North East England - Steam Days Screenshots - Large Screenshots Possible

[borderreiver]

During 1908 the N.E.R. began introducing a range of corridor carriages for its express services. However, by the eve of the grouping there were less than eighty corridor carriages in service, including full brakes. This was a rather small number considering the size of the N.E.R. but much express passenger traffic along the North Eastern portion of the East Coast Main Line was in the hands of two joint companies, the East Coast Joint Stock Company for Anglo-Scottish services and (from 1906) the Great Northern & North Eastern Joint Stock Company for express passenger services between London Kings Cross and Newcastle.

Between 1912 and 1920 several more were built but to modified designs, particularly the provision of compartment doors. Below, two screenshots of the two-compartment Corridor Brake First.







The Diagram 154 was introduced in June 1908 with No.748 and had doors at the end vestibules. A second example was turned out in March 1910, No. 1950. They were 53ft 6in long and configured for three seats per side, which provided twelve First Class seats. There was a 32ft 5 3/4in long van space for luggage, mail and parcels, which was the equivalent of the company's six-wheel non-corridor Diagram 171 full brake turned out at the same time. When a requirement was identified in 1913 for a further 2-compartment Brake First the NER built a single example of Diagram 200, No.1453. This had external doors to the compartments but retained the end vestibule doors of the Diagram 154.

The Diagram 154 found a use on the company's Leeds to Glasgow set and was probably superseded in the set by the Diagram 200 from October 1913. This service was important to the company since the 8.55 am departure from Leeds enabled businessmen from the North East of England to reach Glasgow at 3.10 pm, allowing several hours of work to be accomplished in the city on the same day as travel. The East Coast Joint Expresses from London for Scotland did not reach York until the afternoon and arrival in Scotland was during the evening. The 4 pm departure from Glasgow in the up direction allowed almost a full day of work in the city prior to returning south.

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Departing Thorne North.




Approaching Thorne Junction.

[borderreiver]

During the early summer of 1914 few people appreciated that they were on the threshold of immense change. As usual, the 10 am Anglo Scottish express passenger train nicknamed "the Scotch Express" was to run in two sections, departing at 9.50 am and 10 am. The first train would run to Edinburgh Waverley, was made up of eight bogie carriages and would not stop at York. The engine change from GNR to NER taking place at Doncaster. The 10 am train would take the portions for Glasgow, Aberdeen and Perth, with a four car core bound for Edinburgh and loaded to ten carriages. This would stop at York, where an NER Travelling Post office was attached at the head of the train for Edinburgh. Despite this being a heavy trailing load some photographs show an NER R1 Class 4-4-0 taking the train on from York.







The Raven Z Class 4-4-2 Atlantic with the 52ft NER TPO behind. The first two carriages of the "Scotch Express" proper are the Corridor Brake Third and Corridor Composite for Glasgow.

[borderreiver]

On the ECML between Selby and York, the procession of the five down daytime East Coast Joint Company express passenger trains.

Weights are as printed in the 1914 Through Carriage Working Instructions.

1. The 9.50 am. Kings Cross to Edinburgh - 257 Tons








This is the first part of "The Scotch Express", split in to two parts for the summer season and is the faster by five minutes to Edinburgh at eight hours ten minutes compared to the 10 am departure. This eight-coach train has no through carriages and prior to 1914 did not stop in York. The Railway Magazine for July 1914 is mute on whether this was to continue in the 1914 season or not. I am assuming that, as per recent ECML tradition at the time, that it did not. The N.E.R. Z class 4-4-2 Atlantic takes over the train at Doncaster. As early as 1905 the G.N.R. had been experimenting with extending the changeover of locomotives on the Anglo-Scottish expresses to Doncaster rather than Grantham. A first-generation corridor brake brings up the rear, a 46ft6in example built at Cowlairs in 1901. Despite being heavy in relation to their payload the 46ft 6in BGs woud not be dispaced from ECML express passenger trains until the 1920s. Even after that they would still be seen on the ECML for around a decade, attached to GN section secondary passenger trains doing humbler work, mainly moving parcel traffic.

The leading BTK was allocated space for parcel post hampers for a range of stations between York and the border, and not just those on the ECML, but places such as Kirkby Stephen, Whitby, Scarborough and Bishop Auckland. Presumably with no stop at York the post hampers for Yorkshire would have had to be offloaded at Doncaster and forwarded on. Even with an engine change to accomodate that might have been a frenetic operation.

Outside of the summer season proper, the 9.50 am ran as far as Newcastle during May and June. In May it would run on Mondays and Fridays only, while in June it would run Monday to Friday. The "June" schedule might have extended forward to the Whitsuntide holiday. I am not certain that the service used E.C.J.S. stock during those months since the N.B.R. could object that rolling stock it had paid a proportion of the cost for was being used for services on which it would not receive revenue. It was the N.B.R. complaining about E.C.J.S. stock being used on London - Newcastle sleepers during 1905 which led to the creation of the Great Northern and North Eastern Joint Stock at the end of the year.


2. The 10.0 am. Kings Cross - Aberdeen, Perth and Glasgow - 303 Tons







This is the second part of "The Scotch Express", split in to two parts for the summer season. The agreement on an eight hour minimum journey between London and Edinburgh set in place after the "Races to the North" of the 1890s still applied, so this is not the non-stop service the L.N.E.R. later named as "The Flying Sctosman". In pre-grouping days it had no official name, though the G.N. men called it "The Scotch Express". A two-carriage portion for Glasgow was at its head, with a four-carriage portion behind that for Edinburgh, mainly consisting of the three new dining cars from York works, including the newly built steel Kitchen car. Thomspon would return to this format for the 10 am in 1947, with three separate dining carriages, including a kitchen car. the L.N.E.R. Gresley era's 10 am would of course would be dominated by the articulated three-sets he built for it. Behind the Edinburgh core would be a single through carriage for Perth, a newly built CG Locker Composite, one of two Gresley built in 1914 for the 10 am. At the rear of the train is the three-carriage portion for Aberdeen, a 1911 58ft6in Composite, a 1906 58ft6in Third and a 56ft6in Full Brake. The layout reflects the order of disposal at Edinburgh, with the Glasgow portion leaving first and the Aberdeen portion leaving last.


3. The 10.35 am Kings Cross - Glasgow - 295 Tons on leaving Kings Cross








This train was heavy on departing Kings Cross since it also contained a three-coach portion for Cromer, detached at Peterborough. On Saturdays it also gained a through carriage at Grantham, running as far as Doncaster. Once it arrives at York it will attach a portion of three non-corridor Midland Railway carriages from Bristol for Newcastle Once at Newcastle it will detach the Midland carriages but gain a pair of N.E.R. through coaches for Alnmouth, a non-corridor Brake Composite and a Third. With this amount of attaching and detaching of portions it is no wonder that the train did not arrive in to Edinburgh until 8.46pm. The two-coach through portion for Glasgow, a Brake Composite and a Brake Third would reach Glasgow at 10.29 pm. This is almost three hours later than the Glasgow portion making up part of the 10 am! Don't miss the 10 am out of Kings Cross if you are going to Glasgow!


4. the 11.20 am. Kings Cross - North Berwick, Perth and Montrose - 287 Tons







At the rear of this train is a through coach for the resort of North Berwick, made up of a matchboard Brake Composite with a large van capacity. This would be detached and left behind at Drem, then promptly shunted across to await attachment to the Edinburgh - North Berwick branch train. The head of the train was a Brake Third for Edinburgh, which is assigned the stowage of luggage for Darlington, Berwick, Edinburgh, Bathgate, Airdrie, Coatbridge, Hamilton and Glasgow. Behind this was a a through coach for Perth (a 1900 65ft6in Composite) and a pair of through coaches (1898 53ft6in Locker Composite and 1903 53ft6in Third) for Montrose between the leading Brake Third and the four-coach portion for Edinburgh containing the dining cars and a full brake. Any passengers in the through coach for North Berwick will have to make their way through the full brake to eat, and it will be loaded with luggage for Dunbar, luggage and parcels for Harrogate and parcels for Newcastle. Luggage for Newcastle is allocated to the Montrose Locker Composite. At Darlington the train will gain two non-corridor N.E.R. through carriages, a Brake Composite and a Brake Third from Keswick bound for Newcastle.

The Railway Magazine from the period mentions luggage going astray as a problem for travellers and squarely puts the blame on passengers! The failure to remove old luggage labels is reported to be the main culprit. Attaching only one new luggage label is another, since if the single label is not visible to the porter unloading the luggage at an intermediate station then it will get missed. This is why certain carriages are allocated stowage in the working instructions, so that porters will stow the luggage in the correct vehicle and know where to go to to to unload luggage for their station. The RM also mentioned the calamity where a single new label is torn off, leaving the cases/trunks with no clear destination (or the wrong one of an old label is till attached).


5. The 2.20 pm Kings Cross - Edinburgh (Saturdays Excepted) - 274 Tons







This train reached Edinburgh at 10.45 pm and Monday to Friday there were no onward connections to points further west or north. At eight hours twenty-five minutes it was only a ten minutes longer journey than the 10 am. This was the last train departing London for the Scottish capital to not require an overnight journey. At the rear of the train was attached an old six-wheel non-corridor ECJS brake van for Newcastle. This carried luggage and parcels for Newcastle and district. This train ran on a Saturday with a slightly different consist, which will be the subject of a later post.

[KotangaGirl]

Excellent screenshots and an informative description to go with them. Nice work Frank. That 12 wheel matchboarded brake composite at the end of the 11.20am train from Kings Cross is interesting,

[borderreiver]

Hello Annie. Thanks for that. The 12-wheel BCK at the rear of the 11.20 am. is a 1905 65ft 6in BCK built at York by the N.E.R. for the East Coast Joint Stock. It was assigned Diagram 40C under the 1903 arrangements but changed to Diagram 45 in the 1909 diagram book. Four were built, Nos. 80, 81, 142 and 143. The two First Class compartments sat 8 passengers in 2 a side configuration while the three Third Class compartments sat 18 passengers at 3 a side. In the 1914 East Coast Through Carriage Working Instructions they are identified as Class 80. Weight was 37 tons.

The Railway Magazine's article on it in December 1905 is quite enthusiastic about it as an innovative coach from Wilson Worsdell but it went down like a lead balloon with the G.N.R. when they saw it, being very different from the Gresley influenced carriages which were about to emerge from Doncaster for the E.C.J.S. Still, they endured in East Coast stock until the mid-1930s, even if kept off the premier expresses. Three were cascaded to the NE Area and one was condemned while still in East Coast stock in 1937.

North Berwick benefited from the through coach as it was detached at Drem, saving passengers from having to travel on to Edinburgh and then back to North Berwick. This is not so much for speed as avoiding the handling of luggage and changing trains at Edinburgh. The Corridor Brake Composite was the ideal configuration where a single through coach would meet demand for a destination and was widely used. North Berwick was also served by a pair of through coaches on the 11.45 pm from London Kings Cross. One was a sleeping car, an 1896 53ft 6in clerestory roof Diagram 66 and the other another matchboard Diagram 45 Brake Compo. The sleeper was only for First class passengers. Sleeping cars for Third class passengers was an evolution for the 1930s.

[borderreiver]

On Saturdays the 2.20 pm Kings Cross to Edinburgh ran with a modified configuration compared to the Monday to Friday one.

1. The 2.20 pm Kings Cross - Edinburgh (Saturdays Only)







The six-wheel ECJS Full Brake was omitted and the TCWI notes for the six-wheeler remark; "Will be a G.N. South end Brake Compo on Sats to return 11.19 pm from Newcastle Sats." This requires that the van portion of the coach is marshalled at the southern end of the train. with an 8.03 pm arrival at Newcastle the coach will only have three and a quarter hours there before heading back south to London.

I think that this is the furthest north that a G.N. coach ventured in 1914. G.N through carriages ventured to Saltburn and West Hartlepool but none to Newcastle other than this one on Saturdays. Of course if either the G.N.& N.E.J.S. or E.C.J.S. suffered some kind of failure and no suitable coach was to hand then it was possible to reach out to the G.N.R. to loan one. In fact it is worth bearing in mind that the TCWI were not cast in stone, so substitutions could and did take place from time to time. The preference was for substitutions to meet the same seating requirements and a similar quality of coach to the original but it depended upon what was available to run from the carriage sidings.

Strengtheners could also be added where extra demand was expected, with Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays the peak for demands. In times of particularly high demand a train could be run in two or even three portions. The summer splitting of the down 10 am was an official expression of this, with the running of the 9.50 am during certain days during May and June a response to the knowledge of higher demand on particular days. I do not know for certain whether the stop at York was still omitted on the May/June 9.50 am but with the train only running as far as Newcastle in my opinion it did probably stop at York.

[borderreiver]

Northeast England during the steam era. To quote Steve Banks from his website: “If there's a moral in all this it's that reality bites: surviving records such as Carriage Working books that are all too often trotted out as if gospel only indicate what was planned, not what happened on a practical basis.”Reading the Railway magazine for July 1914 I discovered an example of this in an article by the late great Cecil J. Allen on Locomotive performance. He was writing about the N.E.R. decelerating the Leeds to Glasgow express passenger train due to the imposition of a speed check on the ECML near Croxdale, adding to the two existing ones in County Durham at Ferryhill and Birtley. As it was the R1 Class 4-4-0s allocated to the service were struggling to keep time with the six-coach trailing load and the addition of the thrid speed check prompted the N.E.R. to shift the 9.00 am. departure from leeds to 8.55 am, adding this five minutes to the Darlington - Newcastle time allowance. A friend of Allen's rode the Leeds - Glasgow express two days prior to the deceleration, reporting that the addition of two extra bogie coaches had taken the trailing load up to 280 Tons. With the R1s already struggling to keep to the time an R class was added as a pilot engine. The article explicitly states that it was R1 Class 4-4-0 No. 1245 and R Class 4-4-0 2022. here I have a screenshot of the pair with their nine coach trailing load on the down line to the north of Northallerton.




The article did not specify which bogie coaches were added. I have chosen to add an older corridor Diagram 156 53ft6in Corridor Compartment Third and a Diagram 174 Corridor Brake Composite given that this was the premier North Eastern passenger express between Leeds and Scotland, competing against the Midland's Settle and Carlisle and North British Waverley routes. These two carriages may not have been in the sidings at Leeds, since overall the company did not have a large total of corridor carriages. They may well have had some at York, Heaton and Hull though, and the two may have travelled to Leeds the previous evening.

Deduced from the From the East Coast Summer 1914 Through Carriage Working Instructions, the consist was listed as N.E. for origin rather than individual class as were the ECJS carriages. However, the designations Compo, Dining Third, Van First etc were listed, with the numbers of seats in each class provided:

Leeds to Glasgow (arr 3:28 p.m.)

NER BFK¹ Diag 200 27T 5Cwt 12 seats
NER FO Diag 158 28T 10Cwt 36 seats
NER RT Diag 170 41T 10Cwt 30 3rd seats
NER TO Diag 155 28T 13Cwt 42 3rd seats
NER TK Diag 156 29T 10Cwt 42 3rd seats (7 compt x 6 pax when built 1909 - later 56 3rd seats 7 compt x 8 pax)
NER TK Diag 156 29T 10Cwt 42 3rd seats (7 compt x 6 pax when built 1909 - later 56 3rd seats 7 compt x 8 pax) Mon Fri Sat Only
NER BTK¹ Diag 157 27T 14Cwt 18 3rd seats (3 compt x 6 pax when built 1908 - later 24 3rd seats 3 compt x 8 pax)

By this time the deceleration was in place and was issued about the same time as the July issue of Railway Magazine hit the news stands.
I am assuming for the screenshot that it is the Friday consist, but running on a Thursday, Maunday Thursday April 9th 1914 to accomodate travellers wanting to get home for the Easter holiday. Sunday April 12th was Easter Sunday in 1914.
While this was the planned configuration in the book I am speculating that the actual planned configuration was probably as below, reflecting the N.E.R. inserting newer designs in to this consist.
This is down to more research on my part and having Paul build the later period carriages.

Leeds to Glasgow (arr 3:28 p.m.)

NER BFK¹ Diag 200 27T 5Cwt 12 seats
NER FO Diag 158 28T 10Cwt 36 seats
NER RT Diag 170 41T 10Cwt 30 3rd seats
NER TO Diag 155 28T 13Cwt 42 3rd seats
NER TK Diag 193 28T 15Cwt 42 3rd seats (7 compt x 6 pax when built 1912 - later 56 3rd seats 7 compt x 8 pax)
NER TK Diag 193 28T 15Cwt 42 3rd seats (7 compt x 6 pax when built 1912 - later 56 3rd seats 7 compt x 8 pax) Mon Fri Sat Only
NER BTK¹ Diag 194 27T 1Cwt 18 3rd seats (3 compt x 6 pax when built 1912 - later 24 3rd seats 3 compt x 8 pax)

In the case of the Diagram 193 and 194 both were slightly lighter than the Diagram 156 and 157 they replaced, while providing the same seating, so neither the District passenger Managers nor the Locomotive Running Department would object to the substitution on those grounds. The Diagram 200, 193 and 194 all had external doors to the compartments, which would speed up boarding and unboarding. However, with the preference for having the compartments face the eastern side of the line (to maximise the views) this actually placed those same external compartment doors on the opposite side to the platforms at stations such as Northallerton, Thirsk (fast platform) Durham, Newcastle, Morpeth, Alnmouth and Berwick! (Until the 1920s Berwick was a two-platform station and not the later LNER island one we see today).

The changes continued on an incremental basis, which was normal, it being relatively unusual for a whole consist to change at the same time.
In June 1914 the N.E.R. built a new Dining Third, the Diagram 205 to a modified design. I think that the single example probably went in to the Leeds to Glasgow set.
In December 1916 the N.E.R. produced a further carriage, a Diagram 209 BTK(3) and like the Diagram 205, was to a slightly modified design. I think it possible that this single example also made its way in to the Leeds to Glasgow set.

No. 1245 was a York loco rather than a Neville Hill one at the time, so that is another variation. Nos. 1242 and 1244 are supposed to tbe the Neville Hill engines allocated to the train. The article does not expand on why No. 1245 was hauling the train.

[borderreiver]

A couple more screenshots of the N.E.R. Leeds - Glasgow express in April 1914.







The above shot shows the strengthening BCK and TK at the tail of the consist.
It remains possible that the two bogie strengtheners could have been non-vestibuled 52ft types, as there are multiple examples of mixing the types at this time.
Prior to 1912 it might not have been possible to strengthen the set with corridor types, since several new corridor carriages were built during 1912 and 1913.

The Midland Railway Bristol to Newcastle through carriages in 1914 were still allocated non-corridor carriages and that was a long distance journey.
One has to hope that at least one was lavatory composite and that a greaseproof paper wrapped sandwich was in one's briefcase, along with a bottle of beer.

[borderreiver]

Northeast England during the steam era. My recent screenshots of the N.E.R. Leeds to Glasgow have spurred me to roll back this section of the ECML to the steam era, trying to reflect what was there circa 1912 - 1930, I have reinstated the trackwork around Castle Hills Junction to the north of Northallerton and the trackwork to/from the Hawes branch via Castle Hills Inner Junction. The rolling back also included laying out the loops between Castle Hills and Low Moor as well as the Low Moor Water Troughs. As ever, this turned out to be a bigger job than first envisaged, with at least one bridge actually being an overbridge rather than the built-in's underbridge. The MB Water troughs are not height adjustable either, which led to a bit of fiddling with the landscape. Here are a set of screenshots showing a Raven 3-cylinder S3 Class 4-6-0 on a Class D part-fitted working en-route from York to to Croft yard. No express passenger trains are due so, she gets the fast road through to Low Moor, where the double track begins. She may keep the fast road through Cowton loops to Eryholme Junction too, in which case it will be a prompt arrival at Croft, where Darlington Hope Street's 25 Ton bogie transhipment wagon will be detached after her journey from Leeds Wellington Street.




Passing Castle Hills Junction box, the Hawes branch chord comes in from the right.




Passing under the Zetland bridge.




After passing under the bridge, the S3 is about to pass over the southern end of the Low Moor water troughs.




The S3 is now back on the double track section as the brake van at the tail end passes the northen end of the water troughs.

[borderreiver]

Northeast England during the steam era. The installation of TRS2019 SP2 has progressed far enough to run a train or two. Here, on the ECML to the north of Northallerton in North Yorkshire a Worsdell P3 Class 0-6-0 is switching to the slow lines, passing the water troughs for the fast lines.




The view from the signal cabin.




The view from the cab.

[KotangaGirl]

Congratulations on surviving the SP2 upgrade Frank. I hope the devastation wasn't too severe.

[borderreiver]

Hello Annie, thanks. The re-installation is far enough along that I can open a couple of routes which have no missing or faulty assets.

I have mined my TS12 installation for around 400 assets which were not backed up in TRS2019 SP1 and appear to be no longer available from the DLS in SP2. Several bizarre events going on too, with some assets flagged "unknown location" in my TRS2019 SP2 yet are visible on the DLS in TS12! Some of JohnnyC1's assets PBR Grass SAxx fall in to that category (build 4.6). There were several others but with literally hundreds of assets imported over the past 72 hours I can't recall which ones they were. Some assets which were uploaded to the DLS by a friend have disappeared too and my friend had not removed them. They have uploaded several of these to the DLS and no errors or messages from the system so they were really gone. Lord knows how they went, when they went or which entity removed them.

I also had several cdp files in backup come up as unreadable. I have been able to export them from another installation to cdp and retrieved them that way. When I have completed the process of patching to SP2 I have something like 250Gb of backed up SP1 data files to delete.

[KotangaGirl]

There's certainly some very strange things going on with assets and the DLS Frank. My own SP2 install only has Uk DLC routes installed in it and I won't be upgrading my old Tinware SP1 install that has my own routes installed in it. Really when it comes down to it history is repeating itself as more than a few build 1.3 - 2.4 assets disappeared from the DLS when they became Built-in assets in TS2009 and TS2010. I found that out while sorting out some older legacy routes to run in TC3 and if it wasn't for some Eastern European Trainz folk who had archived away most of these older assets I would have been really stuck.

As for mining my TS2012 install to get things working again in the 64 bit versions of Trainz, - that does sound like a very familiar exercise and one that I'm getting more than a little tired of.

[borderreiver]

Hello Annie. This afternoon's surprise package is SP2 flagging up 104 assets as faulty which weren't flagged as such yesterday. So, in consequence I have been fixing up 21 payware loco build 3.5 assets which report;

"VE73: Image file 'asset_art/asset_art_512.tga' is incorrectly used as both a texture.txt source file and a raw image file." So, I opened the tga files, exported jpg versions and changed the configs to point to asset_art_512.jpg. The same error also applied to asset_art_icon.tga.

It is seven days (and many database rebuilds) since I imported those payware assets but this afternoon, hey presto! today they flag up as faulty. Eight done and their cdps exported to a TRS2019 Repairs folder on the backup drive.

Several PLL locos by paulhobbs have also gone back to being faulty, several days after being imported with (seemingly) no errors and warnings. Today's fault-fest had better not be a harbinger of this re-install of TRS2019 SP2 degenerating back to the disaster patch upgrade of Friday December 18th.