Marcus' Model Railway Journey

A SHORT HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS [Part 1]

THE FIRST RAILWAYS

The idea of running a vehicle along a track dates back thousands of years to Ancient Greece, when tracks were worn into rock by primitive wagons that were moved along by hand or animal.

The Romans also used sets of long, smooth, stones on their roads to help the passage of wheeled vehicles.

However it was not until much later that what we now refer to as "railways” began to appear.

Britain was to pioneer the steam railway in the early 1800s and remain the world leader in railway development for over 150 years.

By the 16th Century, wooden railed wagon-ways were being used to move small trucks, however these had to be kept on the paths by hand as there was no way to stop the wheels falling off to either side.

Systems were later put into place to guide the vehicles, such as pegs which moved along a groove in the track.

One of the earliest example of a railway in the UK was the Tranent to Cockenzie Waggonway, which was a 2 ½ mile long route for mine wagons in East Lothian established in 1722.

This horse-drawn line used wooden rails and was on a continuous gradient to help propel the wagons down towards the end of the line.

A development of this type of railway came with the use of L-shaped iron rails in the late 18th Century by Benjamin Outram, whose Little Eaton Gangway in Derbyshire served the Derby Canal.

At the same time, an engineer from Devon called William Jessop, had created from cast iron a type of rail which was flat on top, but which was designed to be used in conjunction with wheels which had a flange on their inside edges.

This meant that the wheels easily stayed on the track, but also allowed for routes to diverge using points to control direction.

Rails similar to this type are the basis of the present day rail system.

Developments in power generation had also been progressing.

In 1712, an engineer from Devon, Thomas Newcomen, invented the first practical pumping engine powered by steam and it was subsequently used to pump water out of mines up and down the country.

In Newcomen's engine, a heated boiler pushed steam into a cylinder and pushed up a piston.

When the steam cooled (achieved by injecting a small amount of cold water into the cylinder)a vacuum was created which then drew the piston back down.

The engine was stationary and very large.


A steam beam engine 'Old Bess', dating from 1777

THE HARNESSING OF STEAM POWER

Newcomen’s stationary and cumbersome “atmospheric engine” remained very much unchanged until the work of James Watt further advanced the world of steam power.

Watt was born in Greenock and, as a young man, had to move to Glasgow to get work.

In1763, after repairing a Newcomen engine, he realised that as much as 75% of the engine’s power was being wasted and duly modified the design.

He went into partnership with John Roebuck, who lived at Kinneil House, near Bo’ness using a small cottage in the grounds as a workshop.

Watt’s modifications increased the efficiency of the existing steam engines but he needed funds to patent his innovations.

Shortly after obtaining the patent for Watt in 1769 Roebuck went bankrupt and Watt had to turn to someone else for financial help.

This came from Matthew Boulton, a foundry owner from Birmingham.

After Boulton bought Watt’s patent the two developed a successful partnership, which would last for the next twenty five years.

With Boulton’s help and the expertise of some of the world’s finest iron-workers, Watt continued to improve the steam engine, coming up with a way of producing rotary or circular motion.

Both Boulton and Watt became rich men by fully exploiting their patented steam engine improvements.

Building on the pioneering work of Newcomen and Watt, a Cornishman called Richard Trevithick built the world's first steam locomotive in 1803.

It was not given a name.

His second locomotive, called 'New Castle', was the first to be put to practical use when it began hauling iron a year later at the Peny-darren Iron Works in South Wales.

In 1807, South Wales also saw the operation of the Oystermouth Railway - the world's first railway to carry fare paying passengers- although the wagons were still horse-drawn.

By 1808, Trevithick had perfected his design, incorporating his innovation of a chimney to remove the exhaust gases.

He also used advances in boiler construction to run his engines at higher pressures, meaning that the engines were now capable of hauling greater loads than before.

Trevithick exhibited his engine, called “Catch Me Who Can”, to the high society of London, with willing passengers paying one shilling for the privilege of riding in a circle behind Trevithick’s creation.

However, this promotion was not a success, partly because Trevithick’s design was too heavy for the cast iron rails and caused them to break as the train repeatedly went over them.

Trevithick, because of this seeming failure, subsequently stopped designing any more locomotives and sank into obscurity, but the foundations for the subsequent development of steam railways in Britain were now well in place.

Coalbrookdale Locomotive 1802​

Trevithick's 1804 locomotive as used at Peny-darren Iron Works in South Wales [this photo is of a working replica]

THE FIRST STEAM PASSENGER RAILWAYS

The first time passenger traffic was run on a steam locomotive powered railway was in 1825 ,when the Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened.

It was the brainchild of George Stephenson, a civil and mechanical engineer from the North of England who, together with his son Robert Stephenson, would greatly advance the railways of Britain over the next few years.

Stephenson, who became known as the “Father of Railways”, helped design the route of the subsequent Liverpool and Manchester Railway, overcoming obstacles such as a peat bog known as Chat Moss by having the railway line float over the seemingly bottomless peat bog on a base of heather, branches and moss.

As well as masterminding the civil engineering on the routes, Stephenson and, later, his son, were responsible for creating the locomotives used.

“Locomotion” was the most famous of those used on the Stockton and Darlington line, and was the first of several built for this route.

Stephenson’s most famous engine has to be "Rocket”, which was a contestant in the Rainhill Trials, a competition set up to provide locomotives for the Liverpool and Manchester route in 1829.

This engine was primarily designed by Robert Stephenson, with suggestions given by his father.

Ten locomotives were entered, with five ultimately taking part on the line.

They were: Cycloped, Novelty, Perseverance, Sans Pareil and Rocket.

All were steam powered apart from Cycloped, which was powered by a horse walking on a treadmill!

Rocket was the only locomotive which finished the course.



Novelty was an early steam engine built by John Ericsson and John Braithwaite. With the engine's unique design, Novelty is now regarded as the very first tank engine. Novelty was lighter and considerably faster than the other engines in the competition, with the exception of Stephenson's Rocket/Stephen. Even so, Novelty broke down first during the trials.

Novelty replica of 1929, incorporating wheels and one cylinder of the original from 1829.

Sans Pareil is an early steam engine built by Timothy Hackworth and William Hedley. Sans Pareil - along with Novelty - broke down during the trial run, thus allowing Stephenson's Rocket/Stephen to win the race.

Perseverance was an early steam locomotive that took part in the Rainhill Trials, built by John Reed Hill of London and Timothy Burstall of Leith.
Perseverance was damaged on the way to the trials and Timothy Burstall spent the first five days trying to repair the engine.
It ran on the sixth and final day of the trials but only achieved a speed of 6 miles per hour.

The Perseverance was another of the failed entrants in the Rainhill Trials, and, like the Cycloped, was never in contention to win the prize.

Designed by Timothy Burstall, its chain failed en route to Rainhill, and Burstall was forced to spend the first five days of the competition repairing it.

As a result, contemporary newspaper reports barely mention the Perseverance, and there is even doubt over how it looked, though we know that it was a tank engine, like the Novelty.

It was finally able to run briefly on 14th October, the final day, but could go no faster than six miles per hour.

It lacked adhesion, as its wheels were not coupled together, and its speed could not be varied.

It was therefore withdrawn from a competition it clearly had no chance of winning.

However, Burstall was awarded a £25 consolation prize towards his expenses to compensate him for the locomotive’s failure, and it used roller bearings for the axles, an important step in locomotive development

Cycloped was an early horse-powered locomotive, built by Thomas Shaw Brandreth of Liverpool.

One of the engines that competed in the Rainhill Trials in 1829.

It was also the only entry in the trials that did not rely on steam power, instead utilising a treadmill that was kept continually moving by a horse mounted on top.

Brandeth and some people believed that that gave the Cycloped an unfair advantage, but the Cycloped was a primitive idea and because of its failure to generate enough speed to equal its competitors, it ultimately lost in the trials.

Stephenson's Rocket is perhaps one of the most famous engines in the world, launching the steam age at the Liverpool and Manchester Railway's Rainhill Trials of 1829, beating four other engines to win.

The real Rocket, though rebuilt in the early 1830s, lives at the National Railway Museum in York alongside a working replica of the original design, built in 1979.

There is also another replica Rocket living at the NRM, built in 1935 as a sectionalised reproduction, numbered 4089.

During 2007, the 1979 replica was withdrawn because it's ten-year boiler certificate had expired.

In addition to this, the museum plans to fit a new boiler with a riveted copper firebox and more accurate frames.

The NRM managed to raise funds for Rocket's next overhaul at the Flour Mill Boiler Works in the Forest of Dean, which was completed in January 2010.

This Rocket replica once again returned to steam in 2019 after an overhaul.

Though the Rocket was not the first steam locomotive, it was the first to bring together several innovations to produce the most advanced locomotive of its day.


The original Stephenson's Rocket

The 1979 replica

The Rocket featured breakthroughs in locomotive design that ultimately lead to it winning the trial.

One reason for this was its increased power and speed relative to its weight.

It was the secretary of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, Henry Booth, who had a hand in one of the most important innovations of The Rocket.

This was to change the way in which the fire heated the water in the boiler.

In existing designs the fire burned in a single tube, but in Rocket this was replaced with a multi-tube design.

To compare it to another loco of the age, Instead of the single 500mm diameter tube that ran through George Stevenson’s Locomotion, Rocket featured 25 tubes, each of which was 75mm in diameter.

Crunching the numbers we find that 1 tube x 500mm diameter x 2800mm long, versus 25 tubes x 75mm diameter x 1800mm long, results in over twice the heat transfer area for the much lighter and smaller boiler.

This design was the key to producing the high power needed, whilst conforming with the trial’s weight limit.

It could be said that without this increased heat transfer area design, the outcome of the trials might have been very different.

Another innovation of The Rocket was its blast-pipe design.

Early steam locomotives exhausted waste steam from the cylinders straight to the atmosphere.

Robert Stephenson developed this idea by directing the exhaust steam to the base of the chimney, thereby causing a low pressure on the downstream side of the boiler tubes.

This had the effect of drawing flue gases from the fire out through the tubes and pulled more air and oxygen up through the fire.

In turn, this caused the fire to burn more fiercely, producing more heat as the engine was driven faster.

28th November, 2024

New Arterio train named after Stuart Broad in London


701031 at London Waterloo


South Western Railway at London Waterloo today (28th November) sees the new Arterio trains officially launched and one of the new trains named.

90 Arterio trains are part of a £1 billion investment to bring more capacity to trains on the Reading, Windsor and South West London Suburban routes.

5 Arterios are currently in service, but South Western Railway has today announced that the new trains will serve destinations such as Dorking, Guildford and Reading over the next six months.

Alstom has built the trains at their Derby site and will replace the outgoing older trains, including the Class 455, 456, 458 and 707 trains.

The fleet is made up of 60 ten-car trains and 30 five-car trains, and the rollout of the new trains is expected to take up to 2 years.

Arterios at London Waterloo


The new trains have cycle racks, charging points, WiFi, accessible toilets and air conditioning.

There is plenty of space for luggage in the overhead racks, which are deep enough for suitcases and bags.

Accessible toilets


On board you notice the bright interior which is boosted by big windows and 2×2 seating.

View down the train


It is always excellent to see these Aventra class of trains, where you can see down through the carriages due to the wide corridors.

Unfortunately, none of the seats perfectly align with the windows.

While disappointing, it does mean that wheelchair users get plenty of space with a plug socket and USBs, and there are also plenty of spaces for bikes.

Big tables don’t feature, but each bay has a small table to put your coffee mug down, but not somewhere to put your laptop, for example.

Seats and mini tables in the Arterio trains


The toilets are large, making them easily accessible for everyone, and all toilets feature Controlled Emissions Toilets, which is better for the environment.

The cab features lots of screens to show speed, AWS, as well as any warnings that the driver needs to be aware of.

There is also a screen dedicated to the 11 cameras on a 10 car set, showing the driver the view of the platform before they close the doors.

Whilst at first glance, the cab looks rather small, once in the seat, everything is easy to access, and it actually feels rather spacious.

In the cab of a Class 701


Rail Minister Lord Hendy was joined by Managing Director Stuart Meek and English Cricketing Legend Stuart Broad.

Stuart unveiled the nameplate for 701031, which is named ‘Nighthawk’.

Stuart explains that Nighthawk is a nickname given to him by his teammates and is because of his role as a night-watchman in the game of cricket.

Nameplates for 701031 Nighthawk


701031 will be joined by four other Arterios, which will be named to celebrate the local area’s sporting history.

South Western Railway has also named trains The Jockey for horseracing destinations, The Red Rose for English rugby at Twickenham, The Aces for Wimbledon and The Thames Racer in honour of the boat race.

Here is what Stuart Broad had to say:

“I’m honoured to join South Western Railway today and name one of their new Arterio trains Nighthawk, a role I had great fun playing for England.
“One of the highlights of my career was taking the final wicket in my last Test match, against Australia at the Oval, one of my favourite places to play. The atmosphere is always incredible and starts long before the first ball of the day is bowled, as fans make their way from Vauxhall down to the ground.
“Trains play a huge role in bringing sports fans to the heart of the action they love, building excitement as they make their way to the big game. It’s exciting to think of the Nighthawk journeying across London, connecting even more fans to iconic sporting destinations that bring us all together.”
Stuart Broad

Click to expand...

29 November 2024

Digital display screen trial extends to Llandrindod​

Llandrindod Station

Rail passengers travelling across the South Wales Metro can now access easier ways to pay and great value fares with a new Pay As You Go system.

Transport for Wales is the first train operator outside of London and the South East of England to introduce this paying system.

The tap in, tap out technology is available at 95 Transport for Wales (TfW) stations throughout South Wales, including all Valleys lines and on routes to Bridgend, Maesteg, the Vale of Glamorgan, Abergavenny and Chepstow.

Pay As You Go can be used for single journeys with fares starting at just £2.60, and with automatic daily and weekly capping they offer a significant saving against standard Anytime singles and 7-day season tickets.

There’s no need to purchase a physical or digital ticket, passengers can simply tap in and out using their bank card. Conductors now carry a card reader which validates if a passenger has tapped in at the start of their journey.

Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales, Ken Skates added: “I am delighted that we’re now able to offer passengers a simpler and fairer way to travel through the new Pay as You Go system.

“This is another significant milestone towards our ambition to transform our railways and build a world-class metro service which enables us to deliver high-quality ‘turn up and go’ services for passengers.”

Alexia Course, Chief Commercial Officer at Transport for Wales said: “Since launching Pay As You Go as a trial at the beginning of the year we’ve already seen more than 65,000 people choosing this simple and cost-effective way to pay for their travel.

“We’ve made a significant investment in new gate lines for our stations and our team has worked quickly to get the new technology installed, tested and ready for passengers by the end of the year.

“This is another important step in the South Wales Metro project and is the first Pay As You Go scheme, where passengers can simply use their bank card, outside of London and the South East of England.”

Digital Display Screen

29 November 2024

Public Ownership Bill receives Royal Assent



The platform has been set for the biggest overhaul for the UK railway in a generation following news the Public Ownership Bill has received Royal Assent.

A message on social media from the Department for Transport said: “The Public Ownership Act will ensure our railways are finally run in the interest of passengers and taxpayers, allowing us to create a rail system the British public can trust.”

Responding, Rail Partners Chief Executive, Andy Bagnall, said: “Royal Assent of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act is a watershed moment that means the Government has now assumed direct responsibility for improving Britain’s railways, but simply changing who runs the trains won’t mean more reliable or affordable services for passengers.

“This Act is political not practical. It is counter intuitive to remove the private sector from the railways when it is the only part of the system with a track record of delivering growth in passenger numbers to reduce subsidy – especially when answering the question of what will replace it is being parked until further rail legislation next year.”

Michael Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT union, said in a letter: “This significant occasion is a victory for the years of campaigning by RMT through successive governments and everyone involved in supporting renationalisation of our railways.

“The legal effect of this legislation is to reverse the presumption about who can run rail passenger services to mean that the default position is that all rail passenger franchises managed by the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments must be run in the public sector.

“In Scotland, the ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper franchises are already run by the Scottish Government in public ownership and similarly the Transport for Wales franchise is run in public ownership by the Welsh Government. The Bill makes provision for these rail services to remain permanently in public sector operation.

“There are four Department for Transport managed Train Operators (LNER, Southeastern, Northern and Transpennine Express) already operated in public ownership via the Operator of Last Resort (OLR). The new legislation gives the UK Government powers to bring the other train operating companies it manages (Avanti West Coast, C2C, Chiltern, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, GTR, GWR, Southern, SWR, West Midlands Railway) into public ownership as their contracts expire. The Government has said it intends to bring all these services into public ownership within the next three years and has said it will shortly publish a timetable for this process. When more details are available regarding this transfer into public ownership we will contact members.

“The Government will now be bringing forward further legislation to establish Great British Railways (GBR) the organisation which will absorb Network Rail and the TOCs and will be consulting on the structure of GBR. I will be providing more information on this shortly.

“Furthermore, the Union will be continuing to campaign to ensure that GBR moves to end outsourcing, absorbs open access operations and rail freight, ends the profiteering of the rolling stock leasing companies and develops publicly owned rolling stock ownership and manufacturing and to continue to campaign for the complete nationalisation of the railways.”

A SHORT HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS [Part 2]

THE VICTORIANS & THE SPREAD OF THE RAILWAYS

With the success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and, then, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, it became apparent that there was a future in the use of steam traction for commercial gain.

At first the big profits came from the transportation of coal, with passengers being regarded as of secondary importance.

However the early passenger railways had shown that there was a desire for this to be developed further and it was not long before towns and cities benefited from this revolutionary new form of transport.

The Victorian age saw a number of great advances in railways in Britain, most of which were civil engineering solutions to some of the natural barriers which stood in the way of direct routes between cities and towns.

THE NAVVIES

In Victorian Britain, much of the work of laying railway lines had been done by labourers who worked with tools such as picks, shovels and barrows.

Some of these men, who became known as navvies, had fled from the Great Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s to settle with their families and find gainful employment in Britain.

Despite the spread of workers from Ireland, the majority of the navvies in the country (numbering around 250,000in Britain at the height of the railway boom in the 1850s) hailed from the British mainland.

The building of the railways was a very labour intensive task, and the navvies were paid well compared to those who worked in factories - they could earn up to 25 pence per day!

The navvies stayed in shanty towns, close to where they worked, however the death toll in certain areas, particularly where tunnels were being constructed, was high, with the widow of a dead navvy perhaps getting up to £5 compensation if she was lucky.

As the 19th Century wore on, mechanical equipment, such as steam shovels, became more widely used, but the bulk of work was still done by hand.

The crucial role of the navvies in the construction of the railways in Victorian Britain cannot be overstated.

Navvies building a line of gantries over a cutting on the Metropolitan Railway, by Henry Flather, about 1861

Navvies digging a cutting for Dove Holes railway tunnel, about 1861

Navvies using a brick making machine during the construction of the Midland Railway's extension to St. Pancras station, London, 29 August 1865

Navvies posing in front of timber shoring up the north end of the Gill's Corner railway tunnel during it's reconstruction 1892

A CHANGED WAY OF LIFE

The Victorian Era saw the growth of railways from a small system for transporting goods and passengers over relatively short distances into a country-wide inter-city network which revolutionised British life.

One way in which this happened was the first use of a standard time system in Britain in 1847.

Prior to this, each town or village had used its own local time.

The coming of the railway meant that the time had to be the same throughout the network for the timetable to work.

By 1855 the vast majority of Britain’s clocks were standardised to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and those travelling could tell from a glance at their timetable exactly when a train would arrive or depart in any part of the country.

The ease of railway travel between Britain’s ports and its major cities and towns led to a change in the diet of the country.

Fish, which had previously been an expensive food in areas away from the sea, became a very important part of the diet in Victorian Britain because it was now possible to have it taken to market and then sold in shops while it was still fresh.

Deep freezing of food was still some way off in the future.

Special trains would often be run at short notice to allow for an extra-large catch of fish.

At most other times a fish van or two would be sufficient, added to the end of a passenger train heading for the cities.

The railway was used to quickly transport other perishable items such as fruit or milk, with milk being carried in special metal churns placed inside wagons.

Special ventilated vans were designed to help with the transport of goods which needed to be kept fresh.

At first such loads had been carried in open wagons and covered with a tarpaulin, but the newer vans had roofs to protect the contents and extra ventilation louvres in the body to help keep the goods cool within.

Meat, in the form of cattle, was at first largely transported live to the markets, but, from the1870s, shipments of meat were more common, carried in ventilated meat vans.

The result was that, as with fish, those living in Victorian towns were able to choose from a much wider range of fresh produce than before.

The drawings in the sketch below were sketched from paintings and drawings of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway done in the 1830's.

They are neither accurate in detail or to any exact scale, neither were the original paintings, but they give some idea of the general appearance of the rolling stock.


Early Railway Goods Vehicles

By the end of the 1840's the design of British railway goods rolling stock had evolved and become more railway-like in appearance.

Most wagons were about ten feet long, seven feet wide and with sides about three feet high.

Covered vans were rare but goods brake vans became standard at about this time.

Wagons of the 1830's and 40's lasted in service for between ten and fifteen years.

They were built in small batches, no real standardisation was applied and repairs were often a problem.

By the 1850's wagon designs were beginning to settle down as the companies gained experience of their operational needs and the wagon builders developed the designs and technologies to meet the new demands.

There were no standards as such, each company building wagons to suit its own railway and incorporating its own ideas on design.

These wagons generally had a life expectancy of about twenty years.


1850's rolling stock

As wagons began to wander across the system the poor quality of private owner stock was recognised as a problem for the railway companies.

The Railway Clearing House acted as the liaising authority between the various companies and in 1887 the RCH issued a standard specification for private owner wagons.

This RCH specification was for private owner wagons but using the standard RCH parts facilitated easy repair and maintenance when the wagon wandered onto another company line.

As a result most railway companies built their own rolling stock to the same standard specifications.

By the end of the century this standardisation allowed wagons to continue in service much longer than before, typically for thirty years and occasionally as long as fifty years, as quite major components were available virtually off the shelf.

The basic British four wheeled railway wagon or van as built from the turn of the century would have a nine foot or ten foot wheelbase with a body about seventeen feet long and about eight feet wide mounted on it.

Everything had leaf-spring suspension and the bearings were mounted on the end of the axles, outside the wheels.

The vehicle would be rated to carry typically eight tons and would be equipped with only a hand brake.

Such a wagon could be easily moved about the yards by a horse and hooks or holes were provided in the wooden or metal chassis for attaching chains and a harness for this.

If a horse was not available a man with a long crowbar could get the loaded wagon moving and once rolling a single man could keep it going on the level.

By this time the original one, two and three plank open wagons, although still common, were being replaced with higher sided, four and five plank open wagons and an increasing number of vans.

Only in the North West did the three plank open remain popular and they were built in some number into the 1960's.

Open wagons by this time used metal reinforcing straps but the vans mainly still had heavy external timber frames.

Specialised wagons such as fish and fruit vans and manure wagons were built in some numbers at about this time.

Operating practice had evolved and become largely standardised and for the next fifty years the changes were slight.


Typical 1890's Goods Vehicles

RAILWAY SAFETY

The growth of the railways in Victorian times also required greater safety measures to be put in place to protect passengers and the public.

Since the 1840s it has been a legal requirement that all railways in Britain are fenced off from the public and many of the railway companies spent much effort on producing signage to warn people off their property.

However, the most important of the safety measures has to be the development of a proper system of signalling.

Early systems had involved trains running to set timetables and a watchman looking out for each passing train.

This worked fine if all was running to time, however if the train was delayed after it had gone out of the watchman’s sight there was no way to tell this had happened and an accident may occur.

On single track lines, tokens and tablets were used and the locomotive driver would be given a marked token in a leather pouch, which allowed him to travel over a stretch of line.

There was only one token per stretch of line, which would be given to the signalman at the end of the single section.

The token could then be given to the driver of the train coming in the opposite direction.

This system worked very well and versions of this are still in use in some areas in Britain.

The invention of blocked, interlocked, signalling and the adoption of national standards for this system in the 1889 Regulation of Railways Act, was a great advance in safety.

The signalling system was worked by a signalman from the signal box.

These would be placed at points along the line, with each box controlling a number of signals and points.

The size of the box was determined by the complexity of the route.

The system was mechanical, with semaphore signals (these have a pivoting arm, which moves to indicate if the line is clear or not) and points controlled by rodding which went from a frame of levers in the box to the points or signals themselves.

The signalman’s main duty was to get each train from point A to point B safely and on time.

They would enter each train movement into the Train Register Book, which sat on a desk inside the signal box cabin.

The signalman would be able to communicate with other signal boxes down the line via a series of bell codes.

These were sent via telegraph wire.

You can see the telegraph wires on many heritage lines up and down the country.

As well as actually operating the signals and points, all of which were interlocked (meaning that that signalman could not set these in an unsafe sequence) the signalman’s duties included watching the ends of passing trains.

They did this to see if the last carriage or wagon displayed a red tail lamp.

If it did then the train was complete.

If it did not then this could mean that either part of the train had detached, or someone had forgotten to place the lamp, both of which were regarded as very serious.


Vintage engraving of a Railway Signal Box on the North London Railway. 1884

THE VICTORIAN LEGACY

By 1901 the railway industry and infrastructure was on a completely different scale to that which had existed in 1837.

The country was now criss-crossed with a network of lines that served hundreds of communities of varying sizes.

Safety systems and regulations had been put in place which had drastically reduced the number of railway-related accidents and improved the efficiency of the system.

The railways, which had been, in the early 19th Century, something to be feared, were now a part of the culture and life of the country, and there was a sense of pride in what railways in Britain had achieved.

Formidable natural barriers had been successfully conquered through engineering marvels such as tunnels, viaducts and bridges, and the network was at the height of its profitability and influence.

Locomotive works throughout the country, such as North British Ltd. - the largest locomotive and rolling stock works outside the United States - were also exporting examples of British made engines worldwide, with many of those who began their careers on British railways using their expertise to help set up railway networks abroad.

It is no surprise that many people now regard the years prior to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 as the zenith of railways in this country.


Railway and Sea Routes (1900)

A SHORT HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS [Part 3]

The Zenith of Steam

BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS IN EDWARDIAN TIMES

As the 19th Century gave way to the 20th Great Britain was at the height of its influence.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the state of its railways, which were to reach the peak of their spread and profitability in the Edwardian era.

This was well before a shadow was cast over the entire industry with the outbreak of the First World War.

Nowadays, the railway of the Edwardian era is remembered through such fictional works as E. Nesbit’s 1905 story, “The Railway Children”, where three children, who move to near a railway line, befriend those on the railway and, among other adventures, avert disaster when there is a landslip on the line.

One day, the children witness a landslide which has partially obstructed the tracks. The girls fashion their red petticoats into flags to warn the driver of the impending danger and the train stops in time.


After the “railway mania” of the 19th Century, the Edwardian Era was a time of relative stability and consolidation for the railway companies in Britain, with the number of miles of track still expanding, but now more slowly.

It was also the period when railway travel to Britain’s holiday resorts began to become open to the working classes.

Many of today’s British seaside towns owe their present existence to the growth of tourism at this time.

Many of the travellers would use the railway to connect with steamers which would take them to the resorts for either day trips or a much longer holiday break.

Often a whole family would travel on the train, then board the steamer towards their chosen destination, their clothing and belongings carried in a huge trunk.

Edwardian Elegance

The Edwardian Era is now known as the period of railway elegance, with designs in all areas from locomotives to architecture reaching new heights of style.

Designers contributed greatly to the railways of Britain with their locomotive designs, producing new and stylish locomotives.

With the aforementioned increases in passengers to the coastal resorts, many stationmasters at this time took great pride in their stations and it was common to see ornamental gardens and flower displays at each station.

It was not just the general masses who enjoyed travel by rail.

The rich, too, travelled in splendour and great comfort, with some, such as King Edward VII himself, being privileged enough to have his own trains and carriages constructed for his own personal use.


Normally based at the Bodmin & Wenford Railway but hired for use on service trains at the South Devon Railway in 2022, GWR First Class Saloon No.9044 is seen at Buckfastleigh on the 5th July. The carriage was built in 1881 and is believed to be the oldest surviving GWR bogie coach in existence. Originally used as a family saloon, it has supposedly seen passengers who include King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales. In 1936 it was converted to a Civil Engineers Saloon and was used by officers of the GWR and BR until it was withdrawn in the 1960s. The carriage was restored to use in 2013 and has since operated on special days from its home at Bodmin General station in Cornwall.

Station Hotels

As well as looking pristine thanks to the pride of their staff, many of the larger stations found extra business in the form of the station hotel, a concept which, although begun in Victorian times, saw great expansion in the early 20th Century.


The Great Western Hotel in Cardiff, Wales was built around 1879 to serve the Great Western Railway station nearby.
Today, it's a two-story Wetherspoon pub with notable stonework made from rocks used to ballast ships returning to Cardiff after delivering coal.

The Internal Combustion Engine

During the Edwardian Era an invention began to appear which was to have a profound effect on the railways of Britain and on transport systems throughout the world.

This was the motorcar, made possible by the invention and development of a lightweight engine powered by internal combustion.

A subsequent development of this engine, the diesel, was later to find its uses on the railways, but in 1901 the car was in its infancy.

It was popularised by King Edward VII, who purchased several cars, and by the end of his reign there were considerably more private cars and powered omnibuses than there had been in 1901.

However, even with this increase, the car was still largely a toy for the rich and it would take many years before it would begin to threaten the position of the railways.

While private cars were for the rich, buses could be used by many, and some companies actively embraced the new technology.

Some railways were innovative in establishing its own feeder bus services as well as operating a fleet of goods lorries and delivery vans.

This was established in the years before World War I, and other railways would follow this example into the 1920s and beyond.


Great Western Railway bus No. 11 (AF74) was a 1904 Milnes-Daimler with composite single-deck body. The enclosed non-smoking rear compartment seated 16 passengers on transverse seating with 6 more outside seats for smokers.

The Coming of War

By the second decade of the 20th Century, the railways of Britain were at the height of their fortunes.

Profits were high from the huge number of passengers and goods transported around the country.

The railway was not just a service, it was a part of everyday life, with some towns, such as Crewe and Swindon, existing and growing simply because of their connection with the railway industry.

It seemed that the railway companies had never had it so good and many of their staff were proud to work for them.

Unfortunately this situation was short-lived.

By the summer of 1914, Britain was at war with Germany and the railways, which at this point were owned by around 130 different private companies, were to enter a new era yet again.

At the outbreak of the war, the companies had to hand over their assets to a government-run Railway Executive, which continued to oversee control of the country’s railways until 1921.

Although this system worked well, allowed the companies much autonomy and was more coherent than what had gone before, the railways were still put under considerable strain by the need to maintain supply links to the conflict on the European mainland.

The distinct lack of employees was a continuing problem, as a large number of men had volunteered or been called up to fight and, although women were beginning to be allowed to stand in for them, their numbers were not great enough to compensate for the men’s absence.

Many of the soldiers were transported to the ports by troop train and a great number of the country's railway locomotives and other stock were shipped to France for use nearer the frontlines to help with the ever present need to keep the Army supplied.

Maintenance of the railways’ remaining rolling stock at home suffered, and spares and raw materials became increasingly difficult to obtain.

Numerous factories which had previously produced these turned over their manufacture to helping the war effort in other ways, with many women finding employment in factories for the very first time.

By the time the war ended in November1918, the railways, which remained under government control, were in a far less comfortable state than they had been in 1914.


Women took on many new roles in railway service previously restricted to men. Here five women are cleaning a locomotive. During the war locomotives travelled far from their usual haunts, like this Great Central Railway locomotive at Birmingham in September 1918.