Unidentified single track railway

[lazonbytunnel]

Unfortunately the image is somewhat distorted, perhaps due to a development fault, but does anyone have any location suggestions for this one? Likely 1910s-20s. Many thanks in advance.

 

[Gloster]

Definitely a difficult one. Probably the first thing would be to identify the loco type: coal rails and outside tender springs may be the best starting points. Personally, I would put it as more like 1900-1910, but women’s clothing is not my speciality (no jokes please).

 

[eastwestdivide]

Any more context? Like where did you get the photo, anything written on the back?

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Looks like the train is passing over a bridge with iron girder parapets, probably over nothing more than a footpath (see the wooden fencing angled in towards the railway at that point). Is that also a signal post by the second carriage, the arm obscured by the tree branches?

 

[D6130]

The design of the telegraph pole and its crossbars may also help. Different companies had different telegraph pole configurations as well as signal designs. ISTR cycling along the closed ex-LSWR Meon Valley line in the mid-1970s and seeing telegraph poles like that still in situ in various places....but that is certainly not an ex-LSWR loco in the photograph.

 

[lazonbytunnel]

Any more context? Like where did you get the photo, anything written on the back?

Nothing on the back, acquired online as part of a random job lot.

 

[Gloster]

I did wonder when I first looked at it whether it was one of Stirling’s South Eastern 0-6-0s. I haven’t seen a rear view of one, but the tender sides fit and so does the cab roof, if that is a curved cab roof rather than a distortion of the negative. However, this is only a suggestion about a type that I am marginally more familiar with than others.

 

[Rescars]

This may be fantasy, but could this be the famed "Carlisle" on the Bishops Castle Railway? The scene is suitably sylvan. The tender looks about right with spring hangers above the framing and the cab-side looks about right too. But did the BCR ever run anything other than mixed trains? If this really is the BCR, it may be possible to pin down the location too as signals were surely something of a rarity.

 

[Gloster]

I don’t think that the Bishop’s Castle had a telegraph run. Also, it does look like an inverted U-shaped cab roof and Carlisle had a normal flat roof.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

but that is certainly not an ex-LSWR loco in the photograph

I would concur, certainly with regards Adam's designs. Have trawled through my selection of Adams associated locomotive designs, and not one had a tender with above frame springs. My knowledge of Beattie is not so good, so won't comment. I have found a couple of pics of locos with such an arrangement (springs) on the GER, both 2-4-0s I think, but one was a four wheel tender without coal rails, the other a 6w tender, but again without coal rails. Thinking the Sinclair era possibly?
Without wishing to muddy the waters, I do wonder how many locos (of whatever company) originally built with tenders as shown, may have had their tenders rebuilt during the course of their lives, to a more modern (standard) spring pattern, which in turn would have permitted a wider tank to fitted - ie: more capacity? I know the GER trialled a number of oil burning types in the early 20th century, the tenders appearing to be very modern (for their time) in comparison to the locos they were attached to. Sure there are others who are far more knowledgeable than I on this matter.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Oct 2024 ==

Stirling’s South Eastern 0-6-0s

Funny you mention the 'South Eastern'. As a company associated with such loco (tender) design, that did cross my mind briefly, but half of me is thinking I am remembering the film, 'The First Great Train Robbery' or some such, with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland....didn't the loco in that display above frame springs on the tender, real or otherwise? A warning: my memory may be going do-lally here.....

 

[Gloster]

Funny you mention the 'South Eastern'. As a company associated with such loco (tender) design, that did cross my mind briefly, but half of me is thinking I am remembering the film, 'The First Great Train Robbery' or some such, with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland....didn't the loco in that display above frame springs on the tender, real or otherwise? A warning: my memory may be going do-lally here.....

But that a CIE J15. Although they originally had outside tender springs, I am not sure if they ever had coal rails.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

But that a CIE J15. Although they originally had outside tender springs, I am not sure if they ever had coal rails

Thank you, a nod to sanity! Note to self: NEVER rely on events shown in media/film......!

Back to the point in question, it is frustrating in a way that loco mods (rebuilding of tenders to a more well recognised - by the likes of us) design, may well have taken place generally, long before railway photography became a past time for those wealthy enough to indulge in same, and so images of locos of the era in question, and more to the point, still in their original format, are likely to be scarce if not non existent, which makes the identification of the OPs image all the more......challenging....but 'one' has not given up!

 

[D6130]

But that a CIE J15. Although they originally had outside tender springs, I am not sure if they ever had coal rails.

Yes....that was filmed in Ireland using J15 No. 184 which still has its outside tender springs, unlike preserved sister No. 186, which has a later, larger and more modern tender.

 

[Gloster]

Yes....that was filmed in Ireland using J15 No. 184 which still has its outside tender springs, unlike preserved sister No. 186, which has a later, larger and more modern tender.

It was mostly done on the Mullingar-Athlone line which had a pretty sparse service: the only regular workings by then were (I think) the Up and Down Day and Night Mails. Other scenes were done at Houston, standing in for London Bridge, and the east end platforms at Cork.

 

[LYradial]

I am looking at the telegraph pole with its short arms and distinctive pots, they feature in what very few photos I can find on the “Irish railway archives” site.

the lush growth might suggest the Emerald Isle

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Oct 2024 ==

Here is an Irish loco with what seems to be an upwardly extended tender, not rails in this case

Irish railway archive 3 - MikeMorant

REC: 21/9/57 Former GSWR and Inchicore built D14 class 4-4-0 no. 64 of 1895 vintage is shown here at Tullow. Little seems to be known about this tour other than that the accompanying tickets state " Kingsbridge to Tullow & back". [Mike Morant collection]

mikemorant.smugmug.com

 

[30907]

I'm looking at the coaches: they are arc-roof and the first appears to have 9 compartment doors. That makes them relatively modern in terms of non-corridor stock (and rules out SECR and LSWR among others).
In the 1900-14 period relatively modern coaches plus an older loco (going by the tender) on a branch line is an intriguing combination - though I have no idea where that takes us, sorry.

 

[Gloster]

I feel that it is in Britain, probably England: I don’t think that the lush growth necessarily indicates Ireland as the countryside was much wilder at the beginning of the last century. I think that identifying the loco type is the first priority: without that it is going to be just wild guesses as there is no ‘killer’ detail. The loco, if it has the inverted U-shaped cab roof, is quite possibly the work of one of the Stirlings, so either Great Northern or South Eastern.

 

[Rescars]

A few further thoughts.

• Both Stirlings spent some some time as Loco Superintendent of the Glasgow and South Western - not that the photo suggests the hills of Galloway.
• The number of compartments suggests these are bogie carriages rather than 6-wheelers, so decidedly modern for a local working pre-1914.
• As 30907 says, the use of an elderly local attached to modern coaches is unusual.
• The loco is working tender first. This implies the line is a bit of a backwater without a turntable at the location where the train started out.
• I take Gloster's point about the lack of a telegraph line on the BCR, but could this be another light/minor railway? I had wondered about somewhere on the Col Stephens empire perhaps, but this loco surely isn't one of his preferred ex LSWR Ilfracombe Goods.

 

[30907]

Further thoughts:
Arc roof coaches seem to have been relatively rare by the Edwardian era - LNWR, LBSCR, LYR among the major companies.
Coal rails on tenders - as opposed to bunkers - also would be rare.

 

[Gloster]

A few further thoughts.

• Both Stirlings spent some some time as Loco Superintendent of the Glasgow and South Western - not that the photo suggests the hills of Galloway.
• The number of compartments suggests these are bogie carriages rather than 6-wheelers, so decidedly modern for a local working pre-1914.
• As 30907 says, the use of an elderly local attached to modern coaches is unusual.
• The loco is working tender first. This implies the line is a bit of a backwater without a turntable at the location where the train started out.
• I take Gloster's point about the lack of a telegraph line on the BCR, but could this be another light/minor railway? I had wondered about somewhere on the Col Stephens empire perhaps, but this loco surely isn't one of his preferred ex LSWR Ilfracombe Goods.

Not an Ilfracombe Goods as they didn’t have external springs. Nor is it any other ‘Southern’ type that I can see, but GNR Ivatt and Stirling locos of (LNER) Class J3, J4 and J7 look possible.

 

[P Binnersley]

This photo of an NER Fletcher E6 at Castle Howard looks like a good match for the the loco and carriages.

 

[Rescars]

This photo of an NER Fletcher E6 at Castle Howard looks like a good match for the the loco and carriages.

Certainly fits a lot of the criteria. I think it's possible that there are splasher cutaways for coupling rods on the loco in the original photo.

Now all we need is a branch without a turntable!

 

[WesternLancer]

Costumes look pre 1914 fwiw.

 

[etr221]

This photo of an NER Fletcher E6 at Castle Howard looks like a good match for the the loco and carriages.

I would agree, it also matches other images of the NER 901 and 1440 class 2-4-0s l've seen (these did not receive an LNER classification, although there may have an intention to classify them E6, they didn't last long enough). I can't see the loco in the picture clearly enough, or know them well enough, to distinguish between tham. Pictures of them do show them having large oval cab side numberplates, as in the OP's image. And the 1440 class (in particular) ended up on rural branches in Northhumberland and Durham.

 

[P Binnersley]

Given film exposure times c1910 I presume the train must be stationary so it would be a posed shot. The fence looks very new. Were there any North Eastern line openings 1900-1914?

 

[etr221]

Given film exposure times c1910 I presume the train must be stationary so it would be a posed shot. The fence looks very new. Were there any North Eastern line openings 1900-1914?

Edwardian cameras were quite capable of capturing images of moving trains - and the one in the image wouldn't have been going very fast - so I doubt the train was posed, it may not even have been planned to include it. But if they had been stood there for a while waiting for it, that might explain the expression of the girls on the right.

 

[Pigeon]

I've stretched the train a bit to compensate for the foreshortening. (Although the forum ensquarifies the miniature version so it looks like I haven't.)

If only the photographer had stood in a slightly different position so the signal arm wasn't behind the tree...

 

[The exile]

Certainly fits a lot of the criteria. I think it's possible that there are splasher cutaways for coupling rods on the loco in the original photo.

Now all we need is a branch without a turntable!

Not necessarily- they did occasionally fail.

 

[Cowley]

I've stretched the train a bit to compensate for the foreshortening. (Although the forum ensquarifies the miniature version so it looks like I haven't.

Is this a bit better?

 

[Snow1964]

• The number of compartments suggests these are bogie carriages rather than 6-wheelers, so decidedly modern for a local working pre-1914.
• As 30907 says, the use of an elderly local attached to modern coaches is unusual.
• The loco is working tender first. This implies the line is a bit of a backwater without a turntable at the location where the train started out.

I wonder if it is a through coach working to some obscure branch off a mainline train. Hence the newer coaches.

There appears to be some sort of disc attached to the end of the carriage, could this be some sort of destination indicator to mark which portion of the train it is, this might give a clue.

My other thought it the clothing suggests Sunday Best, not everyday clothes, or possibly a school uniform, taken presumably when photos were expensive so got multiple subjects in one shot