MRS Journal No. 65 (Summer 2017)

Table of Contents

• In the Beginning — The Foundations of Midland Locomotive Stock Part 2: The Later Amalgamated & Absorbed Companies
• Foreigners
• The Midland Railway Servants’ Refreshment Co. Ltd.
• Servicemen at Chesterfield
• Alarming Accident On The Midland Railway In 1859
• Wooden Viaduct North Of Belper
• Snippets From The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 1867
• Sheffield & Rotherham Railway Carriages
• Widening North Of Chevet Tunnel
• Query Corner
• Comments on Items in Previous Journals

• Front cover
  Our cover picture is taken from the frontispiece to Drakes Road Book and shows a train for Sheffield waiting inside the shed at the Rotherham Westgate station of the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway. Although the last two carriages are partly obscured by the light engine on the adjacent line, it is clear that this train comprised five carriages, all covered. Drake gives the date of 21st May 1840 for his dedication of the book to the Chairman and Directors of the line. So it is likely that this frontispiece shows a S&R train after the abolition of the 2nd class in the second half of 1839 and before its re-introduction in December 1840. Ian Howard’s article sets out the details of all this.
  [James Drake, Drakes Road book of the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway, published by the author, Birmingham, 1840. Ian Howard collection]
• Rear cover
  This Order, No. 193 dated 10th December 1864, went out from the office of the Midland’s General Manager, James Allport, to stations on the system requiring the responsible person there to acknowledge receipt, to affix the Order into their Order Book and to ensure that all staff who might need the information were aware of it. The date the order was to come into effect was 1st January 1865. The new names of the lines between Birmingham and Derby were to become the ones we are all now familiar with. According to the Study Centre document No. 88-PAL-042 (Instructions as to the naming of Up and Down Lines, 1857) those between Birmingham and Derby were previously the other way round (UP towards Birmingham) and the line between Leicester and Burton was UP towards Leicester. The new naming made the Leicester-Birmingham line consistent with that of the one between Leicester and Burton.
  [One of the entries in the Burton Station Master’s Order Book; Midland Railway Study Centre No. 30024