New Fotopic site - vintage railway images

I've strongly resisted the temptation to set up a Fotopic site for some years, and have to say that I find repeated advertisements for them to be irritating, but last year I acquired a significant number of 1920s & 1930s monochrome negatives originating from the camera of the late Alan Whitehead and I needed somewhere away from my own photo websites to display his work. Fotopic seemed like a good idea, so I've made a start and have created a gallery exclusive to promote Alan's images and so far it contains three collections covering:

The LMS(NCC) scene in Northern Ireland in 1936. The Midland & Great Northern Railway in Augsut 1933 & London Euston in the 1930s.

The site is at a very early stage of development and there is a considerable amount of further material to be added as and when time permits.

You can view this fledging site at

formatting link
and hope there's something there of interest.

John.

Reply to
John Turner
Loading thread data ...

John,

absolutely fascinating photos, thanks for sharing them.

paul

Reply to
Paul Matthews

Nice work, John. Top quality scans. I look forward to seeing the site develop over the coming months.

You should also post a similar message to alt.binaries.pictures.rail.

Reply to
Tony Polson

Splendid stuff! Many thanks

Mike

Reply to
Mike Smith

Nice one John!

Reply to
Rob Kemp

Enzo: did you see this one??

formatting link

Reply to
MartinS

I'm puzzled, and probably because I am ignorant. What was something called "The Midland and Great Northern Railway" doing in 1933 - hadn't it been grouped into something else in 1923? Does news travel slowly in East Anglia, or am I missing something?

Ian

Reply to
Ian

It was a joint line that had been jointly owned by two different railways which had become constituent parts of different big-4 companies.

The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway was another example.

Reply to
Christopher A.Lee

excellent one for my favs

loved the Euston shots

Reply to
flybywire

The S&D was a very useful way for the Midland and LSW to exchange traffic whilst avoiding the GW.

Also of course there was the CLC, which was originally GC, GN and Midland.

Reply to
Tim Fenton

Does that mean it didn't go to a single company at grouping? LNER and LMS?

Forgive my ignorance,

Ian

Reply to
Ian

Correct. As always these days Wiki provides an excellent description.

Reply to
Kevin Martin

It remained as a joint line - LM&S and LN&E - after the Midland and Great Northern went into their respective groups in 1923. After the grouping the LN&E followed on from the GN in being (primarily) responsible for passenger and goods stock, while the LM&S followed on from the Midland in having most of the responsibility for locomotove stock - I say "mostly" in both cases, because the M&GN works continued to produce stock (locomotives included) of purely indiginous design into the post-grouping period.

The whole lot eventually went to the LN&E in its entirity, IIRC. It didn't last very long after that happened.

Reply to
Andrew Robert Breen

"flybywire" wrote

Absolutely loads more stuff from Euston, much of which will eventually get uploaded. The next upload (when approved by Fotopic) are four shots from Kentish Town - believed to have been made c. 1933.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

"Christopher A.Lee" wrote

The line between Northolt Junction (near South Ruislip) and Ashendon Junction (north of Haddenham) was a joint line built and owned by the GW & GC, subsequently by the GWR and LNER. Chiltern still describe it as the 'Joint' line, to distinguish it from their other route, the 'Met' line via Amersham. Of course, this was also a joint line, in this case shared between the GC & Met.

Peter

Reply to
Peter Masson

I never knew that steam railcars [1] even existed! Very interesting photographs, I've bookmarked the site and will check back as your site grows.

[1]
formatting link
Reply to
Mizter T

"Mizter T" wrote>

A lot of companies tried them in the 1900-1914 era, though AFAIK none of them worked particularly well.

Peter

Reply to
Peter Masson
[snip]

IIRC the LNER and GWR were the main users of steam railcars, many of the former's were built by Sentinal. Dugald Drummond appears to have been responsible for the first examples, introduced on the LSWR & LSBCR joint lines. The GWR under Churchward built 112 power units for 99 coach bodies to enable easy swapping in and out for overhauls. They were so popular (an early 20th Century version of the spark effect) that the traffic soon outgrew their capacity so Churchward developed the auto-train, initially using rebuilt railmotors.

Reply to
Graeme Wall

The Great Western Railway had them too. There were problems when the steam engine needed maintenance and the whole train (obviously including the coach) had to be taken out of service. It was also difficult to lengthen the train as the steam engine was not sufficiently powerful to haul an extra coach, although it could just about cope with a van.

The Great Western replaced its steam railcars with the Auto Coach system. An Auto Coach had a driving compartment and a mechanical linkage that allowed the driver to control the locomotive from the opposite end of the train. Only the regulator (throttle) and brakes could be controlled. The fireman had to operate the reversing gear as required. There was no whistle, but the driving end of the Auto Coach was fitted with a large bell.

A major advantage of the Auto Coach system was that trains could consist of one, two, three or four Auto Coaches and a locomotive, giving far greater flexibility. A maximum of two Auto Coaches on one side of the loco was allowed because of the limitations of the mechanical linkage. So, for example, a three-car train consisted of two Auto Coaches, then the locomotive, then one Auto Coach.

Other railways had similar systems but none was so widely used as that of the Great Western Railway.

Some links:

formatting link

Reply to
Tony Polson

The LNER used them in the 1920s & 1930s but apparently they were underpowered and unpopular with crews.

Reply to
Bruce

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.