UK Screenshots for Pre BR Blue. High resolution warning.

I'm only upset about being ignored because the man himself told me he had lost all BRTrainz items. So I'm not sure where the Colas crane in the first shot I quoted came from
 
More from the GCR:

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Come rain or shine, British Railways never stops running! After depositing the post train at Annesley, B16 No.61413 was asked to deliver a portion of a fish train bound for Woodford Halse. The train itself is made up of various "Blue Spot" vans and a quartet of worn Ipswich vans bringing up the rear. The B16 is returning late to Woodford as it had to be dispatched all the way to Staveley Central to pick up the vans.

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As No.61413 races through the rain it crosses paths with another locomotive on midnight freight duties. O1 Class No. 63838 struggles through the storm with a heavy coal load bound for the chutes and bunkers of Sheffield Darnall. It's delivery is of the upmost importance or many of the locos based there won't be able to move come tomorrow!!
 
The pre-WWI Bass Excursions - 1914 to Scarborough at York

Between 1865 And 1914 the Bass brewery at Burton On Trent ran day trip excursion trains for employees. At first it was merely for male employees but quickly extended to allow families to travel. The first one was to Liverpool. By the turn of the 20th century the brewery was laying on between seventeen and twenty trains, with the town's population of 50,000 dropping by a fifth on the day of the company excursion. This was a major undertaking by the Midland Railway and the same Bass employee arranged them all, retiring in late 1915 at the age of 74. The trips ceased in 1914, with wartime demands preventing the excursion running in 1915. Trains left at intervals from 4 a.m. with the last train returning to Burton around 1 a.m. This last train was usually First Class saloons laid on for the senior staff, family and friends.

Here, south of York a Midland Compound 4-4-0 hauls a mixed rake of Midland stock towards York station en-route to Scarborough during the summer of 1914, weeks prior to the outbreak of WWI. This was the eighth time bass had taken its employees to the east coast resort since 1881. A Lavatory Third is mid-rake for the convenience of older employees and some ladies. There are six-wheel, bogie, clerestory and low-roof carriages.







This consist and the loco are speculation. I have not yet discovered whether the N.E.R. permitted the Midland Locos to run through to Scarborough
 
Nice shot. There was a time (yesrs ago) I was contemplating making a demountable tank wagon chassis with the Bass Charrington demountable tanks in a few sizes to go with it.
 
Those are great screenshots Frank. The Midland Railway is another curiously neglected pre-grouping company in Trainz only being represented by Ken Green's coaches and that compound 4-4-0 model as well as a brake van and a couple of open wagons.
 
Agreed Annie. Come to think of it, a lot of Pre-Grouping Railways are lacking in content - SECR, L&Y, GNoSR, LNWR, and GNR (just to name a few). It seems like the MR is indeed another railway to add to the ratio as well. Although it might be possible to reskin a lot of the 4Fs and 2Ps on the DLS to fit such a gap.

The GNoSR is definitely one I'd like to see more of. Their 4-4-0s and 0-6-0s are quite unique and provide some really interesting content material. Uniquely, I quite enjoy their little 0-4-2Ts that operated the docks and sidings up in Aberdeen. It's on my list since it's a dockside shunter but I'm going to need to get time to work on it...
 
Compared to this time last year things are certainly better for the pre-grouping era, but there's still a long way to go. As I mentioned earlier if money was no object there would be a couple of GER engines I'd be commissioning. But certainly for the Midland and the LNWR things could be improved and since they were important players in the pre-grouping scene their absence is certainly noticeable.

I agree that the GNoSR is a fascinating line, but possibly a bit too obscure for anyone to want to take any interest in. At least there is a 4-4-0 available and I did make a GNoSR van, but beyond that it's a desert wasteland as far as Trainz is concerned.
 
North Eastern Railway Raven 3-cylinder 4-6-0 of S3 Class, number 920, built 1920 and passing south on the goods lines at Ferryhill, with the south mineral yard behind the train. A generation later during WWII, Ferryhill's yard would take on some of the work from the York area due to Luftwaffe aerial attacks.


 
Looking Excellent as usual borderreiver! I always admire Raven's design of the S3 Class, such a smart mixed traffic design and one of the NER's best in my opinion!


Some shots from S&C on TRS2019! Duchess of Sutherland is heading north from Skipton with a fast express to Carlisle Upperby!

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1920: NER Worsdell T Class 0-8-0 at Relly Mill

Wilson Worsdell's T Class 0-8-0 was the first eight-coupled goods and mineral engine for the N.E.R. Several of the class worked for the Railway Operating Department (R.O.D.) in France supporting British forces during WWI. here, in the early morning sunlight T class 2116 takes a goods train south on the East Coast Main Line past Relly Mill junction. Up Express Passenger trains are about to rule the roost on the ECML so 2116 is wasting no time making its way to Croft Yard south of Darlington.


 
A great screenshot at #2413 Frank. I like the Worsdell T's, but with having well and truly been stolen away by the GER I rarely run any of my NER models now.

#2412 I've always liked the early BR blue livery Tanker. I have the 'Duchess of Buccleuch' from GP Trains in that livery and it gets a look in occasionally on my early BR Border country layout. When I was a kiddie I had a very Uk oriented picture book of trains and all the express engines were in the blue livery. I guess the memory of that sort of stuck and has stayed with me down through the years.

Evening local train on my GER Norfolk layout.

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1920: Approaching Durham from the North

Annie,

Re post # 2414, thanks, the T Class, like all N.E.R. goods engines, worked hard for their entire lives. I have just treated myself to the latest "Eastern Main Lines" volume by Middleton press, titled "Newcastle to Alnmouth and the Amble Branch" and in it is a shot of T Class 2118 that I have never seen before. Always a pleasure to find a new shot. The loco is heading light engine at Little Benton. She has a tender lettered N E so it puts it during or just after WWII as Class Q5. She was withdrawn in February 1948, so may well be the only and certainly the last shot ever taken of her.

As for the G.E.R. taking you away, enjoy running the trains and hopefully a bit more stock will arrive. I am always on the look out for new "foreign" wagons since there always were some wagons which made their way on to the North Eastern system bringing merchandise from all parts of the country. This influx increased with the 1917 common user agreement since exigencies of warfare meant it was simply unacceptable for wagons to be found running empty when something could be loaded on them for transport elsewhere. While the 1917 CUA was not as extensive as that embraced from 1940 during WWII, it meant that anyone running an unfitted or part-fitted goods train post-1917 has to consider that in many cases there were all sorts of interlopers to be found in the consist! A few more G.E.R. open merchandise wagons and perhaps a couple of G.E.R. covered vans would be a welcome addition of colour to the main line. One or two N.E.R. wagons might well have made their way to your G.E.R. branch (at least one N.E.R. wagon was photographed as far away as Barmouth in Wales).

Main visitors to the N.E.R. system would have been G.C.R. Midland Railway, L.N.W.R. and L.&Y.R. merchandise wagons given the flow of traffic between Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield to the North East. The G.N.R. would have also been well represented with goods both coming from London and (after the 1917 CUA) goods going to London in returning G.N.R. wagons. Scottish traffic from the Caledonian and G.&S.W.R. could enter the N.E.R. system via Carlisle with the N.B.R. able to access N.E.R. destinations via Carlisle, Tweedmouth or the Border Counties line. The G.E.R. and G.W.R. were a bit further removed, with the L.S.W.R. S.&D.J.R. L.B.S.C.R. and S.E.C.R. being the furthest away, but circumstances could still have conspired to bring some of their wagons to the North East.




The view from the T Class cab approaching Durham station from the north.
 
#2415. That's a really nice cab view Frank. I am curious about those gantry signals and the gantry itself since I haven't seen those before.

I do have the odd NER van on my GER layout. They are my own reskins that I made using photos of preserved vans as a guide. I have done a number of reskins of representational GER goods wagons and covered vans using such meshes as were available from the members of TCWW. As much as possible I've tried to make the textures correct, but of course the accuracy of the whole model depends on how close the meshes I used are to GER prototypes. When I started creating my GER Norfolk layout there was nothing available in the way of GER goods wagons which is why I went ahead and reskinned the models that are now on the DLS. Ed Heaps very kindly made a GER brake van and some bolster wagons which helped things along too. My layout is set in the pre-WW1 era so more than a few of my GER wagons are in pre-large GER letters condition, but there are merchandise wagons and dropside wagons with the large letters as well.

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Hello Annie

Re post #2416 - The signals and gantries are splendid work by chrisaw and should be available on the DLS. Look for Sig NER and Sig LNER. Chris had made a bunch of NER and LNER signals, including gantry ones. There are also four gantries, the one for Durham viaduct, a 40ft gantry bridge, a 52ft gantry bridge and a typical N.E.R. cantilever gantry.

I have a sizeable N.E.R. merchandise wagon fleet, including 4 and 6 plank open wagons, 12Ton covered vans to both versions of Diagram G2, 15Ton Road Wagons, 15Ton Transhipment Vans, 25Ton Transhipment Vans, single bolsters, double bolsters, bogie bolsters, plate wagons, 20Ton Machinery wagons, and flat wagons. I have a commission with Paul to produce the Diagram D5/T Twin Bolsters.




the earlier version of the G2, with horizontal planking and sliding roof door (when older it was sometimes necessary to fit a tarp over the roof) and the older version, with vertical planking and no roof hatch. In both cases there was a end slot door for longer items which would not easily go through the door. However, its location means that (surely) either a ladder or some climbing was necessary to access it.
 
I've purchased some of Paul's NER wagons as well and they occasionally turn up on my GER layout with goods from 'up North'. Since I'm modelling a pre-pooling era layout nothing from outside the lines running through Norfolk is seen in any quantity, but it's nice to be able to ring the changes occasionally.
 
Hello Annie

Regarding post #2418. There were differing ways for goods to arrive from "foreign parts".

On the N.E.R. (and presumably other companies had similar rules) if a consignor offered a load which weighed over two tons for a single consignee then the local goods clerk would arrange for a wagon to collect it and deliver it, the wagon being marshalled at various points en route. Don Rowlands in his 1974 articles "Keeping the Balance" used the Carlisle biscuit maker Carrs as an example using the L.M.S. A wagon (or in the case of Carrs, a covered van) would take the load to its destination (for example a G.W.R. depot or siding in Bristol) and then it was up to the G.W.R. to return the L.M.S. covered van to the nearest L.M.S. depot/yard. After the 1917 Common User agreement if the covered van type was included in the pooling agreement then the G.W.R. could use it to load traffic for a destination preferably (but not guaranteed) to be in a direction taking it "home". If not a type covered by the pooling agreement then the obligation remained to take it back to the nearest L.M.S. depot/yard.

If the load offered was under two tons or for multiple consignees then the clerk would refer to the company rules for how to take it. Some stations only handled wagon load traffic, so if that was the nearest station to the consignor the clerk would identify the nearest station offering "small consignment" facilities and this (in the case of the N.E.R.) would be loaded in to the relevant "road wagon" timetabled to stop there. "road wagon" on the N.E.R./L.N.E.R. was not an automobile running on the highway but a railway covered van attached to local goods trains. These ran to timetables and were dedicated to routes radiating from transhipment depots. When arriving at a transhipment depot the road wagons would be unloaded and the consignments transhipped to the relevant "Transhipment Van", which ran between transhipment hubs. The N.E.R. had both 15 Ton "Road Wagons" and 15 Ton "Transhipment Vans" along with a ATB fitted 25 Ton bogie "Transhipment Vans" for traffic requiring a faster transit. Like "Road Wagons" these operated to timetables and were run on dedicated routes. Where traffic exceeded the capacity of the allocated "Road Wagons" and "Transhipment Vans" the company would utilise 10 Ton/ 12 Ton covered vans from the general fleet.

The L.N.E.R. continued this practise on the N.E. Area until the mid-1930s, when the "Road Wagon" network was rationalised, with some smaller destinations being served by a motor truck from a larger depot rather than by a "Road Wagon".

It is a little surprising to find that a mere 2 Tons for a single destination would get you a wagon. When you think of the 8, 10 and 12 Ton capacity of wagons this is as little as a sixth of the loaded capacity. I do not doubt that many consignments were to the wagon capacity (bulk lods such as coal, ore, stone being obvious examples) but there may have been many instances where merchandise was between 2 and 12 Tons. If you were a regular customer I do not doubt that the local clerk might have helped you out if the consignment was close to, but not over 2 Tons. Given the existence of road wagons and transhipment vans, the volume of traffic where consignments were below 2 Tons was a significant portion of goods traffic. Fruit, Fish, Meat and Ventilated Vans, along with plate, bogie bolster, flat, well and trestle wagons were all types geared towards accomodating wagon loads for single destinations. Bearing in mind though, that coal traffic trounced all others in terms of tonnage.




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Yes that's more or less how I do things on my GER layout. There's a LSWR van, SECR merchandise wagons, a West Norfolk Railway luggage van and of all things a Great North of Scotland van that turn up regularly with certain special consignments from outside the GER. Most of my stopping passenger trains have a reasonable amount of luggage/small parcels capacity to distribute small consignments of incoming goods to stations along the line and this has been a feature of my passenger train services almost from the beginning of the layout.
I have no road vans as such, but on the tramways it's common for at least two ordinary 10 ton goods vans to be included in the the local passenger trains. The stations on the tramway have small lock up good sheds on the station platform with only larger and heavier consignments such as timber, barrels and crates going to the goods shed in the station yard.

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Hi Annie

Regarding post #2420, the G.N.oS.R. is not quite as far-fetched as you might think. Baxters, now a sizeable Scottish company started canning fruits in 1868 at Fochabers, between Keith and Elgin. in 1929 they began to produce canned soup. It is quite possible that a grocer in the G.E.R. area with an aristocratic and middle class customer base might have ordered a consignment of canned strawberries, raspberries and plums from Baxters.

On looking at some of the 1917 Road Wagon timetables I believe that some wayside stations handled the Road Wagon at the station platform. Some smaller stations had lock up sheds on the platform rather than a goods shed.
 
Hello Frank,

After spending ages making the textures for the GNoSR van it would have been a pity not to use it. That was very much the backstory that I came up with. A grocer at Bluebell Woods with a posh clientele who was placing a semi-regular order to a supplier in Scotland. Now that you've given me a name, - Baxters, - I can claim an even more legitimate background to that van being on the layout.
The lockup sheds on the platforms saves a lot of time and extra shunting movements on the tramway. Usually there is just the one engine in steam unless a new consignment of logs is being shunted in the sawmill sidings or it gets really busy during harvest season so as a method of handling small sized goods items for local delivery it has a lot going for it. It does slow down the passenger service a little, but with the roads in what is a rural farming area being not all that good nobody really minds. Buses on my layout tend to be parked at the side of the road with either steam or smoke issuing from under the bonnet so the local railways are very much the way people get about from place to place.
 
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