The Steam Rail Motors of the Great Western Railway E-Book

Ken Gibbs

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 169

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Self-propelled carriages were a major innovation at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the GWR was quick to develop a large number of steam motor cars to link farms and scattered villages across the South West to the new branch lines. Their steam motor cars ran from 1903 to 1935, stopping during the war, and were so effective at making rural areas accessible they became victims of their own success. Wagons brought in to meet the high demand proved too heavy for the carriages and they struggled on hills. Soon the steam rail motor services were in decline. After its cancellation all ninety-nine steam carriages were eventually scrapped. Engineer Ken Gibbs reveals the unique GWR carriages, a window into early twentieth-century transport, and the modern replica he helped build, now the only way of viewing these charming historic vehicles.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Assistance in compiling this work has come from a number of sources.

The great contribution by Dr Ralph Tutton formed the basis for the rebuild of ‘No. 93’. Also thanks to Tim Brian (then Curator of ‘STEAM’, the Museum of the Great Western Railway) who first pointed me in the direction of Dr Tutton’s archive material. John Walter, who had additional engineering drawings listed on his computer and who again pointed me to the sources and obtained some of the prints for me.

To the Great Western Society at Didcot and to ‘STEAM’, The Museum of the Great Western Railway, for access to their archives.

Photographs are by the author unless noted otherwise.

I also have a personal connection with No. 93 both before and during the rebuild project.

My sincere thanks to all.

Ken Gibbs LCGI (Mech Eng)

No. 93 – sole survivor. (Photo D. Feltham)

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Introduction: The Steam Rail Motor and Great Western

1.    The Steam Rail Motor and its Contemporaries: Britain, Empire and Beyond

2.    The Great Western’s Rail Motors

3.    Steam Rail Motor Design

4.    Shedding Facilities for Steam Rail Motors

5.    The Influence of the Steam Rail Motor and the Introduction of ‘Halts’

6.    The Branches of the GWR and the Rail motor

7.    The Difficulties of the Branch Lines

8.    The Wilkinson Report of 1925

9.    The Steam Rail Motor Project: A ‘Last’ or ‘First’ Chapter

Epilogue

References and Further Reading

About the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The last steam rail motor was taken out of service when I was about five years old, so although coming from a railway family in a railway town, I didn’t see one actually in use.

From school, a completed apprenticeship at Swindon Works was followed, with thousands of others, into the RAF. On ‘demob’ a couple of years back on the shop floor was followed by promotion to the supervisory staff and secondment into a firm of productivity consultants just introduced to the Works (1955). It was then that I first had contact with a steam rail motor, or at least with a rail motor converted to a trailer car, and then again converted to a mobile office, positioned on a rail line directly outside the C&W Department office block at Swindon Works. The coach was subsequently moved around the Western region with me and a team for about three years, when I was once more returned to Swindon Works and the coach went on its way. Then I lost touch.

Through a working life, I had just retired (1983) and joined the Great Western Society where at Didcot I was reintroduced to my old mobile office (then as a stores for various railway items) scheduled for rebuilding into a working steam rail motor, the only survivor of its fellows. It is now fully operational and heading for a second life. I have long been involved with the dedicated groups working for the rail motor and other locomotives at Didcot, and thus the coach saga and my career seem to have turned full circle even in retirement!

INTRODUCTION

A transport innovation at the beginning of the twentieth century created great interest in many of the world’s railways. The carriage with a steam engine in one end captured imaginations, none more so than the Great Western’s. The birth of the steam rail motor was seen to herald a revolution in rural transport.

Its introduction on the Great Western was an astonishing success, opening up villages and market towns with potential additional travelling facilities. The problem was it was too successful, opening up a market with which the steam rail motors could not cope, a situation which soon became very obvious when required loads proved too much for the small power units, although they could handle a trailer car.

If something went wrong with the steam power unit, or with the carriage section, the whole rail motor was ‘off the schedule’ and a new thinking was required for the whole system. So started the conversions! After being in operation for five or six years only, selected rail motors had the steam unit removed, the carriages converted to trailer cars now powered by a small, separate locomotive that could also be used independently, for example shunting wagons, which the rail motor could not really take.

In the period 1914–18, war retarded the conversion programme to a degree, but following the war, by the early 1930s, the steam rail motor on the Great Western was history.

This book covers the Great Western’s involvement in the rise and fall of the steam rail motor and a century later, a steam rail motor rebuild. But read on!

Businesses the world over have been and are still always on the lookout for ways of cutting costs. In this respect the railway systems of Britain and the world were no exceptions. In the first flush of railway building, many routes were established that, as time went by, although essential and to a reasonable extent still profitable, were still thought to be capable of further economies, and exertions were made to determine suitable means. All this was against a rising tide of opposition in the burgeoning field of road motor transport. As various railways continued to experiment with the old idea of the self-contained powered coach, and after trying out a borrowed example, the Chairman of the Great Western, Earl Cawdor, announced to the 13 August 1903 meeting of shareholders:

We are putting on a motor car service, a combined car which will carry fifty-two passengers. This car will run on the rails of our own line. We are putting on one now and it will be working in October between Stonehouse and Chalford in the Stroud Valley. We can run this car on the line, stopping not only at stations, but with the sanction of the Board of Trade, at level crossings and at roads coming up to the line … This motor car will be working by steam, there are others which are worked by petrol, but we have decided on one propelled by steam, and we hope it will be running by next October.

As good as his word, two cars started the run on 12 October 1903. There were four stops besides the Brimscombe and Stroud stations, but difficulties were soon experienced with passenger access and egress at the four intermediate stops. Down to ground level was quite a drop and the collapsible iron steps provided for this purpose (controlled from inside the car by a lever) were soon found to be rather inconvenient, particularly for long-skirted lady travellers. So, in this respect it was back to the drawing board, and the raised ‘Halt’ platform was proposed, an innovation detailed later in this book. However, the inaugural run was very successful and the invited distinguished guests and a host of reporters were well satisfied. Those attending the run included Mr G. Churchward (Loco & Carriage Superintendent), Mr W. Dawson (Outdoor Assistant Superintendent), Mr C. Aldington (representing the General Manager – Mr J.C. Inglis), Mr Marillier (Carriage Department), Mr Simpson (of the Superintendent of the Lines’ Office) and Mr W. Waister (Locomotive & Carriage Running Department). The accompanying journalists were mainly from London and Gloucester and all were entertained to lunch on their return to Swindon. A short speech from Mr Dawson thanked those who attended the launch of the project and a reply from The Times’ representative wished the project every success.

A further snippet of information from The Stroud Journal& Cirencester Gazette of Friday 9 October 1903 mentioned receipt of the official rail motor timetable. Starting from Chalford at 8 a.m. and from Stonehouse at 8.30 a.m. the motors ran an hourly service up to 10.30 p.m. from Chalford and Stonehouse 11.00 p.m., these two latter being ‘late’ trains on Fridays and Saturdays. The return fare between Stroud and Stonehouse was 4 pence and between Stroud and Chalford 6 pence and the duration of actual travelling twenty-three minutes between six stops (St Mary’s Crossing, Brimscombe, Ham Mill Crossing, Stroud, Downfield Crossing and Ebley Crossing).

The early years of the steam rail motor saw a proliferation of use throughout the country but not so enthusiastically on the other railways of Britain (and indeed other countries), this being a time of general enthusiasm for the self-contained, steam-powered railway carriage throughout the rail scene, although other forms of power were being introduced at this time.

The extract below from the months of May and June 1908 from the train service minutes gives an idea of how the steam rail motors of the Great Western Railway (GWR) were being integrated into the system. It is possible that the idea of the rail motors substituting more cheaply for the usual trains was not progressing as had been hoped, the rail motors as shown by the example allowing only a minuscule reduction in train mileage – although the added convenience for passengers cannot be quantified in financial terms! The problems of breakdowns and maintenance would also raise its head.

However, at this early stage the enthusiasm was still there as the rail motors spread throughout the GWR system. The use of rail motors on the branches posed several problems not really related to the suburban and main-line application and are dealt with separately in later pages.

From their introduction to the GWR in 1903, the rail motor allocation to the various sheds of the system shows clearly, over almost the thirty or so years of their existence, how they rose to prominence and then faded away as their importance declined. From a 1925 report, detailed later in this work, it was shown that their popularity on other railway systems had also declined rather rapidly over the years and that currently, of ninety-one in use throughout the rail network of the country, fifty-three were still in use on the GWR, a total that would reduce and vanish in the next ten years, although at that time they were grimly clinging on to existence.

From the end of 1934 the last of the series of GWR-designed steam rail motors were shunted into the sidings of the Swindon Works for assessment. The reduction in numbers over the years from about 1917 resulted in three sold, eighteen scrapped and seventy-eight converted to trailers for the ‘auto train’, the successor to the steam rail motor. This conversion would entail removal and disposal of the engine unit, and a rebuild of the driving end of the rail motor to match its opposite end, the 0-4-0 engine replaced by a standard-carriage four-wheel bogie. Thus while no longer considered a viable proposition as a separate unit, the steam rail motor coach body would still be in service either as an ordinary coach, or as a trailer coach coupled to a small tank engine with the engine controllable either from the footplate or, without running round the coach and being coupled the opposite end, from the vestibule at the opposite end of the attached coach, to which a prominent warning bell was fitted.

It seems ironic that at the opposite end of the century the idea of small, fast, convenient rural and suburban rail transport had been resurrected with the introduction of the three-car diesel multiple unit – its steam motor forebears on the GWR having been abandoned in the 1930s as non-economic faced with road motor opposition, while, for example, some companies continued to develop the steam rail motor with three-car steam units as the later diesel version and were still selling them worldwide.

1

THE STEAM RAILMOTORANDITS CONTEMPORARIES: BRITAIN, EMPIREAND BEYOND

The enthusiasm for the steam rail motor on the GWR was never matched by similar enthusiasm on the many other rail systems throughout the country, although a number had experimented with various designs of cars. This is evidenced by a look at the Board of Trade return a decade after the 1903 introduction on the GWR. As the following list shows, no-one came anywhere near the number of rail motors running on the GWR.

Carrying Capacity

In England & Wales

No.

Seats

1

Alexandra Docks & Railway

1

54

2

Barry

2

104

3

Cardiff

2

128

4

Freshwater, Yarmouth & Newport

1

12

5

Furness

1

48

6

Great Central

4

206

7

Great Northern

6

296

8

Great Western

100

5,635

9

Kent & East Sussex

1

36

10

Lancashire & Yorkshire

17

936

11

London & North Western

7

336

12

London & South Western

25

1,130

13

London, Brighton & South Coast

3

144

14

North Eastern

5

126

15

North Staffordshire

3

141

16

Rhymney

1

64

17

South Eastern & Chatham

8

448

18

Taff Vale

16

847

TOTALS

203

10,691

SCOTLAND

1

Caledonian

1

25

2

Glasgow & South Western

3

120

TOTALS

4

145

IRELAND

1

Belfast & County Down

3

184

2

Midland Great Western of Ireland

1

12

3

Midland (Irish Sections)

2

46

TOTALS

6

242

OVERALL TOTALS

213

11,078

There were at this time a surprising number of electric versions in existence, although some would come under the classification of tramcars. Those are included in the following list:

Carrying Capacity

In England & Wales

No.

Seats

1

Blackpool & Fleetwood Tramroad

37

2,032

2

Central London

64

2,576

+ coaches

3

Great Central (electric tramcars)

12

672

4

Great Western

20

960

+ coaches

5

Lancashire & Yorkshire

74

5,027

+ coaches

6

Liverpool Overhead

58

3,543

+ coaches

7

London & South Western

17

802

+ coaches

8

London, Brighton & South Coast

50

3,436

+ coaches

9

London Electric

168

7,056

+coaches

10

Mersey

24

1,152

+ coaches

11

Metropolitan

142

6,514

+coaches

12

Metropolitan District

206

9,768

13

Midland

68

3,492

14

North Eastern

66

3,402

TOTALS

1,006

58,477

SCOTLAND

1

Great North of Scotland

No

details

TOTALS

-

IRELAND

1

Great Northern of Ireland

11

682

+1 goods car

2

Bearbrook & Newry Tramway (light railway)

2

60

3

Great Southern & Western

No

details

4

Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford later Dub’n & Sth East’n

No

details

TOTALS

13

740

OVERALL TOTALS

1,019

51,219

Others

1

Isle of Wight Central

2

Port Talbot

3

Isle of Man

Certain of the companies listed, such as the Welsh and Bristol & Exeter, were absorbed by the GWR prior to the amalgamation, thus bringing steam railcars with them. As an example of various other steam rail motor designs, all around the period of introduction of the GWR’s own, the Taff Vale Railway was among the first to sing its praises, the designs shown in the following illustrations. Mr T. Hurry Riches, the company’s Locomotive and Carriage Engineer had designed and supervised construction of the vehicle at the company’s Works at Cardiff. This car was produced before the GW’s No. 1 appeared. Such was its success that six more were the basis of a tender to various companies, the successful bidders being the Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works Company working with the Avonside Engine Company. To discuss the successful introduction of the design, a meeting was held with Taff Vale, GWR and London & South Western Railway (LSWR) representatives at which notes were compared on operating such vehicles. By the time of the amalgamation of 1923, with the Taff Vale already absorbed by the GW, Taff Vale official returns of rail motors for 1919 show ‘eighteen’, for 1920 ‘eighteen out of use’, and all have disappeared completely from the returns of 1921. A number of other Welsh railways had introduced rail motors, and the Port Talbot Railway & Docks Company had been the only absorbed company (1908) that had included an operational rail motor. This had been built by Hawthorn Leslie & Company in 1906, the coach body by Hurst, Nelson & Company. Withdrawn in July 1920 and sold to the Port of London Authority, it was withdrawn in 1926 and broken up in 1928.

The Rhymney Railway had two rail motors designed by Mr C.T. Hurry Riches (father of the Taff Vale’s Mr T. Hurry Riches), which had Hudswell Clarke power units with coachwork by Cravens Limited of Sheffield. One was converted to an ordinary coach during 1910 and the other disappeared from the schedule in 1919. The engine portions were converted to 0-6-0 tank locomotives, both being taken off the stock list in 1925, being the only 0-6-0 wheel format steam railcars. The Glasgow Railway and Engineering Company built two rail motors for the Alexandra Docks & Railway Company in 1904/5. One car was converted to a coach in 1922, and, like the one on the Rhymney Railway, the other disappeared from the schedules in 1917.

The Barry Railway had two North British Locomotive Company cars built in 1905, in appearance closely resembling the GWR versions, but both were withdrawn and converted to trailers.

Also of similar design to those of the GWR suburban cars, the Cardiff Railway had two rail motors built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Company, with Sissons & Co supplying three power units (one spare) during 1911. Two trailer cars were also supplied by the Gloucester firm. The rail motors were converted to trailers during 1917, the power units surviving for several years before they also faced the oxy-cutting torch for scrap.

Although long before the general introduction of the steam rail motor at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Bristol & Exeter Railway had pre-empted the GWR with a version to the broad gauge of Brunel in 1848, this being the second such innovation in the country. Ordered by Mr Gregory from the Fairfield Works at Bow, it had a trial run on the West London Railway before transfer to the Tiverton branch. Starting work on the GWR on 1 May 1849, it was eventually sold out of the service during 1856, its fate from there being unknown.

Thus were the railways all over the country involved, from very early on in some cases, in the self-contained, powered railway coach, which was introduced and was very successful, possibly too successful, and made itself in effect redundant as events and requirements overtook its power.

To conclude this section, and having outlined some of the cars in use on the British rail system, the illustrations that follow show also examples of the steam railcars in use abroad, in corners of the old Empire. The cars illustrated on the following pages show the three main types which had emerged from the experiments with the powered carriage, and were representative of those in use literally throughout the railway world of the period.

Types:

(a)  The separate locomotive with carriage(s) attached, the loco either pulling a single coach or being sandwiched between two coaches.

(b)  The integral locomotive style with built-in power unit, which actually looked like a small locomotive with boiler exposed but was a part of the body of the vehicle.

(c)  The completely built-in power unit of special design but hidden within the contours of the carriage. In this case the steam generator could be either a loco-style boiler, a special variation of such a boiler (such as the Alexandra Docks example), or a vertical boiler, variations of which were used for stationary and steam-crane applications.

Type (a) shows the emerging embryo of the auto train.

Some car types Illustrated on the following pages

Midland Railway

Class 1 – Auto steam car. Combined engine and car.

Class 2 – Pullman car with separate locomotive.

Class 3 – Short motor train.

North Staffordshire Railway

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

North Eastern Railway

Petrol electric driven rail auto-cars. Petrol engine driving electric generator. Short motor train.

Port Talbot Railway

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

Rhymney Railway

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

South Eastern & Chatham Railway

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car. Also short motor trains.

Taff Vale Railway

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car. Also short motor trains.

Dublin & South Eastern Railway (Ireland)

Short motor train type only.

Great Northern Railway (Ireland)

Short motor train type only.

Central South African Railways

Class 1 – Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

Class 2 – Small locomotive coupled by a Gould coupler to an ordinary coach.

South Australian Government Railways

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

Great Indian Peninsula Railway

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

Madras & Southern Mahratta Railway

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

North Western State Railway of India

Ordinary type. Combined engine and car.

Also included on pages following is a technical analysis of the contemporary cars illustrated including the general GWR version for comparison.