Beal...and he was still writing articles in the Railway Modeller in the early 60s. He lived from 1889 to 1985, so may well have written later articles.
Rev Beal's West Midland Railway (in its various guises) was well-known at one time. It was 00 scale, but in later years he adopted the then-new TT scale (3mm to the foot).
His layouts always seemed very large - maybe he had plenty of room in his manse!
And plenty of time in his ministry - clearly not racing between half-a-dozen "linked charges"!
BTW I remember reading in the biography of Wilbert Audrey ("The Thomas the Tank Engine Man") that Mrs Awdry got very fed up of always having to go to Tywyn for their relatively brief family holidays and being stuck with the children while hubby went off to play on the Talyllyn Railway.
I rather enjoyed his (not very good) spinet (?) playing of The Harmonious Blacksmith.
I was also amazed by the variety of valuable (even in those days) railway ephemera, such as the loco name- and number-plates. And did you see the Liverpool & Manchester "long prints" on the wall above the stairs? How did he do it all on a Rector's stipend?
I rather enjoyed his (not very good) spinet (?) playing of The Harmonious Blacksmith.
I was also amazed by the variety of valuable (even in those days) railway ephemera, such as the loco name- and number-plates. And did you see the Liverpool & Manchester "long prints" on the wall above the stairs? How did he do it all on a Rector's stipend?
Well reading 'Font to Footplate' a lot of the big stuff wasn't actually his, but was just there to be looked after. Having said that, he was also very good at getting people to give him stuff for free. In terms of the nameplates and things in the house well I think he collected them over time, and he married very late - so for much of his adult life he was (even on a vicar's stipend - though I suspect he went to Cadeby before glebe etc was centralised) a single man doing what he wanted.
I do urge church minded railway enthusiasts to read his book though, as what shines through is that he was a very serious parish priest, he just happened to have a sideline...
(In a similar vein is Brian Sibley's 'The Thomas the Tank Engine Man; the Life of the Rev W Awdry')
Interesting comments re Rev Teddy Boston. I'll have a look online for his book - sounds as though it's well worth reading!
I met Rev Awdry at the big Model Railway Exhibition in London, probably in about 1969 or 1970. He was autographing copies of his books, so I have a signed copy of Toby the Tram Engine - in addition to the cover price of the book, he was charging the princely sum of 2/- (two shillings - 10p) for the autograph, proceeds going to charity...
I was there too, I think. I saw Ffarquar although I didn't meet Awdry.
Yes, the layout was there, but maybe Rev Awdry was only there for a certain part of the time - IIRC, the Exhibition went on for several days. He must have had a fair bit of assistance, not only to operate the layout, but also to transport it to and fro. It was a 6 foot by 4 foot solid baseboard, I think, though there may have been a small operating well (just big enough for a Thin Clergyman!) in the centre. Either way, a hefty chunk of layout...
I can't remember if that was the New Horticultural Hall or still downstairs in the Central Hall (which, at the time, I didn't realise was a church!)
I remember Awdry writing in RM that he had sold his old van and that the new layout had been designed to fit into its successor - or something like that! Several features from the old layout reappeared in the new one.
My recollection is of the Central Hall, but I think that was about the time when the NEH began to be used.
The layout did indeed change from time to time - I shall have to trawl through the Railway Modeller archives. I have all the actual copies from 1950 to 1965, but, as an online subscriber, I now also have access to all the RMs. Alas! once one starts browsing, things like eating and sleeping tend to get forgotten...
A chap who reviews new models on his YouTube channel recently reviewed an *original* Thomas (the third Thomas, it seems):
a chap who reviews new models *on his carpet* no less.
Is outrage.
I've been sticking to a paper subscription to RM to avoid the timehole of the digital archive but closer reading of the small print suggests it has in fact been included all this time...
The 1959 layout is, I think, the one I saw some 10 years later in London. I guess the Thin Clergyman must have stood or sat behind it during a running session.
The track plan is a classic, too - an adaptation of Maurice Deane's idea of having the *fiddle yard* behind the terminus, a scheme often used by Cyril Freezer in his plans in Railway Modeller in the 50s and 60s.
Me too. I was at several Model Railway Exhibitions at the Central Hall, but I think it must have been late 50s. I remember Rev W. Awdry clearly. He looked very happy to be there.
I rather enjoyed his (not very good) spinet (?) playing of The Harmonious Blacksmith.
I was also amazed by the variety of valuable (even in those days) railway ephemera, such as the loco name- and number-plates. And did you see the Liverpool & Manchester "long prints" on the wall above the stairs? How did he do it all on a Rector's stipend?
A lot of that sort of stuff hardly cost anything in those days. I've known at least two people in my life who back in the 1960-70s picked up gauge O and gauge 1 locomotives at jumble sales for a £ or two, and not just 0-4-0 ones, either, in pre-war and even pre-grouping liveries. Even allowing for inflation, that wasn't expensive.
Then there were the shops... Does anyone remember Walker and Holtzapffel, (otherwise W&H models) , and Hamblings? Wonderful London destinations to see the best in models and even to spend a little money. They both had good catalogues of almost everything you needed to make locomotives and other rolling stock. My 'bits' boxes still have things in them from both places.
Then there were the shops... Does anyone remember Walker and Holtzapffel, (otherwise W&H models) , and Hamblings? Wonderful London destinations to see the best in models and even to spend a little money. They both had good catalogues of almost everything you needed to make locomotives and other rolling stock. My 'bits' boxes still have things in them from both places.
Yes, I remember them both!
Hamblings (just off Charing Cross Road) was within easy lunchtime reach of my workplace, back in the 70s, and I still have a few Oakwood Press booklets bought from them. My main purchases were Bilteezi building cards - my 009 layout was graced almost entirely by them - and, in fact, a few of the sheets are still sometimes available at silly prices on eBay (guess how I know that...).
W&H were a bit further out, and although I visited the shop a few times, I can't recall anything I actually bought there...
For those who favoured US and/or European models, Victor's of Islington was the place to go. Bernie Victor started off in a tiny triangular space at the back of a record shop in Chapel Market, moving later to a proper shop not far from the Angel, down the hill towards King's Cross.
He supplied me with a lot of Austrian HOe equipment (Liliput and Roco), and I think I was one of the first people in England to buy one of Roco's transporter wagons - the ingenious wagon whereby a standard-gauge vehicle can be carried over narrow-gauge tracks.
Something that thread doesn't seem to have been away of, is that with unfitted freight operation, I'd wonder whether it's either possible or practical to pin down bogie wagons when this was necessary?
I am always shocked at British operating practices. Verily the Janney Coupler and Westinghouse Air Brake are regarded as the Almighty's gifts to railways.
Yes, loose-coupled goods wagons trundling along sidings, hotly pursued by the shunter with his pole - in all weathers! - would give Health & Safety people nightmares these days, but it was a common sight in the UK right up to the 60s...
Then there were the shops... Does anyone remember Walker and Holtzapffel, (otherwise W&H models) , and Hamblings? Wonderful London destinations to see the best in models and even to spend a little money. They both had good catalogues of almost everything you needed to make locomotives and other rolling stock. My 'bits' boxes still have things in them from both places.
My father's consulting room was in Devonshire Place, just round the corner from W&H, so we went there quite often. They used to do a wonderful catalogue each year, and I bought some vintage O-gauge tinplate there. Going back a bit further, Trix for a time had a showroom in Portland Place.
I'd always look in Hambling's window if we passed on our way from Leicester Square tube station to the Coliseum. I only went in once a year though: our school had a carol service at St Martin-in-the-Fields and railway-minded choristers would go during our lunch break, after the morning rehearsal but before the gig.
What about the lovely (and mobile - I think it had three locations) Chuffs?
I never went to Victor's, but I did go to Bond's o'Euston Road and Beatties (the successor to Bassett-Lowke) in Holborn. There was also the amazing, expensive and top end "Steam Age" off Kensington High Street. More down to earth was our excellent local model shop: H.A. Blunt & Sons.
Then there were the shops... Does anyone remember Walker and Holtzapffel, (otherwise W&H models) , and Hamblings? Wonderful London destinations to see the best in models and even to spend a little money. They both had good catalogues of almost everything you needed to make locomotives and other rolling stock. My 'bits' boxes still have things in them from both places.
My father's consulting room was in Devonshire Place, just round the corner from W&H, so we went there quite often. They used to do a wonderful catalogue each year, and I bought some vintage O-gauge tinplate there. Going back a bit further, Trix for a time had a showroom in Portland Place.
I'd always look in Hambling's window if we passed on our way from Leicester Square tube station to the Coliseum. I only went in once a year though: our school had a carol service at St Martin-in-the-Fields and railway-minded choristers would go during our lunch break, after the morning rehearsal but before the gig.
What about the lovely (and mobile - I think it had three locations) Chuffs?
I never went to Victor's, but I did go to Bond's o'Euston Road and Beatties (the successor to Bassett-Lowke) in Holborn. There was also the amazing, expensive and top end "Steam Age" off Kensington High Street. More down to earth was our excellent local model shop: H.A. Blunt & Sons.
Yes, I remember Chuffs, too - somewhere in the Lisson Grove area IIRC? I did visit now and then, and acquired lots of back numbers of various magazines from their seemingly endless supply...
Beattie's in High Holborn was also a frequent port of call - they often sold very good secondhand models at reasonable prices.
I can still remember the disappointment when Beatties stopped being a proper model shop and became a general toy outlet, in the late seventies. It then spawned a chain of lookalikes all over the country, and the whole thing went bust and closed around the turn of the century
Yes, I remember Chuffs, too - somewhere in the Lisson Grove area IIRC?
Yes, but it started off in the City. I think it was in two locations there before moving to Lisson Grove. They used to do amazing, amusing and wordy adverts.
When I moved to Chiswick in 1994 there was a vintage railway shop called "Ernie's Train Shop". Long gone! We have a good railway shop in Cardiff, plus a long-established model shop.
I can still remember the disappointment when Beatties stopped being a proper model shop and became a general toy outlet, in the late seventies. It then spawned a chain of lookalikes all over the country, and the whole thing went bust and closed around the turn of the century
Later than that: they still had a store in Ipswich for a few years after I moved there in 2005. The London shop moved along Holborn (well, to New Oxford Street) but that didn't last long.
Something that thread doesn't seem to have been away of, is that with unfitted freight operation, I'd wonder whether it's either possible or practical to pin down bogie wagons when this was necessary?
I am always shocked at British operating practices. Verily the Janney Coupler and Westinghouse Air Brake are regarded as the Almighty's gifts to railways.
Good to see correct usage there. It always irritates me that in the UK knuckle couplers are always referred to as buckeye couplers, even in official documents. 'Buckeye' comes from the name of the Buckeye Steel company in Ohio that made knuckle couplers, so it was just the brand name of one of many of the Janney type. I suppose it's like Kleenex for tissues, and it stuck, though not often heard in North America.
Yes, loose-coupled goods wagons trundling along sidings, hotly pursued by the shunter with his pole - in all weathers! - would give Health & Safety people nightmares these days, but it was a common sight in the UK right up to the 60s...
The aforementioned coal-mining railway operated wooden-bodied, loose-coupled, unfitted four-wheeled coal hopper wagons up until closure in 1987. The practice, when approaching the washery, was for the fireman [who doubled as shunter], to uncouple the loco which would then accelerate forward into an empty siding while the rake of wagons coasted into a neighbouring siding after he had thrown the points. The loco was then positioned at the rear of the rake to push it up into the washery for unloading. This was the last steam-operated commercial railway in Australia.
Good to see correct usage there. It always irritates me that in the UK knuckle couplers are always referred to as buckeye couplers, even in official documents. 'Buckeye' comes from the name of the Buckeye Steel company in Ohio that made knuckle couplers, so it was just the brand name of one of many of the Janney type. I suppose it's like Kleenex for tissues, and it stuck, though not often heard in North America.
Yebbut. The sort you're being rude about are called 'three link couplings'. There was(is? if any survive that haven't been phased out) a hook with three links of a chain dangling down from it, which are looped over the hook on the next wagon. They can be uncoupled by deftly lifting the chain of one wagon off the hook on the other with a long pole with a hook on the end. The three links mean that over the length of the train there is some slack in the couplings. That can be used to enable a small engine to start a long train. Inertia means that by the time the back of the train has to start moving, the front is already under way.
These sort of trains were not fitted with continuous brakes. They therefore travelled somewhat slowly and got in the way of faster traffic. They had to stop before descending inclines so that the guard could pin down the brakes on an appropriate quotient of vehicles manually. At the bottom, he had to unpin them again.
It was a dreadful way to run a railway but the users weren't prepared to pay for anything better.
It was strictly forbidden to work any sort of passenger service that way. Passenger vehicles had a completely different pattern of screw couplings, and piped brakes.
There was a real problem when going going along an undulating line with loose-coupled wagons. Unless held back on the descent by a brake van, the wagons would all close up; then, as they reached the bottom of a dip and started to climb, the couplings would suddenly pull tight - known in Scotland as a "rug", this could snap the couplings.
There was a style of loose coupling with one strangely-shaped link, called the Instanter, which sought to alleviate some of the problems. I think the GW used them.
Does anyone else remember the high=speed (and sometimes terrifying) engine change at Rickmansworth? Wouldn't be allowed nowadays - the uncoupler sometimes stayed at track level throughout.
I never saw it (I'm too young) but I believe they were allowed 4 minutes but often did it in less.
The carriages were marshalled in six-coach sets and the endmost bogies had power pickups with a feet to the electric locomotives. The locos were quite short so this avoided them "gapping" on live rail breaks., You can see this in this (rather fuzzy) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT0OaEr3uW4
One memory I have is in the first two years of college Mom would send me care packages--baked goodies mostly--through the mail. At the time. they lived on a Star Route which was a route between a post office and the train depot where the bag of mail would be caught by the passing train headed to Portland. The mail would be sorted overnight on the train and then delivered the next day. Mom would pack the packages so well I swear the goodies were still warm when I opened the package.
(I'd be surprised if those letters were posted in Bletchley as we're by the DC suburban lines south of Watford! There was a standard at Wembley, though).
By coincidence, someone mentioned the Mail Rail at the London Postal Museum to me yesterday. I admit to being curious to see this, though not necessarily to go on it myself.
I never saw it (I'm too young) but I believe they were allowed 4 minutes but often did it in less.
The carriages were marshalled in six-coach sets and the endmost bogies had power pickups with a feet to the electric locomotives. The locos were quite short so this avoided them "gapping" on live rail breaks., You can see this in this (rather fuzzy) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT0OaEr3uW4
I never saw a Metropolitan maroon electric, much though I wanted to, but did once see a BR 2-6-4 tank with a rake of brown, rather than BR red, somewhere near Aylesbury.
The voice over, of course, in the later part of the Night Mail film, is W. H Auden's.
By coincidence, someone mentioned the Mail Rail at the London Postal Museum to me yesterday. I admit to being curious to see this, though not necessarily to go on it myself.
Mrs BF and I once visited the Post Office railway, although in those far-off days (1995 or thereabouts) it was still in use for its original purpose, and no passengers were allowed!
I never saw it (I'm too young) but I believe they were allowed 4 minutes but often did it in less.
The carriages were marshalled in six-coach sets and the endmost bogies had power pickups with a feet to the electric locomotives. The locos were quite short so this avoided them "gapping" on live rail breaks., You can see this in this (rather fuzzy) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT0OaEr3uW4
I never saw a Metropolitan maroon electric, much though I wanted to, but did once see a BR 2-6-4 tank with a rake of brown, rather than BR red, somewhere near Aylesbury.
The voice over, of course, in the later part of the Night Mail film, is W. H Auden's.
The brown coaches would, I think, have been former Metropolitan stock, albeit owned by London Transport. The coaches ran through to and from Aylesbury - it was only the locomotives which were exchanged at Rickmansworth.
A couple of those lovely old Metropolitan electric locos have happily been preserved, and I think they are allowed out on the LT system occasionally, as long as they behave themselves!
Working models of TPO mail coaches were produced in 00 scale by both Hornby-Dublo and Triang, back in the 50s, using different ways of operation. I had the Triang version, and it worked very well.
Good to see correct usage there. It always irritates me that in the UK knuckle couplers are always referred to as buckeye couplers, even in official documents. 'Buckeye' comes from the name of the Buckeye Steel company in Ohio that made knuckle couplers, so it was just the brand name of one of many of the Janney type. I suppose it's like Kleenex for tissues, and it stuck, though not often heard in North America.
Yebbut. The sort you're being rude about are called 'three link couplings'. There was(is? if any survive that haven't been phased out) a hook with three links of a chain dangling down from it, which are looped over the hook on the next wagon. They can be uncoupled by deftly lifting the chain of one wagon off the hook on the other with a long pole with a hook on the end. The three links mean that over the length of the train there is some slack in the couplings. That can be used to enable a small engine to start a long train. Inertia means that by the time the back of the train has to start moving, the front is already under way.
These sort of trains were not fitted with continuous brakes. They therefore travelled somewhat slowly and got in the way of faster traffic. They had to stop before descending inclines so that the guard could pin down the brakes on an appropriate quotient of vehicles manually. At the bottom, he had to unpin them again.
It was a dreadful way to run a railway but the users weren't prepared to pay for anything better.
It was strictly forbidden to work any sort of passenger service that way. Passenger vehicles had a completely different pattern of screw couplings, and piped brakes.
Yebbut what?
The Janney coupler accommodates slack through the draft gear. Slack is absolutely necessary to run freight trains of North American size. Hence the air brake too. It's been the NA standard for 130 years.
Mrs BF and I once visited the Post Office railway, although in those far-off days (1995 or thereabouts) it was still in use for its original purpose, and no passengers were allowed!
Yes, I went with a group from our school Transport Society c.1970 and it was fascinating: much smaller than I expected, like a large and robust model railway. I think we could go because one of the boys had a parent Who Knew Someone at Mount Pleasant. Went again for a public open day c.1990 but by then it was far less busy.
Our visit was one I arranged privately, so only Mrs BF and I were in the *group*, which included a general (and very interesting) tour of Mount Pleasant. The railway was operational, but IIRC our guide did say that it wasn't as busy as it had once been.
[...] A couple of those lovely old Metropolitan electric locos have happily been preserved, and I think they are allowed out on the LT system occasionally, as long as they behave themselves! [...]
I thought it was only Metropolitan Railway Electric Locomotive No. 12, 'Sarah Siddons', which was preserved and in working order? - According to Wiki, No. 5, 'John Hampden', is a static exhibit in the London Transport Museum.
The acceleration is fantabulous, see e.g. this video!
Comments
Beal...and he was still writing articles in the Railway Modeller in the early 60s. He lived from 1889 to 1985, so may well have written later articles.
His layouts always seemed very large - maybe he had plenty of room in his manse!
BTW I remember reading in the biography of Wilbert Audrey ("The Thomas the Tank Engine Man") that Mrs Awdry got very fed up of always having to go to Tywyn for their relatively brief family holidays and being stuck with the children while hubby went off to play on the Talyllyn Railway.
For more on Teddy Boston see the excellent little documentary (which has been divided into two parts on YouTube) The Steam Powered Vicar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSCbO_k4D3E
and part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMwVdP1QtUI&t=10s
I was also amazed by the variety of valuable (even in those days) railway ephemera, such as the loco name- and number-plates. And did you see the Liverpool & Manchester "long prints" on the wall above the stairs? How did he do it all on a Rector's stipend?
Well reading 'Font to Footplate' a lot of the big stuff wasn't actually his, but was just there to be looked after. Having said that, he was also very good at getting people to give him stuff for free. In terms of the nameplates and things in the house well I think he collected them over time, and he married very late - so for much of his adult life he was (even on a vicar's stipend - though I suspect he went to Cadeby before glebe etc was centralised) a single man doing what he wanted.
I do urge church minded railway enthusiasts to read his book though, as what shines through is that he was a very serious parish priest, he just happened to have a sideline...
(In a similar vein is Brian Sibley's 'The Thomas the Tank Engine Man; the Life of the Rev W Awdry')
I met Rev Awdry at the big Model Railway Exhibition in London, probably in about 1969 or 1970. He was autographing copies of his books, so I have a signed copy of Toby the Tram Engine - in addition to the cover price of the book, he was charging the princely sum of 2/- (two shillings - 10p) for the autograph, proceeds going to charity...
Yes, the layout was there, but maybe Rev Awdry was only there for a certain part of the time - IIRC, the Exhibition went on for several days. He must have had a fair bit of assistance, not only to operate the layout, but also to transport it to and fro. It was a 6 foot by 4 foot solid baseboard, I think, though there may have been a small operating well (just big enough for a Thin Clergyman!) in the centre. Either way, a hefty chunk of layout...
I remember Awdry writing in RM that he had sold his old van and that the new layout had been designed to fit into its successor - or something like that! Several features from the old layout reappeared in the new one.
Here is the exhibition one - I can't see No 'Ole! Perhaps it got revised later
https://trlottte.com/rm-1959-12.htm
The layout did indeed change from time to time - I shall have to trawl through the Railway Modeller archives. I have all the actual copies from 1950 to 1965, but, as an online subscriber, I now also have access to all the RMs. Alas! once one starts browsing, things like eating and sleeping tend to get forgotten...
A chap who reviews new models on his YouTube channel recently reviewed an *original* Thomas (the third Thomas, it seems):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOuxpkbJK_Y
a chap who reviews new models *on his carpet* no less.
Is outrage.
I've been sticking to a paper subscription to RM to avoid the timehole of the digital archive but closer reading of the small print suggests it has in fact been included all this time...
The 1959 layout is, I think, the one I saw some 10 years later in London. I guess the Thin Clergyman must have stood or sat behind it during a running session.
The track plan is a classic, too - an adaptation of Maurice Deane's idea of having the *fiddle yard* behind the terminus, a scheme often used by Cyril Freezer in his plans in Railway Modeller in the 50s and 60s.
Yes, I remember them both!
Hamblings (just off Charing Cross Road) was within easy lunchtime reach of my workplace, back in the 70s, and I still have a few Oakwood Press booklets bought from them. My main purchases were Bilteezi building cards - my 009 layout was graced almost entirely by them - and, in fact, a few of the sheets are still sometimes available at silly prices on eBay (guess how I know that...).
W&H were a bit further out, and although I visited the shop a few times, I can't recall anything I actually bought there...
For those who favoured US and/or European models, Victor's of Islington was the place to go. Bernie Victor started off in a tiny triangular space at the back of a record shop in Chapel Market, moving later to a proper shop not far from the Angel, down the hill towards King's Cross.
He supplied me with a lot of Austrian HOe equipment (Liliput and Roco), and I think I was one of the first people in England to buy one of Roco's transporter wagons - the ingenious wagon whereby a standard-gauge vehicle can be carried over narrow-gauge tracks.
Happy days!
I am always shocked at British operating practices. Verily the Janney Coupler and Westinghouse Air Brake are regarded as the Almighty's gifts to railways.
My father's consulting room was in Devonshire Place, just round the corner from W&H, so we went there quite often. They used to do a wonderful catalogue each year, and I bought some vintage O-gauge tinplate there. Going back a bit further, Trix for a time had a showroom in Portland Place.
I'd always look in Hambling's window if we passed on our way from Leicester Square tube station to the Coliseum. I only went in once a year though: our school had a carol service at St Martin-in-the-Fields and railway-minded choristers would go during our lunch break, after the morning rehearsal but before the gig.
What about the lovely (and mobile - I think it had three locations) Chuffs?
I never went to Victor's, but I did go to Bond's o'Euston Road and Beatties (the successor to Bassett-Lowke) in Holborn. There was also the amazing, expensive and top end "Steam Age" off Kensington High Street. More down to earth was our excellent local model shop: H.A. Blunt & Sons.
Yes, I remember Chuffs, too - somewhere in the Lisson Grove area IIRC? I did visit now and then, and acquired lots of back numbers of various magazines from their seemingly endless supply...
Beattie's in High Holborn was also a frequent port of call - they often sold very good secondhand models at reasonable prices.
When I moved to Chiswick in 1994 there was a vintage railway shop called "Ernie's Train Shop". Long gone! We have a good railway shop in Cardiff, plus a long-established model shop.
Good to see correct usage there. It always irritates me that in the UK knuckle couplers are always referred to as buckeye couplers, even in official documents. 'Buckeye' comes from the name of the Buckeye Steel company in Ohio that made knuckle couplers, so it was just the brand name of one of many of the Janney type. I suppose it's like Kleenex for tissues, and it stuck, though not often heard in North America.
The aforementioned coal-mining railway operated wooden-bodied, loose-coupled, unfitted four-wheeled coal hopper wagons up until closure in 1987. The practice, when approaching the washery, was for the fireman [who doubled as shunter], to uncouple the loco which would then accelerate forward into an empty siding while the rake of wagons coasted into a neighbouring siding after he had thrown the points. The loco was then positioned at the rear of the rake to push it up into the washery for unloading. This was the last steam-operated commercial railway in Australia.
These sort of trains were not fitted with continuous brakes. They therefore travelled somewhat slowly and got in the way of faster traffic. They had to stop before descending inclines so that the guard could pin down the brakes on an appropriate quotient of vehicles manually. At the bottom, he had to unpin them again.
It was a dreadful way to run a railway but the users weren't prepared to pay for anything better.
It was strictly forbidden to work any sort of passenger service that way. Passenger vehicles had a completely different pattern of screw couplings, and piped brakes.
There was a style of loose coupling with one strangely-shaped link, called the Instanter, which sought to alleviate some of the problems. I think the GW used them.
This is also interesting (I have the original article in a book but not in digital form): https://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12613
I never saw it (I'm too young) but I believe they were allowed 4 minutes but often did it in less.
The carriages were marshalled in six-coach sets and the endmost bogies had power pickups with a feet to the electric locomotives. The locos were quite short so this avoided them "gapping" on live rail breaks., You can see this in this (rather fuzzy) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT0OaEr3uW4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_Post_Office
And in 1930s RL (start at about 5m 20s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTEZ25sQGmc
(I'd be surprised if those letters were posted in Bletchley as we're by the DC suburban lines south of Watford! There was a standard at Wembley, though).
The voice over, of course, in the later part of the Night Mail film, is W. H Auden's.
Mrs BF and I once visited the Post Office railway, although in those far-off days (1995 or thereabouts) it was still in use for its original purpose, and no passengers were allowed!
The brown coaches would, I think, have been former Metropolitan stock, albeit owned by London Transport. The coaches ran through to and from Aylesbury - it was only the locomotives which were exchanged at Rickmansworth.
A couple of those lovely old Metropolitan electric locos have happily been preserved, and I think they are allowed out on the LT system occasionally, as long as they behave themselves!
Working models of TPO mail coaches were produced in 00 scale by both Hornby-Dublo and Triang, back in the 50s, using different ways of operation. I had the Triang version, and it worked very well.
Yebbut what?
The Janney coupler accommodates slack through the draft gear. Slack is absolutely necessary to run freight trains of North American size. Hence the air brake too. It's been the NA standard for 130 years.
Of course, you Brits invented everything.
Just reviewed the videos of the mail train. It was complicated back then, wasn't it?
Hehe - but it worked...
I thought it was only Metropolitan Railway Electric Locomotive No. 12, 'Sarah Siddons', which was preserved and in working order? - According to Wiki, No. 5, 'John Hampden', is a static exhibit in the London Transport Museum.
The acceleration is fantabulous, see e.g. this video!