#London and South Western Railway

[hazel-of-sodor]

The Adam's Radial tank, aka Lady! I need to make more liveries for her.

[old-transport]

LMS (ex GSWR) loco No. 14116 c1925 by Frederick McLean Via Flickr: An old photograph of London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) engine No. 14116, with driver and fireman at an unknown station. The reverse has no information on, if you know who the photographer was please message me and I will credit them. This was a H. Smellie designed class 119 4-4-0 engine, built at the Kilmarnock Works, and new to the Glasgow and South Western Railway (GSWR) in Jun 1882 carrying number 119, changing to 119A in Jan 1910, then to 700 in Jun 1919. After grouping of the existing railway companies in 1923 into 'the big four', the GSWR became part of the LMS, in 1924 they renumbered it 14116. The locomotive was withdrawn from service in Dec 1931, then I assume was scrapped, although I could not find the date/place. If there are any errors in the above description please let me know. Thanks. 📷 Any photograph I post on Flickr is an original in my possession, nothing is ever copied/downloaded from another location. 📷 -------------------------------------------------

[charminglygrouped]

One of the major legacies of the British control of India was the planting of peoples of Indian origin all over the British Empire, including Britain itself. India was considered to be a reservoir of cheap labour. After African slavery was legally ended in 1833, ‘indentured’ labourers were recruited from India to work on plantations in Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, and Jamaica. This was slavery in a new guise: many laboured under conditions no less degrading than slavery. Thereafter wherever need arose, Indian labour was employed. Indians worked in the plantations and mines in Ceylon, Malaya, Burma, South Africa and Fiji. Indian labour provided the manpower to build the East African Railway. Indian sailors worked the British merchant navy. Indian soldiers not only helped to maintain the British Raj in India, but were used as cannon fodder overseas in colonial wars of conquest to extend its frontiers.

Indians were brought to Britain too. They did not come as ‘indentured’ labourers, but the principle of cheap labour applied here as well. Many Indian servants and ayahs (nannies or ladies’ maids) were brought over by British families returning from India. Indian sailors were employed by the East India Company to work on its ships. Some of these servants and sailors settled permanently in Britain.

One of the results of the policy of introducing western education in India was that, from about the middle of the nineteenth century, many Indian students began arriving in Britain, some on scholarships, to study law or medicine or to prepare for other professions. Some came to take the exami­nation for entry into the Indian civil service since this exami­nation could only be taken in London. Some Indian students settled in Britain after qualifying, to practise as doctors, lawyers or in other professions. Some Indian business firms opened branches in England. Nationalist politicians came to London, the centre of power, to argue the cause of Indian freedom. Indian princes and maharajahs visited England, not only as guests of the Crown on formal occasions, like the coronations, but also to pay their ‘respects’ to the monarch or for pleasure. London, as the metropolitan capital, attracted many visitors from India. Exhibitions of Indian arts and crafts were displayed in England too. The Asian presence in Britain therefore goes a long way back and forms a prelude to the post-independence migration of Asians to Britain.

— Rozina Visram, Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: Indians in Britain, 1700-1947 (London: 1986), pp. 9-10.

[greatwesternrailway]

I made Eras Tour bracelets of all the times Taylor Swift references trains in her songs. The colours are inspired by different trains and railway liveries. Excessive details under the cut:

"You know that my train could take you home" from Willow. Inspired by Great Western Railway's Intercity Express Trains. It's the train I catch most often, it's my train!

"I knew you, stepping on the last train" from Cardigan. Inspired by the subway cars in New York City, which I think of as having blue seats but it seems yellow/orange is just as (or more?) common. Idk I've never been to New York, my whole knowledge of the subway comes from Broad City and pictures of dogs in Ikea bags.

"I jump from the train, I ride off alone" from The Archer. Inspired by ye olde American locomotives like the Union Pacific No. 119. This lyric evokes Wild West imagery for me and this type of engine is what my British brain thinks of as a "cowboy train".

"Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train" from The Last Great American Dynasty. Inspired by the steam locomotives used in the 1940s by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, which is what Rebekah Harkness would have rode up on. Sadly I couldn't find a good colour image of one, so I leaned into it and chose a greyscale colour palette. As it happens the engines were almost certainly black anyway so it's fine.

"Silence, the train runs off its tracks" from Sad Beautiful Tragic. Inspired by my boy Thomas the Tank Engine. There are a lot of derailments on the Island of Sodor, the Fat Controller should probably have been sacked.

"Northbound I got carried away, as you boarded your train south" from I Look in People's Windows. Inspired by the London Underground map. I didn't have any brown beads so the Bakerloo line has been reassigned orange.

"We wait for trains that just aren't coming" from New Romantics. Inspired by the British Rail Class 195 trains created for Arriva Rail North, the network so incompetent that even the Tories had to re-nationalise it. Those trains just weren't coming.

"You took the night train for a reason" from Champagne Problems. Inspired by the British Rail Mark 5 coaches used on the Caledonian Sleeper Service.

"Some trains you can't catch again, you've gotta leave it as it was" from Tim McGraw - Acoustic Demo. This is a deep cut that I expect even a lot of Swifties wouldn't necessarily know, but I've always loved this lyric. It totally recontextualises the song and ironically is a much more adult sentiment than the lyrics of the final recording. Inspired by the livery of Anglia Railways, which are the trains of my childhood. Anglia Railways has been sold and rebranded several times since then, so they are quite literally the trains I can't catch again.

I imagine that Taylor Swift has not been on a train in many years, for obvious reasons. However I appreciate her continued use of train imagery in her songs and I hope she never ever stops :)

[thethirdromana]

Happy Train Fiend Day to all who celebrate!

Let's have some sexy Victorian trains, all photos and descriptions courtesy of the National Railway Museum in York.

Steam locomotive and tender, London & North Western Railway, 2-4-0 No 790 "Hardwicke", designed by F.W.Webb, built at Crewe in 1873, withdrawn 1932. (source)

Steam locomotive, London & South Western Railway, 2-4-0WT No 298, 'Beattie Well Tank', designed by W.G. Beattie, built in 1874, withdrawn in 1962. Renumbered 30587 by British Railways. (source)

Steam locomotive, London & South Western Railway, M7 class 0-4-4T No 245, designed by Dugald Drummond, built at Nine Elms in 1897, withdrawn in 1962. (source)

If we take a 1897 setting for Dracula, then this would be the kind of brand new train that Mina would get very excited about.

Steam locomotive and tender, No 3, 'Coppernob', 0-4-0, for Furness Railway, designed by E Bury, built by Bury, Curtis and Kennedy in 1846, withdrawn in 1900. (source)

Steam locomotive and tender, London & North Western Railway, 2-2-2 No 3020 "Cornwall", designed by Trevithick, built at Crewe in 1847, withdrawn in 1927 and components. (source)

Steam locomotive and tender, London Brighton & South Coast Railway, 0-4-2 No 214, "Gladstone", designed by William Stroudley, built at Brighton in 1882, withdrawn 1927. (source)

Steam locomotive and tender, Great Northern Railway, 4-2-2 No 1, designed by Patrick Stirling, built at Doncaster in 1870, withdrawn in 1907. (source)

[myemuisemo]

"Modern Belgian masters" distracted me at the beginning of chapter V of The Hound of the Baskervilles in the most recent Letters from Watson. Doyle's offhand references to literature, pop culture, and politics usually have some substance behind them, and "modern Belgian masters" did not disappoint.

Belgium was a hotbed of artistic controversy! In 1876, a group of "rebellious" artists can formed what became L'Essor as a counterpoint to conservative art institutions. In 1883, L'Essor refused to exhibit James Ensor's De oestereetster on grounds that the painting was too risque (since oysters were considered an aphrodisiac, as well as resembling certain female parts). Rebels against L'Essor formed Les XX, which held its own exhibitions featuring more avant-garde artists, including Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Seurat.

Since Watson refers to Holmes having "the crudest ideas" about art, I'm guessing Holmes sided with Les XX on using experimental styles and unusual subjects to provoke (and to make political points). Whether the conversation included Ensor's etching Le pisseur, which shows Ensor urinating on a wall of graffiti that declares "Ensor es fou" (Ensor is crazy)... we can only hope.

This is just the beginning of a chapter that contains a lot of sly humor. For instance, when Holmes social-engineers information out of the desk clerk, the guests he asks about are a coal-merchant from Newcastle (so known for its coal that the phrase "like taking coals to Newscastle" meant taking a thing to a place where everyone already has plenty) and a very old lady named Mrs. Oldmore.

Sir Henry Baskerville establishes himself as rough-edged, choleric, and unaware of social nuance by yelling at the German waiter. Being rude to any staff would have been seen as ungentlemanly at the time (as now). There's more to it, though. Germans were the largest immigrant group in London in 1889, and their tradition of professional training made them highly in demand as waiters (source).

And then there's the man with the black beard, who has the wit and gall to tell the cab driver that he's Sherlock Holmes. It seems that there have not been sketches of Holmes in any press! Is he the same man with a black beard as butler Barrymore?

The telegram experiment seems to indicate not, but I'm not sure how probative it is.

The bearded man in the cab had his cab driver make haste to Waterloo Station, which served the London & Southwestern Railway. The L&SR took a northern route around Dartmoor, stopping at Exeter and Plymouth.

Watson and Sir Henry will be leaving from Paddington Station, which served the Great Western Railway. GWR takes the southern route along the Devon coast.

When I look at modern railroad schedules, a trip from London to somewhere around Dartmoor takes about 3.5 hours. Is that within the time frame of Sir Henry and Mortimer walking back to the Northumberland, the wait for Holmes and Dr. Watson to arrive for lunch, the luncheon itself, and finally the rigamarole of sending the telegram? It feels to me like it could be -- and also, when I was looking up old schedules for the short story with the missing train, it seems that sometimes Victorian lines ran faster than modern ones.

How common even were black beards? In latter half of the 19th century, beards were fashionable, though not universal. Dr. Alun Withey's discussion of 19th century beard styles shows an ad for false beards. The style at far right looks about right.

It's possible that someone is framing -- or just confusing the issue by imitating -- the butler Barrymore.

We are assured again that Rodger Baskerville died unmarried, which is starting to strike me as "protesteth too much."

Rodger is the one who went to make his fortune in South America. The largest silver deposits were in Bolivia and Peru, and Agatha Christie's Hastings goes to Argentina, so those are the countries where I started on looking for when civil registration of marriages and births started. The answers are 1940 in Bolivia, 1886 in Peru, and 1886 in Argentina. Peru did not start registering deaths until 1889. Before that time, proving a marriage or a birth meant going to the parish church records.

So the Baskerville family solicitor could not simply send a telegram to a government agency in the capital of Bolivia, nor hire a clerk at a Bolivian law office in the capital city to go check. Someone would have to identify the parish where Rodger would have married, produced an heir, or died -- which might be three different places. And then someone has to see about looking through a handwritten register.

How sure are we really that Rodger is even dead?

Since Holmes is so eager to send Watson along with Sir Henry, I assume he's counting on Watson's credulity to maximize the impact of planned shenanigans. Is this a story about a mysterious dog or a story about a grift?

[weirdowithaquill]

What are Sir Topham Hatt’s (and the engines) opinion on how privatization was handled? When I read about it, I always think how absurd it was to keep the track nationalized, but let other companies run the goods trains, then different run the passenger trains. It is a spaghetti mess. Sodor had the right idea to yoink the old Furness mainline.

Thank you for your ask! (and I'm really sorry for the long wait). This is actually going to be really fun to potentially answer, so let's see...

Officially, the NWR regards privatisation as: "an important milestone in Britain's railway history and the beginning of cooperation between the NWR and our partner railways throughout Great Britain." It's a very prim and proper way of saying "the only thing that changed was the name of the idiot company that keeps delaying our trains." In private however, reactions were very, very different.

For a few engines, it meant very little: Thomas in particular barely cared at all. "What'll change? Not my branchline, that's for sure!" he once snapped at Duck when the Western engine tried to goad him into ranting with him about privatisation. Duncan said something very similar to a visiting diesel, only his version was far too inappropriate to be put in writing. Ever.

In stark contrast, a lot of the engines had very loud opinions about the entire thing. Duck spent most of one night trying to tell anyone who would listen that it was "disgraceful, disgusting and despicable" that the GWR hadn't been reformed after privatisation. (Henry, James and Gordon had to be physically restrained by BoCo and Bear before they tore Duck a new funnel for stealing their catchphrases). Donald and Douglas both tried to convince the Fat Controller to send them to London to 'politely make a case for a fully independent Scottish network'... multiple times. They also managed to say such inappropriate things that Oliver had to double-head all of Douglas' trains for a month to act as a censor for his language!

Gordon decided to offer the press his own solution to the privatisation issue, which went something like this: "What we need, is four companies to look after trains in different parts of the country - like we used to." "Like the Big 4?" "Indeed!" "We can't do that, such a system is considered to be a monopoly, and the government won't allow it." "Alright then, how about this: we have one railway that runs in the North and the East... and down to London perhaps. Then we can also have one railway that runs in the Midlands, and in Scotland... and also down to London perhaps, so you have your competition. Then we could have a railway that is in the West, and one in the South-" "Like the Big 4?" "No! These companies would be completely different!" "Look, Gordon, the government has made it very clear that the Big 4 will not return." "Well then FUCK JOHN MAJOR AND ALL THE TORY PARTY! [...] There would be competition anyway, with the roads, don't those blithering idiots understand?! [...] If any of them took a train for once, they'd realise just how bloody stupid the whole thing is, the bunch of------" (About twenty minutes worth of ranting has been omitted, due to various constraints...)

It was no surprise to anyone that Gordon personally campaigned for the Labour Party in 1997.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Sir Stephen Hatt and his sister Bridget were frantically pouring over the old charters of the NWR, hoping to be able to keep the new companies off Sodor - and indeed they found they could, as a 1925 Government deal originally intended to keep the NWR independent of the LMS also (entirely by accident) meant that no private, standard-gauge railway company other than the NWR could operate on the Isle of Sodor. Sir Stephen happily shoved that document in parliament's face when they tried to privatise the NWR's various assets, and then got his deal for the Furness Line from a different parliament committee before anyone could cross-reference him. By the time anyone managed to question why exactly they were selling an entirely railway line to a man who had very loudly told them to 'shove off and leave my railway alone', Sir Stephen had already taken control.

Their opinion: "Why treat a railway like its an airline? Honestly, it'll just wind up causing more problems in the end. A railway is a public good - yes, it makes us a lot of money, but we still run it for the people of Sodor, not for - no, we don't know why they divided British Rail like that, it makes no sense to us either - please stop asking more questions before we can finish our thoughts."

Also, a small rather large side note - Britain's railway privatisation is a complex and very unique affair that really showcases how exactly not to privatise a railway network. For example: for around seven years, the railway infrastructure was owned by a private company called RailTrack... which was terrible at doing its job and caused a number of major railway accidents (See Hatfield, 2000; Southall, 1997; Ladbroke Grove, 1999) and then panicked after the Hatfield crash and basically shut the network down, leading to questions over its competence and the finally its re-nationalisation because - surprise surprise - a private company trying to produce profits really shouldn't be in charge of the safety of millions of people with almost no proper accountability. Worse yet, the monopolies that the Tories wanted to avoid by breaking up the system happened anyway - see EWS, which bought up almost all the freight franchises and created a monopoly, only to be bought by Deutsche Bahn, which created an even bigger monopoly as it also owned (at the time) Arriva (they sold Arriva in 2024). To worsen the spaghetti, the system was divided into three basic sections: the infrastructure (RailTrack), Train Operating Companies (who owned the trains) and Franchises (who ran the trains and hired staff). In other words: a ticket in the UK is so expensive because you are paying for: the train crew, renting the train, renting the track, renting the platforms and producing profits for shareholders.

Oh, and suddenly freight and passenger trains owned by different companies are all competing to have priority at every. single. signalbox. in the country.

Now, I am not an expert in fixing extremely broken railway systems, but even still, I feel like I could probably do better than this mess!

Thank you for reading!

[1863-project]

Happy Mallard Day!

Most people in my country will be celebrating tomorrow, July 4th. I’m a bit unusual for an American in that I’m always more excited for July 3rd, because a remarkable feat of engineering history happened that day in 1938 (in multiple senses of the word). Today I’m going to tell the story of a locomotive named for a duck.

(Image: 4468 Mallard, a streamlined 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive, sitting pretty in York, England, United Kingdom. She is painted bright blue with red wheel spokes.)

The story begins well before July 3rd, 1938, of course - mechanical engineer Sir Nigel Gresley was well established in his position as the CME of the London and North Eastern Railway by that date. In 1923, his most famous creation, a 4-6-2 Pacific A1 numbered 4472, took to the rails for the first time. Originally numbered 1472, within a year of running between London to Edinburgh she received her more familiar 4472 after the LNER finally settled on a company-wide numbering scheme - and the name she’d be best known under, Flying Scotsman. She became the company’s flagship locomotive and solidified Gresley’s ability to design Pacifics in the mind of the public.

Her most important contribution to what I’m about to get into the meat of here, though, occurred on November 30th, 1934. On that date, pulling a light testing train behind her, Flying Scotsman hit 100 mph, becoming the first locomotive to hit that speed whilst being officially measured. Other locomotives may have reached 100 mph before, most notably GWR 3700 City of Truro and NYC 999, but this was the first time the speed was officially recorded, and so Scotsman got her name into the record books.

Dating back to the 19th century, railroads in Great Britain competed against each other in what was known as the Race to the North, in which they actively attempted to outdo each other and get passengers from the south, usually London, up to various destinations in Scotland. Nobody ever actually said they were racing, of course, but in retrospect it was pretty obvious what was going on as the railroads introduced faster and faster services. By the 1930s, the railroads had been consolidated into four companies - the Big Four (the Great Western, the Southern, the London, Midland and Scottish, and the heroes of this story, the London and North Eastern). The LMS controlled the West Coast Main Line, and the LNER controlled the East Coast Main Line. (This is important.) In 1927, the LNER started running the named train Flying Scotsman non-stop from London to Edinburgh, utilizing corridor tenders to perform crew changes at speed without stopping. Not to be outdone, the LMS beat them to the punch, running non-stop services between London and Glasgow and London and Edinburgh on their own, and it was officially on. Although speeds were still within a reasonable range at this point, both railroads knew they needed to go faster, and Sir Nigel Gresley looked to Germany.

In Germany, a new streamlined service called the Flying Hamburger had been introduced. This was a diesel train set that ran between Hamburg and Berlin at remarkably high speeds - it had an average speed of 77 mph and could hit around 99-100 mph at its maximum. For regular service, this was impressive, and Gresley wondered if the same could be done using steam power. He knew streamlining was the key, but the LNER knew that the diesels in Germany didn’t have the same passenger capacity as their steam locomotives could pull in carriages, so he needed to get creative. He looked to Bugatti for inspiration; their racecars, in their resplendent blue, were but one thing the car company was working on - they were making streamlined railcars, as well. Gresley took note of their designs, and his new locomotives would eventually pay homage by being colored Bugatti blue.

(Image: a Bugatti Type 54 racecar, painted in a vivid blue.)

By the time Flying Scotsman hit 100 mph in 1934 and another Gresley Pacific locomotive, A3 2750 Papyrus, managed to hit a whopping 108 mph without streamlining, the LNER knew that Gresley was capable of the task, and they allowed him to design a streamlined locomotive. Gresley set to work making improvements to his A3 design, and the first four A4s were born.

(Image: an unidentified A4 Pacific locomotive.)

The A4s were fast, hitting 112 mph on the inaugural run of the Silver Jubilee service between London and Newcastle in 1935. Gresley, of course, was not satisfied - he knew he could still improve his design, and at any rate, his competition over at the LMS was going to be trying to catch him. He went back to the drawing board to make the A4s even better.

As this was going on, the LMS was indeed playing catchup, and they introduced their beautiful Coronation class locomotives, designed to pull the Coronation Scot starting in 1937. The first several of them were streamlined in gorgeous, bright casings, and they caused a stir, taking the British speed record back at 114 mph in an attempt by 6220 Coronation that ended with a sudden braking and a whole lot of kitchenware being flung every which way in the dining car. Engineer/driver T.J. Clark and fireman C. Lewis kept her under control, but the passengers were not amused, and speed records were shelved for the time being...until, once again, Germany entered the fray.

Back in 1936, a German locomotive, the DRG Class 05, set a land speed record for steam, hitting 124.5 mph. Gresley was aware of this and had it in the back of his mind as he improved his A4s. He experimented with giving some of them a Kylchap exhaust system, an innovation developed by French locomotive designer André Chapelon after the work of Finnish engineer Kyösti Kylälä. Chapelon’s work went woefully under-acknowledged, but Gresley paid attention and appreciated his work, and it would pay off. Wind tunnel tests proved a bit frustrating at first until a fortuitous accidental thumbprint helped to move the smoke up and over the locomotive instead of in the crew’s faces, and the stage was set.

4468 Mallard rolled off the line at Doncaster Works on March 3rd, 1938, her name derived from Gresley’s love of breeding waterfowl. Indeed, many of her sibling locomotives were also named for birds, like 4464 Bittern, 4467 Wild Swan, 4902 Seagull, and 4903 Peregrine, but the duck was about to steal the show. Mallard spent the next few months getting used to working and being broken in so she wasn’t brand new, and on the day she turned four months old, it was time to make history.

Mallard’s driver that day was a 61-year-old grandfather named Joe Duddington. As a locomotive engineer, he was experienced and knew how to take calculated risks, and so he’d been assigned to pilot her. With him on the footplate was fireman Tommy Bray and his massive tattooed arms, ready to keep Mallard fed as they drove into the history books. They were performing a “brake test” that day, or so the LNER told most people, passengers included, but Joe and Tommy knew what was actually going on. In the cab with them was an LNER official, Inspector Jenkins, and attached to the train behind the tender was a dynamometer car, there to record Mallard’s speed throughout her run. Since this was an alleged “brake test” the dynamometer car didn’t raise any eyebrows right away. Gresley himself unfortunately wasn’t in the best health that day and was unable to be present himself, but there were enough LNER officials on hand to see to it that everything ran smoothly. Mallard was fitted with a stink bomb of sorts of aniseed in case the big end bearing for the middle of her three cylinders overheated, as the A4s had previously had difficulty with this, and she set out heading northwards. The return trip was where everything was going to get serious.

Upon turning around to return south to King’s Cross, passengers were finally informed of what was going to happen and were given the opportunity to disembark and take another train if they were worried, especially given what had happened during the LMS record attempt a year prior. Everyone agreed to stay on board. Joe Duddington turned his hat backwards, a reference to George Formby’s character in the film No Limit, and opened the throttle.

Mallard slid back onto the main line, headed towards Grantham, where the speed-up was to begin. Unfortunately, work on the track limited her to only 15 mph at this stage, and Joe Duddington got her through the Grantham station at only 24 mph instead of the 60-70 mph she should have been at. Nevertheless, she began to build up more and more speed as she climbed up Stoke Bank, and Duddington had her at a solid 85 mph at the summit.

“Once over the top, I gave Mallard her head, and she just jumped to it like a live thing,” Duddington recounted later in an interview. Her speed rapidly increased, and she was soon hitting 110 mph, at which point he told her, “Go on, old girl, we can do better than this!” Mallard responded, and by the time she was flying through a village called Little Bytham, a blur of blue paint and pumping rods and flying ash, she had well exceeded the LMS record and was even with the German DRG Class 05. The needle in the dynamometer car tipped up higher and higher and surpassed the Class 05 by slipping up to 125 mph...then, for about a quarter of a mile, reached even higher, at 126 mph. She’d done it.

Mallard had to slow down soon after because of a junction, but Joe Duddington and Tommy Bray were sure she could have gone faster had they not had to slow for construction - they believed she was capable of 130. The big end bearing did overheat, and Mallard was detached from the train at Peterborough and brought back to Doncaster to be fixed up, but not before one of the most famous photos in railroad history was taken:

(Image: the crew poses in front of Mallard, a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive numbered 4468, immediately after setting the speed record. L-R: Tommy Bray [fireman], Joe Duddington [driver/engineer], Inspector Jenkins, Henry Croucher [guard/conductor]. Joe Duddington has turned his hat around to face the correct way again after having it on backwards during the record run. Photo credit: National Railway Museum.)

Joe Duddington actually stayed on a bit past his retirement age to help free up soldiers for the war effort. When he finally retired, on his final day of work, he drove Mallard one last time.

Sir Nigel Gresley himself never accepted the brief stint at 126 mph, instead saying his locomotive set the speed record at 125 mph. But history has accepted the 126 mph as the true top speed, given that Mallard was possibly capable of even more, and today she has plaques on her streamlined cladding to commemorate her feat. A second record attempt was planned to see if she could go even faster, but World War II broke out and the idea was scrapped.

Tommy Bray eventually got on the throttle himself, fulfilling his own dreams. Both men are honored in a cemetery in Doncaster with a new memorial headstone for Duddington featuring Mallard on it.

As for Mallard herself, she continued working until April 25th, 1963, at which point she’d clocked nearly a million and a half miles in service. She was pulled for preservation for obvious reasons, and today she lives at the National Railway Museum in York, along with her dynamometer car that recorded her history-setting run. Five of her A4 siblings also survive, and a few of them are operational to this day, including the one named for her designer, Sir Nigel Gresley. Of all of his ‘birds,’ the one that flew fastest was the humble duck.

For more on Mallard and her creator Gresley, here are a few resources:

Mallard: How the Blue Streak Broke the World Speed Record by Don Hale is a great book on the subject that I enjoyed thoroughly. It does have a Kindle edition if you’d prefer an ebook variation, as well, and most major book retailers carry it on their websites.

The National Railway Museum, Mallard’s retirement home, has a 3D experience/ride of sorts that simulates what it was like to be running with her that day, the video of which is online here. Note the music, which mirrors her three cylinders pumping away. The video isn’t able to be embedded, but you can watch it here. There’s also a child-friendly version, too.

Lastly, the appropriately named prog rock band Big Big Train did a song about Mallard called East Coast Racer, which regularly moves me to tears because this locomotive means so much to me and they tell her story so lovingly.

I actually recommend checking out the live version, too, because they show the photo of the crew at the end and every single time I start sobbing.

If you want to visit the old girl herself, she’s at the National Railway Museum in York in the UK, and they have a ton of amazing resources and incredible locomotives and rolling stock in their collection. I’d highly recommend checking them out if you can!

Happy Mallard Day, everyone. Fly far, fly fast, make history.

[scotianostra]

On July 31st 1845 The Caledonian Railway Company was incorporated by the Caledonian Railway Act.

In spite of its initial promotion and capital subscription being largely English, the Caledonian Railway became the most Scottish of the pre-grouping companies: its blue locomotives reflected the Saltire, and its adoption of both the “Lion of Scotland” and the Royal Arms of Scotland as the Company Coat of Arms meant that these appeared on everything from locomotives and carriages to buildings, timetables, stationery, and hotel crockery.

The first section of the railway between Carlisle and Beattock was opened on 10 September 1847. The line was completed to Glasgow and Edinburgh on 15th February 1848 and to Greenhill / Castlecary on 7th August 1848, where it joined the Scottish Central Railway. The line to Glasgow utilised the earlier railways Glasgow, Garnkirk & Coatbridge, and the Wishaw & Coltness, which it purchased in 1846 and 1849 respectively.

Between 1849 and 1864 the company repeatedly tried to absorb the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway Co. into the Caledonian system. If it had succeeded the Caledonian would have had a virtual monopoly of Scottish Railways. The company however acquired other lines and later the services encompassed Aberdeen, Dundee, Forfar, Perth, Stirling, Oban, Ardrossan, Peebles and a large number of other locations.

The Company also owned two very fine hotels as part of the stations at Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Princes Street. The development of the majestic hotel and golf course at Gleneagles was interrupted by WW1 and was not fully completed until after the grouping.

Caledonian was grouped with the Glasgow & South Western Railway, the Highland Railway, the London & North Western Railway, the Midland Railway and a number of smaller railways across Scotland and England to form the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Co in 1923. This company was nationalised as part of British Rail in 1948.

[sourcreammachine]

this is fucking deranged

this is baso one train interchange why does it look like this

[ID: extract from National Rail's supplement to the london tube map, with commuter rail lines as well as the tube. this extract shows that map's depiction of the king's cross st pancras and euston area, large rail interchanges extremely close to each other that together become the busiest heavy rail terminus in the uk. both euston and KCSP, and the nearby farringdon, are depicted as an 'internal interchange', which means there are platforms connected by tunnels, as opposed to a regular interchange with multiple entrances on the surface. internals are depicted as circles connected solid bars, while externals are simply one circle. euston and farringdon have two connected circles, while KCSP has six. euston is also connected via a dashed line to ‘euston square’, indicating the two stations are less than ten minutes apart and foot traffic is encouraged (‘square’ is actually literally just outside the entrance of euston). the western lobe of euston is depicted as the terminus of the Lioness Line (orange) and the northwestern railway (lime with bars), which emerge from the station going northwest, depicted as being attached to each other. passing through this lobe is the western branch of the Northern Line (black). the eastern lobe of euston depicts the other branch of the Northern Line, coming from the north but turning east at euston to travel to KCSP, intersecting with the Victoria Line (azure), coming from the southeast before also turning east at euston to run parallel to the Northern Line towards KCSP, though with a gap between the two. no rail termini emerge from the western lobe of euston. the next stop on the western branch of the Northern Line after (western) euston is warren street, which also is the next stop for the Victoria Line after eastern euston, creating a right-angle triangle with the Victoria, western Northern, and the euston internal interchange. to western euston’s southwest via the ten-minute walk dashed line is euston square, which is an interchange for three tube lines, the Hammersmith City (salmon), the Circle (yellow), and the Metropolitan (dark magenta) all of which run next to each other horizontally. the three lines cross the northern-victoria-euston triangle without stopping at euston itself, towards KCSP.

KCSP is an intimidating Y shape of six lobes - three in a vertical line, then two emerging on the northwest spoke and one on the northeast. despite the name of this underground station, drawn as the internal interchange, being ‘king’s cross st pancras’, the giant Y is actually not labelled this at all - the western fork hovers near the label ‘st pancras international’ while the eastern hovers near ‘king’s cross’, and the southern fork remains unlabelled. the southernmost lobe of KCSP is for the glued-together Hammersmith, Circle and Metropolitan from euston square (not euston proper), after which the lines turn southeast to farringdon. this lobe also is for the Piccadilly line (navy), which comes from the northeast before turning south - the only Piccadilly stop in the KCSP-euston area. the middle of the three vertical lobes is for the Northern, travelling east from euston - and nothing else. the northernmost of the vertical lobes is for the Victoria - and absolutely nothing else. the Victoria crosses the Northern at euston whilst travelling diagonally, but then deliberately creates itself a gap before turning horizontal, to reach a separate lobe from the Northern due to KCSP being an internal interchange. both the Northern and Victoria politely duck under the Piccadilly after KCSP. from the Victoria lobe emerges the two spokes for king’s cross and st pancras international. King’s Cross is the terminus of the Great Northern (golden-brown, bars) and a branch of the Thameslink (maroon, bars), both heading north but separated by a tiny gap from each other. the first of the two lobes for SPI is the terminus for HS1 (blue, bars of yellow), which is absolutely not a commuter line - it goes to bloody Paris. this lobe is also bisected by a different branch of the Thameslink, going vertically, after which it sails over the Victoria, Northern and the triple glued-together lines, immediately after which it turns southeast, over the Piccadilly to farringdon. HS1 and this Thameslink out of SPI are once again separated by a tiny gap. the western lobe of SPI is the terminus of the EMR (cyan, bars), which emerges due north. the gap between the EMR and Thameslink is almost imperceptibly larger than the gap between Thameslink and HS1. after the lowest lobe of KCSP with which they intersect the Piccadilly, the triple lines (Hammer., Circle, Metro.) turn southeast to the northeasternmost of farringdon’s two lobes, with which they intersect nothing. this lobe is connected via an internal interchange to another, which is where it intersects the Thameslink coming from SPI, but also the Elizabeth Line (violet)/end ID]

[guerrerense]

Cranmore Somerset por Anthony Plowman Por Flickr: 5786 was built by the Great Western Railway in 1930 and, unlike many of its siblings, didn’t get scrapped by British Railways, but was sold on to The London Transport Passenger Board. 5786 is one of over 800 57xx Pannier Tank locomotives built. They were used mainly for heavy shunting, short-distance goods and branch line passenger duties. Built at Swindon, 5786 entered service in January 1930 at Aberdare shed. 5786 remained in South Wales throughout its life with the GWR and BR(W). Its last depot was Cardiff Canton. In 1958 it was overhauled at Swindon and transferred to London Transport where it was painted Maroon and numbered L92. The next eleven years were spent working maintenance trains, goods traffic and shunting from Lille Bridge and Neasdon Depots.

[old-transport]

LMS (ex G&SWR) class 14 4-4-0 loco No. 14374 by Frederick McLean Via Flickr: An old photograph of locomotive No. 14374, unfortunately there is no information on the reverse so date, location, photographer are unknown. Leaning against the cab footplate is a 'long slice', used to clear out the firebox. No. 14374 was a J. Manson designed class 14 4-4-0 engine, built at the Kilmarnock Works and new to the Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) in Nov 1908, carrying No. 157, being changed to No. 346 in Jun 1919. After grouping of the existing railway companies in 1923 into 'the big four', the G&SWR became part of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS), in 1924 they renumbered 346 to 14374. It was withdrawn from service in Oct 1932, but I cannot find any details of where/when it was scrapped. If there are any errors in the above description please let me know. Thanks. 📷 Any photograph I post on Flickr is an original in my possession, nothing is ever copied/downloaded from another location. 📷 -------------------------------------------------

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of Four: The End of the Islander

Mediæval is an archaic spelling of medieval, using the æ letter that is rare in English, but far more common in Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, for example.

Ceylon was the name used for what is now Sri Lanka until 1972, when that country (which become independent in 1948) become a Republic. Today, the name only really remains in the country for Ceylon tea, apparently for marketing reasons.

There has been a police force dedicated to the Thames since 1798, being founded as the privately funded Marine Police to tackle the high volume of cargo theft from ships there. Two years later, the government set up the Thames River Police to replace the successful force. The Metropolitan Police took it over in 1839 and made it the Thames Division, it now being called the Marine Policing Unit. Historically, they also did search and rescue, today done by the RNLI.

They had just acquired their first steam launches by 1888, historically relying on rowing boats that had proved inadequate in an 1878 two-ship collision that had killed 600 to 700 people.

Gravesend is on the south bank of the Thames, twenty-one miles from Charing Cross. It was the first port of entry into London for a long time, but the opening of Tilbury Docks on the other side of the river took much of its traffic. The pilot station for the Port of London remains there, along with a RNLI lifeboat station.

There was also a ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury until March 2024, when it stopped due to lack of funding from the 'bankrupt' Thurrock Council, despite being popular.

Pocahontas is also buried in Gravesend.

The Downs is a ship anchorage off the port of Deal in Kent; ships would - and still do - anchor there to protect themselves from strong southerly or westerly winds (as the coast blocked them) or if waiting for suitable winds to head elsewhere. Indeed, the port town grew up to deal (pun intended) with their needs during their says.

There would be six bridges east of Westminster Bridge on the Thames at this time; Tower Bridge, opened in 1886, would be the easternmost crossing point that a pedestrian or carriage could use at this point. The Thames Tunnel was by now a railway tunnel. Those to the east of that were reliant on ferries until 1897, when the western part of the Blackwall Tunnel opened, in a few years becoming the bottleneck it still is to this day.

St Paul's Cathedral, at 111m high, was the tallest building in London from 1710 until 1939 when Battersea Power Station was completed at two metres taller. . Today, there are still restrictions on building new skyscrapers in London to ensure the catherdal can still be viewed.

The Tower of London had been a tourist attraction since at least the Elizabethean period; it was getting over 500,000 visitors a year by the end of the century, but still retained some non-tourist uses.

The Pool of London is the bit of the river from London Bridge to Limehouse - it was the site of the original port until the Docklands were built to deal with massive overcrowding. The maritime industry here effectively collapsed along with the rest of the docks in the 1960s, but this area hasn't seen as much regeneration as parts further east.

The West India Docks were three large docks and associated buildings built at the beginning of the 19th century (1800 to 1802) to deal with trade to/from the British West Indies, to wit the sugar produced by the slave labour in the plantations there; Robert Milligan, its architect, was a slave trader who was unhappy about the delays and theft of his goods at the wharves, so wanted a more secure facility. Closed in 1980, it was converted into the Canary Wharf development, with the famous Underground station built in the former middle dock.

Now I have mistaken a Newfoundland dog for a coat-wearing homeless person in the dark myself - they are very big dogs. However, this has to be taken in the context of the rest of the description of Tonga.

Barking Level is where the River Roding enters the Thames. It is a largely industrial area today.

Plumstead Marshes were an area of low-lying soggy ground that was used by the Royal Arsenal (see "The Bruce-Partington Plans") as a testing range; no human inhabitants (since Roman times, when the water levels were lower) and the soft ground could absorb explosions better. They were drained in the 1960s and most of the area become the new community of Thamesmead; one of those "futuristic estates" that instead became crime-ridden due to bad planning and lack of amenities, which have not yet been fully corrected.

A slightly graphic (including a nasty facial/eye injury) discussion of the problems of recovering bodies from the Thames can be found in this February 2024 news article on the search for a chemical attacker's body: https://news.sky.com/story/the-traumatising-search-for-dead-bodies-in-the-thames-and-why-dozens-are-found-every-year-13071612

[hazel-of-sodor]

The Q2 Tank was a proposed Southern Railway Tank Engine version of the Bulleid Q1 after the war, but irl they remained unbuilt. These are how they appeared in my AU. Who can pick the odd engine out before reading the list?

02C1 (33041) was the class prototype. Intially preserved by a private engine, she was donated to the National Railway Musuem upon their passing in 1978.

33053 (02C13) is preserved in a Musuem in Ashford, Kent

D39 (02C39/33079) is in service with the Denbigh and Wrexham Railway.

33047 (02C7) is in service with the Chester and Holyhead Railway.

02C34 (33074) is preserved on the Spa Valley Railway.

02C20 (33060) and 02C26 (33066) are both preserved at the Sodor Railway Museum. When 02C20 was bought from BR, 02C26 was included as a source of spares. however when the pair arrived it was found both engines were largely intact, and the musuem decided to keep both.

33078 (02C38) is privately owned, but leased for Heritage service with South West Trains.

02C16 (33056) is preserved on the London New Eastern Railway, and has recieved a GCR tribute livery at their request.

33050 (02C10) and 33063 (02C23) are both in service on the North Western Railway's Norramby Branch Line.

33077 (02C37) is also on the North Western, allocated to Tidmouth.

33080 (02C40) , the youngest member of the class, is preserved at the Krestaen Railway Museum.

33009 (C9) Violet was one of the Bulleid austerity 0-6-0 tender engines. She would serve her entire working life as a Q1, until being sent for scrap in 1965. She was sent to Cashmore's Scrapyard in Newport, and she would remain there until fire broke out during a protest. The protesters blames Cashmores, and the yard blamed the protestors, but either way the blaze raged out of control and destroyed part of the yard. 33009 was very nearly caught in the inferno, and her tender was destroyed as protesters worked to drag her away from the fire. A picture of her after the fire graced the newspapers announcing the fire, and a small preservation line named the lloches Hertiage Railway noticed her. The line had been looking for a steam engine to restore and felt drawn to the stricken engine. They visited her at Cashmoores and bought her from the yard for less than scrap price the same day, as the yard thought she was more damaged then she actually was. As her tender had been destroyed and the line had no turntable, it was asked if she would mind being rebuilt into a tank engine. She agreed and Violet emerged in 1969 as the 41st member of the Q2 class. She has remained the lines pride and Joy ever since.

[ginandoldlace]

The Pembroke Coast Express Sunday 19th May 2023

Travel by steam train over the scenic branch line to Pembroke Dock. This train recalls the 1950s days of named steam trains on the former Western Region of British Railways, running from London Paddington through South Wales to the Pembroke Coast. Book your tickets today: https://bit.ly/40oMcCS

[daywalkers-fic]

12. why the 1880s?

something about this decade really sings to me. I find in particular, nearing the end of the nineteenth century, so much was happening on around the world in terms of arts, politics, technology, colonization. world events and global news don’t personally reach the day-to-day lives of the everyday folk, but they are an important part in gauging what life, thought, and society was about—what things were important then and now?

basically for myself, reminding me of notable things that occured during the 1880s—some thematic, some of relevance to context and characters, and the rest just ?? interesting and/or wild?

cocaine is a hot new cure for everything and anything. perscribed, sold in foods and more. heroine introduced as a lesser-addictive substitute for morphine…

lots of developments in fields of psychology; many experiments and happenings; Freud starts his work 1886.

1880-1914 had +twenty million immigrants to the United States: Germany, Ireland, England, China had the most arrivals.

William Dorsey Swann, the first self-proclaimed drag queen, organizes a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C. 1880-1890s.

Jack the Ripper claims his “first” victim in 1888 White Chapel, London. big scare.

Sherlock Holmes first appears in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study In Scarlet as part of the British magazine’s Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887.

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is published in 1886. Gothic fiction, drawing from emerging fields of science and psychology. & Treasure Island was published earlier in 1883 by him too!

Mark Twain drops The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889).

Bel-Ami, Guy de Maupassant’s second novel is published in 1885. about a man who seduces and manipulates high society French women in the French colonies for power and wealth. MOVIE WAS ADAPTED IN 2012 STARTING ROBERT PATTINSON LOL

western European art movements very romantic and swirly and pretty: Monet, Debussy xoxo.

meanwhile, African American ragtime music becomes the “pop” music across the pond here.

North Dakota (1889), South Dakota (1889), Montana (1889), Washington (1889) become states.

train segregation laws flag beginning of Jim Crow; Civil Rights Movement of 1875 voided, making discrimination in private is not illegal, and prohibiting state intervention to personal or commercial segregation. l*nching continues throughout the south. slavery may be over on paper, but indentured labour is legal.

1882 infamous O.K Corral gunfight.

Gold Rush continues, all over the world—South Africa, to British Columbia, to California, to Argentina, to Russia-China borders.

centuries of American “Indian” wars continue.

American Dawes Act of 1887 granted American government authorization to regulate indigenous lands, including creating and assigning and enforcing reservations.

Sitting Bull’s 1883 speech of the atrocities experienced at the hands of white American settler colonists.

Canadian Pacific Railway 1881-1885. foreign labourers were hired to do a lot of heavy, dangerous, unwanted work. in America, more than 100,000km of tracks were laid by majority Chinese, Irish, Scandinavian workers.

America’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Canada’s Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 was officiated, enforcing law of a Head Tax to be paid for every Chinese person entering North America. over the course of the next couple of decades, the fee of $1,500 was doubled to $5,000 was increased 500% to $25,000 in today’s currency—per person. this had devastating and lasting impacts on generations and societies of Chinese living both overseas and already in North America. propaganda at this time created many racist myths that persist today: there are too many Asians, they are taking our jobs, (the men) are gross and effeminate and a threat to (white) women, they shady and scheming people. these were the first and only major federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality in American and Canadian history. (I study Asian Canadian history, I can go on about this all day)

Tong Wars (1883-1913) had Chinatown gangs and factions in violent street wars across America, San Fransisco to New York.

large, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting (pogorm) and antisemitism rampant throughout Imperial Russia, 1881-1882 had more than two hundred anti-Jewish events alone. Jews continue to be racialized and othered.

fuck ton of colonization happening in Africa and the Middle East, Southeast Asia. Berlin conference 1884-1885 literally chopped up Africa to distribute to European powers.

Irish nationalist efforts to push forth Home Rule bill of sovereignty is defeated in British Parliament. Irish are not “white”, they are “othered” in Europe and in Americas.

use of photographic film pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing film. his first camera (Kodak) was ready for sale in 1888.

Thomas Edison gets lit in New York 1883 with first electrical power station. next several year sees major cities being lit up with street lamps and public lighting with the science and works of a Nikolas Tesla (1886-1893).

hell of a lot more inventions in the works and patents being claimed. Hertz and radiowaves, Bell for telephone services.

“Between the years of 1850–1900, women were placed in mental institutions for behaving in ways the male society did not agree with”

way too much history to cram, obviously. here are some keywords for further research oki

prison industry / spiritualism / opium epidemic / irregular and uneven “modernizations” in rural vs. urban areas / class and poverty gaps / morality scares, checks, comparisons, gaps / new businesses and gadgets, products, tech to help with anything / fascination of the (colonial) Other; side shows, “freak shows” and other human zoos