The LNER Encyclopedia

There is no definitive evidence either way that all GNR 6 wheelers were either articulated, or withdrawn from normal passenger service by the early 1950's, unless you know where the details are?????

Many of the photos in the modelling magazines during the 50's showed them on works or department trains, but that does not mean that some were not around still in teak, awaiting scrapping,particularly on the more remote Lincolnshire branches.

Paul

G'Day Gents

The LNER had no problems finding enough 6 wheelers when the bought Stirling's No 1 out of Top Shed for the publicity run to Stevenage, when was that 37/38.

manna

The LNER Society produce a GN Section Carriage working and marshalling arrangements, 30/9/1935 ufn.

This has many workings with GN 6-wheel stock, not just Brake vehicles. These are timetabled services.

They may not be front line services, but they were certainly in regular use, on the main line.

There is still much work to be done in working out carriage workings and formations.
Some of the generalisations presented in this thread are at best unhelpful.

Apologies for the negative tone.

John

That's helpful to know. My six wheelers may not therefore be out of the correct time frame. The advice I was previously given about these coaches generally being articulated or cascaded out of ordinary passenger use by the thirties was eveidently not sound, or I simply misunderstood it. At least I made it clear in my remarks that I was only stating what (I thought) I'd been told.
Obviously generalisations will almost always be wrong for certain very specific examples, but how else do we give "general" advice to those who might merely want an overall "guide" to a situation?

Terry Henderson of the GNRS and the late John Edgson did a lot of work on GN carriages, but sadly when Doncaster shut in the 60's nobody thought to consider much of the pre Gresley stuff, and as I have said before, there is a lot of misinformation about the stuff from 1848 until 1905, and very little in the way of accurate drawings or photos until about 1870. The GNRS has a series of books about carriages which show what happened to many of them.

One of the major problems for those like me looking at the pre 1877 stuff is the lack of decent photos. As has been noticed elsewhere, few published photos have the carriages as more than an adjunct to a particular locomotive. Indeed the same is true for those wanting details of the tenders behind many locos, be they GNR or LNER. Try to find a rear view of any of the GNR tenders, it is very difficult, I know I have searched

The really difficult thing is people stating as true things which are based not necessarily on looked at evidence, rather interpretations of others. People tend to forget that all books, and even magazine articles are sub edited, generally by people who have only an interest in fitting the words into a specific space, which means often the gist of an article can be totally changed by the deletion of a few words. It is famously said of the O. S. Nock book The Great Northern Railway, that the main details of the railway were pretty accurate, but the loco and rolling stock data is open to some doubt.

Not all the reference material is in either NRM or Kew, so whenever you find something definitive, then save it, and share it so it does not get lost please.

Paul

A good book for examples of branch line trains, if you can get hold of a copy, is Steam In The East Midlands by P H Wells.

Thanks a lot people. I knew there would be a wealth of knowledge on the LNER encyclopaedia! And strang steel I will have a look around and try and source that Steam in the East Midlands book you mentioned.

john coffin wrote:There is no definitive evidence either way that all GNR 6 wheelers were either articulated, or withdrawn from normal passenger service by the early 1950's, unless you know where the details are?????

There was a carriage census in 1948, this should be at the NRM. There was probably an earlier one in 1943 when carriage control was centralised at York.

Guy Hemingway produced a set detailed notes, in the 1960s, which itemised all known pre-grouping LNER carriages, though it has to admitted that there were gaps in the withdrawl data.

The expected life of a wooden carriage was around 50 years. Since the last GN six wheeler was built in the mid 1890s, the chance of them surviving into the 1950s was remote. The last GC six wheelers were built in 1901 and the last of the were withdrawn in 1945/6.

I've just been through the M&GN diagram book, and their six wheelers were not renumbered when they were taken over in 1938. Since there was an influx of ex-GER stock in 1940 the inference is that the six-wheelers were withdrawn en-mass at the same time.

Many of the photos in the modelling magazines during the 50's showed them on works or department trains, but that does not mean that some were not around still in teak, awaiting scrapping,particularly on the more remote Lincolnshire branches.

Nowhere was too remote to escape the attention of control.

A quick look through a couple of Lincs railway books produced photos of GNR Howden stock in use in the 1950s. One photos taken of Lincoln Central by J Cupit in 1959 shows the roofs of 6 wheelers in the carriage sidings, ready for use as a complete local train or to strengthen another.

That said, the decline of the stock is apparent as bogie stock was cascaded into the more rural areas.

Regards,

Vernon

Bill Bedford wrote:
Guy Hemingway produced a set detailed notes, in the 1960s, which itemised all known pre-grouping LNER carriages, though it has to admitted that there were gaps in the withdrawl data.

This sounds like a very interesting document. Was it published anywhere?

sadly not all of Guy's stuff has been published, although you will find articles in particularly Model Railway News and Model Railway Constructor during the 50's and 60's. Also some of his stuff was published by the HMRS,if you have access.

In at least one of Guy's published articles, showing MGN stock, it has received a BR E number, so there is much more room to doubt than people might imagine. I have a number of photos of stock, including 75 year old 4 wheelers around in 1954, and still with wheels.

I can find no evidence that the expected or actual life of 4 or 6 wheelers was only 50 years in all my recent research, nor the stuff that either Guy Hemingway or Terry Henderson have shown. It is easy to assume that BR produced carriages more quickly than they actually did. Actual archive research shows that as far back as the 1860's when Stirling carried out the first stock checks a number of carriages were lost, or missing, and even when a special process of marking was carried out, a number were missed. My experience of the BR monolith, or "KREMLIN" as many of the time called it, was that they were no more clever or careful. Viz the Stirling tender now at Shildon, which went missing for almost 50 years!!!!!!!!!

Unless you have the source documents, it is not correct to say, it was published so it must be true.

Paul

strang steel wrote:
Edited, because I have managed to find an example of the Horncastle branch train

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/ho ... dex2.shtml

I doubt that it had changed that much over the previous 30 years.

Actually, I was wrong with that last comment. That twin articulated ex-railmotor set appears to have been used on the Bourne to Essendine service, until that ceased in 1951, and was only moved to the Horncastle branch after that date.

strang steel wrote:

strang steel wrote:
Edited, because I have managed to find an example of the Horncastle branch train

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/ho ... dex2.shtml

I doubt that it had changed that much over the previous 30 years.

Actually, I was wrong with that last comment. That twin articulated ex-railmotor set appears to have been used on the Bourne to Essendine service, until that ceased in 1951, and was only moved to the Horncastle branch after that date.

The set on the Horncastle branch, 44616/2, remained there through out its life as a twin. Essendine set, 44141/2, worked the Essendine-Bourne branch until June 1951, It was then seen at Mapblethorpe. In summer 1956 it was on the Border Counties line between Newcastle and Hawick. It was seen at Leeds City on a train from Darlington in April 1958 and was used on the Bridlington-Scarbough service until condemned in August 1958.

The diagnostic difference between the units was that 44141/2 had top lights, while 44161/2 had wooden bonnet vents.

Thanks Bill.

It shows the problems with relying on "advice" from others, rather than the facts.

Apologies to all who I have confused. I will check things myself in future.

john coffin wrote:sadly not all of Guy's stuff has been published, although you will find articles in particularly Model Railway News and Model Railway Constructor during the 50's and 60's. Also some of his stuff was published by the HMRS,if you have access.

Guy Hemingway produced tables which detail every carriage he could find records for. I have copies of parts of the GC, GN and NE tables. I presume he also did tables for the GE, but I don't know that he did the same for the NB and GNS. These are the document that are now in the NRM.

I can find no evidence that the expected or actual life of 4 or 6 wheelers was only 50 years in all my recent research, nor the stuff that either Guy Hemingway or Terry Henderson have shown.

Simply list carriages in a spreadsheet with the build and withdrawal dates, add another column for length of service (withdrawal-build dates) and you will see that the service life clusters around 45years for wooden framed stock and 35 years for steel framed stock.

It is easy to assume that BR produced carriages more quickly than they actually did. Actual archive research shows that as far back as the 1860's when Stirling carried out the first stock checks a number of carriages were lost, or missing, and even when a special process of marking was carried out, a number were missed. My experience of the BR monolith, or "KREMLIN" as many of the time called it, was that they were no more clever or careful.

You miss the point. Carriage control was centralised in 1942. In the 1930s it had been LNER policy to eliminate six-wheeled (and gas lit) stock from service trains. The centralised carriage control enable more modern bogie stock, that had been replaced by new builds, to be drafted in to areas which were still using six-wheeled stock. So we start seeing GE stock in Lincolnshire and GC stock in both East Anglia and Southern Scotland in addition to the ex-NER stock that was cascaded to other areas when the NER six-wheeled stock was eliminated in the late 30s.

Of course if, by some miracle the GN section did manage to hang on to its ancient six-wheelers in service trains there should be firmly dated photographs to prove it.