Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

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Le Corbusier
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Fri Sep 14, 2018 5:27 pm

True .... but as Buxton is a further 4 mile distance on limited coal and Rowsley is the bigger centre I think .....if from anywhere perhaps Rowsley would be more likely.

If a gang were needed to repair part of the line ... would a train be dispatched separately with the necessary materials (ballast/sleepers/chairs/jacks etc)? ... perhaps falling rocks, Landslip or flood between Monsal Dale and Miller's Dale? Would a 15mile round trip be realistic for a 1FT ?

Or am I clutching at straws here?
Tim Lee

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Fri Sep 14, 2018 5:51 pm

Not clutching at straws, just overthinking. ;)

Why not get your loco up and running anyway? It will be a beautiful loco. I am sure a good excuse for running it on Monsal Dale will come to you in due course.

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Noel
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Noel » Fri Sep 14, 2018 8:48 pm

Armchair Modeller wrote:Mind you, even a trip to Monsal Dale and back would be a long trip for something with such a small coal capacity, especially if it had to hang around in steam for a long while


The problem with hanging around for a while (but doing work) is not coal, but water. Both breakdown and engineers' trains away from a local water supply and likely to be in situ for a while would be given a tender loco, which would have a greater capacity.

Possible excuses are limited, but two possibilities are a main line train with an ailing engine, whose crew have requested assistance to the next place they can get a replacement loco. Or the train engine has failed altogether, so the nearest available loco has been borrowed, as anything is better than nothing, to get them to where they can get a proper replacement.
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Noel

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sat Sep 15, 2018 11:48 am

Noel wrote:
Armchair Modeller wrote:Mind you, even a trip to Monsal Dale and back would be a long trip for something with such a small coal capacity, especially if it had to hang around in steam for a long while


The problem with hanging around for a while (but doing work) is not coal, but water. Both breakdown and engineers' trains away from a local water supply and likely to be in situ for a while would be given a tender loco, which would have a greater capacity.


"Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink" - an original quote from a MIdland Railway driver at Monsal Dale? :?

When I made my original suggestion, I assumed that there would be water at Millers Dale station, just up the way. A quick perusal of photos suggests this was not the case. So, yes water would be a problem despite being almost surrounded by the stuff at Monsal Dale station.

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Le Corbusier
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sat Sep 15, 2018 2:25 pm

Interestingly I have also been scanning my Bill Hudson book on Millars Dale and have failed to find evidence of a water column. Having said that Bill was not infallible (evidenced by the Monsal Dale coal siding at Hassop) and I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a considerable degree of shunting taking place at Millars Dale given the presence of the private sidings for the Millers Dale lime Co and the lime kilns & works ( as well as sidings for the Buxton Central Lime co., Newton Chambers & co. and others), alongside the presence of the Millars Dale Station Quarry and sidings at the other end of the station.

Millars Dale.jpg


Given this amount of activity, wouldn't it be odd for there not to be a water source somewhere and would it not be likely that there would be a tank engine to do the shunting and marshalling?
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Noel
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Noel » Sat Sep 15, 2018 3:47 pm

Le Corbusier wrote:Given this amount of activity, wouldn't it be odd for there not to be a water source somewhere and would it not be likely that there would be a tank engine to do the shunting and marshalling?


I very much doubt it; If there was one it would probably spend a lot of time unemployed. Marshalling is probably not required; outbound traffic would just be collected and added to the train and taken for sorting wherever the train was going. Inbound traffic would be placed by the engine of the delivering train, and internal movements within the sidings could be by gravity, men or a horse; there doesn't seem to be enough work for a private loco, but it's not impossible.

They would need longer than they would take at Monsal Dale, but there seems to be nothing here which can't be dealt with by a couple of stopping freights. Another possibility [they are not mutually exclusive] is an out-and-back trip working from either Buxton or Rowsley which does some shunting whilst it's there. A WTT of that era would confirm one way or the other.
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Noel

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sat Sep 15, 2018 4:31 pm

Don't forget that horses could be used for shunting. You don't always need a loco.

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Le Corbusier
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sat Sep 15, 2018 5:07 pm

I wasn't thinking in terms of a private loco ... just that if the shunting was serviced from Buxton then if Water is the issue might it not have been provided ? or would a tender engine have been rostered for this work?

Bill Hudson states:

The yard was serviced primarily from Buxton, although in the 1930s the 12.20pm stopping freight from Rowsley to Peak Forest was diagrammed to shunt the yard for 40 minutes.

Again from the 1930s Bill states:

The 6.48am from Buxton to Millars Dale ... conveyed loaded coal and merchandise wagons together with empty limestone wagons. A similar train ran from Buxton at 1.36pm and the engine shunted the yard and quarry sidings before returning to Buxton with the 6.18pm freight.The train carried empty coal and goods wagons, loaded wagons from the mills and loaded limestone and basalt wagons.

We know also that much traffic was taken to Millers Dale from elsewhere to be sorted. In the 1930s 6000 tons per annum of coal came in for domestic use, 1000 for Tideswell Gas Works and other quantities for the quarries, mills and lime kilns. With 35 shops and businesses also in Tideswell, a steady stream of general merchandise came in to the station amounting to 2 or 3 vans/open wagons daily. In addition the Cotton mills required delivery of raw materials and transport of finished goods amounting to 5 wagons/vans per week.

Mineral traffic included sand/gravel/tiles/slates for building purposes and the output of quarries at Carlton Hill (limestone) and Tideswell Dale (basalt) - Bill Hudson records 8 - 10 vehicles daily.

I assume that in addition there would have been the lime kiln sidings .... deliveries of coal for the ovens and the lime itself - if the yard is being worked from Buxton, might this also have come under the same working? or would it have all been done by the pick up goods. Interestingly, the limestone for the kilns is recorded as coming from the quarries directly above using hopper trucks (or tubs) on a narrow gauge track.

The Station Quarry appears to have been a separate enterprise to the kilns. Again, if the Yard was being serviced from Buxton, might these sidings not have been worked by the same engine?
Tim Lee

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sat Sep 15, 2018 5:22 pm

As Noel said, a regular shunting engine would be shown in the WTT. It would have to come from Rowsley or Buxton, probably daily (Sundays excepted). More likely, a local goods would spend time shunting there. The WTT would show if a train spent a lot of time there. The operation of the private sidings and other special arrangements may be explained in the Appendix to the WTT - usually a separate publication.

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sat Sep 15, 2018 6:04 pm

Armchair Modeller wrote:As Noel said, a regular shunting engine would be shown in the WTT. It would have to come from Rowsley or Buxton, probably daily (Sundays excepted). More likely, a local goods would spend time shunting there. The WTT would show if a train spent a lot of time there. The operation of the private sidings and other special arrangements may be explained in the Appendix to the WTT - usually a separate publication.

You will have to bear with me on this .... is WTT the working time table? If so is it this?

1902 timetables.pdf
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sat Sep 15, 2018 6:09 pm

Le Corbusier wrote:You will have to bear with me on this .... is WTT the working time table? If so is it this?

1902 timetables.pdf


Yes.

The Appendix to the WTT is probably a separate document.

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Noel » Sat Sep 15, 2018 7:31 pm

Armchair Modeller wrote:The Appendix to the WTT is probably a separate document.


The two BR(WR) 1960 Sectional Appendices for south Wales that I have are entitled "Sectional Appendix to the Working Timetable and books of Rules and Regulations", not exactly brief, but they do what it says. They cover a number of matters, including propelling trains, working in the wrong direction on a running line, local whistle codes (but not the standard ones, which are in the General Appendix to the Rule Book), working freights without a brake van at the rear, etc., etc., and the specific local instructions (if any) for each location within the area covered. How much of this would be of use to you is debatable.

I don't know about Midland practice, but their Appendices are likely to have covered similar subjects. It just goes to show the amount of rules and regulations that loco crews had to be familiar with, and it was at least as bad for signalmen, who had their own sets of rules.
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Noel

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Noel » Sat Sep 15, 2018 7:34 pm

Le Corbusier wrote:Again from the 1930s Bill states:
The 6.48am from Buxton to Millars Dale ... conveyed loaded coal and merchandise wagons together with empty limestone wagons. A similar train ran from Buxton at 1.36pm and the engine shunted the yard and quarry sidings before returning to Buxton with the 6.18pm freight.The train carried empty coal and goods wagons, loaded wagons from the mills and loaded limestone and basalt wagons.


The second of these is the type of out-and-back trip working I suggested earlier. Even allowing for two transit times, it seems to have spent some time there, although it may not have been working all that time; it may have had to wait for a period after it had finished work in order to get a path. It may also have had to wait at times for clearance to shunt along or across the main line.
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Noel

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:41 am

Interesting though the workings at Millars Dale may be (and I shall continue reading around and trying to understand them at leisure) my instinct is that they are a blind alley as far as an excuse for the 1f 0-6-0 tank is concerned at Monsal Dale.

Reading back through my Essery and Jenkinson and my copy of Jack Braithwaite's book on Johnson they note that the Johnson 1f tanks, whilst being the Midland's primary shunting engines were also used for local freight and suburban passenger work.

DSC_0204.jpg


I think local freight is my best bet - running up from Rowsley perhaps to Millers Dale and then through to Buxton (assuming a 17mile range is within a 1f 0-6-0Ts capability?) ... perhaps that might be why the tank engine is present in the Bakewell photo, which if nothing else proves that they worked up the line from Rowsley and were not kept solely for shunting. Or maybe I could look at a works train of sorts along the same route ... I wondered what this pile of lumber might be at Monsal Dale which I initially assumed were sleepers but they look too thin?
pile of wood.jpg
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Tim Lee

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby petermeyer » Sun Sep 16, 2018 9:39 am

Tank engines could possibly go a fair distance between watering locations. On my line, tank engines were rostered on local passenger trains from Ludlow to Hereford which is a distance of 24 miles.

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Noel
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Noel » Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:42 am

Le Corbusier wrote:I wondered what this pile of lumber might be at Monsal Dale which I initially assumed were sleepers but they look too thin?


Repairs to the platform end and ramp?
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Noel

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:17 am

Noel wrote:
Le Corbusier wrote:I wondered what this pile of lumber might be at Monsal Dale which I initially assumed were sleepers but they look too thin?


Repairs to the platform end and ramp?


Makes sense
Tim Lee

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Tony Wilkins » Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:35 pm

Hi Tim.
DSC_0204.jpg

Nice picture, but I would be suspicious about the caption for several reasons.
Lea Bridge GER was near my old stamping ground in North London about 6 miles south of Brimsdown.
What would a MR loco with what appears to be a rake of MR wagons be doing there? A trip working from Cricklewood is an outside possibility I suppose, but even so the location just looks wrong to me. I certainly cannot place it from any pictures I have of the area even allowing for historical changes.

I often wonder what the range of tank locos was. They were used on the Brighton line and almost exclusively on the Fenchurch Street to Southend / Shoeburness services, both about 50 miles distance.
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:40 pm

I wondered the same as I lived near the area for a short while. The only place I could see looking at old maps was looking north, just north of Lea Bridge station where the old Cambridge main line ran in parallel with the 2 tracks to the Lea Bridge Curve and Chingford. If you squint you can just about see an overbridge in the distance in the photo, which might possibly be the Chingford line crossing the main line.

As for the train - the Midland was like an oil slick, seeping into all sorts of unlikely nooks and crannies, especially in the London area where it had coal depots and goods depots all over the place. The train itself is suspicious though, as all the wagons appear to be identical. A normal goods train would have a mixture of anything and everything.
Last edited by Armchair Modeller on Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Noel
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Noel » Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:23 pm

Armchair Modeller wrote:As for the train - the Midland was like an oli slick, seeping into all sorts of unlikely nooks and crannies, especially in the London area where it had coal depots and goods depots all over the place.

In particular, at Bow, East Smithfield, Limehouse (coal only) and Poplar, all presumably :?: reached via the Tottenham & Hampstead Junction (joint Midland and GE) and Stratford GE, which would involve passing through Lea Bridge.
Armchair Modeller wrote:The train itself is suspicious though, as all the wagons appear to be identical.

A very good point; however, it's just as suspicious wherever it is, for the same reason :) . The caption doesn't say which direction it's travelling in, so coal empties from Limehouse, perhaps?
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Noel

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Le Corbusier
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:38 pm

For my purposes it doesn't really matter where it is ... unless pootling through Monsal Dale :D

A far as the uniformity is concerned I had assumed it was a train of empties from a single source being returned? Given that we are at a relatively early date in the photo, potentially pre war given the smoke box front and handrail shape, the train is relatively short and the ubiquity of the D299 at this time (which based upon the height to the cab they would appear to be) I am not sure how significant the uniformity is. To my knowledge small local goods were not generally the subject of staged photos.

The front wagons on this goods are of a similar number and uniformity, so the presence of that number of matching wagons is not unusual and being pulled by a small shunting tank is it that odd?
DSC_0309.jpg
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:32 pm

My query about the train was about the train classification. I thought it looks more mineral than goods. It has a different headcode to the train in the last photo too. I don't know enough about MR headcodes to understand the difference.

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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:46 pm

Armchair Modeller wrote:My query about the train was about the train classification. I thought it looks more mineral than goods. It has a different headcode to the train in the last photo too. I don't know enough about MR headcodes to understand the difference.


Bill Bedford has made the following observation to throw into the mix...
It looks to me like these wagons are loaded with timber, and the deals are overlapping one end of the wagons. With such loads, it would probably be a good idea to match the height of the wagons if at all possible.

Lea Bridge is on the route that goods would take from various wharves on the Thames to the Midland around St Pancras.
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:19 pm

Bill's eyesight must be far better than mine - unless of course he has a better copy of the image ;)

It looked to me as if the undulations above the wagons were a continuation of the gaps under the tree branches. The trees have had most branches removed at a low level.

DSC_0204a.jpg


Quite happy if I have misinterpreted the scene however.

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Le Corbusier
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Re: Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

Postby Le Corbusier » Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:28 pm

Armchair Modeller wrote:My query about the train was about the train classification. I thought it looks more mineral than goods. It has a different headcode to the train in the last photo too. I don't know enough about MR headcodes to understand the difference.

The last train is carrying head code ACD post 1910 I think which is Ordinary goods or mineral train stopping at intermediate stations.
Apart from the lamp on the far right I can't make out any other lamps on the original picture?
Tim Lee


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