How to Get A Handle on the LNER?

[J Yoder]

I admit that as a non-Brit and an LNER newbie, there's a lot of information out there and it can be a bit overwhelming. I understand, for example, that LNER was created out of several constituent companies in 1923.

And then it gets complicated. People make reference to "regions" and it sounds like that the equipment from constituent companies generally stayed in their original region. Except when they didn't.

I was wondering if anybody could suggest a good reading list or an approach to begin to make sense of all of this information. I know a bit about British railways, but not to the level of expertise that I see regularly in these forums.

Thanks.

[silverfox]

There is a stack of reading out there. I honestly think your best bet would be to ask questions on here. I dont think there is a region ( Scottish .. NBR GNSR,,,,,NE, NE......Eastern GN,GE,GC as well as the other odds and sods that made up the LNER, that someone on here doesn't know the answer to, and that includer track.signalling,building rolling stock ,both goods and people, and ?Locos. So get the thinking cap on, no question is a stupid one, hell we may even learn something new ourselves,and ask away

Ron

[jwealleans]

If you prefer the old fashioned approach (I do) then there are plenty of places to start.

Michael Bonavia's History of the LNER (3 volumes); LNER 150 by Whitehouse/St John Thomas ; LNER by Geoffrey Hughes are all readily available second hand and will give you a good overview. From there you can focus in on the areas (Areas, not Regions, under the LNER - Regions is a BR term) which most interest you and expand your knowledge.

You will find this a very helpful group (I hope), but we respond better to quite specific questions where a poster has clearly tried to do their own research - "Can you tell me about the LNER?" is less likely to get any sort of response, let alone a helpful one, than "where can i find a good side-on photograph of a D10C Kitchen Car" (for example).

[J Yoder]

You will find this a very helpful group (I hope), but we respond better to quite specific questions where a poster has clearly tried to do their own research - "Can you tell me about the LNER?" is less likely to get any sort of response, let alone a helpful one, than "where can i find a good side-on photograph of a D10C Kitchen Car" (for example).

I certainly understand that, which is why I asked for resources, rather than directly "can you tell me about the LNER?" My problem is that at this point, that I don't know what my questions are. It's going to take some degree of research and emergence before I'm able to ask more specific questions. I'm just trying to find an entry point in -- there is a considerable learning curve.

[kudu]

You could do a lot worse than to start with this website, if you haven't explored it already. I don't mean the Forum, where you can easily sink in detail, but the excellent set of articles etc. Although most of the material is on locomotives it is not exclusively so. As with any website you have to be a bit careful (for example, the piece on the North British Railway states it was the largest railway in Scotland and the fifth largest in Britain without clarifying that this is only true if size is reckoned by route mileage - it was tenth in terms of number of locos) but I for one wish the other post-1923 companies had websites as good as this.

Kudu

[Mickey]

On one level the L.N.E.R. is quite easy to understand it was primarily made up of the following former companies-

Great Northern Railway
North Eastern Railway
North British Railway
Great Eastern Railway
Great Central Railway

and several other smaller companies but personally speaking i'm mainly interested in the Great Northern Railway as part of the L.N.E.R. (the world ends at Shaftholme Junction ha ha ha...).

The "Regions" were formed under British Railways after the railways were nationalized in 1948 and they lasted until about 1994/95 before the country's railways were privatized by the Conservative government of the day (the Tories) anyway getting back to the "regions" of B.R. the Eastern Region the North Eastern Region the London Midland Region the Western Region the Southern Region and the Scottish Region (with the exception of the Scottish Region) there boundaries by and large with a few minor exceptions around the country followed the former boundaries of the L.N.E.R. the L.M.S. the G.W.R and the S.R.

The L.N.E.R. became part of the Eastern Region, North Eastern Region & Scottish Region running along the eastern side of England & Scotland.

Mickey

[65447]

Michael Bonavia's History of the LNER (3 volumes); LNER 150 by Whitehouse/St John Thomas ; LNER by Geoffrey Hughes are all readily available second hand and will give you a good overview. From there you can focus in on the areas (Areas, not Regions, under the LNER - Regions is a BR term) which most interest you and expand your knowledge.

To which I would add CJ Allen's 'The London and North Eastern Railway', Ian Allan, 1966, also available second-hand in hardback and paperback formats. This and Geoff Hughes' 'LNER' I would put top of the list for accurate and historically correct content. Then, as JW says, you can start delving into those topics you find most engaging and at which point we can add more specific sources, such as Peter Tatlow's 5-volume work on LNER and constituent company Wagons (being all the freight rolling stock).

More recent is the 'LNER Handbook' by David Wragg, Haynes Publishing that you might be able to source within the US. Haynes North America Inc. is located in Newbury Park, CA and my copy was printed in LaVergne, TN! It is not the most respected source but a reasonable entry point.

There are many UK booksellers who specialise in railway topics, and a search on fleabay can turn up items from the above list at sensible prices, although shipping to the US might be a tad more expensive. There are other forum members in the US, not least Richard who runs it, who may well be able to offer useful advice on sourcing reference material.

Welcome to the world of a real railway company...

[65447]

On one level the L.N.E.R. is quite easy to understand it was primarily made up of the following former companies-

Great Northern Railway
North Eastern Railway
North British Railway
Great Eastern Railway
Great Central Railway

Mickey

Not forgetting the Great North of Scotland, which was also a primary constituent and in itself became the Northern Scottish Area of the LNER.

Great Central, Great Eastern and Great Northern - Southern Area, with the Great Central and Great Northern being the Western and the Great Eastern the Eastern parts of it operationally;
North Eastern, having absorbed the Hull & Barnsley one year earlier - North Eastern Area
North British and Great North of Scotland - Scottish Area, with the North British being the Southern Scottish Area and the GNoS the Northern Scottish Area as described above.

And then the LNER had shares in the Cheshire Lines Committee and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway and so on, and there were the docks and shipping operations too.

[Mickey]

On one level the L.N.E.R. is quite easy to understand it was primarily made up of the following former companies-

Great Northern Railway
North Eastern Railway
North British Railway
Great Eastern Railway
Great Central Railway

Mickey

Not forgetting the Great North of Scotland, which was also a primary constituent and in itself became the Northern Scottish Area of the LNER.

Great Central, Great Eastern and Great Northern - Southern Area, with the Great Central and Great Northern being the Western and the Great Eastern the Eastern parts of it operationally;
North Eastern, having absorbed the Hull & Barnsley one year earlier - North Eastern Area
North British and Great North of Scotland - Scottish Area, with the North British being the Southern Scottish Area and the GNoS the Northern Scottish Area as described above.

And then the LNER had shares in the Cheshire Lines Committee and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway and so on, and there were the docks and shipping operations too.

I reckon i covered the main gist of it 65447 the G.N.R. the N.E.R. the N.B.R. the G.E.R. & the G.C.R. thats why i included "several other smaller companies" although the Hull & Barnsley did cross my mind but i'm not overly familiar with that railway but i must admit The Great North of Scotland Railway completely passed me by but i'm someone who thought the G.N.R. main line north of Hitchin (32 miles north of Kings Cross) was "going up north" when i was a youngster.

Mickey

[giner]

Ha Ha! Me too, Mickey. And once you got past Royston, well that was another planet.

[52D]

I have seen a family tree type diagram of the North Eastern Railway and it was quite enlightening with all the constituents, it would be amazing to see a similar type of diagram for the complete LNER.

[65447]

I have seen a family tree type diagram of the North Eastern Railway and it was quite enlightening with all the constituents, it would be amazing to see a similar type of diagram for the complete LNER.

There has been more than one published; a relatively recent one (2013?) was in a Railway Magazine LNER special issue as I recall.

[52D]

Thanks 65447 did it go right back to the begining im not familiar with the GERs constituents.

[richard]

kudu: NBR mileage fixed!

65447/52D: I do have a book of the legal relationships. It is packed away so I don't have the reference, but it was an academic research project that someone had published - serendipitously found it on Ebay at some silly cheap price. Going by the size of the book, and even allowing for a lot of legal entities that never laid a yard of track, I strongly suspect an LNER diagram would be too large and complex to publish on one sheet.

J. Yoder: Have the Bonavia and LNER 150 books - well recommended, and inexpensive because there are plenty on the UK book market (as you probably know, UK books rarely make it to the US shops although Half Price carry a surprising number of remaindered ones...). Don't know the Geoffrey Hughes book, but I have another of his, and would expect it to be well researched. Cecil Allen was with the GER / LNER and so he usually knew what he was talking about, but sometimes I think there are some biases.
The LNER 150 book is a pretty good overview/summary.
Bonavia's is actually in three small volumes. He was involved in the management in the later years, so his description of the the planning that was going on whilst Nationalisation was on the cards (eg. the economics of large scale diesel-ification) are particularly strong.

[65447]

65447/52D: I do have a book of the legal relationships. It is packed away so I don't have the reference, but it was an academic research project that someone had published - serendipitously found it on Ebay at some silly cheap price. Going by the size of the book, and even allowing for a lot of legal entities that never laid a yard of track, I strongly suspect an LNER diagram would be too large and complex to publish on one sheet.

It was in the Railway Magazine for November 2006, as a double-page (A3) centre spread. It was a repeat of the same 'family tree' printed at the end of chapter 1 in LNER 150. Separately the LNER published two legal summaries, one listing all of the Acts of Parliament that created railway companies that eventually became part of the LNER, including those that never laid a yard of track or were operated by another company from the outset, and another listing all the enabling Acts for works associated with the railway lines. A former NER employee wrote a paper that described how inter-company charging operated and where exchange points were and included a complete list of all the companies and stretches of line, some only yards long, over which the LNER had passenger and/or goods running rights; this was also published internally by the LNER and the above would readily enable a complete 'family tree' to be constructed.

... Don't know the Geoffrey Hughes book, but I have another of his, and would expect it to be well researched. Cecil Allen was with the GER / LNER and so he usually knew what he was talking about, but sometimes I think there are some biases.

In which case you should get to know it, even if you have to track down a copy on one of your visits 'home'. CJA wrote most of the content describing the UK railways in the Railway Year Book - the 'bible' for statistics and facts - as well as many articles on locomotive performance and train operations. He certainly knew the GER and LNER better than the other companies, but I would say that resulted in his having greater knowledge rather than a bias. The historical sketch sections for each principal company, including joint lines and committees, contained in the Railway Year Book also include the names of most of the original railway companies that actually built lines.