#LBSCR

[lomotunes2008]

Hey it's Stepney's 149th birthday today :3

(irl Stepney of course)

[hazel-of-sodor]

Tonight's engine Seaford of the LBSCR! Originally built in 1859 under Craven, she would go on to be the first engine on the East London Line in 1869. Eventually replaced by Terriers, Stroudley would have her rebuilt in 1873 at Brighton with a new Cab and tanks. Withdrawn in 1879, she would be saved (in my AU) by the Denbigh and Wrexham Railway.

[weirdowithaquill]

How do the Brightoners of Sodor react when told about the completion of the Bluebell’s H2 Alantic Replica?

Beachy Head!

Now, by Brightoners, I assume you mean Thomas and Salty (maybe Rosie, if we stretch it, but no Neville, cause he just doesn't have enough to work with). I mean, they are the only engines who really come from that region (BWBA does not exist, so no one mention Rebecca...).

Now, we'll begin of course with Thomas - the only RWS Southern Railway engine who lives on Sodor, and thus the only engine who really fits into the question. And his reaction is surprisingly muted. Thomas didn't spend a lot, if any, time on the LBSCR. He was built and shipped to Sodor within the span of a year, if not within a couple weeks. This was during the middle of WWI, after all, and Sodor needed engines that the Admiralty had to provide - fast. Thomas is spirited away north at speed, and so he never really identifies with the LBSCR. He's as happy as any steam engine to hear an extinct class has returned, but it's muted by the fact that it feels... distant. Thomas is a NWR engine, and he just never really spent enough time on the LBSCR to develop any connections to the engines from the railway he was built on (see how he reacts to Stepney appearing).

Next - in build chronology - is Rosie. I'm including her simply because she's the only one of these engines who spent a decent amount of time around Brighton and Southampton. During the war, the H2's were either in storage or on other duties, and this brought them into contact with Rosie and the USATC S100s. Rosie admittedly probably doesn't have the fondest memories of the H2's, who were Pullman express engines who never had been demoted to dirty goods trains before the 1940s - and then after the war they all returned to boat trains! I sense a lot of snootiness from this class, and that wouldn't gel great with Rosie the 'war-built shunter who possibly saw front line service'. But Rosie did like them for what they were, and she was sad when the last one was scrapped. She's cautiously excited to meet Beachy Head, the caution being her worries about the new engine possibly having the same snootiness and entitlement their predecessors had.

Finally, we have Salty... who was built a good 4 years after the last of the H2's were scrapped - and ironically is the most excited to hear about the new engine being completed! Salty is a Class 07, which entered service from 1962 in Southampton alongside the remaining E2s, S100s and all the other engines of the Southern, and likely grew up on stories of the H2's and their abilities and glamour. It's not quite hero worship, but more a healthy admiration for these engines that everyone speaks highly of (which may be because they've been gone long enough for the less kind memories that Rosie has to fade).

In what may be an extremely ironic twist of fate, Salty is the most excited about Beachy Head, while Thomas is the least excited, with Rosie falling between them. And this comes about simply because of the experiences each had in relation to the original H2's - Thomas had next to nothing, Rosie has a very realist view of them and their faults and Salty has romanticized stories that encourage him to be excited.

(Neville would fall somewhere close to Rosie, while Rebecca... hmm... could be interesting. Another time, when I get around to actually addressing Rebecca in the series.)

[sparkarrestor]

E

[supertrainstationh]

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (UK) - LB&SCR Class B1 ("Gladstone") 0-4-2 steam locomotive Nr. 189 "Edward Blount" (Brighton Works, 1889) by Historical Railway Images Via Flickr: EXPRESS PASSENGER ENGINE - LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH COAST RAILWAY IN our notice of the locomotive engines at the Paris Exhibition, we referred to the fine express engine exhibited by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. Through the courtesy of Mr. W. Stroudley, the locomotive superintendent of the line, we are enabled this week to give an external elevation of the engine and its handsome tender. The engine has been named after Sir Edward Blount, one of the directors of the line. Illustration by John Swain for "The Engineer" from July 19, 1889

[lomotunes2008]

Sorry to burst Ur bubble but the E2s were kinda average at best

They weren't exactly bad but they weren't the best either lol

It makes me upset that the last E2 was scrapped in the 1960s. It means that Thomas can’t ever and will never exist as his true basis but rather as those fake engines for A Day Out With Thomas. We just need to hope a millionaire out there gets the blueprints and makes a real life E2 in Thomas’ livery.            

[theflyingkipper]

There are no LBSCR E2s left.

Would anyone remember them? Would they be another piece of forgotten machinery, with few photos and even less video footage? And in the universe we live in, they are so easily recognizable to foamers and outsiders directed to them- saying “That’s Thomas. He was real.”

Real and made real again in storybooks and TV shows and wooden toys and Bachmann models. Those 10 E2s, faulty lumbering engines with a wheelbase too big for tight turns and water tanks too small to be good enough for the short goods trains they were designed for… became the most famous tank engines in the world. Can you imagine if we still had them? If we still had one? Like wistful lovers of recently extinct animals, we write, we draw, we try to bring them back to life.

Inspired By

[lorainedoesthings]

Anyways, the Gresley family brainrot be hitting hard and now I have HOISNY related lore relating to Smoldon (Greendon) & smol Scotsman (feat. Great Northern).

This instead of thinking about the LBSCR lore & Thomas shenanigans.

Might work it into a HOISNY-based series of oneshots… Probably. Trust me the current thing I have is a wall of text that appeared to me in a dream and it works LMAO.

[the-time-lord-oracle]

850 Lord Nelson and 214 Gladstone. Since both locos are preserved in the National Collection, it would be great if they'd recreate this painting in real life.

[nelllia]

It's Thomas day!!!

[lomotunes2008]

Finally got Austin to run for the first time in years :D

[hazel-of-sodor]

Presenting the LBSCR B4! Including @mean-scarlet-deceiver's OC Linda!

[rungian]

Tornado work challenge [impossible]

[brightonterrier-blog]

Dodgy Designs & Dirt

The story of how a crew, beset with turmoil, overcame their locomotive's design flaws. It is written from the perspective of the fireman.

The matter of favourites on the Portethwaite line was a highly opinionated subject and could easily depend on the day.

But it can be agreed by all of the staff that The ‘Brigitte’ was the most polarizing.

When built by Anstis Works, she was designed with aesthetics first and practicality second. None could deny that she was a beautiful engine and passengers came to see her as an icon of the railway and the valley. But any crewman that worked with her on a rainy day saw past the dazzle and might start to resent her.

It mostly came down to her cab. She was built a few miles west of Brighton, and it clearly shows as her outline was influenced by the Stroudley appearance of a cab thinner than the tanks.

A necessity on the LBSCR due to the tunnels at Hastings, but nothing short of impractical on the narrow gauge, for a rainy day meant soggy sleeves for both men on the footplate.

Another abnormality of The 'Brigitte' was her lack of sanding gear, or any sanding pots to speak of. Both of her colleagues possessed sand pots, and No.2; The ‘Bowen Cooke’, even had a sanding mechanism.

Crews would bring with them a small container of sand; not too big or it would eat up precious space in the cab, not too little or they would run out before they got anywhere. If this failed them, the solution was always to use the bucket of sand kept in the guard’s van. It was meant for tackling fires and this practice would likely be frowned upon by Mr and Mrs Health and Safety of today.

However, I recall one trip where even this wasn’t enough.

It was mid-spring and we were now working to the summer timetable, but despite that it had been raining heavily for the last couple of days.

With sleeves rolled up and hats firmly secured around our heads, my driver and I were rostered to take The ‘Brigitte’, 4 coaches and half a dozen wagons to the lake. A load like this was never usually a problem, but we had the misfortune of needing to stop on the gradient at Rockfahm Halt.

We tried to restart but No.1 slipped and stalled and soon I was walking alongside the engine with our pot of sand, trying to throw it onto the railhead whilst avoiding having my hands cut off by the valve gear.

Eventually underway, we steamed into Hardbrooke at 10 minutes past the hour; only 5 minutes late but with the good fortune of the next 3 miles being downhill.

I spent those next few miles building up my fire. The proceeding 4 miles after Butary were the most punishing and we would need all the steam we could manage. Cautious not to slip, my driver slowly eased her out of Butary and we immediately climbed towards the lake. The gradients went from 1 in 77 to 1 in 50 throughout the journey in a sneaky and unceremonious way. 

It was one moment we were going fine along a ridge overlooking the river, the next moment the wheels had lost all grip and the train quickly dragged to a halt. Checking the pot, I found to my horror, we had used it all on the climb from Rockfahm halt to Hardbrooke.

Then I remembered, we still had the guard’s bucket of sand in the van. The ridge the train was on meant we could get out of the cab, but we couldn’t walk down the train. I signalled to the guard to bring the bucket to this end. Striding down the corridor through the carriages as far as he could, it was then we encountered our second problem: the first coach in the train was unlike the others. Instead of having balconies at either end and a corridor in between, it had separated compartments.

By now we already had the attention of the passengers, as they all popped their heads out of the windows. Thinking quickly, we employed them to pass the bucket between them from the guard to the engine.

We had to hurry, for as it got further up the coach, it got heavier with all the rain soaking into the sand.

That was when disaster struck; from one burly gentleman it passed to an older gentleman who couldn’t quite match. It dropped, slipped from his hand and tumbled down the ridge, scattering clumps of sand everywhere but the rails we needed it on.

In a moment of dumbfoundedness, my driver could do nothing but quip, “It’s a good thing the guard won’t be needing that sand for fires then.”

We tried to start the train again on our own, but it was no use. The heavy load threatened to pull us back and The ‘Brigitte’ wouldn’t grip.

In a last act of desperation, my driver told me to start digging a hole on his side. “Is now the time to start digging our graves?” I remarked.

“If we can’t use sand, we’ll use dirt. Dig up as much dry dirt as you can and throw it under the wheels.

I got busy frantically digging, and when I came across dry stuff, I threw it under the engine’s wheels. It worked well although at one point I slipped on the mud and only just caught myself. 

When you’ve experienced your head next to the whirling and untamed rods of an iron horse, you rather wish you had dug those graves ‘just in case’. Each time she lost her fitting, she lurched and swayed alongside me. It felt like I was a horse jockey and at any moment she would ride up on her trailing wheels and leep towards me. But my driver was a skilled man and steered her to grip the hill.

Leaping onto the footplate with a shovel looking like a space, I held my breath as she galloped up to speed and towards where the line levelled out.

Understandably none of the passengers bound for Ekend really minded that we’d blasted past the halt. It was either that or complain to the snorting beast pulling their train.

There was little time to shunt the wagons and get the train turned around. We refilled our sand pots from the station supply at Leakbeck, and I washed my shovel off under the water crane.

The train arrived back home behind schedule, but fortunately we could eat into our down-time before the next trip.

The rain continued for several days after that and we didn’t retrieve the guard’s bucket until a week later on our day off. Safe to say, the guard really wouldn’t have been putting out any fires with or without it.

(I know I don't post much here, but having a full on story is one worth posting)

Character art by @colloquial-kayak

[lorainedoesthings]

I feel like this would happen.

edit: i could bring edward into the mix and have him tell the gresley bros about thomas’s earliest sodor shenanigans XD

[the-time-lord-oracle]

Thomas and his real-life basis; an LBSCR E2 tank.