In haste, a short post following up on a post from December 2011 on the importance of North Bennington Depot having a classic SAAB 900 sitting outside it. And last week, I had both the car and the camera in the right place at the right time. I was actually voting on the privatisation of the North Bennington Graded School (a plan to create a Charter School in Vermont without any of the legislation that would be required to support it - sadly, the plan passed, though it is subject to a review by the State Board of Education next week; they stopped it last time) but the snow was lovely and the station stood resolute and welcoming as ever.
I also got a copy of "America's Great Railroad Stations" over Christmas, which features North Bennington Depot in a beautiful spread on pp. 86 - 89, taking its place alongside the New York's Grand Central, Boston's South Station and Washington's Union Station. Wonderful book, well worth a read; all we need now is for Amtrak to be sufficiently funded to use these beautiful stations optimally. For North Bennington, this means diverting the Ethan Allen from New York to Rutland - and eventually to Burlington VT, via Manchester, Rutland and Middlebury - hopefully from 2015/16.
(Well, it can be a long walk. And it does rain. Quite a lot.)
In Britain, the majority of railways were built in the three "railway manias" - most famously 1844-46 but also again in the 1850s and 1870s - when something like the internet bubble happened for roughly the same reason; a disruptive technology that made the flow of information and services easier than ever before. Some of the routes promoted were outright fraudulent, others were directly competitive (there was no obvious reason to have two mainlines from London to Birmingham or three from London - Manchester), and until the 1923 grouping there were a plethora of lines - more than one hundred survived to join the Great Western, London Midland & Scottish, London North Eastern and Southern Railways.
But this very national network - reaching into odd corners (Laxfield), hopelessly romantic names (Ashby Magna), high peaks (Bakewell) and the mountain fastnesses (Cwm Prysor) and some - like Steele Road - that served nothing but the railway itself - would be cut back by Beeching and the failure of network economics. But some of the strangest bits of Victorian over-enthusiasm for railways survive. And the Snowdon Mountain Railway is one of the oddest.
So mass tourism came to North Wales in the 1880s and 1890s. And Snowdon (snow hill in Anglo-Saxon) or Yr Wyddfa (The Tumulus in Welsh) Wales' highest peak, stood proudly at 3,560ft over the lake at Llanberis, along with a number of paths to the top. But it's a steep walk, and besides, railways (in this case imported from Switzerland) could do almost anything - in the case, literally climb mountains. And thus was born the SMR.
It is steep.
(The lake at the top of the picture is the bottom of the railway.)
And since the opening, little steam engines (and in more recent years, some diesels) have pushed one or two coaches up the mountain. And continue to do so....
Bravo!
But the walk is also lovely, and if you come up the other side of the mountain, you can see this:
(And then you get to see steam trains at the top, and have a nice lunch in the new cafe on top too. Bonus!)
Here at SRM HQ there is a soft spot for steam trains, hence the "Occasional Steam Train" series.
Today - in honour of Mr. Joe Fuller's birthday, we look at some of the most powerful 2ft gauge steam engines ever built - the South African NGG16 Garratts. A Garratt is a type of steam engine in which a larger-than-otherwise-possible boiler is carried on a paid of articulated power units, to make a smooth-riding and extremely powerful locomotive for its size. Though there were some standard gauge examples in the UK, including 33 on the LMS and the LNER's unique U1, Britain's most powerful steam locomotive, Garratts were synonymous with 3' 6" (Cape Gauge) systems in southern Africa, (though they also appeared in Australia, too), where despite being "narrow guage" were often larger than contemporary British practice on standard gauge.
But what concerns us here is 2' gauge super-power. Weighing in at around 60 tons and delivering over 21,000lb tractive effort, the NGG16s, behemoths of the narrow gauge, are more than twice the 24t weight of the iconic Ffestiniog Railway Double Fairlies like Livingston Thompson which produced less than 9,000lb tractive effort.
(Not a Garratt - a Double Fairlie)
And after retirement from South Africa, some of these Manchester built
Beyer-Peacock Garratts (known worldwide as Beyer-Garratts) were
repatriated as the ideal power for the rebuilt Welsh Highland.
Why are these Garratts so important? Well partly due to their size, they provide the capability to run profitable trains over the fabulous Welsh Highland Railway, something that the original line torn up in the 1940s never achieved. The WHR features a 1-in-40 ascent from the lovely village of Beddgelert to the base of Snowdon and then across farmland to Caernarfon Castle. It also runs through the breathtaking Aberglaslyn Pass, below:
Interestingly, one of those on the WHR is number 143, the last Beyer-Garratt produced, so in sharing the line with the first, K1, Wales now has the Alpha and Omega of these characterful engines that did so much to open up narrow gauge lines across the British Commonwealth in the first half of the 20th century.
(Last Beyer-Garratt ever... No 143 at Rydd Ddu)
So let's celebrate these returnees, and hope that they will continue to trundle visitors through the Snowdonia National Park for generations to come. Bravo!
(Number 87, one of the Belgian-built engines at Rydd Ddu - pronounced Writh-Dee, more or less.)
(An LMS "Patriot" 4-6-0; 45500 Patriot herself, in fact.)
We do do occasional steam trains here at SRM; it's an important element balancing the law, defence and foreign affairs elements that is our usual fare. So here in what turns out to be my 100th post since relaunching the blog back in July 2010, we're back to steam engines. And weirdly, this features a class of locomotive that I've never warmed to from a railway that I always thought was rather dull.
So what's this all about?
It's about the dedication of passionate enthusiasm in the face of any kind of rational assessment of that which is dourly sensible. All of the Patriot-class were scrapped in the early 1960s, and a small group based at the Llangollen Railway are building one from scratch with assorted odds and sods that did survive from the end of steam (a tender, some buffers etc). The new engine will be named "The Unknown Warrior" and will be the UK's national memorial engine, perpetuating the old railway tradition of having an engine which recognised the sacrifices of staff and passengers in wartime.
All jolly good. She should look like the painting below when she's finished - hopefully in early 2018 for the centenary of the WW I Armistice.
(Looking northbound. I also never understood why the name is facing the driver -
I'd hoped that they'd know where they were...)
The station's survival is also a very
American story; not the story of the big corporation, or of the large foundation, but of local
benefactors in small towns bringing their community together. The notice board on the station sets out the
story eloquently...
The sad thing is that the last passenger
trains to North Bennington ran in 1953 or so: it looked something like this from Jim Shaughnessy's 1981 book Rutland
Road.
(New York bound in the capable hands of one of the four gorgeous Rutland 90-series 4-8-2s)
So the good news is that the the states of Vermont and New York are conducting a study into returning passenger service to Albany and New York, potentially as soon as 2014-15. Our friends at the Vermont Rail Action Network are doing good work with the VT congressional delegation to get this done. Good!
(Looking south, it somehow reminds me of an aircraft carrier...)
The photo I really want a copy of the station is at Kevin's Sports Pub in North Bennington- it has the view below, but with a very early (probably a '79 or '80) Saab 900 GLs. This is one picture that I'd be happy to replicate- with Amtrak preparing to depart in the background of course...
(Cute. Much cuter with a Saab 900 outside the station, though...)
I've been reminded that there have been a lack of steam trains in this blog recently. An oversight. So it was very exciting to see the Bluebell Railway has completed the restoration of SECR "Birdcage" brake 3363, both because of the quality of the reconstruction - restoration seems far too narrow a term for what has been achieved in Sussex:
(3363 as she appeared in 1998 - hence "reconstruction")
So, the "Birdcage" glazed area provides a new vantage point for the important business of looking at steam engines.
With credit to Roger Carpenter for the pictures taken last Saturday, here's what that view looks like:
The locomotive in question is LBSCR Billinton Radial Tank, No. B473:
Growing up, it was always clear that Toby is an unusual christian name; indeed the market demonstrated this by the fact that there was never any mugs or other types of tat with Toby on them - it was all David, John, Bill, Oliver, etc etc. Hence, discovering Toby: The Tram Engine at an early age was simply wonderful - something with my name on it, and a quirky steam engine to boot - very important a six.
But in common with most of the rest of the the Reverend Awdry's creations in the Railway Series, (later known as "Thomas and Friends"), Toby in fact was based on a real series of strange steam tram engines produced by the Great Eastern Railway between 1903 and 1921 for service on the equally idiosyncratic Wisbech and Upwell Tramway, in rural Cambridgeshire, and were a more powerful version of an earlier Victorian design.
(68222 in the early 1950s)
Unkindly described by my sister as a "garden shed on wheels", the "Tobys" were replaced by diesel shunters in the early 1950s, and were all scrapped. (Sniff!) Nonetheless, this strange design has achieved a degree of immortality in the unlikely venue of a children's storybook character.
Minus the side plates, you can see how short the wheelbase was.
And under the "garden shed", it was just a conventional (if very small) steam engine.
As I was reminded by Mr. Joe, I promised to put up some random steam train pictures. In this case, as I'm currently in the US, an American one. Here's Southern Pacific 4449, a 4-8-4 express passenger engine that toured the US in 1975-76 with the "American Freedom Train" project.
The American Freedom Train was a neat idea - it was essentially a museum on wheels that took American history across the country to the people through 1975-76. And it even came to Vermont that first spring - it left Albany NY on April 6th and was open for visitors in Burlington VT on April 11th 1975.
I believe it even came through my mother's home town, North Bennington on the way, though I haven't got a picture of it. But here's a picture of the picturesque North Bennington Station (or Depot, depending on your sensibilities). It's a gorgeously over the top piece of American Victoriana, which was rescued by the town from dilapidation thirty years ago. It now houses the Town Offices.
Better yet, though the platform has a statue awaiting a passenger train, the last of which ran sometime in the 1950s (when it was possible to go direct to New York and with a single change, overnight to Miami), last night marked the beginning of a major study into reinstating passenger service to New York via Albany, and Burlington via Middlebury. This would be of great economic and social benefit for western VT, which currently has no meaningful public transport beyond some local buses, after it lost Greyhound services a few years back. All the details are here.
So, with luck, this will be 4hrs 15 mins from Penn Station, New York in 2014-15. We can but hope - it'd sure beat driving!
Well, with thanks to my parents for an excellent choice of birthday present, here's me playing on the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway last November - brilliant fun!
Our noble steed for the day - No 8, Hurricane. And snow!
All of the best childish delights....
Amid the Romney Marshes - desolate, but inviting. And as the train is so small, 20 mph feels like 60 - small genius!
Unrebuilt Bulleid Merchant Navy Pacific 35028 "Clan Line", 1959
It has been pointed out to me that I promised you occasional steam train images, and have comprehensively failed to deliver. Indeed.
The attached photograph is particularly interesting to the British Rail (Southern Region) steam engine enthusiast community as it shows that Clan Line did in fact last long enough before being rebuilt to receive the later British Railways insignia - the only Merchant Navy to do so, I believe.
Early Crest (aka "Cycling Lion") looked like this:
Late Crest (aka "Ferret with Dartboard") looked like this:
Clan Line was rebuilt in 1959/60 and survived to the end of steam from Waterloo in July 1967. Happily, she was saved out of service, and continues to perform on the main line, usually hauling the British Pullmans of the Venice Simplon Orient Express (VSOE), as seen below. You can read all about her at www.clan-line.org/index.
So there's some completely useless information for you!
