#Brakes Barrow In Furness

[garageservicebarrowco]

Servicing and MOTs Barrow

High quality Servicing and MOT's throughout Barrow and the surrounding areas.

Visit Our Website

[weirdowithaquill]

Traintober 2023: Day 9 - Viaduct

The Viaduct has a Story Behind It:

The Maron Viaduct stands as a testament to the Sodor and Mainland Railway’s poor financial decisions, stretching across the gorge between the town it’s named after and the rails to Cronk, the remains of a failed attempt by the old railway to build a railway to connect the island’s capital at Suddery to Barrow-in-Furness on the mainland.

The company had agreed to a 75-25 split with the Wellsworth and Suddery Railway on the other side of the gorge to build the viaduct, paying a massive lump sum of money they did not have to begin construction on what they believed would be the company’s salvation.

Neil disagreed. He saw the bridge for what it was: a vanity project by desperate men. “Too big to fail” they said. Neil wondered if they would ever come to regret those words. They certainly didn’t seem to mind when the bills kept piling up. Every other week, it seemed like something was going wrong – though in the beginning, they barely noticed.

At first, it was just tools vanishing in the night, small enough that it was not essential to the construction site and able to be written off as petty theft – but then, a stick of dynamite went off by itself. Neil wasn’t sure why they even had dynamite – he was told it was to remove boulders deep in the gorge; he thought that it should’ve been kept down there instead, and not up with the rest of their supplies.

An entire hut filled with tools went up in flames, the explosion sending debris shooting across the work site. Neil was just thankful it had happened in the late evening, when he had been leaving the site with the workmen. The men were shaken, but unharmed. Neil hurried away with the coaches, not wanting to look back.

He wasn't quite sure what he was going to see. 

The next week, a line of trucks Neil was shunting were diverted onto a siding leading to the edge of the gorge, a coupling snapping when the little engine tried to brake the train to a stop before it all went over. Three trucks kept rolling, and despite Neil whistling a warning, not everyone could get clear of the trucks before they went hurtling over the edge. They smashed down the side of the gorge, splintering and fracturing and shooting shards of wood everywhere, while their contents scattered out over the river. Mangled pieces of metal and splintered wood came raining down. 

Four men lost their lives, leaving Neil assaulted with nightmares that had his boiler run dry when the stars glinted high above them in the sky.

And yet it did not end.

The crane broke, more dynamite went off. The rope basket carrying tools and men across the gorge snapped, sending the basket crashing into the gorge, smashing to smithereens against the jagged rocks below. Every single time, Neil willingly turned a blind eye, and every night, Neil sat awake in his shed and wondered if it was worth praying to the human god. There was something deeply wrong with that gorge. 

Stories began to circulate, of the figure of a man who just wasn’t there. He wore clothing of the previous millennia, and he screamed and cursed at the bridge from afar. The men swore they saw him, standing just at the furthest point of the gorge visible to the railway. Neil felt an uncomfortable presence around the site – he felt like an intruder. They were not wanted here. 

The Wellsworth and Suddery Railway pulled out of the agreement. The losses were mounting, and the Elsbridge tramway was offering a far more lucrative offer for amalgamation and tunnel building to a harbour on the far side of the island, in the Irish Sea. Skarloey said it was a place called ‘Tidmouth’, and that somewhere on that side of the island another little railway ran, with an engine almost as old as the pair. Neil didn’t believe him – the terrain on that side of the island only grew rougher, less habitable. The shepherds who took their sheep into the foothills to graze said it was impassable, that the only way up to the Ancient City of Peel Godred was through the valley – but the people of Peel Godred refused to sell their land to the S&MR to build up that way. They said that it was old land, full of ghosts and demons borne of heretics cursed to forever wander the earth in search of a salvation that never came. 

Neil wondered if the figure the men saw in the gorge was one of these ghosts. From the way he acted, he could have been a demon. The fire that broke out and burnt the supports to ash and brought an entire pillar crumbling down was testament to that. 

Still, the S&MR refused to back down from this folly. They continued trying to stretch their viaduct across the gorge, even as the bills rose ever higher. Tools continued to go missing, dynamite exploded and damaged the blocks, trucks moved on their own, derailing and falling into the gorge.

And then, it happened.

Neil remembered being there, that silent night. He’s been ordered up to the construction site to drop off a line of trucks, to replace the ones filled with waste that had derailed and blocked half the line the night before. As he approached, he noticed a thick column of smoke blast up into the night sky.

“There’s a train coming on the other side,” his driver noted. “But the W&S said they weren’t going to run beyond Maron,” Neil replied slowly, peering into the darkness.

An engine rounded the bend, face white as a sheet and eyes wide with horror. Fire was bursting out on all sides, and on the footplate stood a man in clothing from nearly a millennia prior, cackling with glee as the engine roared towards the gorge. The poor engine looked as though he was on a one-way trip to the underworld, and he screamed and pleaded in horror; the man in his cab refused to respond. 

Neil could only shut his eyes and try to block out the explosion that came from the engine’s boiler rupturing and crumpling on impact. An entire section of the bridge shattered, crumpling in on itself and burying the destroyed engine. 

They finally stopped trying to build the bridge after that. The costs had grown too steep, and both the S&MR and the W&S could not afford to go near it. The rails were ripped up, and the remains of the structure were left to fade away. The two companies met similar fates: The W&S was merged with the TK&ER and bored a tunnel to Tidmouth, while the S&MR declared bankruptcy, and sold off all its assets. Both companies were decimated by the events of the construction of the Maron Viaduct, leaving little but their histories and their rail lines behind them…

At least, until the admiralty bought the three railways in 1915 and began construction once more. But before they could, they unearthed a skeleton nestled in the river at the base of the gorge, preserved in the sediment built up by the rushing water. He wore the tattered remains of what may have been a Viking and looked as if he had been attempting to crawl out of the water when he succumbed to his fate.

They moved his remains to a parish at Wellsworth; and performed several rites over the bridge before beginning construction once more. Neil stayed well away – he knew it wasn’t safe.

Today, the Maron Viaduct stands tall and proud over the gorge; and inscribed in its pillars is a single name, written in runes no man can read. No one knows how they got there, nor does anyone know what they say. But it’s said, if you touch the viaduct at the very moment the sun dips below the horizon, you will meet a ghost, who will impart on you your fate.

Neil refuses to go near the viaduct and discover if the legend is true. 

And it's a good thing he does... 

Back to the Master Post

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Furness Passenger Engines 3/5: The 2-4-0s

The Furness Series: FR Overview 1844-1896 * FR Overview II 1896-1923 * Lady Evelyn and Lady Morya * The Bury 0-4-0s (Copper-Nobs) * The 2-2-2 Well Tanks (Singles) * This is a very amateur attempt—just me writing up my messy research notes and sharing them with my peers—meant as a primer for creative types and not to be cited in other write-ups—corrections welcome.

The Furness main line grew hugely over the course of the 1860s—of note was expansion upwards to Whitehaven (with running powers to Workington) and the double-tracking of the entire line from Barrow south to Carnforth. Traffic increased and train weights increased accordingly. 

Under these conditions, the 2-2-2Ts were unable to keep time. Relief came in the form of a pair of Sharp & Stewart 2-4-0s in 1870: 16 x 20 in cylinders, 120 psi, 5 ft 6 in drivers. This pair took over numbers 1 and 2 from the original pair of Copper-Nobs, and so in F.R. parlance the newcomers were designated the 1 class—until 1913, when these same two engines were placed on the spares list and the class designation passed to Pettigrew's last and most powerful series of goods engines.

source * another source * another

Another pair, 47 and 48, appeared the following year (they pinched numbers from our old friends 'Oberon' and 'Titania', who had been sold the year before). The four engines were found satisfactory and 13 more were ordered, beginning to arrive in 1872. These 17 engines would run main line passenger trains for over two decades, with two more added to their number in 1882.

This final '82 pair shared a diagram with the rest of their class, but they were distinct from the others in appearance (less pretty imho). In fact there were are small technical differences throughout this class generally, relating particularly to frames, splashers, cabs, position of the toolbox, and the layout of the braking gear. Some had flush fireboxes and boilers; others didn't. (As usual, if you want more detail, I am the last person to ask. But I supplied pictures!) These differences are down to Sharp's alteration to the design as well as casual variations in maintenance... Mason being trained up before 'standardisation' was really a thing. This diversity was all even before some received their famous rebuild—of which more below.

Not a great deal of information is readily available on their work during this time. W. Gradon estimates that the 2-4-0s in the late '70s would average 40 mph on nonstop services. The 'Furness 150' makes note of some smart timings in the 1881 schedules, particularly the up Midland boat train of 45 minutes from Barrow to Carnforth, "with stops including." SteamIndex (whose source appears to be Rush?) states, almost with a tone of defensiveness: "... [T}hough small by modern standards they could achieve any amount of hard work. A number of exactly similar engines ran the passenger services of the Cambrian Railways, over a much more difficult terrain than the Furness, well into the present [20th] century."

I am sure they were sound machines on the whole, but I will note that the four engines in the 1873 batch appear to have been less than satisfactory: they were scrapped and/or put on the spares list relatively early, in 1907. In contrast their four older classmates were not so treated; furthermore, some of the other unconverted 2-4-0s lasted nearly until Grouping. These four "black sheep" were numbers 5, 6, 11, and 12. (12 not being a wildly lucky number for Furness engines, it seems.)

Although there is not a great deal of info about the 2-4-0s themselves, their main line tenure saw a good many changes in the railway's passenger service. Starting around the mid-60s, the F.R. had finally caved to reality and began accepting that they would actually have to meet demand for passenger service—not out of the goodness of their hearts, of course, but they wanted to promote industry in the area and (exaggerated sigh) such a boom meant tolerating a whole lot of those "labourers" and their families, who needed to be carted around, if only so that they could report to work. (Another exaggerated sigh.) Thus over the course of the next 15 years they would double the number of their first- and second-class coaches, while increasing their third-class capacity by SIX HUNDRED PERCENT.

Probably in an attempt to maintain class distinctions during these trying times, the first-class, second-class, and composite carriages received a new cream and crimson lake livery, pretty much resembling latter-day L.N.W.R. coaches. Except, of course, these were all four-wheeled. And unpanelled. But third-class carriages retained their old red paint (same paint as the locomotives) or unpainted varnish.

Unsurprisingly, when the F.R. in the '60s began to run services in tandem with the Midland, the M.R. pointedly insisted on supplying their own coaches.

The F.R.'s service did see significant improvements and changes during the 2-4-0s' lives but before detailing it I vote we all enjoy this fabulous rant from 1874 as a graphic picture of how bad passenger service was when first they arrived:

"A glance at the  timetables shows that it is almost impossible to reach some of the most  beautiful places on Morecambe Bay in anything like reasonable time, and  the accommodation at Carnforth, when the delay takes place, is most  miserable. On the Furness side of the line there are two seats for about  200 passengers, one waiting room, and one refreshment room, which is  frequently so crammed that many people cannot get to the counter. Added  to this inconvenience, travellers who have to wait here are oppressed  with a sense of the general dirtiness of the station. The trains also  run at inconvenient times, and the waiting for them at Carnforth  involves great loss of valuable time. There is no train that takes  passengers from Lancaster to Silverdale under forty-five minutes, a  distance of ten miles! The slowest train being an hour and thirty-five  minutes. These are the advertised times, but the trains are not  infrequently late, consequently a good walker might almost accomplish  the journey on foot in the time. [55]

Carnforth. Carnforth! If that's the state of one of their biggest stations, one may ask, dare we imagine the state of the many smaller ones? Well, long story short: It was bad. I can't find it now, but there's an adorable letter extant written by passengers to the company to complain of the lack of accommodation at one such, where during storms waiting passengers were regularly welcomed into the stationmaster's personal one-room house (office, bedroom, and kitchen inclusive) as the only shelter available. The writers try to make it very clear that the point of their letter is to criticize the directors for the appalling state of their railway and not to have any blame fall upon the "very kind" stationmaster for any regulations he may have broken in his desire to render assistance. (I hope that message was received.)

And so, heading into the new decade, the directors reluctantly opened their wallets to pour some money into... station upgrades. Well, one station upgrade. Barrow Central station was built in 1882. The "old station" had not been on the main line, which made sense due to how out-of-the-way it was but was also bonkers because Barrow was the heart of the system. The "new station" allowed for more services that stopped at Barrow (which also soon adopted a steam tram service that could meet passengers who needed to go further into the city). The new station also allowed for through workings, which must have certainly lead to radical revisions and tightening of the timetables. Meanwhile the "old station" at the Strand was kept in use as a goods station.

Pretty great stuff! And now they were ready to turn their attention to erecting some shelter at other stations...? Haha, of course not. Instead the F.R. began upgrading carriages. Yes, because that was the passengers' first concern.

Claye's, a carriage-maker, had sent up shop in Barrow but the F.R. had studiously ignored their presence for some while. Finally, perhaps envious of the beautiful vehicles Claye's was observed shipping out to other railways, in 1880 the F.R. board broke down and ordered composites, nearly identical to the ones that Claye's had recently sent to North British Railway. While also four-wheeled (the last four-wheeled carriages the F.R. would ever acquire), they were also a luxurious 37 feet long (all that footspace! omg!), painted in a handsome new brown livery with gold and red accents, and their appearance at the stations caused a sensation throughout the district. (Hey, it may not be as good as trains that ran on time and stations that didn't make you want to start humming the blues. But it was certainly something.) Thereafter the F.R. continued to apply to Claye's for their coaching needs, as soon as the following year deciding to splurge on tri-composites and third-class stock—39 and 40 ft long, respectively (insane!), six-wheeled, with the "Scottish" style of panelled body. The year following that, they finished upgrading their best trains with the purchase of new luggage vans.

This stately brown livery was also applied to the rest of their carriages for the next two decades. (This livery may not sound very appealing—and certainly Aslett and Pettigrew found it too sombre for their later tourism blitz—but it was likely pleasing enough, especially to rich tastes of the Better Sort of People: pairing nicely with the red engines, and distinguishing their trains from the two-tone coaches of the L.N.W.R. and the M.R. That last point was probably of great importance. When Aslett and Pettigrew sought something flashier and of more democratic appeal, they still made it a point to stand out from their two greatest rivals—errr, business partners.)

Another note on the changes in passenger trains under the 2-4-0s: In 1884, the F.R. after some trials selected Smith's Automatic Vacuum brake and fitted it to all its recently-purchased carriages. At this point the F.R. still ran coaches from the founding days of the line in '46, but it was soon found that the oldest carriages could not sustain the forces of the new vacuum brakes and so these began to be gradually scrapped and replaced with new composites. (The passage of the Regulation of Railways Act in response to the Armagh rail disaster accelerated the F.R.'s timeline for applying automatic brake to all of its stock. The F.R. appears to have been a little further along than some contemporary railways, but the government's intervention proved essential in getting nearly all the railways to fully implement this essential safety feature—which the Board of Trade had been recommending, nay begging, them to adopt since 1840!) A final innovation in the railway's passenger carriages came in '88, with the purchase of four slip carriages for main line use.

So, the oft-overlooked 2-4-0s had a lively and changeful main line career... albeit it was punctuated at times by severe economic "busts" in the district. This always resulted in the slashing of railway timetables and probably idleness among engines as well as locals until such time as trade recovered.

It was probably due to such a decline in traffic that in 1891 Locomotive Superintendent Mason oversaw (in-house! not sending them back to Sharp's—but actually doing the work himself! *slightly sarcastic clap*) the rebuild of seven 2-4-0s into tank engines to serve the hilly branch lines. These chosen seven received bunkers, radial axles, and 1000-gallon sidetanks, and thus equipped were sent out to relieve the by-now very worn-out 2-2-2Ts. (This move is normally attributed to the purchase of the Seagulls in 1890s, but I daresay that was not the primary factor, given that the new 4-4-0s were scarcely much bigger or stronger than the engines they replaced, and four of them could not have equaled the work of seven 'Pre-Gulls' sent out to branch. Conclusion: the main line was not seeing the same amount of work it had been formerly. So, despite my lack of expertise, I gotta point emphatically to the 1890 trade depression as the probable cause for the creative "re-use" of these main line engines.)

source 1 * source 2 - the Rush notations, incidentally, are E1 (2-4-0s) and J1 ( new 2-4-2Ts)

It's pretty adorable how the seven rebuilt 2-4-2Ts are such an event in F.R. history. Everyone loves these guys. This fondness seems to go all the way back to 1891; I reckon the Barrow workshops must have been extremely proud of themselves (remember, they didn't build engines of their own—so this was as close as they ever came). This is, of course, also where Christopher Awdry got the basis of his character Albert the (Second) Flashback Engine, who is seen only in his rebuilt guise. His book Thomas and Victoria also subtly clears up a common misconception about the 2-4-2Ts' work in making Albert a sort of Victorian Thomas: As in, he runs his line almost single-handedly and although tourists like to visit it is not a summer-only affair. Upon hearing that Victoria's tale is set in winter, Edward observes "I don't suppose you had many passengers off the steamer then" only for Victoria to laugh "You'd be surprised!" and observe (not in so many words) that hellllloooo, we had locals you know. who lived there. it wasn't just a tourist spot! Which is correct. (Will the accuracy make me stop complaining about Albert's character any time soon? Nah, pro'lly not.) During the tourist season the "Alberts" who took care of Lakeside and Coniston year-round would in fact have to be helped by other engines; this probably included their sisters who were still in tender form. (Three decades later, during Grouping, at least one Larger Seagull was caught on camera with a make-shift tender cab jerry-rigged to allow for backwards running on these same branch lines. During Grouping! So it's likely something the local railwaymen had been doing for a while before the L.M.S.)

Here are a few other things that are overlooked or misunderstood about this class in its latter years:

The rebuilt sidetanks did not only run the Lakeside branch, but also local passenger services in places like Morecambe, Kendal, and even the notorious Joint Lines.

Four of the remaining engines were also rebuilt (though not into tank engines) throughout the 1890s. These four included the first pair from 1870 as well as the last pair from 1882. Unsurprisingly, the last pair, relatively young and now fitted with new steel boilers, survived well past 1920.

There is hardly any information about what the 1 class members who remained in their tender engine form did for the rest of their career. They are so overshadowed by their new tank engine sisters! But 12 of them remained. Presumably, of course, they simply ran the slower and less important main line services till the end, but I do wonder very much if any of them ever saw branch line work or whether they "branched" out in other ways by doing odd jobs. Even in tourism boom, a dozen 2-4-0s in addition to the sixteen 4-4-0s seem rather a lot. Mind, the F.R. did scrap two of the '73 engines and put the other two on the duplicates list in 1907, so that certainly trimmed the herd.

Their rebuild is often described as giving the 7 new tank engines "a new lease on life." This might be true in the sense of quality of life?—again, hard to tell given the lack of indication about the un-rebuilt engines' latter-day duties—but I'm not so sure it made a significant contribution to their longevity. At Grouping in 1923, three engines of this class survived—two tank and at least one tender (maybe two tender—there is some confusion about when exactly 45A was last seen in service).

Building on the previous point, Pettigrew had every intention of scrapping most or all of the 2-4-2Ts with six new engines of his own design. The rebuilt tanks only got a reprieve due to war, as when Pettigrew's engines began to arrive in 1915 the local population was in boom and the new engines were immediately put to work on the newly heavy and frequent workmen's services in and out of Barrow. As soon as the war was over, these engines were moved to the branch lines for which they had been built and the old 2-4-2Ts began to be scrapped. The two that survived till Grouping do not appear to have been reassigned and were kept on as spare engines; the L.M.S. promptly scrapped them without applying their new numbers. In other words, without WWI, Pettigrew would have certainly disposed of most 2-4-2Ts before the 2-4-0s, and even with WWI the difference in their average lifespans is not all that noteworthy.

So there you have it! These 19 locomotives at one point comprised the third-most numerous class on the F.R.—but what a hodgepodge they became! The nonstandard state of maintenance over the years, their much-younger final classmates with their fancy cabs in '82, the various rebuilds in the '90s (only some of which resulted in 2-4-2Ts)... this was a class of individualists who all struck out in myriad ways over the years.

Thanks to the change in CMEs, this class of engines did not get as much rebuilding and therefore as long a working life as earlier classes did, nor did they rule the roost during the glamorous days after Aslett's arrival, nor did they survive well into Grouping in order that their doings would be better documented. Therefore they often get just plain screwed in accounts and memories of the F.R., and I hope this write-up pushes back on that and gives them more attention.

[feigeroman]

Thomas Headcanons: Oliver

Oliver spent much of his GWR career working on a branch line somewhere in deepest Devon (nobody knows quite where, but he once described it as decidedly typical). He only ever worked on passenger trains - specifically autocoaches - with the branch lines goods traffic being handled by other engines. Oliver’s shed on this line was located adjacent to the siding where brake vans were usually stored, and it was because of this that he made friends with Toad, at some point towards the end of the War.

Shortly after Nationalization, Oliver was reallocated to Weymouth, so that he could run autotrains along the branch line to nearby Abbotsbury. To handle this service, he was given a brand-new autocoach by the name of Isabel. Unfortunately, the autotrains only ran to Abbotsbury for a few more years, as road services improved to the point where buses could provide the same service just as easily. Despite local opposition, the branch line was closed to passengers in December 1952.

Fortunately, the line itself remained open, albeit as a freight-only operation. As a result, Oliver was retained to run what little was left of the goods timetable - most of this traffic had gone to the roads as well. These trains were always very short and light, and the trucks gave Oliver little trouble - perhaps this may have slightly warped his ideas of how difficult trucks were to manage.

By a stroke of luck, Oliver was reunited with Toad after the line became freight-only, and their rapport together developed further from that which they’d had in Devon. Strangely, despite the ceasing of the passenger service, Isabel somehow managed to stick around, and the three of them became close friends.

In 1963, the Abbotsbury branch line lost its freight service, and was therefore earmarked to be closed altogether. Initially, Oliver took comfort in the fact that at least he, Isabel and Toad would simply be transferred to another line. However, the Beeching Axe quickly dashed their hopes, as all the lines they could have moved to were closed as well, and when they heard about BR’s efforts to get rid of its steam fleet, they began to fear for their lives...

Oliver’s crew were not exactly enamoured with the prospect of letting their engine be cut up, or left to rust in a scrapyard. The preservation movement was picking up speed at this time, and the idea was toyed with of selling Oliver to a heritage railway - however, that idea was shot down when they realized BR might not take kindly to them trying to sell one of their engines before they’d officially withdrawn it from service. The idea to escape to Sodor came quite by chance, as Oliver’s fireman suddenly remembered having visited the Eight Famous Engines exhibition in 1956. He knew the NWR had been fighting to keep its own steam engines from being scrapped, and he reckoned that if they could just get Oliver there somehow, he might have a chance of surviving.

The great escape took a great deal of planning, as a route was decided upon, and contingencies worked out in case any part of the plan went wrong. Oliver and his crew had to rely on help provided on the quiet, from sympathetic staff and engines. Their biggest success was arranging for the supposedly-accidental diversion of a goods train onto the Abbotsbury line - a train loaded with wood, coal and water for Oliver, and provisions for his crew. It wasn’t enough to get them all the way to Sodor, but every little helped.

Oliver’s escape actually began in early 1965, when he finally left Abbotsbury with Isabel and Toad in tow. Their journey was made in small stages: By night, they would travel as far as they could, passed from one section to another by friendly signalmen - with food or beer being offered as a bribe for less friendly signalmen to keep quiet. By day, they would be directed onto closed or lesser used lines, where they could hide out and rest before carrying on.

Both Oliver and his crew expected to take anything up to a year to reach Sodor, assuming they kept up their present pace. However, they ended up taking somewhat longer than that. At various points, they had to break their journey while the crew negotiated the liberation of coal and water for Oliver, and provisions for themselves. This became harder and harder to manage in secret, as during the time they were on the run, supplies began to dry up as more and more sheds began to get rid of their steam engines.

Worse was to come, when Control got to hear about this Mystery Train. By this time, Oliver had managed to reach the North-West of England, and it seems that in an ill-judged moment of sympathy, a signalman had shunted an overnight goods train to let the fugitives pass. The goods train was delayed as a result, and the incident was traced back to the signalman, who was forced to spill the beans.

Ironically, after spending several weeks hiding at the far end of an old quarry branch, Oliver happened to meet the goods train’s engine - an 8F by the name of Angie, who was not long for the cutter’s torch herself, and was therefore sympathetic to Oliver’s plight. She agreed to smuggle him as far as Barrow-In-Furness, where he would hopefully be able to get help from an NWR engine. The story from this point on is well-known, and needs no explanation.

Upon Oliver’s arrival on NWR metals, it was realized that he hadn’t been withdrawn at the time of his initial escape, and so was still technically in active BR service. By this technicality, his move to Sodor could be listed as an official transfer, as opposed to theft. When it was put like that, Oliver’s old controller agreed to say no more about it, and even offered to sell three more autocoaches to Sir Topham Hatt - these being Dulcie, Alice and Mirabel.

On the subject of the autocoaches, I like to think that Isabel & Dulcie were repainted into GWR brown and cream, while Alice & Mirabel were repained into BR crimson and cream. I just think that helps to differentiate them a bit.

As a token of thanks for rescuing them, Oliver agreed to let Toad become Douglas’ brake van. However, they later changed this agreement so that Toad would only work with Douglas if Oliver was already busy pulling coaches - if he was pulling trucks, then Oliver would get a shot of Toad instead.

As an example of this, my headcanon is that during the events of Busy Going Backwards, the trucks actually break away from Douglas, not Oliver. At the very least, it’s more plausible that Douglas would be out on the Main Line - presumably on a ballast train.

Speaking of Toad, here’s my headcanon about the events of Toad Stands By:

We never actually hear Toad’s plan in full, but I think what he was trying to do was restore Oliver’s confidence after his turntable accident. Obviously the best way for him to get over his fears would be for him to pull a line of trucks, and better still if they were the worst ones he could find - after all, if you can manage the worst of the bunch, then the rest should be a breeze!

There’s an implication that neither Oliver nor Toad expected S.C.Ruffey to get torn apart while trying to execute their plan, but once they saw how freaked out the trucks became as a result, they both realized, “Actually, this is way better than what we intended!“ Obviously neither of them mentioned this to the trucks, and to this day they still think pulling their ringleader to pieces was Toad’s plan all along.

[commaeleons]

Cabin Pressure - Episode 4 Douglas Is In Trouble

(Transcript under the cut; condolences to anyone on the mobile app :) )

Carolyn: What were you thinking?

Martin: Look, all we were–

Carolyn: Shut up, Martin. Douglas, what were you thinking?

Douglas: I just thought, since I had to work on my daughter’s birthday, it would be nice to do a little fly-past of her party on the way.

Carolyn: Barrow-in-Furness is not on the way to Paris. So first, you stole my aircraft–

Douglas: I wouldn’t call it stealing.

Carolyn: I paid you to fly 300 miles southwest. You flew it 200 miles northeast. What is that, if not stealing?

Douglas: Hijacking, at most.

Martin: Carolyn–

Carolyn: Shut up, Martin. But of course, you were just warming up! Because not only did you steal my aircraft, you then chose to mark your arrival at the children’s birthday party by dropping a bomb on it.

Douglas: The idea was perfectly sound!

Carolyn: The idea was terminally stupid! …Was it your idea, Martin?

Martin: No, it wasn’t! Oh, and I’m allowed to speak again, now, am I?

Carolyn: No, shut up.

Douglas: It was my idea. It occurred to me that if we filled the air brake cavity with boiled sweets, and then opened it just as we were flying over–

Carolyn: You could strafe your daughter’s birthday party.

Douglas: No, not strafe. We weren’t going anything like fast enough! We did check.

Martin: I did the calculations.

Douglas: And we were quite sure the sweets would flutter gently down to the excited children beneath. And so they would have done, if it hadn’t been rather a hot day. And the sweets, in the metal compartment, hadn’t melted a little. And then, up in the cold air, solidified again, into a… a…

Carolyn: A sugar brick.

Douglas: …Yes.

Carolyn: Which you dropped on your ex-wife’s house.

Douglas: Yes, but we were very lucky, really! We could have hit her conservatory, or her BMW.

Carolyn: Or a child!

Douglas: Now don’t exaggerate; all the children had run for safety long before it landed.

Carolyn: That is not as reassuring a sentence as you seem to think.

Douglas: I’m just saying, we couldn’t have hit a child! But I admit, we could have hit a car.

Carolyn: But you didn’t hit a car, did you? You hit a carp.

Douglas: …Yes.

Carolyn: Do you have any idea how much a koi carp costs?

Douglas: I do now, yes.

[garageservicebarrowco]

Comprehensive Vehicle Air Conditioning Services in Dalton

When it comes to maintaining the comfort and efficiency of your vehicle, a fully functional air conditioning system is crucial. At Servicing and MOTs Barrow, we specialize in Vehicle Air Conditioning Dalton services, ensuring that your car's air conditioning system is always in top-notch condition. Whether you're facing issues with cooling, strange noises, or unpleasant odors, our expert technicians are here to provide you with comprehensive solutions.

The Importance of Regular Air Conditioning Maintenance Regular maintenance of your vehicle's air conditioning system is essential for several reasons. Firstly, it ensures that the system is running efficiently, which can significantly reduce fuel consumption. A well-maintained AC system doesn't have to work as hard to cool your vehicle, which means less strain on the engine and better fuel efficiency. Secondly, regular servicing helps to identify and fix minor issues before they turn into major, costly repairs. This can include checking for leaks, topping up refrigerant levels, and ensuring that all components are working correctly. At Servicing and MOTs Barrow, our Vehicle Air Conditioning Dalton services include a thorough inspection of your AC system to ensure it is functioning optimally.

Common Air Conditioning Problems Several common issues can affect your vehicle's air conditioning system. Understanding these problems can help you identify when it's time to seek professional help. One of the most common problems is a refrigerant leak. This can significantly reduce the cooling capacity of your AC system and, if left unchecked, can lead to more severe issues. The compressor is the heart of your vehicle's air conditioning system. Problems with the compressor can result in the system not cooling properly or not working at all. Over time, the filters in your AC system can become clogged with dirt and debris. This not only reduces the system's efficiency but can also lead to unpleasant odors. Faulty wiring or blown fuses can cause your AC system to stop working. These issues can be challenging to diagnose and require professional attention.

Our Comprehensive Air Conditioning Services At Servicing and MOTs Barrow, we offer a range of services to keep your vehicle's air conditioning system in excellent condition. Our Vehicle Air Conditioning Dalton services include inspection and diagnostics, where our technicians perform a comprehensive inspection of your AC system, checking for leaks, compressor issues, and other potential problems. We will top up your refrigerant levels to ensure your system is cooling effectively. If any components of your AC system are faulty, we can repair or replace them as needed. We will clean your AC system, including filters and ducts, to ensure it is free from dirt and debris. After servicing, we will test your AC system to ensure it is working efficiently and effectively.

Why Choose Servicing and MOTs Barrow? Choosing the right service provider for your vehicle's air conditioning needs is crucial. Servicing and MOTs Barrow is the best choice for Vehicle Air Conditioning Dalton services for several reasons. Our team comprises highly skilled and experienced technicians who are well-versed in all aspects of vehicle air conditioning systems. We use the latest diagnostic and repair equipment to ensure that your AC system is serviced to the highest standards. From minor repairs to complete system overhauls, we offer a full range of air conditioning services to meet your needs. Our commitment to customer satisfaction means that we always go the extra mile to ensure your complete satisfaction with our services.

Conclusion A fully functional air conditioning system is vital for the comfort and efficiency of your vehicle. At Servicing and MOTs Barrow, we provide top-notch Vehicle Air Conditioning Dalton services to ensure your AC system is always in peak condition. Whether you need a simple refrigerant recharge or a complete system overhaul, our expert technicians are here to help. Contact us today to schedule your air conditioning service and experience the difference of professional, high-quality care for your vehicle.

[feigeroman]

Thomas OCs: Metin & Temel

Number: 30 (Metin) and 31 (Temel) Class: LMS Stanier 8F 2-8-0 (WD version) Built: 1943 Arrived on Sodor: 1947 Service (Shed): NWR Main Line (Barrow-In-Furness) Livery: NWR Goods Black

During the Second World War, the War Department once again required heavy freight engines to serve with British forces fighting overseas. They’d initially considered requisitioning engines from the civilian railway companies, like they’d done in the First World War, but then someone realized that perhaps depriving the companies of engines, just when they most needed them, might not be such a good idea. So the WD decided instead to select an existing class of engine, and have more built specifically for them. They eventually settled on the LMS’ 8F class of heavy freight engines, and these were constructed from December 1939 onwards.

In March 1940, just as the first 8Fs were being completed, the British government decided to send twenty-five members of the class to Turkey, for the following reasons:

They were in hot water with the Turkish government over a cancelled pre-war order for engines from the Turkish State Railways, and it was hoped that the 8Fs would serve as compensation.

Following the cancellation of this order, the Germans delivered batches of their own Kriegslokomotives, in order to improve relations with the then-neutral Turkey - which was embarrassing for the British, to say the least.

The Allies also wanted to get Turkey on-side, in order to establish supply lines through to the Middle East. The 8Fs were seen as a means of helping to improve the Turkish railway network in preparation for this eventuality.

These 8Fs were refitted according to specifications laid down by the Turkish State Railways, and shipped over in kit form from January 1941 onwards. Of the twenty-five engines initially ordered, however, only eighteen made it to Turkish shores - three were lost when the ship carrying them sank after a collision with another vessel in its convoy; four were lost when their ship was torpedoed off the coast of Sierra Leone. To compensate for the former loss, the War Department agreed to send an extra two engines, and these arrived in Turkey in 1943.

Metin and Temel, as they would eventually be known, were those last two engines dispatched to Turkey - and the last two 8Fs shipped overseas during the War in general. It was hoped that the 8Fs - reclassified as TCCD 45151 Class - would provide a welcome boost to the network’s freight capacity, but in the long term, the actual results were disappointing. They were woefully underpowered by Turkish standards, and were unable to work the long distances or steep gradients prevalent across the network. As such, they were restricted to shunting duties and local trip freights, and a constant shortage of motive power ensured their survival right up until the end of the 1980s - long after most of their British counterparts had gone for scrap!

So much for the Churchills, as Turkish railwaymen called them, but how did Metin and Temel end up on the NWR? Well, following reports of the 8Fs’ disappointing performance, the War Department made plans to repatriate the class and deploy them elsewhere. To test whether this could be done safely, the two engines were sent back to Britain on a ship heading along the proposed route. They got there in one piece, but by then the War’s end was in sight, and there was no pressing need to try and retrieve the rest of the class.

The end of the War also meant a huge swathe of ex-WD engines being sold off as government surplus, and the WD’s 8Fs were among those up for grabs. Metin and Temel were eventually sold to the NWR, arriving there in early-1947. Other than a handful of modifications to enable them to work on a British railway, they both retained many of their Turkish idiosyncracies - cowcatchers, brake reservoirs, cast number and ownership plates, and even the star-and-crescent emblems on their tenders.

Both Metin and Temel provided a welcome boost to the NWR’s freight capacity in the immediate post-war years, and even with the advent of larger, more powerful engines, they both remain a vital part of the fleet to this day, as they regularly ply their way up and down the Main Line.

Being machines built for war, there’s very little that Metin and Temel don’t know about handling trucks. They can easily subdue a whole line of trucks into behaving - and even preventing trouble for the next two or three engines that have to haul them! That’s the main thing they have in common, but personally, the two are quite different. Metin, for instance, is best described as being overconfident. His experience out in Turkey has given him a warped sense of his own capabilities, and he’ll frequently gnaw off considerably more than he can chew, with predictably disastrous consequences. Metin also has something of a drill sergeant about him, and he frequently boasts of his past heroics on the battlefield - even though he was only ever involved in the logistics side of things, not in actual combat. Temel, on the other hand, is much more aware of his limitations, and he appreciates that just because he made it to Turkey and back, doesn’t make him invincible. He’s a cautious sort, always taking care to only handle the work assigned to him - and possibly less, if he can help it. Temel’s much more of an officer-and-gentleman type, and though he has no more combat experience than Metin, he still has plenty of interesting stories to tell about the lesser-known aspects of wartime operations.

Trivia

I always felt that the TV producers missed a trick when it came to introducing international characters: instead of making them overseas prototypes, why not make them British prototypes that have worked overseas instead? That way, they could satisfy their diversity quota and avoid having to perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain how they end up on Sodor. This was how the idea for Metin and Temel came about.

Actually, they originally started off as two of the later Austerity 2-8-0s - known as Tarquin and Melvyn, respectively -  and beyond their involvement with the military, I was rather vague about their past history. I then discovered that the Stanier 8Fs had served overseas as well, and I decided to change the characters’ designs accordingly.

I originally had them as being two of the engines that were used by the Middle East Forces in Iran. This would have allowed them to at least see some combat action, and a handful were sent back to Britain after the War. However, I then discovered the above photo of one of the Turkish examples, and the aesthetic changes so appealed to me that I rewrote their backstory accordingly.

I simply picked their current names from a list of Turkish names, loosely based on their existing personalities. Metin means strong, while Temel means basic or fundamental.

[feigeroman]

Thomas OCs: Loretta (and a tiny bit about Harriet)

Number: 56 (ex-BR 77066) Class: BR Standard 3MT 2-6-0 Built: 1954 Arrived on Sodor: 1956 (purchased by NWR in 1966) Service (Shed): NWR Utility (Barrow-In-Furness) Livery: NWR Goods Black

Loretta is one of the NWR’s many utility engines, which means she can travel just about anywhere that’s short of an engine, and do just about any sort of job. Being based at Barrow-In-Furness sheds, she mainly works on the eastern side of Sodor, and so doesn’t often see some of our more famous heroes, who mainly work on the western side. Of course, Loretta still sees them sometimes, as she’s one of the primary engines responsible for bringing their supplies of coal from the Mainland.

Loretta can best be described as the Peppermint Patty of the railway, for better or worse. One the one hand, she’s a very commanding, strong-willed tomboy, and a true go-getter. On the other hand, this means she has a tendency to only hear what she wants to hear from others. Oftentimes, once Loretta gets an idea in her smokebox, she’ll ignore any counsel against it from other engines, and follow it through to its logical conclusion. Then when everything goes wrong - which it inevitably does - she’ll pin the blame on everyone who tried to warn her.

Whilst her stubborness and lack of common sense tends to put people off, Loretta does have one especially close friend, who couldn’t be more different from her: her brake van Harriet, who’s very much the Marcie of the pair - the quiet, put-upon subordinate who sees the truth even when it’s completely eluding her mistress. It’s usually Harriet who has to try (and usually fails) to bring Loretta back down to earth, and while they often get into fights as a result, they still think of themselves as two halves of a great team.

For all her faults, though, Loretta is genuinely a nice engine to know, and the other engines know that if nobody else can solve their problems, Loretta's the woman to see. Being based at Barrow, Loretta also keeps tabs on Mainland goings-on, and so is usually the first to hear of developments pertinent to her NWR colleagues.

Loretta’s reports predated her arrival on the NWR, as she spent much of her BR career at Barrow, and so was a regular visitor. She was one of the first engines to report the impending demise of steam, with her graphic accounts of activities on the scrap line striking fear into the hearts of the NWR engines. It’s likely that their initial anti-diesel prejudices were fuelled by Loretta’s tendency to make things sound worse than perhaps they actually were.

Almost immediately after her withdrawal by BR in 1966, Loretta was snapped up by Sir Topham Hatt, and due to her young age required nothing more than new paint and a new number before she could enter NWR service in August of that year. Her impact on the railway was nothing short of explosive, and though her sheer enthusiasm for the job unnerved a lot of her new workmates, they greatly admired her devotion to the cause - eventually!

Trivia

I’m a massive Peanuts fan, so that tends to influence a lot of my creative work in one way or another. Loretta is probably the most prominent example of this, because as you might have worked out, she’s so heavily inspired by Peppermint Patty that it’s almost ridiculous. From her personality, to her quirks - both good and bad - and even her relationship with Harriet is closely modelled on that between Peppermint Patty and Marcie.

I suspect this is why I made her a Standard - it only made sense for such a recently-built engine to have such a youthful spirit. I can’t remember why I specifically made her a 3MT, other than that it was a relatively obscure class, with none surviving into preservation.

Just to indicate how far this connection goes, Loretta is the only OC of mine for whom I have an exact date for when she entered NWR service - August 22nd 1966, which is the day that Peppermint Patty first made her debut in Peanuts.

In any case, this ended up playing into Harriet’s name as well. I’d already envisioned them as a sort of double-act, so I needed something that went with Loretta. To cut a long story short, I went with Harriet because in my head, Loretta & Harriet sounded phonetically similar to Laurel & Hardy, which was the sort of dynamic I was going for.

Just putting this here, because I wasn’t sure where to put it in the main feature: While NWR #1-8 were taking part in the Eight Famous Engines exhibition in 1956, a number of BR engines took over in their absence. I have a headcanon about which BR engine filled in for which NWR engine, and I have it that Loretta filled in for Henry.