Duke of Wellington Carriage, LMR Opening Day

[What About The Bee]

This is quite high on my want list. The Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister upon LMR Opening Day, and this special carriage was constructed for his attendance, just for the day. You may see it on the left, as drawn by Shaw, a known good observer.

This carriage does not seem to fit the "standard" carriage as constructed by the LMR. 

Firstly, there are 4 axles. One of the principle claims of Patentee was the flangeless wheels on the center axle, by Stephenson, in 1834. Yet Opening Day was 1830. Flangeless wheels could not be a patent in 1834 if they existed in 1830. Yet four axles, with flanged wheels, will have problems with curves.

Secondly, in an era of tiny wheel bases, this carriage is ridiculously long. We know from Armengaud that the early turntables had only 2 meters of track. The wheelbase of the early carriages in Ackermann shows the carriages were made to fit that 2 meters. 

So how in the world did the Duke's carriage travel from Liverpool to Manchester on that fateful day?

I may have an answer. I am working on the log wagon in CAD, as depicted by Ackermann. 

That suffers from the exact same defect as above. How did this ever get around a curve? Francis Whishaw, The railways of Great Britain and Ireland practically described and illustrated, provides us with the answer to log wagons.

"When timber is to be conveyed on the railway, it is placed on two trucks properly built for this purpose. Above the ordinary truck-platform are fixed cross pieces of timber, curved towards the middle, which is higher than the sides by about 2 inches; above these are cross-timbers 12 inches by 8 inches, and curved upwards as to their ends, which are 4 inches above the fixed cross-pieces. Each of these pieces turns on a swivel fixed in the middle of the cross-timber. This arrangement allows the wagons to have proper play in going round curves." While the Ackermann drawing does not show the swivel, it must be there nonetheless.

Before I return to the Duke's special carriage, a brief aside into perspective and vanishing points. One of the hallmarks of accurate portrayals is mastery of perspective and the lines they create. Issac Shaw understood the task. Go to the first image and examine the track. A perfect illustration of the technique. Issac Shaw understood the task of accurate depiction.

Did the Duke's special carriage have two bogies?

I will refer to this as the annotated image. In the annotated image, there are three carriages shown. 

The green perspective line shows the height of the standard roof above rail. The Duke's roof could be raised simply to demonstrate importance. Alternatively, it could be raised to accommodate the folks under it.

The yellow line is somewhat arbitrary, but shows the head heights of individuals. Pay close attention to top hats in the first and third carriages for perspective accuracy of the yellow line in the annotated image.  Yet what of the Duke's carriage. Now the people in the Duke's carriage could be abnormally tall. Alternatively, it could mean that they are standing on a raised dias. 

A dias is associated with importance and the Duke of Wellington was the Prime Minister. A dias would be quite fitting for a person of his station. A raised platform, or dias, is also consistent with a swivel arrangement under the dias.

Examine the axles, highlighted by the red dots. Now something jumps out at me here, it is the spacing of those axles. The front two as a set have very similar spacing to the separate carriage before it, closer to Northumbrian. Similarly, the rear two axles have the same spacing to the carriage ahead. The carriage ahead has that unique short wheelbase, used to ride on LMR turntables. Indeed, even the carriage just behind the locomotive Northumbrian has the short wheelbase, albeit clipped from annotated image.  It appears that the LMR used two chassis sets to make the Duke's special carriage. It could have been a special chassis, of course, but it would have been far easier to just grab two chassis from stock.

Summing up.

Two chassis likely used to construct the Duke's carriage. All the wheels likely flanged, making curves difficult, but not if in a bogie arrangement. The height of the platform accommodating a swivel. The height of the persons in the Dukes carriage, proving a raised floor. The height of the roof, raised to accommodate the raised passengers. All consistent with permitting a bogie arrangement. Finally Issac Shaw provides accurate depictions, we cannot explain this away by stating a fanciful depiction.

I think the LMR provided us with the first carriage with rotating front and rear bogies. The evidence, while not airtight, is quite suggestive.

Your thoughts?

Bee

[LTSR_NSE]

That all sounds highly logical & plausible, bravo Bee. 👏

If Wellington’s carriage were to be modelled, (by individual or Hornby) since the (LMS designed) coach chassis wheelbase is longer than the LMR’s was, (& Wellington’s carriage looks to be less than twice the length of that chassis,) possibly the bogies could be adapted from the tender/coal wagon chassis?

[What About The Bee]

I am very hopeful of a Hornby model coincident with the 200th Anniversary of the Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 15 Sept 1830 - 15 Sept 2030. I could make one on my own, yet this is exactly the type of model Hornby likes, a direct association with some type of event.

Now ordinarily, I am extremely leary of the colors in an aquatint. In this case, however we can be very sure.

A portion of an article in the Liverpool Albion, 21 Sept 1830 provides us with a great description, to include the two primary colors.

They are crimson and gilt. For quite some time, I thought the portrayal above oversaturated and not true to life. Gilt has a luster hard to reproduce with paint, as any artist will tell you. Yet crimson is not.

Other details such as the ducal coronets are faithfully drawn by Shaw, once again confirming his accuracy.

An interesting detail is that the overhead canopy is 24', while the carriage itself is 32' long. The fore and aft "balconies" are also confirmed, with gilt balustrades

But what of the Ottoman?

The great weakness of the bogie thesis is the limited space between the floor and the chassis, where the swivel must reside. That is roughly 12 to 18 inches of vertical displacement, based on head heights. 

The ottoman voids that argument, as it "ran down the center of the platform". A "sitting ottoman" is simply a box, knee high, with a cushion on top. Any swivel machinery could easily be concealed in that void.

By itself, the ottoman is just a detail. When considered with the other bogie swivel arguments, it adds to the tapestry of confirming discussion.

Bee

[threelink]

What you suggest makes perfect sense, Bee. The Duke's carriage seems to have stood 18 inches or so higher than it's counterparts. I wonder whether this accounts for Huskisson's inability to climb into it before Rocket ran him down - my understanding is that Huskisson did attempt to clamber into the Duke's carriage.

[What About The Bee]

Hello ThreeLink

You raise a very good point about Huskisson.

18" or so is a substantial increase in platform height for human anatomy. Particularly so for Huskisson, aged 60 at the time of the incident. Add the normal platform height of other carriages, and note those other carriages have stirrups for assistance. Issac Shaw, capturing the details, does not show any stirrups on the ceremonial carriages. 

It makes one wonder how any of the Duke's suite managed to get on. Many aged members of the peerage¹ were in the ceremonial carriages. They didn't just leap on-board.

It is no secret that I am mining the British press for details about the LMR. It was newsworthy² and many details are reported. Now, newspapers then are just as they are now. Sensationalism to sell papers. Huskisson's death is played to the maximum. A detail which is not important, but received extraordinary press attention at the time, was that Mrs. Huskisson was present and witnessed her husband's accident. The pathos was palpable.

But in so mining the press, I have come to see that many were killed in a similar manner, both before and after Huskisson. For example, William Fewburn was run over by "Twin Sisters, the oldest locomotive on the railway" in a report dated 12 Feb 1831. His body parted in two, he expired on the spot. There are so many reports, that there is a heading for it in the press: "Accident on the Railway". I've not mined that vein yet, but could not but help noticing it in the many articles scanned.

Is the death of Huskisson notable because it was unique? Not even close, he was really just a statistic³. Was it notable because of his station? Others who met their demise were not MPs. Was is because it happened in front of the Duke of Wellington, a very lofty rank in the peerage? Maybe. Was it notable because it sold papers? Absolutely yes.

The ironic nature of his demise could not have been missed by the public. The LMR's champion in Parliament was Huskisson, and he met his demise at the hand of the LMR, on its most triumphant of days. He promoted the very thing that caused his demise.

Bee

¹I've checked the list. While the peerage does include some lofty figures, none are members of the British Royal Family.

²For awhile anyway. The press could not sensationalize the mundane operations of the LMR.

³to paraphrase a particularly evil russian dictator.