MRS Journal No.35 (Summer 2007)

Table of Contents

• Fowler 2–6–4 Tank Engines at St. Albans / By Stephen Summerson
• Disaster in the Fog. The Goose Fair Collisions at Long Eaton Junction 1869 / By Roger Brettle
• Locomotive Aesthetics / By Jack Braithwaite
• Legal Dispute at Unstone / By Andrew Surry
• Early Accidents on the Midland Railway: 1849 (The 2nd Four Months) / By Chris Rouse
• Midland Railway War Memorial / By Howard Sprenger
• Duddeston Road Junction Signal Box and the Saltley Gas Works Explosion / By Tony Overton
• Query Corner
  • Query 53: Location identified as Halesowen Junction / By Peter Witts
  • Query 54: More at Leicester / By Peter Witts
  • Query 55: G&SW Railway carriage / By Adrian Prescott, Arnold Tortorella & Peter Wills
  • New Query 57: Sheffield station pilot
  • New Query 58: Langley Mill swells
  • New Query 59: staff photograph: Nottingham area
  • New Query 60: proud gardener of Staple Hill
  • The Paget Locomotive: an appeal for information

• Front cover
  This photograph shows MR 1853 class 4–2–2 No. 627 on the turntable at Chinley, being turned for the return journey after, apparently, bringing in the Liverpool portion of a Liverpool and Manchester express to London. The two portions would be combined at Chinley, the train then being headed by an engine more suited to the demanding lift over the line through the Peak District to Derby. This engine being here is puzzling, since it appears to have been allocated to sheds south of Nottingham during its life. I have no date, which is some time after 1907 when No. 1870 received its new number.
  The carriages behind the locomotive are, to the left, No. 2023, a 48ft lavatory third to D486, one of the 50 built in 1900 under lot 464. I cannot identify its companion in the right, since the image cuts most of it off. However, its number appears to be something like “124?”, a number completely outside the range recorded by Lacey and Dow for the Clayton lavatory express stock. I would greatly appreciate any information about these carriages, the locomotive, and their workings.
  [Ian Howard collection]
• Rear cover
  This memorandum of 1902 from Derby to Mr Graham at Skipton shows that it was difficult to keep track of goods on a complex system like a railway, and that correcting mistakes was even more difficult. Traders regularly complained about the inability of the railway companies to take care of their property, and to deliver it to the right place and on time. Although companies used the telegraph (and, in a few years, the telephone) to help them improve matters, they still relied upon hand-written communications like this.
  On the back of this memorandum someone (presumably Mr. Graham) has written in indelible pencil ‘We did not intercept this wagon – it was labelled to us & is duly recorded in our number book. The original label was not preserved. I have taken up with my people for not reporting [indecipherable] to Colne & do not think anything of the sort will occur again.’
  [Ian Howard collection]