LMR, the Common Railway Waggon

[What About The Bee]

It is no secret that I have been searching deeply in period British newspapers.  I've looked at literally thousands of references.  This search has been confounded by the early fascination with stock prices, as many early railway companies were funded by stock.  Thus a significant amount of chaff, or worthless references, unless you care for the stock price of the LMR.

I will begin with the earliest piece of rolling stock, what the LMR termed a ...

"Common Railway Wagon".

The phrase appears in a report about the opening of the Wapping Tunnel.  Not the opening of the entire railway, just the opening of the tunnel.  There is another sentence near that phrase: "the handsome machines [carriages] for passengers not being yet finished".

So 3 Aug 1829 is a key date.  There were no passenger carriages before then.  We know the Mayor of Liverpool mounted the "common railway waggon" to joyride in the tunnel, in a waggon "fitted up with seats".  What was a common railway waggon?

On 30 December 1826, Henry Booth placed an advertisement for axles and waggon wheels.  

Now they could not have been for any passenger carriage.  Nor cattle, pig or sheep waggon.  All those were years in the future, from other reports. Not for any type of passenger carriage, the early LMR focus was freight.  

These wheels and axles were for the construction of the railway.  The  Lancaster Gazette 25 Nov 1826 presents us with information that work on the tunnel had commenced and that work in the Olive Mount Cutting was about to begin.   That was only a month before the advertisement.

We have two views of great interest.  Both purport to be of construction in the Olive Mount Cutting

Notice anything about those waggons?  Small.  Boxlike.  They resemble ... R60164.  These are our likely candidate for a "common railway waggon".   

We can tell they were used in the construction of the Wapping Tunnel.  Here is a view of the construction of the tunnel.  Note rail on cross ties leading into the tunnel mouth.  The same waggons used at Olive Mount would also be in the tunnel, just meters away.

About 60 days later, the Rainhill Trials occurred, 6 thru 14 October 1829.  They used a certain waggon, detailed here.

The newspaper says the common railway waggons were fitted up with seats, so as to joyride in the tunnel.  And finally, we come to this. There is an obscure image of passengers on the LMR, by Clayton.  Passengers in odd carriages without explanation.  Passengers in the Olive Mount Cutting.

Notice the same small boxlike appearance.  The size of the waggons compared to the tender.  I would propose that these are the common railway waggons fitted up with seats for the tunnel joyrides.  Then used to transport passengers.  The Clayton image was published in 1830.

Clayton published three images, here is the more popular view, at the Bridgewater Canal.

I believe these are the same carriages, but the wheels are very small and do not align with the Booth advertisement: "diameter of wheels two feet six inches in diameter".

As a final tidbit, we have a report from 12 Sept 1829 in the Waterford Chronicle.  It states that a locomotive with two vertical boilers (very probably Twin Sisters) is at work on Chat Moss, hauling between 50 and 60 tons in waggons, 5 to 6 mph.  Returning empty at 10 mph.

Marl is sedimentary rock of clay and lime.  The density is ~ 140 lbs/ft³.  Given a common railway waggon of (depth, width, length) 2 ft × 5 ft × 6 ft, it has a capacity of ~ 4 tons of marl.  We must also assign a weight to the common railway waggon itself, guess 1 ton.  Thus, when Twin Sisters pulls 50 to 60 tons, that implies 10 to 12 waggons in consist, a very reasonable quantity.

Hornby denotes R60164 as "Coal Wagons".  They really are "Common Railway Waggons". Based on the Twin Sisters computation, it looks like I need to get more! 

I will continue the rolling stock investigation in future posts.  The next carriage would have been the velocipede, end of August 1829, but that has already been covered here.

Bee

[threelink]

Hi Bee. Impeccable research, as ever. I've never been sure about the Clayton Bridgewater canal print. The scale and perspective appear all to pot ( sign post left of bridge  apparently 20 feet high, canal level at right of bridge apparently higher than level at left of bridge, bridge parapet on right higher than parapet on left, track gauge suspiciously broad etc etc). The wagons appear implausible with  2 wide gaps in the end. I could believe the wagons more if the bodies were rotated through 90 degrees. The artist would have been unfamiliar with so new a subject and one wonders whether the subject got the better of him?

[What About The Bee]

Hi ThreeLink

That Clayton image at the Bridgewater Canal is the most confounding image.  Everything is strange, not the least of which are the carriages/waggons.  I have struggled place it.

The key feature, for me, are the very low walls of the carriages, consistent with the common railway waggon.  

Were the doorways on the ends instead of the sides?  The drawing in the Olive Mount Cutting shows no doors on the sides.  

The perspective errors you present help to explain the diminutive nature of the wheels.  

Clayton did go on to draw other railways, perhaps the novelty of the scene in 1830 got beyond him 

Bee

[threelink]

Hello again, Bee. If the Clayton print is an any way accurate the doors must have been in the waggon ends. The 2 central passengers in the waggon nearest the the artist appear to be sitting back to back on a central seat and the passenger on the left appears to be similarly oriented. This, if correct, strongly indicates access from the waggon end, not the sides, although how this worked in practise is a mystery.  It is so frustrating that the very early rolling stock is not better illustrated or recorded. I look forward to your next expose.

Best regards.

[What About The Bee]

As an addendum

The Wapping Tunnel Joyrides picked up speed.  On 12 Aug 1829, we have a report from the Norwich and Bury Post, indicating the time of the joyride being 3 minutes.  We know the tunnels is 2250 yards long.  A quick bit of maths¹ yields an average velocity of 25.56 mph.  In consideration that the joyrides had to accelerate to velocity and brought to a stop at the end of the tunnel, peak velocity would be higher!

Admission to the tunnel, just to walk around, was 1 shilling. I do hope to eventually find the price of the joyride, which has to be more!

Bee

¹The length of the Wapping Tunnel is 2250 yards.  Therefore 2250 yards / 1760 yards per mile = 1.27 miles.  1.27 miles / (3 minutes/60 minutes per hour) = 25.56 mph average speed!