Some Early Lines, Old Railway Companies, Alloa Railway

Some Early Lines

Old Railway Companies

Alloa Railway

Authorised on 11 August 1879, this 3-mile branch ran from the Caledonian Railway’s South Alloa branch, across the river Forth to Alloa. The Caledonian Railway paid for the line, absorbing the Company with effect from 1 September 1884, the Act (14 July) also authorising extension. The line opened on 1 October 1885 – the North British Railway had running powers.

A glassy River Forth and a line of bridge stanchions, reflecting, perhaps, on times past. They once carried the Alloa Railway to the industrial town on the north bank.

The Alloa railway was connected to the Stirling and Dunfermline Railway by a connecting line from Longcarse Junction built by the North British Railway in exchange for reciprocal running powers.

British Railways added a second connection from Longcarse Junction to Alloa Marshalling Yard (parallel with the S&D line) in 1957. This made the turntable at Alloa passenger station redundant.

Alloa Swing Bridge
The swing bridge across the Forth was opened on 1 October 1885. It was subsequently closed twice due to storm damage in 1904/5 and 1920/1.

Old Alloa Station – early 1900s
http://www.scot-rail.co.uk

Some Early Lines, Old Railway Companies, Aberdeen Railway

Some Early Lines
Old Railway Companies

Aberdeen Railway

Aberdeen, Gateway to Royal Deeside. LNER/LMS Vintage Travel posters http://www.travelpostersonline.com  Frank H.Mason

The Aberdeen Railway was a railway that ran mainly along the North East coast of Scotland south from Aberdeen to Guthrie on the Arbroath and Forfar Railway. There were branches to Montrose and Brechin.

The sidings and railway lines Aberdeen railway station
View taken from near the top of College Street car park. The station itself is off to the bottom left of the photo.
Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved] © Copyright Lizzie and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Incorporated on 31 July 1845 for a line from Guthrie (Arbroath and Forfar Railway) to Aberdeen, with branches to Brechin and Montrose, it was promoted by  Great North of Scotland Railway supporters, who arranged for amalgamation should it be thought appropriate.  However, by the time half the capital was paid up and spent, the Companies had drawn apart.  It was worked by the Scottish Central Railway between 12 May 1851 and31 July 1854, and the Company amalgamated with the Scottish Midland Junction Railway on 29 July 1856 to form the Scottish North Eastern Railway, connecting Perth to Aberdeen. This latter company was absorbed by the Caledonian Railway on 10 August 1866, which in turn became part of the LMS on 1 July 1923.

Openings

1 February 1848 – Guthrie (Arbroath and Forfar Railway) to Montrose
1 November 1849 – Dubton to Portlethen
1 April 1850 – Portlethen to Aberdeen Ferryhill
2 August 1853 – Aberdeen Ferryhill to Aberdeen Guild Street

The station currently standing was built as Aberdeen Joint Station between 1913–16, replacing an 1867 structure of the same name, on the same site. The station and the new Denburn Valley Line enabled the main line from the south and the commuter line from Deeside to connect
with the line from the north. The lines from the south had previously terminated at the adjacent Aberdeen Guild Street. Even this had not been Aberdeen’s first railway station, that distinction belonging to a previous terminus a short way south at Ferryhill. After the construction of the Joint Station, Guild Street Station became a goods station. Some of its tracks remain, but the vast majority of the site was cleared in 2005.

This image was taken from the Geograph project collection. See this photograph’s page on the Geograph website for the photographer’s contact details. The copyright on this image is owned by Stanley Howe and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Steam Locomotives of a More Leisurely Era 1903 – 4-6-0 ‘Cardean’ Class Caledonian Railway

Steam Locomotives of a More Leisurely Era

1903 – 4-6-0 ‘Cardean’ Class

Caledonian Railway

No. 14750 as running in 1932

The first two engines of this celebrated class were Nos.49 and 50, turned out in 1903.  At the time of their appearance they were the most powerful engines in the country.  Five more of them came out in 1906 to slightly modified dimensions, Nos. 903-7, No. 903 being the well-known ‘Cardean’.  No. 50 was ‘Sir James Thompson’, but both of these lost their names at the grouping, when they became LMS Nos. 14750 and 14751 (49 and 50), and 14752-55 (Nos. 903-6).  All were superheated in 1911 and 1912, but otherwise remained practically unaltered except for the removal of the smokebox wingplates on the first two engines.  Nos. 14752-5 were scrapped between 1927 and 1930, but the original pair lasted until 1933.

Dimensions as superheated:

Nos. 49 and 50

Driving wheels – 6’ 6”,  Bogie wheels – 3’ 6”,  Cylinders – 20¾”x 26” (orig. 21”),  Pressure – 175 lb.  (orig. 200 lb),  Tractive effort – 21348 lb. (orig. 24990 lb),  Weight – 71½ tons,  LMS classification – 4P

Nos. 903-7

Driving wheels – 6’ 6”,  Bogie wheels – 3’ 6”,  Cylinders – 20¾”x 26” (orig. 20”),  Pressure – 175 lb.  (orig. 200 lb),  Tractive effort – 21348 lb. (orig. 22667 lb),  Weight – 74¼ tons,  LMS classification – 4P

McIntosh ‘49’ class 4P No. 14750 leaves Perth with the 5.30pm Aberdeen-Glasgow, the one-time ‘Grampian Express’, in July 1926.  As can be seen from the Caledonian route indicator the train is routed via Coatbridge into Glasgow Central in order to provide good connections with the night trains to the south.  There were only two engines built to this design, forerunners of the ‘Cardean’ class and when built at Saint Rollox in 1903 they were the most powerful express engines in the country.  Withdrawal of both took place in 1933.  The first coach is one of the well-known CR ‘Grampian’ twelve-wheelers first introduced in 1905 and is a brake third whilst the second coach is a CR eight-wheel composite.  The third is a Pullman dining car, one of an eventual total of sixteen Pullman cars which ran on CR routes from 1914 onwards.  All were sold to the LMS in 1933 and the author observed one still in use in 1959 on an Inverness-Kyle of Lochalsh train.  (Locomotive Publishing Co.

No. 907, here shown on a southbound West Coast express near Elvanfoot, had a sad end in the Quintinshill disaster of 1915, when she was struck head-on by a 4-4-0 No.121.  (H. Gordon Tidey.

John F. McIntosh’s Caledonian Railway ‘Cardean’ class No. 904.  (C. Hamilton Ellis

Steam Locomotives of a More Leisurely Era 1896 Dunalastairs Caledonian Railway

Steam Locomotives of a More Leisurely Era

1896 Dunalastairs

Caledonian Railway

Dunalastair I No.14318 as finally running in 1932.

J.F.McIntosh’s first engines for the Caledonian Railway after his accession in 1895 were the famous Dunalastair class 4-4-0s, which at the time of their appearance were amongst the largest engines in the country.  The design was in effect a development of the somewhat similar engines built by Lambie in 1894, which had in turn evolved from those built by Dugald Drummond in 1884.  The Dunalastairs themselves were again gradually enlarged, and four distinct varieties, known as the Dunalastair I, II, III and Dunalastair IV classes, appeared between 1895 and 1910.  The last engine of the 1910 batch was fitted with a superheater and some of the dimensions were modified.  It was the first superheated engine in Scotland and one of the first in Great Britain.  Following on its success another 21 similar engines were built between 1911 and 1914.  Finally W.Pickerskill introduced yet another enlargement of the design, of which 48 were constructed between 1916 and 1922.  Most of these were still running in 1959 as BR Nos. 54461-54508, but the last of the Dunalastair IV’s had gone by 1957.  The LMS numbers of the Dunalastair I’s were 14311-25: these all went in the early 1930s.  The Dunalastair II’s were 14326-36, of which the last survivor was 14333 in 1947, and the Dunalastair III’s were 14337-65 (a few were rebuilt to IV).  Several of these lasted until the late 1940s.  Nos. 14330-60 were the IV’s, some of which had been rebuilt from Dunalastair II or III class.

A pair of McIntosh ‘Dunalastair III’ class 2P 4-4-0s, with No.14348 leading, prepare to leave Callender with a special train for Dunblane in 1936.  E.E.Smith

Dunalastair I – Driving wheels – 6’ 6”,  Cylinders – 18¼”x 26”,  Pressure – 160lb.,  Tractive effort – 15100lb.,  Weight – 47 tons,  LMS classification – 2P

Dunalastair II – Driving wheels – 6’ 6”,  Cylinders – 19”x 26”,  Pressure – 175lb.,  Tractive effort – 17900lb.,  Weight – 49 tons,  LMS classification – 2P

Dunalastair III – Driving wheels – 6’ 6”,  Cylinders – 19”x 26”,  Pressure – 180lb.,  Tractive effort – 18411lb.,  Weight – 51 tons 14 cwt,  LMS classification – 3P

Dunalastair IV – Driving wheels – 6’ 6”,  Cylinders – 20¼”x 26”,  Pressure – 180lb.,  Tractive effort – 20915lb.,  Weight – 61 tons 5 cwt,  LMS classification – 3P

Pickersgill – Driving wheels – 6’ 6”,  Cylinders – 20”x 26”*,  Pressure – 180lb.,  Tractive effort – 20400lb*.,  Weight – 61 tons 5 cwt,  LMS classification – 3P  (* the later engines had 20½”x 26” cylinders, with tractive effort  21435 lb.)

‘Dunalastair IV’ superheated rebuild, class 3P 4-4-0 No.14439, allocated to Carstairs shed, heads a southbound coal train near Uddington on August 23, 1947.  No.14439 survived to be the last of all the 87 McIntosh 4-4-0s when withdrawn from the Highland section in 1958.  E.R.Wethersett.

Steam Locos of a Leisurely Era 1886- Caledonian Railway Neilson 4-2-2

Steam Locos of a Leisurely Era

1886- Caledonian Railway Neilson 4-2-2

The engine as running in 1930, after receiving LMS red livery.

This engine was constructed by Neilson & Co. in 1886 for the Edinburgh exhibition, at the termination of which it was taken over by the Caledonian Railway.  Although designed primarily by the makers, Dugald Drummond, then locomotive superintendent of the Caledonian Railway, evidently had a hand in it, as it embodied certain of his characteristic features, such as the cab and boiler mountings.  It took part in the 1888 Race to Scotland between the West and East Coast routes, when it ran between Carlisle and Edinburgh with a load of four coaches, maintaining a daily average time of 107¾ minutes for the 100¾ miles.  This included the ascent of Beattock Bank, nine miles of continuous climbing between 1 in 74 and 1 in 88, preceded by a further three miles of 1 in 202.  For a number of years after the First World War it was used only for hauling the Directors’ saloon, but in the early 1930s it was again put into ordinary traffic on local trains between Perth and Dundee, by which time it had also received a new boiler, with Ramsbottom safety valves over the firebox instead of mounted in the dome.  It was withdrawn from service in 1935 and restored to its Caledonian blue livery for preservation, with its original number 123.  This latter had been subsequently altered to 1123, and whilst in service with the LMS it was No.14010.  The engine has recently (1959) been put into working order again for use with enthusiasts’ specials.

Driving wheels – 7’ 0”,  Bogie wheels – 3’ 6”,  Trailing wheels – 4’ 6”,  Cylinders – 18”x 26”,  Pressure – 160 lb.,  Tractive effort – 12286 lb.,  Weight – 41 tons 7 cwt. Caledonian Railway no 123 at Glasgow’s transport museum. Date 9 July 2007, 11:11:15  Source originally posted to Flickr as Royal portrait Author Les Chatfield Permission  (Reusing this file)  This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Steam Locos of a Leisurely Era 1867 – Connor 2-4-0 – Caledonian Railway

Steam Locos of a Leisurely Era

1867 – Connor 2-4-0 – Caledonian Railway

A series of 38 2-4-0 engines for express work built by B.Connor between 1867 and 1874.  At that time they had the largest coupled wheels in the country.  They had the Allan type of framing of Crewe origin.  Their numbers were 30 – 48, 98 – 102, 107 – 112 and 117 – 124.  All were subsequently rebuilt, some by G.Brittain, and others by J.Lambie and J.F.McIntosh, and the last survivors did not disappear until 1921.

Driving wheels – 7’ 2”,  Cylinders 17”x 24”,  Pressure 140 lb

Some of the engines had 7’ 0” wheels and only 130 lb pressure

 

Pic – No.108, probably running shortly before its withdrawal in 1898.