borderreiver
Well-known member
re post #3079 - The cold might not have been the issue we think it may have been. On the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the crews operating the line over Stainmore between Barnard Castle and Kirkby Stephen experienced atrocious weather over the winter. However, during 1862 when it was proposed to provide locomotives with enclosed cabs "in the American style" there was a revolt among the footplate crews! They called the proposal an assault on their masculinity, that they were in some way lesser men than on other lines to be so coddled! I think it was William Bouch who was behind the proposal and while the first two locos were provided with cabs, the following four did not have cabs. Mere weatherplates on those four. Proper cabs did not appear on all locomotives on the Stainmore line for around a generation, the late 1870s/early 1880s under the N.E.R. and Fletcher. While the S&DR was absorbed by the N.E.R. in 1863 Bouch remained in charge of locos on the S&DR lines and the S&DR operated almost as a separate entity, taking ten years before the N.E.R. fully took over the lines.
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