April 1914 - Cecil J Allen and the N.E.R. Leeds - Glasgow
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 BFK
¹ 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 BTK
¹ 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 BFK
¹ 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 BTK
¹ 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.
