Matthew Kirtley

In 1839 Matthew Kirtley was appointed, first a locomotive foreman, and in 1841 locomotive superintendent of the Birmingham & Derby Junction Railway; when that railway became one of the constituents of the Midland Railway, he took over the entire Railway as its locomotive superintendent. When he died in 1873 hundreds of locomotives to his design existed, many of which were to last into the days of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway, some fifty years later.

Kirtley 2-2-2

These engines were the principal express locomotives of the Midland Railway from 1852 till 1866, between which years Matthew Kirtley built 74 of them, all to one general pattern, although the later batches had somewhat larger dimensions.  They had double sandwich frames, and at first received raised firebox casings, but most of them were rebuilt by Johnson after 1875 with flush fireboxes, and small cabs in place of the original weatherboards.

A few were broken up in the 1870s without being rebuilt, but most of them lasted for many years longer, some of them as late as 1905.

No more single-wheelers were built for the Midland Railway after 1866 until the famous Johnson 4-2-2s appeared in 1887.

Driving Wheels – 6’ 8”,  Cylinders – 16” x 22” (increased to 16½ x 22” in the 1863 series), Weight – 28½ tons.

Big Bertha – Fowler 0-10-0 Banking EngineThe  engine as running soon after construction, in 1920.  H.C.Casserley.

The closing weeks of 1919 saw the appearance from Derby works of what was by far the largest locomotive to be built for the Midland Railway, which had remained a ‘small engine’ line during the period when most other railways had gone in for much larger and more powerful machines.

No.2290 was a four cylinder 0-10-0 engine built especially for banking up the Lickey incline with the three miles of continuous 1 in 37 ascent, and which had hitherto seen nothing larger than 0-6-0Ts on this duty.  It was, moreover, the only ten-coupled engine in the country at the time, its only other predecessor in this respect having been the GER ‘Decapod’, and it was not until 1943 that any further engines with ten wheels coupled appeared in Great Britain.

The new Midland locomotive had Walschaert’s outside valve gear, and the two piston valves for the two cylinders had outside admission, the parts inside the cylinders being crossed.  The cylinders were steeply inclined.

The famous Lickey Incline banker, locally known as ‘Big Bertha’ MR No. 2290 (here renumbered 22290) stands at Bromsgrove in May 1948 with steam up in readiness to assist a train up the 2¼ mile 1 in 37 gradient. H.C.Casserley

To facilitate drawing up to the rear of a train in darkness, preparatory to banking, it was later fitted with a powerful electric headlight.  It spent almost the whole of its life on the duty for which it was built, although it made one or two early trials on mineral trains between Toton and Cricklewood.  It remained the only representative of its class, and in order to ensure as short an absence as possible on its visits to shops, it had two boilers, which could be interchanged on these occasions.  After 36 years of heavy pounding up the bank it was withdrawn from service in 1956.  Its cylinders have been preserved.  In 1947 it was renumbered 22290, and under the BR regime it became 58100.  It went locally by the name of ‘Big Bertha’.  Fortunately the impressive sound of its throaty exhaust has been preserved on a gramophone record by an enterprising firm specialising in railway recordings.

Driving Wheels – 4’  7½”,  Cylinders (4) 16¾” x 28”,  Pressure 180lbs.

Tractive Effort 43,315lbs. Weight 73 tons 13 cwt.

‘Decapod’ – J.Holden 0-10-0TThe ‘Decapod’ as built – H.C.Casserley

This startling engine which was built in 1902 to the designs of J.Holden was totally unlike anything else which had appeared previously on the GER or any other line.  It was indeed believed to be the most powerful locomotive in the world at the time.

No.20 had an enormous boiler with a firebox extending the full width of the frame (as on GNR Atlantics of the same year) and the water was carried in a well tank beneath the bunker.  It was the first ten-coupled engine in this country, and apart from two very early machines of 1846 and 1868 it was the first to be fitted with three simple-propulsion cylinders.  The middle pair of driving wheels was flangeless.

Its purpose was purely experimental, to ascertain whether steam haulage was capable of attaining as great a rate of acceleration as electric traction for suburban working.  The electrification advocates maintained that they could produce a train of 315 tons which could be accelerated to 30 mph in thirty seconds.  The new engine, with a train of 335 tons, actually exceeded this target on test; as a result the question of electrifying the Great Eastern suburban lines was shelved for another decade.  Unfortunately the necessary strengthening of track and bridges was also postponed on account of cost, and in the event was never carried out.  Owing to the permanent way restrictions, the ’Decapod’ was never able to be used in ordinary service, and in 1906 was reconstructed as a 2-cylinder 0-8-0 tender engine with a smaller boiler, and was used on freight trains.  It was finally scrapped in 1913.LNER Info.

It was unfortunate that the engine was so much before its time and never had the opportunity of completely justifying itself.

As 0-10-0T                                      As 0-8-0

Driving Wheels                 4’ 6”                                        4’ 9”

Cylinders                        (3) 18½” x 24”                         (2)  18½ x 24”

Pressure                             200lbs.                                    180lbs.

Weight                                 80 tons                                    54¼ tons

I once had the opportunity of attending a family wedding on the outskirts of Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumberland, and a small number of my relatives and I decided to take a short trip to the nearby town of Alnwick. The Border country is fascinating, full of historical sites; Alnwick itself is a pretty town with a grand open-air market and an operator of  splendid vintage buses, Dreadnought Coaches, which, as well as being available for private hire provide a site-seeing service around the town.

I had been told by my cousin, Peter, of the existence of a rather special second-hand bookstore on the edge of town, which was housed in an historic railway station. Being totally incapable of passing  a good bookstore, I soon found myself driving up to what looked like a classic piece of Victorian railway architecture, as indeed, it turned out to be.

If you were amongst the higher ranks of the nobility in Victorian Britain, you would often use your position to arrange with the local railway company to move their lines to suit your own needs. The Duke of Devonshire arranged for the Midland Railway to build a railway station near Hassop in the Peak District of Derbyshire. It was inconvenient for the local population, being two miles away from the village, but quite convenient for the Duke, indeed, at one period the station was renamed ‘Hassop for Chatsworth’!

The Duke of Northumberland was not averse to arranging rail transport for himself, so the North Eastern Railway was persuaded to run a branch line from Alnmouth on the East Coast Main Line to Alnwick, the town which contained Alnwick Castle, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Northumberland. Although the branch had opened in 1850, it wasn’t until 1887 that the magnificent Victorian edifice we see today was built, replacing the original more modest building. The design was by the NER architect William Bell, and constructed in local sandstone; note the period touches such as the slate roof, and the station clock. Also noteworthy are the extremely durable granite ‘setts’ laid to form the cobblestone approach road; this would have been before the advent of the now-ubiquitous tarmacadam road surface. The branch line lingered on past the formation of British Railways in 1948, and finally closed on the 30th January, 1968.

The station platform has been demolished, but the building itself survived, mostly being used as a home to some light industry. The real change came with the establishment of a secondhand bookstore in a portion of the station in 1991. Barter Books is an inspired concept; it is unusually well-designed, and the loving restoration of the interior Victorian details (including the fireplaces) are much to be admired. It has been described by no-less a publication than the New Statesman, as ‘The British Library of secondhand bookshops’. I  know that when we visited, my cousin managed to find some interesting railway titles and I had to restrict my own purchases because of carrying books back across the Atlantic in my already over-weight luggage. Never fear, I can now make any future purchases online.  I cannot recommend Barter Books too highly.  Oh, and the name of the store reflects the fact that you can still exchange your own books for ‘credit’ to spend on purchases in the store. Thank you, Mary!

In 1899, Johnson unveiled the first of what would become a class of 60 new goods tank locos, the 2441 class. Descendants of the 1102 class and antecedents of Fowler’s 3F ‘Jinties’, the first thirty of the class had condensing equipment from new for working the sub-surface lines in London between the various goods depots, and carried various detail differences which separated them from their normally aspirated sisters. To counter the side tanks from being blistered from the very hot water passing through the condensing pipes – a problem encountered on other lines, for example the Great Eastern – an outer skin was fitted to the tank sides with a small airspace between. This arrangement produced a squared front corner to the tanks with pairs of cooling slots on the front edge, whereas the normally aspirated locos without the outer panel had rounded tank corners.

Those allocated to London were initially painted and lined in the highly decorative ‘London style’ of crimson lake with almost everything above and below the footplate lined out. No. 2444 is seen here on 6th June 1903 at Cricklewood in just such a livery, and despite appearing at first glance to be in ex-works condition (a misused phrase so beloved of authors of books and magazines), it instead bears the marks of hard work on the Widened Lines; traffic dust and grime haze over the wheels, underframe, valence, bunker and tank sides – the numbers have had attention from the tallow cloth to make them appear clearer, and there are signs of a hot smokebox and chimney too. It’s worth noting the slightly shorter boiler fittings, especially the chimney and dome, and especially the arrangement of the Salter valves, with the pillars attached to the sides of the tank rather than the top of the boiler.

Kirtley’s 690 class has already been touched upon by way of my post on the closely related 780 class. These six locomotives were delivered in 1869 from Messrs Beyer Peacock specifically for the coal traffic via the Widened Lines to Herne Hill and Battersea which commenced on 17 November 1868 (in fact, the tender for the locos was accepted the following day). The route taken involved the 1:38 incline from Farringdon to Blackfriars which imposed a severe weight limitation on the trains, and the class performed very well on these duties, which then expanded to also include goods trains.

Initially fitted with hand brakes to wooden blocks, the 690 class were given steam brakes in 1878 which clearly defined their goods only role, as the 780 class were fitted with Smith’s simple vacuum for passenger duties later that year. In 1882, the 690 class were also fitted with Sanders automatic brake which continued to segregate them from the 780 class, as they were unable to operate the Smith’s brakes on the Midland’s carriages, and it wasn’t until 1888 that the superior automatic brake was finally fitted to the 780 class, enabling the 690 class (at least on paper) to finally work passenger duties. The 690 class continued to work on Widened Lines goods and coal duties until the introduction of the 2441 class in 1899.

Aesthetically, the 690 class went through many changes up to the Basilica Fields period, and 692 is seen here post-1898 on the duplicate list. At this time, some members of the class had the position of the numbers and maker’s plates transposed. Cabs were been fitted between 1888 and 1893 when the Kirtley boilers were scrapped and Johnson’s C Class boilers fitted, which resulted in an immediate visual difference between the 690 and 780 classes in the route taken by the condensing pipes from the smokebox.

Up to rebuilding, members of the class were probably still in the green livery, but once in crimson lake, the fully decorated ‘Kentish Town’ lining style appears not to have been applied to the 690 class, and although above the footplate they were fully lined, it would seem only the outside cranks and wheels were so treated below.

As mentioned previously, S.W. Johnson’s 0-4-4Ts looked after much of the Midland Railway’s passenger, goods and coal services on the Widened Lines during the 1890s.

Johnson built 205 0-4-4T locos for the Midland over a period of 25 years between 1875 and 1900, all to a design based upon his 134 class built during his time at Stratford as Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Eastern Railway. Although superficially the design remained constant throughout the 25 year building period, there were of course many minor changes and improvements over the years which resulted in several distinct (and indistinct!) classes.

Many of Johnson’s 0-4-4Ts were fitted with condensing apparatus and sent to work on the Widened Lines services, and after much deliberation and scouring dozens of photographs, I chose one of the P class locos built by Neilson in 1893, more commonly referred to as part of the 1833 class. It was rather interesting to find that this particular batch of ten was built as the result of a report by Johnson on 22 September 1892 which stated that:

‘…there are not sufficient four wheels coupled bogie tank condensing engines for working the passenger, goods and coal traffic over the Metropolitan Railway and to the stations beyond.’

How could I resist?

To model 2222 I have a Slater’s kit for the 1252 class as a basis, and will need to make several alterations during the build, not least the size of splashers, as there was a reduction in wheel diameter between the two classes, as well as a change in the wheelbase itself.

Number 2222, delivered in September 1893, is seen at Cricklewood, just short of it’s 10th birthday in June 1903, looking resplendent in the fully decorated London livery where just about everything panel and fitting was lined both inside and out. Blimey.

The well-documented and fierce competition between the Great Northern and the Midland Railways began in the late 1860s, and London’s goods traffic was not exempt, especially not the Widened Lines or Extended Widened Lines. In a seemingly endless, and very expensive game of tit-for-tat, wherever the Great Northern went, the Midland was sure to follow. Therefore, the Midland’s Whitecross Street depot was built as a direct response to the Great Northern’s Farringdon Street depot, but constructional and financial difficulties ensured that the GN depot had already been open for four years before Whitecross Street was finally opened in 1878. The Midland depot had four stories above ground and one basement level, and was located in the heart of the lucrative textile district. In a rather cheeky pawn-takes-queen move, the GNR then opened a non-rail served depot in Whitecross Street almost opposite the Midland, offering a goods and parcels collection service, and warehouse space to rent.

With the coming of the Extended Widened Lines, the Midland Railway found itself in a position to finally get the jump on its arch rival, and a large depot with rail access to the huge six-storey warehouses that surrounded St. Katherine’s Docks was opened in 1889. St. Katherine’s Docks had an infamous reputation in the 19th century; the construction of Telford’s masterpiece left over eleven thousand people homeless and caused the demolition of historical ecclesiastical buildings. Opened to great fanfare, it soon became a white elephant as the twin wet-docks soon became too small for the new and larger ships being built, and by the mid-1860s had merged with London Docks. After this, much of the traffic was brought in by barge and lighter from the lower docks, and the warehouses were used mainly for storing and distributing imported luxury goods such as ivory, shells, sugar, marble, rubber, carpets, spices and perfumes.

Midland goods traffic through Artillery Lane will reflect these imported goods, and the majority of wagons will be opens of various sizes and covered vans, with some perishable goods.

The photo is of the Midland’s depot at Poplar, and is an early photo as at least one of the sheeted wagons is unbraked.

The earliest Midland sets for Moorgate Street – Bedford services were introduced in 1868 by Kirtley. Calyton’s first sets were ordered from the Gloucester Wagon Co. in 1875, and were 27′ long and 8’6″ wide, and similar carriages with detail differences continued to be built up to 1898. They were gas lit from the outset, initially the gas being carried in leather bags on the roof encased in a long wooden box resembling a clerestory, and from 1883 the bags were replaced with cylinders mounted on the underframe. More batches of these carriages were introduced in 1883/4, this time built at Derby, and these became the standard type for the various Lots over the next 15 years. In a previous post I mentioned the discovery of a short formation in 1893: B3/3/1/1/3/B3 in Lacy & Dow Vol.2, which also gives five of the six running numbers in that set. Fortunately I believe I can deduce the missing number. Like the GWR City sets, these carriages had short buffers (standard length ones on the brake ends) and were close-coupled.

The Brake 3rd in the photograph was one of Lot 100, a batch of 44 carriages built in 1884 to Diagram 505, drawing 596. Straw-lined in the crimson Lake livery of the period, the short buffers on the inner end (long on the outer end), close coupling pinion and side chains are clear, as is a prominent roof destination board.

Mercian produce kits for these carriages, but I’m concerned about the depth of the lower panels and windows – it may just be the photograph, but I’ll need to measure a kit up to be sure. Once I have the opportunity to do so, probably the ALSRM show [edit: ALSRM site unavailable pro tem, alternative link provided] at Reading in May, I’ll report back.

In the 1890s, the Midland passenger services on the Widened Lines were mostly in the capable hands of Johnson 0-4-4Ts, though several of Kirtley’s fascinating double-framed 0-4-4BTs had avoided being displaced, and were still available for passenger turns. Kirtley’s 780 class were unusual in that they had a ‘Back Tank’, the water being carried in a tank in the bunker. The class of twenty, built in 1870, was the Dübs & Co. version of the Beyer, Peacock 690 Class built the year previously, but due to differences in the type of brake fitted, the 690 class spent its early life on goods duties, whereas the 780 class were used on passenger services. All members of the class received wrap-over roof, and apart from the fitting of the automatic vacuum brake in 1889, and an earlier change from green paint to lined Crimson Lake, the external appearance remained very much unchanged over the years, and into the period covered by Basilica Fields.

The photo shows Number 786 sometime after 1889 and displays the crimson lake livery with elaborate ‘London lining’ – absolutely gorgeous to look at, but a challenge for my Laurie Griffin kit.

Taking the four companies in turn, the Metropolitan used the famous A and B class Beyer Peacock 4-4-0 tanks, hauling rigid eights or rakes of nine ‘Jubilee’ 4-wheelers. The tanks are essential, and currently there are no kits on the market, so it’s likely to mean finding the GAs, a visit to the London Transport Museum to measure and photograph the preserved one, and a bout of head-scratching and scratch-building to cobble it all together. I’ve had the artwork for the Jubilee carriages drawn up by a friend which has been a real boon. A rake of Jubilees was formed thus: Bk2/2/1/1/3/3/3/3/Bk3, and thanks to Jim Snowdon’s book on Met. stock, I have the individual numbers of the carriages to hand.

The Midland had a variety of four-coupled tanks in use, by both Kirtley and Johnson. Carriages consisted of Clayton’s 1st, 3rds and Bk3rd City sets running in various formations, and according to Lacy & Dow, one short train in 1893 consisted of Bk3/3/1/1/3/Bk3, the same source gives all the numbers of the carriages in that rake bar on, and I reckon I can make a pretty decent guess at what that might be. I have a Laurie Griffin kit for the Kirtley tank and Slater’s kit for the Johnson type, the latter requiring a few changes to represent the relevant class. Mercian can supply the carriages, but I want to see and measure a number of key dimensions before buying as the photos on their website are not exactly complimentary.

The Great Western provided the 2-4-0 ‘Metro’ tanks in a number of varieties hauling Holden’s 4-wheel stock. Thanks to some herculean research by Graham Beare and John Lewis I now have enough information to build and number a prototypical rake, as running between 1890 and 1896. I have a Roxey kit for the loco and for the 3rds and Bk3rd, but will have to draw up some artwork to get some sides etched for the 1sts, 2nds and Bk2nds.

The Great Northern had a variety of different four-coupled back and well tanks by Sturrock and Stirling, but I’m going to begin GN services with a Meteor kit of Ivatt’s C2 Atlantic tank (LNER C12), introduced in 1898. I’ve drawn a complete blank regarding carriages – I assume 4-wheelers, but researches continue along with membership to the GNRS for some much needed help..

I’ll be making  in depth posts about all of these locos and carriages in due course. What is slightly concerning is that apart from a minimum of four passenger locos, I’ll need about 25 carriages, and that’s before I factor in the GNR services which remain elusive.

Next I’ll consider the minimum goods services.

These days St Pancras is undoubtedly the most glam of the termini, thanks to the arrival of High Speed One and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (take a hike, Waterloo). Of course, it was not always thus. Yr. Humble Chronicler recalls the days when it was just a drab, second-rate grey sort of place. When you’re overshadowed by the awful Euston Station, you know you’ve hit rock bottom, all. When Alan A. Jackson wrote his book London’s Termini in 1969, he observed that its future was far from certain, although he thought it unlikely that the station would be allowed to disappear entirely.

Having said that, in 1966 British Railways floated the idea of running all St Pancras’ services into King’s Cross, demolishing St Pancras and building an office tower in its place. A look at Euston down the road will show you how awesome that would have looked, and fortunately the uproar caused by the rebuild of that station seems to have given them pause for thought.

Nonetheless, for many years the station was massively underused. The Midland Hotel – the huge Gothic structure that one immediately thinks of when St Pancras is brought up – was closed in 1935, turned into offices and later abandoned, decaying fittings and all. Indeed, St Pancras has had something of the Gothic about it in a way that goes far beyond its architecture.

Consider the circumstances of its construction. The Midland Railway, its builders, drove their railway straight through the slums of Somers Town and Agar Town, moving the occupants on without compensation. The line also cut across the overcrowded St Pancras churchyard, and little reverence was shown to the dead who had to be moved. Accounts speak of open coffins left on site and bones scattered in the road. I’m surprised nobody’s tried to claim there was a curse on the station.

Supernatural aside, the reality behind St Pancras’ semi-abandonment was that in 1923, the Midland Railway became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. The LMS, as it is known to enthusiasts, also took over the much larger London and North Western Railway, whose terminus was at Euston. There was no sense in the same railway having two major termini within ten minutes’ walk of each other, so it’s understandable in practical terms that St Pancras would become the poor relation. Things became worse in the late 1980s with the opening of the Thameslink route, which took yet more of St Pancras’ traffic.

The station in its day was magnificent – the Midland Railway’s philosophy was that they might not be able to get you there as quickly as the other companies, but they’d be sure to get you there in style. The William H. Barlow train shed was, at the time of construction, the largest single-span arched roof in the world. The slightly Gothic-looking ridge that echoes the architecture of the Midland Hotel is actually a coincidence – Barlow thought it would offer some advantage in terms of reducing wind resistance. The hotel was intended to be the finest in London, and was designed by George Gilbert Scott. The original design was to be a storey higher, the Midland Railway’s head offices to be housed on the top floor. However, their decision to base themselves in Derby removed the requirement for one floor.

Scott’s design is sometimes erroneously described as simply being his design for the Foreign Office, hastily redesigned. In fact, though Scott did submit a Gothic revival design for the Foreign Office, and it was rejected, it did not become St Pancras. This was, therefore, his chance to prove himself as a Gothic architect and recover from Lord Palmerston’s snub. Indeed, Scott somewhat snobbily observed of the completed hotel that “my own belief is that it is possibly too good for its purpose.”

The combination of the Gothic architecture and the fact that it was abandoned have made it a popular filming location. If you’ve seen Batman Begins, the stairwell of Arkham Asylum isn’t in Gotham City at all – it’s the main entrance to the Midland Hotel. When Harry Potter goes to King’s Cross in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone  (Sorceror’s Stone in the US), it’s St Pancras he passes. Even the Spice Girls got into the act with the video for Wannabe. Or so I heard, cough cough. The station itself, having had such an infrequent service for so long, was a popular choice for anyone needing to film at a London terminus without causing disruption. Films with scenes here include King Ralph, Shirley Valentine, Chaplin, Howard’s End and Richard III, among others.

As we now know, of course, fortune was to turn in St Pancras’ favour once more. The Channel Tunnel Rail Link needed a London terminus and – by Jove! It just so happened that there was a half-abandoned one right there between King’s Cross and Euston! The rest, as they say, is history. The rebuilt station is, in Yr. Humble Chronicler’s opinion, a perfect example of how to modernise for the future while retaining respect for the past. You’d hardly think, looking at it today, that it had once been a candidate for closure. Why, they’re even planning to reopen the hotel.

Of course, I can’t finish this entry without mentioning the significance of the shopping arcade. As you can see on the left there, the platform level is supported by pillars. These pillars were originally designed with a very specific aim in mind. Apart from passengers, the major traffic intended to use St Pancras was beer. The Midland Railway served the well-known brewing town of Burton-on-Trent. They therefore built their station with extensive cellars under the platforms in which beer could be stored. The redundant cellars are now the shopping arcade. It’s worth noting that the pillars were specifically built with the optimum spacing for storing beer barrels.

A gloomy picture of the St Pancras undercroft, most likely taken in the 1950s.

The undercroft of St Pancras was to play a significant role in the history of Britain’s labour laws. Thomas Bass was the MP for Burton-on-Trent, a reforming sort of gent, was concerned about the working conditions of the Midland Railway. Trade unions were virtually non-existent in the 19th century, the attitude of the railway companies being very much “Here’s the work, if you don’t like the conditions then someone else can do it and screw you.” The consequence was ridiculously long hours (36-hour shifts were not unknown, even routine with some companies), no pensions and if you wanted to strike, the procedure was to down tools and get fired.

As well as being a Member of Parliament, Bass was a customer of the Midland Railway. And not just any customer.

This customer.

So when he mentioned that he was bothered by working conditions on the Midland Railway, the Midland Railway had to take note or risk a big, empty undercroft. Bass’ involvement with them and others led to the 1872 formation of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the first proper railway workers’ union.

Next time you’re enjoying a croissant at St Pancras International, pause a moment. You’re in an important place.

In other news

Fans of this blog should keep an eye on the Evening Standard, for, er, no reason.

Midland Railway Coach

This is a Four-wheel passenger brake built at Derby in 1880.

It was taken into L.M.S. stock on 21/7/1922 as one of the coaches on a fire train.

Renumbered M198718, it was allocated around the Wigan area.  In 1953 it was    modified into a cashier’s coach and sold to the Manchester Ship Canal Company.

It was sold in 1966 and eventually came to Chasewater – the only one of its kind in existence.

It is shown here on the Manchester Ship Canal line.

Midland Railway Box Van

One of the handful remaining of a type first introduced in 1893, eventually 7,261 of these were built up to 1916.

It is 16’6’’ (approx.5metres) long over headstocks and has a capacity of 8 tons.

This example dates back to 1902, fitted with grease axle boxes and brake gear on both sides.

Sold by the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) railway to Bass, Burton-on-Trent who used this type of van on their internal railway system to carry grain (barley and malt).

At Burton from the late 1930s, the van was rescued by the Railway Preservation Society in 1967, costing £50.

The number 1109 is the LMS number.

The Midland Railway

In the 1830s several companies were formed with the intention of building railways in the Midlands. This included the Midland Counties Nottingham to Derby North Midland Railway, Derby to Leeds, York & North Midland, York to Newcastle upon Tyne andBirmingham & Derby.
The chairman of the York & North Midland was George Hudson. In 1844 Hudson arranged for his own company to amalgamate withMidland Counties, North Midland Railway and the Birmingham & Derby. Hudson became chairman and leading shareowner of what was now known as the Midland Railway. This was the first large scale amalgamation of several small railway companies into one large company.

In 1845 George Hudson added the Birmingham & Gloucester and the Bristol & Gloucester to the Midland Company. Hudson’s companies now controlled 1,016 miles of railway track and he obtained the title, the Railway King. A survey that year revealed that Hudson had £319,835 invested in railway shares.

Back on to the Wyrley and Essington canal now, looking through the LNWR railway bridge to the Pelsall Road bridge beyond.I came off the canal in Brownhills at the new bridge and walked across the parade towards Chasewater.  I took this photo to illustrate my point from the first walk, about the lack of light and grass under the trees – it uses to be just grass and very pleasant.Back to the entrance to Chasewater Country Park and a chance for Ellie to have a paddle to get rid of the mud – not to mention a well-earned drink!Nearly back at the railway, and as you can see, the mud has been washed off and she has company – she ignored them to start with but had to say a quick ‘hello’ eventually.  They were completely unimpressed and it was their turn to ignore her!!

The Heritage Centre is still tidy after Jason’s efforts of the previous week, but why on earth was the Land Rover parked just inside the door??

We had a good discussion involving ourselves and visitors about where the line connecting Walsall Wood Colliery to Norton Junction at Pelsall crossed the canal.  We found the crossing eventually after we had got home and searched old maps, Google earth and old books.

While searching for that crossing, another question arose – where did the Midland Railway cross the canal again?  It first crossed behind the Swan pub in Pelsall Road, Brownhills, but we couldn’t remember where it re-crossed, somewhere around Walsall Wood.  The answer was on the same map.

The map I found it on was the Old Ordnance Survey Map, the only reference I have is Sheet 62.  If anyone local to the railway should be interested, call in to the museum where we have a copy.

While we’re on the subject of the Midland Railway, the only picture I’ve got of a coal train on the line is the one printed here:This photo shows the Grandfather of a friend of mine fishing on the Wyrley & Essington canal, and is looking away from Brownhills towards Pelsall.  In the background you can see a train crossing the canal bridge, the crossing previously referred to.  If anyone should have photos of  ‘our’ line in action, I would be very grateful for a copy.

Codnor Park Reservoir

The sky is blue, the clouds fluffy and people are fishing – a truly tranquil day. The location? Codnor Park Reservoir, just to the east of Golden Valley, Derbyshire. This was once an important part of the network of canals which facilitated the growth of the coal, iron and steel industries on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border, and helped forge the Industrial Revolution. Coal has been mined in this area from Mediaeval times; indeed, old ‘gob pits’ (a local name for the ‘bell pit’) make walking in the woods a dangerous occupation. There is fragmentary evidence to suggest that coal was mined in Prehistoric times (the presence of a stone axe in one of the shallow coal measures in this region, for example).

All this caused a rush to join the first textile mills of the Derwent Valley to the Erewash Canal at Langley Mill, via Ambergate and Butterley (with its ironworks). So the Cromford Canal was born. It ran into major difficulties (labour disputes and shareholder friction) and was only completed after some technical ‘wizardry’, including the then longest canal tunnel in Great Britain, Butterley Tunnel, which at the time of it’s building was 2,966 yards long. Although Butterley Reservoir fed the western end of the canal, the eastern end was fed by a small reservoir behind the former Newlands Inn at Golden Valley (locally called the ‘top reservoir’) and Codnor Park Reservoir. You can still find a way down to the old canal towpath, and view the blocked off eastern end of Butterley Tunnel. The canal (or ‘The Cut’ as it is called in Golden Valley) is heavily weeded, overhung by mature trees, and very shallow. Nothing at all like the later part of the 19th century, when full canal narrow-boats were propelled through the tunnel – not by horses, because there was no towpath inside the tunnel – but by ‘leggers’, men who laid on the top of the narrow-boats and propelled them along by ‘walking’ along the tunnel roof!

The canal is disused now; no cargoes of iron await shipment at the wharf, just over the Nottinghamshire border. No coal, from where the Riddings anticline brings both the Lower and Middle Coal Measures close to the surface and makes them easy to work, is available for loading (the last local pit is long gone, although opencast mining has been undertaken). The tunnel suffered a roof collapse and was closed in 1900. The eastern and western arms of the canal continued to carry cargo, but the Cromford Canal was closed totally in 1944, during the Second World War.

There is a scheme afoot to restore the canal, for leisure purposes. However, current financial circumstances might well scupper this excellent idea. Until then, the popularity of Codnor Park Reservoir will continue as a fine coarse fishing venue, with many fishing matches taking place during the season. Most anglers ‘weigh-in’ heavy hauls of roach, bream, and perch. There are, of course, local stories of a monster pike (Esox lucius) in ‘the Reser’, but the ones I caught as a boy were all fairly small ‘jack’ pike!

Sometimes you can hear the whistle of a preserved steam train as it travels down the branch line of the Midland Railway, on the opposite side of the reservoir, on its way to the end of the spur at Ironville. As well as a most delightful sight and sound, it also is a reminder of what killed the canals – the rise of the steam railway. In many cases, the new railway companies bought up canals, only to close them and force traffic onto the railways.

There is a close family connection here; not only was my mother born in Golden Valley, but one of my great-grandfathers was a ‘bargee’ (a captain of a canal barge), who had worked his way up from the humble position of ‘legger’ in the Butterley Tunnel.

Butterley Station, Midland Railway Centre

I have always been interested in railways, especially steam locomotives. I remember as a boy taking a 4d (four ‘old pence’) bus ride the 4 miles to Langley Mill Station, on the Erewash Valley Line close to the Nottinghamshire border, in order to watch the main line trains thunder through on their way to Sheffield from London.

Here is a shot of Butterley Railway Station (on the old Pye Bridge to Ambergate line which closed in 1968), in the Derbyshire town of Ripley. When I was about 8, I was taken on a ‘special’ from here to Manchester Belle Vue station, drawn behind an LMS ‘Black Five’ locomotive, northward across the embankment which splits Butterley Reservoir, and returned late at night having had a wonderful time at the old Belle Vue Zoological and Pleasure Gardens. The last ‘bus had LONG gone, and that meant a long walk home to Codnor!

The Midland Railway Trust has transformed this derelict site, and despite the fact that it looks almost exactly as I remember it, the original building is no longer there. An identical station building was found at Whitwell in north Derbyshire and erected on the site of the old one. Note the period wood and cast iron benches, the milk churns and even the period fire buckets! The Midland Railway (one of the main constituent companies of the London Midland and Scottish Railway) was formed at the Sun Inn in Eastwood, and had its main works at nearby Derby, so it was natural that the Trust would have chosen this site, along with the 3.5 mile length of track, as its headquarters. Now trains run from here to the new station and museum at Swanwick and beyond, and there is a fine narrow-guage extension to the hamlet of Golden Valley (where my mother was born).

When I was here, the station was decked out for a visit from ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’, and the place was heaving with ‘small railway enthusiasts’ .

Oh, and there has been a name change, ‘The Midland Railway Centre’ is now ‘The Midland Railway – Butterley’. Still the same wonderful history, though!

Loughborough Midland

Last Christmas was the first time in 9 years that I had been home to Loughcaster so of course I noticed a few changes around the place. My first impressions were how narrow some of the roads and streets were in the town. I made a quick mental note to replace underpants and give the school on Beacon road? A wide berth, especially during pickup and drop off darling time. With cars parked on either side of the road, it seems that parents just aim for the middle and don’t stop until they come out the other side. Another change? Well looking rather sad and empty on Baxtergate was Mr. Moffatt’s old shop. With no disrespect to other camera shops, you just don’t get that kind of service anymore. It was the way that he took the camera from the shelf offered it up to you as if it was the Holy Grail and repeated the make and model. You knew, he knew that the money was already in the till.
I remember the night when I took this picture down at the Midland station. A trainspotter came up to me all excited because when he saw me with my tripod and camera, he thought that something special was coming through?
No, sorry. Only an Express Football special returning to Leeds. It ain’t stopping, they lost.
So I suggest you take cover!

“The great buildings of Victorian Britain, so confident and optimistic, had become poignant reminders of former glories, like swaggering family portraits squeezed into the commonplace house of a penurious descendant.”

That St Pancras Station not only survived but is now magnificently reborn as the Eurostar terminal and probably the most impressive railway station in the world, is thanks in no small part to The Victorian Society and its chairman Nikolaus Pevsner. They secured Grade I Listed Building status for both George Gilbert Scott’s Midland Grand Hotel – the startling neo-Gothic building which fronts the station – and W H Barlow’s superb train shed behind.

The history of St Pancras is a roller-coaster ride, and you couldn’t hope for a better or more entertaining guide than Simon Bradley. He not only knows and loves his subject with the fervour of the true enthusiast, he also knows how to communicate that enthusiasm to his readers – irrespective of their own levels of knowledge and expertise. Add to that a wry sense of humour and an elegant writing style, and you have a book it’s hard to put down.

For instance … where many would have explained that the clear span arched roof of the train shed expands and contracts with the changes in temperature, and left it at that, Simon Bradley adds, rather wonderfully:

“… like the shallow breathing of a mighty creature in its sleep.”

St Pancras Station isn’t just about its eponymous subject, however … in order to help us understand the context better the author leads us through the stages of the Gothic Revival, introduces us to the main characters and delivers along the way telling vignettes and little barbed asides about them that reveal more in one sentence than a straight biographer could probably manage in several paragraphs. Take, for instance, this comment regarding Brunel’s handiwork in Bristol:

” The implacable Pugin thought Brunel’s Great Western Gothic ‘at once costly, and offensive, and full of pretension’ but then Pugin said that kind of thing all the time.”

Although the subject matter itself is fascinating enough not to need much enlivening, there is plenty here to delight the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles – from the “advanced state of desperation” caused to early train travellers by the absence of on-board toilet facilities to the fact that the basement of St Pancras was specifically designed for the storage of beer (the transport of beer from the Midlands being a major source of income for the railway). The spacing of the even ranks of cast iron columns in the basement was based on the dimensions of a barrel. Thus, when the train shed was constructed overhead, the 25 giant arches had to be placed so as to coincide with the columns in the vaults beneath. The basic design was, quite literally, dictated by a beer barrel.

St Pancras opened for business before construction was completed – purely because the company badly needed the revenue – and we are treated once again to a beautifully spare description of the historic moment. There were no speeches, no fanfares and no grand opening ceremony:

“A little after midnight on the last day of September 1898 the night shift from the Midland’s booking office walked quietly across the road from King’s Cross where the company had been basing operations …”

The first arrival was the overnight mail from Leeds at 4.15am.

The Midland Grand Hotel closed in 1935 when the Midland Railway was subsumed by the London, Midland and Scottish – passing ascendancy to Euston. It was very little use as office space and thus earmarked for destruction, but then it was decided that it wasn’t even worth the effort and cost of demolishing, so instead it was declared a dead loss and effectively left to rot quietly, its magnificent and historic interiors preserved by disinterest and neglect.

In the 1960s there were grandiose plans to redevelop the whole of the Kings Cross and St Pancras area(which is where the Victorian Society entered the fray), but they came to nothing. The only tangible result was that St Pancras achieved Listed Building status.

Fast forward to 1994 and the opening of the Channel Tunnel. London and Continental Railways needed a terminus for its Eurostar service …

The wheel has now turned full circle. Scott’s building will once more house one of the finest hotels in the country and St Pancras Station is being hailed a modern wonder of the world.

Not bad for a building that the architectural historian Sir John Summerson once described as “nauseating”.

Profile Books:

Paperback. Oct 2007. ISBN: 978-1-86197-951-3. 224pp.

Hardback. Jan 2007. ISBN-10: 1861979967 ISBN-13: 978-1861979964. 224pp.