Week 9

Amazing weather makes this stay at home pleasant, but no less frustrating. Many of us want to get back to work, particularly outdoors, or in low density situations.

We have good communications from the company management, and here is a video sent by our chairman, which is available on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/N-XOcaDlL0I

There seems to be general scientific agreement that transmission outdoors is very unlikely, and an interesting study of a number of 'super spreader' cases traced these to similar circumstances: Close proximity, long contact, and - don't laugh - heavy breathing. The size of the dose you get is important, according to the study. Three such super spreader events were a choir, an exercise class, and an evening in a bar with drinking games. Passing someone in the street, or a visit to a supermarket, were seen as much lower risk, so a pattern is beginning to form. We hope that our volunteering activities can be accommodated within these likely scenarios.

Gotherington slip.

The repair works are back in full swing, and of course accrueing bills!

The top row of piles - the 10m long ones - have been put in, nearly hiding the contractors' vans parked behind, as you can see in this picture.

 Bolting together is going on, there'll be some back filling, and a handrail along the top.

Looking over the top, this is the hillside along the bottom of which the railway embankment is built. It's very rural, but nature abhors a slope and there are bumps and undulations all over it, suggesting some movement.

How is the appeal going then? It looks like we might be able to reach our target, with a bit of a last push. The balance yesterday was £243.000.

Our slip appeal of course is still open:

https://www.gwsr.com/supporting_the_railway/Emergency_Embankment_Appeal.html

Of course the amount of the appeal was pitched at paying for the repair works, not having a railway line without a single customer for months on end. Unusually, we are not asking for help with staying alive, but no doubt a bit more help than the minimum would be very welcome. The neighbouring SVR raised more than double the amount that they asked for. Impressive!





GWR Stationmaster's hat appeal

No luck yet with the loan (or purchase) of an original GWR stationmaster's hat. Blog readers are willing to help - we've had a tip for an auction (lots of hats, but all modern), and a loan of this hat shown below:

Unfortunately, this one too is modern. It has a 'Ferret & Dartboard' cap badge on the front, and an interesting provenance. It was found in the Broadway goods shed, stuck up in the rafters.

How on earth did it get up there? Delight on the closure of the station in 1960, or horseplay?

Can anyone say what rank the wearer would have been? We don't think it belonged to the stationmaster.

Just to remind you, this is the one we are looking for, the pill box type.

We have made progress with the costumier who will make us a replica, but she really needs an original to work from.

Any offers to breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk gratefully received!









Solution to last week's quiz:

Got your answer sheets? No conferring please....

2018 Christmas Quiz:

1. What colour is Dinmore Manor?                                                                            Black                     

2. In joke - don't ask!                                                                                                                

3. Mallard recorded what speed on its record run in 1938?                                       126mph                

4. Are we, as volunteers, employees of the GWSR?                                                 Yes

5. Which is Britain’s busiest railway station by passenger numbers?                       London Waterloo

6. Brexit question. Who is the Minister for Transport?    (in 2018)                          Chris Grayling                                                                

7. You were travelling to Whitby on 14 June 2018 on the 10.30 from Birmingham New Street. You arrive before those travelling on the 10.03. How much did your journey cost?   (in joke, but an actual case, so have a go)                                                                                 £0 (absolutely true! After a refund for a missed connection)

8. What is the locomotive number of P&O?                                                             35006

9. Charles Collett was Chief Mechanical Engineer of which railway?                    Great Western Rly                     

10. Britain’s worst railway accident was on 22 May 1915 when 227 people were killed. Where did it happen?                                                                                                                      Quintinshill

11. In the diesel shed we have D6948? What class number of locomotive is it?       Class 37      

12. Which was the first preserved railway in the world?                                           Talyllyn Railway

13. An annual Senior Railcard costs £30. How much does the 3 year card cost?  (in 2018)   £70.         

14. 2807 was shedded at 86E. Where was that?                                                  Severn Tunnel Junction

15. (In joke, involving a sly dig at another railway over which we will draw a veil)                                                                                                                               (we are awful)

16. What was the longest, at 704 yards, on the UK railway network?              Water troughs (Bawtry)

17. What was the name of the GWR terminus at Cheltenham Spa?                     St. James                     

18. On a steam locomotive, what is a 4-6-2 wheel arrangement called?                         Pacific             

19. What is the length of a railway sleeper?                                                                 8 foot 6 inches





This week's quiz is from 2019, so quite recent.

Sharpen your pencils, and here we go:

1.      Lime Street station is in what city?                                                                                       

2.      What’s the gauge of the Toddington Narrow Gauge Railway?                                                                                                                 

3.      What did 6000, King George V, carry which was unique to main line UK steam locos?                                                        

4.      How long before an approaching train arrives must we be in a position of safety on the PWay?                 

5.      Webb was the CME of which railway from 1871 to 1903? 

6.      How many platforms will there be at Worcestershire Parkway?                                                                 

7.      In joke. Sorry!                         

8.      How many cylinders does 35006, P&O, have?                                                    

9.      Class 55 diesels are more commonly known as what?                       

10.   Introduced in 1959, what’s 110A?                                                                                                                      

11.   If 4-6-2 is Pacific, what’s Atlantic?            

12.   What’s the predominant colour of Network Rail trains?                                         

13.   In what operating circumstance did the 1951 version of the GWR rule book, state that “passengers in the leading vehicles should be warned of the advisibility of keeping windows closed?”                 

14.   What class of locomotive hauls the Hogwarts Express?                                                  

15.   In 1985, Class 50 diesel locomotive, 50007, Sir Edward Elgar, was painted in what livery?                                                                                                             

16.   The titled train, The Elizabethan, ran between London and where?         

17.   What’s the name of the steam loco number 60163?                         

18.   Shed code 1A was where?            

19.   Which GWR station never had any track?    

                                                 

20. At what inconvenient time (for the PWay gang) does the Winchcombe Coffee Pot Café close?            



Snippets:


This interesting wartime poster seems to anticipate our COVID19 predicament, with the railway shut until at least the end of August:

So that you will have a whole engine to pull your train when we re-open, we hope that, in line with other activities around the country, some volunteering will be permitted in the not too distant future.
















From the archives (well, on-line, anyway)

Here is a large and powerful US locomotive that you probably haven't seen before:

Photo: Bud Laws

It's one of 30 locomotives built by Lima in 1930 to a very heavy duty wheel arrangement: a 2-10-4 arrangement which was so large, it didn't feature in the 1906 Whyte list, which couldn't imagine anyone would build a locomotive this big. It was built for the Chesapeake & Ohio railway and the new wheel arrangement was given the name 'Texas', with the locomotive type referred to as a 'T1'. It was said to have the largest heating surface of any 2 cylinder locomotive ever built.

Typically these heavy freight locos would pull coal trains of up to 13.000 tons, with just a single engine. The loco and tender weighed in at nearly 450 tons together, and they needed track of at least 124lbs/yard (ours is 110lbs at best). Our own GWR heavy freight locomotive 2807 has a combined weight of 116 tons, for comparison. All the T1s were scrapped in the early 1950s.


Can you imagine the result when one of these suffered a catastrophic boiler failure? This happened on 12th May 1948 to C&O No. 3020 at Chillicothe, a small town in Ohio between Cincinnati and Columbus. The result is apparent in the picture below:

We don't know the precise cause of the accident, in which the smokebox door was ripped out, and all the tubes, flues and superheaters were ejected from the boiler barrel. Comments associated with the picture suggest that there was a front tubeplate failure, possibly due to thermal shock as the injector was put on, with a low water level on a rising grade.

Unfortunately all three crewmen were killed. Although the cab looks intact, there would have been a huge volume of HP steam being ejected backwards.

Fortunately, these sort of accidents are extremely rare, and feature in photographs only because there were 10s of thousands of locomotives in service in any large country. The nearest similar event we can think of was a firebox crown collapse at Honeybourne during the war, also caused by low water.