The LNER Encyclopedia

This was posted on Facebook. Can anyone identify location and comment on the coaching stock?

Finsbury Park - Woodstock Road in the background Still there!

Yes as 61070 has already said it's Finsbury Park or just north of Finsbury Park station the brick wall behind the train carries the Down Edgware branch heading towards Finsbury Park No.7 s/box, the brickwork which carries the Down Edgware branch would eventually be demolished in 1972.

I have seen the photograph before and I believe it is dated 1912?.

The train is a Down express hauled by a Stirling 8 footer that has been modified by Henry Ivatt with his preferred rounded steam collecting dome with the addition of a front end vacuum brake pipe for double-heading heavier trains and a high sided GNR tender.

The first three coaches behind the locos tender look particularly antiquated?.

Mickey

Jonathan

This has to be conjecture but I think the first two vehicles are of NB origin and that the express comprises ECJ stock with an additional 6 wheeler in front with the two NB vehicles. It seems an unusually heavy load of twelve wheelers for a single, but is not unique. The third vehicle is an ECJS 6 wheel locker Compo comprising L31T13.

Nick

A solitary Stirling 8 footer with that rake of coaching stock behind the tender including those heavy East Coast Joint coaches in the rake?.

After leaving 'the cross' I presume it would have been a bit slow going climbing up through Gasworks tunnel and through Belle Isle and then on through Copenhagen tunnel all on a rising gradient before the gradient stiffens a bit more for the final climb up the Holloway bank passed Holloway South Down box but once they'd topped the Holloway bank just beyond Holloway North Down box the road levels out so the speed would have crept up a bit provided they didn't receive a signals check at Finsbury Park 3 or 5?.

Ah yes the joys of the old GNR...

Mickey

Thanks, everyone, for your help and information. I've passed it back.

Is the lamp code the one for an express on the GN, or are we looking at ECS?

All the features of the leading vehicle are a good 'fit' with a North British 3rd Brake to NB 1908 Diagram No.53, well ilustrated at p.21 in Sandy Maclean's 'North British Album'. How positive is the identification of the second vehicle as North British? It appears to have an arc roof profile unlike the multi-radius roofs turned out by Cowlairs from about 1884(?) onwards and bodywork that doesn't project much outside the underframe. If the date is 1912, what are these non-gangwayed vehicles doing so far from their home territory?

John Palmer wrote:If the date is 1912

To be honest John I thought the photograph actually looked a few years earlier than 1912 maybe around 1905(?) but I'm fairly certain that it said 1912.

Blimey your right Mr.Wealleans after actually looking at the locos headlamps I don't believe that is a Down express after all those headlamps are possibly for a train of ECS (Empty Coaching Stock during GNR days??) obviously the train has come along way up from somewhere probably originating on the North British Railway that would explain the strange trains coaching stock going back northwards.

Also why would a photographer take a photograph of that train?. I presume the photographer had purposely been there that day to photograph that train for a reason but why?.

In B.R. days those pattern headlamps meant something else?. It's been 40+ years since I remember what the headlamps were for a train of ECS??.

Mickey

Also if that train was a Down express in 1912 why was a Stirling 8 footer on the front and not a Ivatt large boiler Atlantic?.

With a train formed of 'foreign stock' going back up north on the GNR/NER/NBR I presume Top Shed obviously stuck anything on the front to get rid of it anyway it would probably come off at York.

Mickey

Jonathan,

I have sent you an email confirming the location as stated by the others.

The leading vehicle is North British as Nick says, but I believe the second is a North Eastern 4-wheeler. On the larger image you sent to me directly you can see the characteristic shape of the ends of the headstocks.

John

Even on the photograph posted on this thread it's possible to pick out headstocks protruding beyond the body side of the second vehicle in the train. https://www.flickr.com/photos/55727763@N02/8603895910 links to a picture of a NER 4-wheeled Third on the Tanfield Railway that seems to correspond closely to the 4-wheeler here, except perhaps for the roof fittings.

With regard to a date, we can discount 1912 as 544 had been withdrawn in October 1906.

It was rebuilt by Ivatt in 1897, but in this view retains a Stirling type chimney, replaced in 1903.

Therefore some time around the turn of the 19/20th century.

John

JASd17 wrote:With regard to a date, we can discount 1912 as 544 had been withdrawn in October 1906.

It was rebuilt by Ivatt in 1897, but in this view retains a Stirling type chimney, replaced in 1903.

Therefore some time around the turn of the 19/20th century.

John

As previously posted by myself I actually thought the date was earlier than 1912 because to me it looks and has 'the feel' of being around 1900.

Mickey

Response below from Allan Sibley of the Great Northern Society:

It is indeed just north of Finsbury Park - the line on the rising arches behind the train is the Down branch to Alexandra Palace, High Barnet and Edgware and the photographer is on the equivalent Up line viaduct, the line having crossed the main lines before descending to Finsbury Park station. The houses are in Woodstock Road and still standing but most are now 'HMO' - Houses in Multiple Occupancy, i.e., bedsits and flats.

The headcode is the GNR express passenger code which, along with all the other GN-devised codes, was superceded by the RCH standard code positions on 1st February 1902.

No. 544 has a dome so the photo was taken between May 1897 when it received the Ivatt boiler and February 1902. I can't see anything else in the photo that would further narrow the time-span.

I can't imagine how the two coaches got in there but it is a good "prototype for the modeller" photo. I must admit I wouldn't want to travel all the way between York and London in an NER four-wheeler!

I have had a look at the first 2 12-wheel carriages in the rake. The first is a brake third, without sliding doors to the luggage section (Diagram 50 - perhaps?) , the second is an ECJS Diagram 6 Composite. As these were built in 1896-7, it is not possible to refine Allan's dates any further, with this information.

John