Reviewed by Matthew Searle.
Page 323
The line down the scenic west side of the Avon Gorge opened in 1867
and for its first few years formed part of a through route by rail and ship
to Ilfracombe before settling down to a more modest existence. Its connection
to the goods lines around Bristol Harbour did not come until 1906. Most
unusually, it gained a completely new passenger terminus in 1954 (though
one subject to subsidence) and has been brought out of mothballs and given
a new link for dock traffic in the twenty-first century; whether any revival
to passenger traffic will take place under present circumstances remains
to be seen.
Those with Mike Vincent’s 1983 book on the lines may not feel they need
the present work, but for those who need a basic history and detailed description
in the current well-illustrated style of the Locomotion Papers series, this
book will meet the bill, though it is astonishing that it could be published
without a general map.
Number 242 (November 2021)
Fishguard, Abermawr, Neyland : building the broad gauge in Pembrokeshire — Martin Connop Price326
Reflections on whether ‘reeds’ were planted in the margins of newly built canals, with reference to the Pocklington Canal in East Yorkshire — Raymond Goulder343
Magic to stir men’s blood? The straightening of the Chicago River and property development on Near South Side railway land, 1900–2020 — Tim Allison354
The resilience of locomotives with ‘vertical in-line’ cylinders : a Scottish perspective — Don Martin369
Correspondence
Via the River Trent to India RCHS Journal no 236 (November 2019), pp 529540
The photograph on page 531 shows a motor coach intended for a railway in
India being loaded into a barge on the River Trent, and reference is made
to the Wilford Toll Bridge in the background. As stated in the caption, it
opened in 1870 and closed in 1974, but this was not the end of its use, and
readers not familiar with the bridge might be interested in its brief history.
When opened it replaced a ferry which had operated for many hundreds of years.
It continued in use as a toll bridge, carrying vehicles, including some bus
services, until 1974 when it was deemed unsafe and was closed to motor traffic.
The central span was replaced with a strengthened narrower section, for use
by pedestrians and cyclists, now free of tolls.
In 2014–15 the central section was widened and strengthened for use by trams on a new extension for Nottingham Express Transit to Clifton South. The only road vehicles now using it are emergency vehicles and tram maintenance vehicles. The photographs were taken in April 2021. Alan Dance
Travel in the writings of Jane Austen RCHS Journal no 238 (July 2020), pp
109–114
My article in the July 2020 issue of the Journal considered only the six
complete and three unfinished novels. Even in her earliest surviving writings
Jane Austen was using people’s vehicles to illustrate their character.
For example, Mary Stanhope, a skittish and superficial girl whom one infers
is about seventeen years old, disputes with the person who has proposed to
her, ‘quite an old Man, about two and thirty’, who has promised
her a new chaise as a wedding gift. She wants it painted ‘blue spotted
with silver’ but he insists on ‘plain Chocolate’; she wants
the carriage hung high, which was fashionable, whereas he wants it hung low,
more practical and economical.1 Austen’s use of the name
‘Stanhope’ was a coincidence – the first carriage of that
name dates from more than twenty years after she was writing. The most exuberant
description of a man’s wealth shown by his carriages was written when
the author was about thirteen years old. Mr Clifford’s carriages included
‘a Coach, a Chariot, a Chaise, a Landeau, a Landeaulet, a Phaeton, a
Gig, a Whisky, an italian Chair, a Buggy, a Curricle and a wheelbarrow’.2
Most of these were discussed in my article. A whisky was a light low two-wheeled
one-horse carriage. A chair was another one-horse light chaise without panels,
for one or two people, mainly for use in parks and the like – I
haven’t been able to discover what was specific about an Italian chair.
The word ‘buggy’ seems interchangeable with ‘chair’.
‘Wheelbarrow’ had two meanings, and as Jane Austen enjoyed wordplay,
the ambiguity here was probably deliberate. The older meaning was the one
we still use: an open box, with one or two wheels at the front, and handles
at the back. By the eighteenth century it had also come to mean the most
basic form of unsprung horsedrawn carriage. Peter Brown
in my mind when shortly after the publication of ‘The Canterbury Remembered’ he give a dinner party in Folkestone to all the former cross-Channel captains and others who had so readily assisted him during the book’s preparation. I met his sister Barbara on one occasion although towards the end of her life she became something of a recluse and became increasingly dependent on her medication. Facially, she looked exactly like her brother. I never visited The Red House at Coddenham but certainly visited Needham Market on several occasions. Towards the end, Henry was smitten with arthritis and lost much of his mobility. He was greatly assisted by his extremely helpful next door neighbours who owned Needham’s ironmonger’s shop. The last time I saw Henry, we drove to Harwich for an afternoon’s visit. On saying goodbye back at Needham Market, he asked me if I would remove his cufflinks as by that time his fingers had ceased to help him achieve such a simple task. It was Henry’s wish that his ashes should be interred at the parish church of St Mary and St Eanswythe at Folkestone which overlooks the harbour and branch line that meant so much to him throughout his long life. A wonderful and kindly person! Thank you so much for the article which revived many happy memories of a great man. John Hendy Steam locomotives from Loughborough RCHS Journal no 241 (July 2021), pp 297–310 Owing to a mix-up over email addresses your Editor was unable to have a final proofreading of the text from me, and as a result one or two errors appeared, for which I apologise. My text was drafted some years ago and had not been updated. The Snibston Discovery Museum is now closed and its collections are either in store or on loan to other venues. In particular the locomotive no 314 of 1906 is no longer on display at Snibston, but is on loan from Leicestershire County Council to the Mountsorrel and Rothley Heritage Centre, at Mountsorrel, Leicestershire. Robert F Hartley D F Hartley’s article illustrates (p 304) a Falcon engine used in building the Ponta Delgada harbour on the Azorean island of São Miguel. During a visit in 2009 I learnt about this 7ft-gauge system from my hosts, who have an interest in restoring these relics for public display. The construction of that harbour took place soon after the similar one at Holyhead and until recent years a large water tank dated 1862 stood in the centre of Ponta Delgada showing its Holyhead origins. The Falcon engine of 1888 must have been a later addition to the loco fleet. The Azorean locos remained in occasional use until the 1970s, after which they remained on display for some years before going into store, where they have steadily deteriorated as there must be inadequate tourist or local interest to justify the cost of restoration. The quarry where they used to work is now beneath the airport runway. More details can be found at www.chrisbrady.itgo.com/azores/broad.htm or by googling ‘churcher azores’. The prospects for restoration do not look good to me. Andrew Tarr Substitute for UKRAS RCHS Journal no 241 (July 2021) p 314 The Overseas Projects Group of the Board of Trade, which was leading the discussions on the future of UKRAS Consultants Ltd, was not pleased with the press reports like that in Modern Railways quoted by Richard Maund, describing them as ‘quite misconceived, not to say mischievous: advertisements in technical journals about the position of A.R.C. and S.T.S. in relation to B.R. present an appearance out of all proportion to the facts’. Neither of the claims to be a substitute for UKRAS survived very long. ARC made a poor impression at its introductory meeting with the PWR, fielding a former Burma Railways officer it had recruited from BR. The PWR made it clear that it wanted only first class advice on modern railway practice; it was a first class railway and would not accept advice from ex-officers of second class railways. STS proved
Reviews
Liverpool and Manchester Railway Atlas — Joe Brown 256pp (180 maps),
297x210mm, hardback, Crécy Publishing, 1A Ringway Estate, Shadowmoss
Road, Manchester M22 5LH <www.crecy.co.uk>, 2021, ISBN 978 0 86093
687 9, £30
Despite the title, this book actually covers the whole of urban north-west
England. It includes street tramways, as well as industrial railways and
recent development proposals. Drawing on a wide range of published sources,
including websites, it gives clear diagrammatic plans of the whole area,
with details as to creation and closure of lines and of structures down even
to re-aligned platforms and goods yard layouts. Company ownership of lines
and facilities as at the Grouping is colour coded, dark for presently open,
light for closed. Potted summaries of individual systems are easy to tie
in with the plans. It works especially well in that, on already large pages,
it enlarges complicated sections on subsequent pages, if necessary successively,
and sometimes showing consecutive layouts. The cartography here is equal
to the complex subject matter compare, for example, G L Crowther’s
‘National Series of Waterway, Tramway & Railway Atlases’ of
twenty years ago, which covered much of the same ground but in less detail.
This is the third in a series (following London and Birmingham) with potentially
more to come. Future usefulness should be improved further by the stated
intention (reaffirmed directly to me by the author) of considering readers’
comments when preparing new editions unlike some past instances where even
obvious mistakes notified to other publishers have been simply ignored. It
would be universally helpful to have a general consideration of the difficult
issue of colour/identity coding, as quite a few users may be red-green-brown
colour blind. For serious detail this series will make most other atlases
substantially redundant. If you could imagine the original Ian Allan Pre-Grouping
Atlas and Gazetteer as a groundbreaking Model T Ford, this book is the latest
BMW X7. By number of pages, and by information provided, it is excellent
value for money, but you cannot put a value on its ease of use and reliability.
DAVID PEDLEY
Operating the Caledonian Railway — Jim Summers 2 vols, viii,168 + viii,240pp, 275x218mm, 258 photos, maps & plans, hardback, Lightmoor Press and Caledonian Railway Association, Unit 144B, Harbour Road Trading Estate, Lydney GL15 4EJ <www.lightmoor.co.uk>, 2019–20, ISBN 978 1 911038 51 1 & 978 1 911038 71 9, £22.50 + £25 In recent years the classic company histories of the principal railways of Britain have been supplemented by sumptuous hardback albums focussing on particularly popular aspects of their history, such as their locomotives, carriages, wagons and signalling. The Caledonian Railway Association is the first to devote such a work to an extended study of how its favourite railway was operated. Like all railway companies, the Caledonian sometimes had its own way of doing things and its own terminology, but many practices were slowly standardised across all the companies through agreements negotiated at the Railway Clearing House in order to facilitate inter-working and shared commercial transactions. This pair of volumes is therefore of interest not just to students of the Caley, because they describe and define practices which were common, or similar, to those on all British railways. Indeed many were still in force in BR days. The term ‘operating’ is interpreted widely and every conceivable topic within it seems to be mentioned somewhere from organisational structure to roles and responsibilities; from train planning to methods of shunting; from slip carriages to wagon sheets and ropes; from line capacity to parcels post. The range of subjects will sometimes surprise: for example, the Caledonian Railway [Freemasons’] Lodge 354. It is doubtful whether anyone’s knowledge of the complexities and disciplines of railway working will not be enhanced by a careful reading of these volumes. GRAHAME BOYES
Pioneer Aviation in the Channel Islands: a history of flight in the Channel
Islands with a valuation guide to the illustrated ephemera. Volume 1,
The Dawn to 1933; Volume 2, 1934–37. Roger E Harris
, Hinckley: Channel Islands Specialists’ Society, 2020. 275 &
282pp 411 & 367 illustrations. Reviewed by John King
There have been several texts of varying quality on the history of
Channel Islands air transport but this is one of the finest. This richly
illustrated two-volume work grew out of a desire to record the history of
airmails to the islands but this spanned out into an aspiration to encapsulate
every aspect of aviation. Newspapers played an important part in the research
but various record offices were also used. The author’s task was made
easier by Nev Doyle’s impressive 1991 work From Sea Eagles to Flamingoes
but Roger has on occasion challenged and corrected oft repeated statements.
Unfortunately he has himself repeated the incorrect name of one of the airlines,
a common mistake: Olley Air Services Ltd should have been in the singular.
He has been most diligent in placing people and events into a broader context,
although sometimes the detail has been excessive. The number of photographs
is extraordinary, many being rare and many unpublished but this is no coffee
table book. The collecting of historical material itself, timetables and
photographs, has not been ignored, the collectors’ value being detailed
against each one. In many ways the book is a history of Jersey Airways, the
principal airline in this period but whose very survival was amazing, given
that from the beginning in 1933 until 1937 the airport in Jersey was the
beach. The author also explains the complex business ownership of the airline
which included the Great Western Railway and the Southern Railway but I am
not sure he has fully understood the complex business philosophies of the
railways. The author and publisher are to be congratulated on a major
contribution to recording the transport history of the Channel Islands.
Victoria’s railway king. Sir Edward Watkin.
Geoff Scargill. Barnsley: Frontline Books (Pen & Sword), 2021.
180pp. 8 plates. Reviewed by Philip L. Scowcroft.page 382
In the final chapter of this readable and concise biography, the author
says, ‘In [the] light of all his activities it is remarkable that …
Watkin has been almost totally forgotten’. As a railway enthusiast all
my life, I would not say that this is true of myself or of many others. It
is perhaps true that he is remembered more for failures than successes,
especially for his Channel Tunnel vision, and perhaps also for his Great
Tower; yet the Channel Tunnel, 120 years after Watkin, is a reality. Mr Scargill
emphasises that Watkin was not just about railways but stresses his long
political career from agitation to repeal the Corn Laws in the 1840s almost
to the end of his life (1901) as a member of the House of Commons and as
a local councillor (one of his first achievements was to create free ‘parks
for the people’ in Manchester). But railways were hugely important for
Watkin: when 26 he became secretary of the Trent Valley Railway, soon to
be taken over by the LNWR. In 1853 he became general manager (and later chairman)
of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway. Chairman altogether
of nine British railways, his railway interests extended to the United States,
Greece, India, Africa and, notably, Canada where he revived the ailing Grand
Trunk Railway. Here he combined interest in railways with establishing Canada
as a united confederation, for which he was knighted. As a biography should,
this book, despite its brevity, does not ignore Watkin the man, especially
a family man. Some might wish for more about Watkin’s railways but this
might have jeopardised readability and the sympathetic portrait of the subject.
Recommended; there are no notes or bibliography but there is an index.
Zenon Vantini : from grand tour to package holiday — Pamela Sambrook 191pp, 232x155mm, 2 maps, 27 illustrations, softback, The Lutterworth Press, PO Box 60, Cambridge CB1 2NT, 2021, ISBN 978 0 7188 9576 1, £20
RCHS members who attended the 2013 AGM Weekend may recall having lunch at the North Euston Hotel, Fleetwood. This hotel, opened in 1841, was one of several pioneering railway hotels developed and managed by Zenon Vantini (1797–1870), the earliest being the two hotels at Euston (1839) and the most financially successful the Pavilion Hotel at Folkestone (1843). He went on to create the Hôtel des Chemins de Fer in Paris (1847). Vantini was also responsible for the first purpose-built railway refreshment rooms, opened at Wolverton in 1840 the first time anyone had attempted to provide largescale, very fast, mass catering – and was involved in several others. In 1844 Vantini organised the first overseas package holiday (eleven years before Thomas Cook took travellers abroad), the cost of the fully-inclusive guided two-week holiday being twenty guineas. A third of the book is devoted to the achievements of this dynamic and imaginative, but now virtually unknown, railway entrepreneur. Vantini’s skills for meeting the demands of wealthy clients and making complex travel arrangements were honed as steward to the second Duke & Duchess of Sutherland from 1833 to 1840. Of particular interest to transport historians are the details his organisation of the annual moving of the hou
Journey of a Railway Signalman : a history of railway signalling on Merseyside and in the north-west of England — Tony Cook 340pp, 297x210 mm, 414 illustrations (186 colour), 52 maps, plans and diagrams, hardback, self-published by the author, 2016, ISBN 978 1 5262 0147 8, available from Edward Talbot, 32 Waterside Court, Gnosall, Stafford ST20 0AR, £25 (post free) Many footplatemen have written accounts of their working lives but far fewer signalmen have done so. Tony Cook’s volume is therefore a welcome addition to the literature. Tony started work as a box lad at Edge Hill no 13 signal box in 1947. After a two-year interruption for National Service, he resumed his railway career in 1950 as a trainee signalman and in 1954, at the age of 21, he was appointed as a General Purpose Relief Signalman Class 1 based at Widnes. In his subsequent career he went on to learn and work more than 80 boxes in the north-west of England, including Warrington power box, eventually retiring in 1994. He was offered promotion to inspector grade at one point but declined, preferring to remain ‘one of the boys’. Each box he worked is described, including the types of frame and signals, and he also describes the surrounding environment and the facilities provided– or sometimes the lack of them. Many are illustrated by photographs and signalling diagrams. Memorable events, both operational and otherwise, are described, along with some of the characters he worked with. He touches on other aspects of the job which can be categorised under the broad heading of industrial relations. The book is well-written, in the present tense, which gives a sense of immediacy although there is much idiosyncratic use of bold font to emphasise points. PHILIP BROWN 384
Change at Robertsbridge – the Rother Valley (Light) Railway Company (1897–1904): its directors, promoters and investors — David Penn 241pp, 230x150mm, 47 photographs, softback, self-published by the author <davidwpenn@gmail.com>, 2021, ISBN 979 8597409917, £8.65, also available as e-book I must admit that my first thought was ‘not another book about a well-known light railway’ but this selfpublished book sets out to do a particular job and does it very soundly – without feeling the need to pad everything out with lots of familiar pictures. The book focuses on the era of the original Rother Valley Railway, taking it up to the point when construction of an extension to Headcorn was proposed and it changed its name to the Kent & East Sussex. Covering a span of only seven years, the story told reflects the author’s interest in business organisation but especially in how such a railway was promoted and financed. Another unusual aspect to this book is that much of the focus is on people – and it is not dominated by Colonel Stephens either. One chapter details members of the board, the secretary, the solicitors and even the auditors. Another – one of the longest– looks at the background of the debenture holders. The author concludes that investors were not the country bumpkins, minor backwoods commercial interests or enthusiastic rural clergy of legend, but ‘in the main, deeply knowledgeable investors’. Indeed, several were senior figures in other companies. Several of them had homes in southern Surrey rather than in the area served by the new railway. They were bigger players than Colonel Stephens and his Light Railways Syndicate. There is an extensive bibliography and many references to minute books, press sources etc. It reflects that this is clearly a labour of love, but written by an author who is comfortable with working in a business history context. Being self-produced, there are a few minor quibbles – personally I found the font a little too large for comfortable reading and I would have liked a good map at the front of the book to set it all in context. However, one very clear advantage of this is the reasonable price for a book of this size. ADRIAN GRAY The Hythe & Sandgate Branch Line & Tramway — Peter A Harding 32pp, A5, 45 illustrations, map, 3 track plans, gradient profile, timetable and ticket facsimiles, softback, Peter A Harding, ‘Mossgiel’, Bagshot Road, Knaphill, Woking GU21 2SG, 2021, ISBN 978 1 5272 8683 2, £4.50 (plus 50p p&p) The three-mile branch to Hythe and Sandgate was opened in 1874, with steep gradients, a short tunnel and poorly-located stations. It was double-tracked in anticipation of an extension to Folkestone Harbour which never reached fruition and Sandling Junction station was added in 1888 where the branch diverged from the South Eastern Railway main line. The problem of linking the stations with the places they purported to serve was tackled by adding a standard gauge horse-worked tramway connecting the stations with the towns which opened in 1891–2. The trams were suspended during World War I and resumed only briefly before ceasing in 1921. Railway passenger trains were suspended during both wars. The branch was cut back to Hythe and singled in 1931 and closed completely in 1951. The history of the railway is followed by a description of the route and brief notes on locomotives and rolling stock. Then the complexities of the development of the tramway are described and there is a brief note on a 5ft 6in gauge funicular, the Sandgate Hill Lift, which had a lower station close to the eastern tram terminus. The text includes contemporary newspaper reports and there are numerous illustrations. This is a useful addition to the author’s established series of booklets about branches and minor railways in the south of Engl
Railways around London — compiled by John Glover from the Alan A Jackson archive 1953–1973 at the Transport Treasury 112pp, 215x272mm, 149 photographs, softback, Transport Treasury Publishing, 16 Highworth Close, High Wycombe HP13 7PJ <ttpublishing.co.uk>, 2020, ISBN 978 1 913251 15 4, £14.50 (including p&p) This book provides an important example of the value of conserved photographic collections. The Transport Treasury has brought together images from the collection formed by the late Alan A Jackson with expert compilation and captioning by John Glover. Each of those authors have previously gained much respect as observers and recorders of the history and development of London’s underground and suburban railway systems. John Glover has provided informed and extremely detailed captions to complement the excellently reproduced black and white photographs. Those images focus on architecture, infrastructure and operation rather that rolling stock. In many cases, the scenes depicted are now but a comparatively distant memory. The drabness of the capital and its suburbs now have a fascination, portraying an era dominated by tradition rather than advancement. Overall a highly recommended read at a modest price. It is hoped that good sales volumes will encourage the Transport Treasury to continue to reveal jewels from other collections that have been entrusted to them. ANGELA and BRIAN JONES Gazetteer of the Coal Mines of South Wales & Monmouthshire from 1854 — R A Cooke 192pp, 275x215mm + CD of some 1800 pages, 239 photos, 22 maps, hardback, Lightmoor Press, Unit 144B, Harbour Road Trading Estate, Lydney GL15 4EJ <www.lightmoor.co.uk>, 2018, ISBN 978 1 911038 37 5, £30 This is an unusual review, as the core content is on the CD. The book, although very attractively produced, is largely only an accompaniment. They originated when the compiler was researching for his Atlas of the Great Western Railway as at 1947 and his series of Track layout diagrams. He writes: ‘I became increasingly sceptical of the accuracy of some railway and Railway Clearing House details appertaining to coal mines. When the opportunity arose in September 1998, to check some specific instances, these suspicions were largely confirmed and I realised that some of the data that I had previously collated was less than useful’. The gazetteer of some 3,300 collieries, representing over 4,000 sites, plus over 1,600 crossreferencing entries for alternative and erroneous colliery names, is set out in alphabetical order in part 1 of the CD. Each of the main entries gives an OS map reference (and sometimes reproduces the 6 inch plan), dates of operation, the seams and type of coal or mineral worked, and chronological data on owners, numbers employed and often more, including a mine’s connection(s) to the railway network and references in railway records. With the number of pages devoted to the gazetteer, it can readily be seen why it was necessary to produce it on a CD. ‘Guidance and explanatory notes’ for using the gazetteer, together with notes on sources, occupy 13 pages in the accompanying book. There is also an Index to Individuals, Partnerships & Companies, occupying a mere 159 pages in the CD; and a section of maps which show the location of collieries in relation to the railway network, can be consulted. The collection of photographs, titled ‘A glimpse of the coalfield’, is intended to portray (ag