199th Anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway

[What About The Bee]

Today, 27 Sept 2024, is the 199th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.  The first public railway operated by steam locomotives.

While I have focused on the locomotives and rolling stock in other threads, there are other things to see.  Here are some other views of the railway.

Skerne Bridge over the Skerne River
Painting by John Dobbin, first hand observer, created decades later from memory and sketches.  The crowd on Opening Day was estimated, at the time, to be 40,000 persons. The bridge is still in use as a railway bridge.   

The Brusselton Inclined Planes.  Adamson, 1826.

In between the coal and the harbor was Brusselton.  Much like the later steep inclines on the LMR, the locomotives could not manage steep inclines.  A stationary winding engine was housed at the apex of the hill.   A stationary engine made by Robert Stephenson and Co.  It was replaced by 1831 with a stationary engine by a different manufacturer.

The slopes are as you see, unequal.  

The west side or image right was 1,960 yards in length, rising 150 feet.  This is a 2½% grade. 

The east side or image left was 800 yards with a 90 feet rise.   This is a 3¾% grade.

To account for this, the diameters of the winding drums were unequal.  The longer incline used the larger drum.  Thus the system increased efficiency by using one consist as an offset balance against the consist on the other incline, arriving simultaneously due to the unequal drum diameter.

View of the Brusselton Engine House, 1875.  Fifty years after opening day.  The engine house was closed as a more efficient route was installed, around Brusselton.

The River Gaunless also needed to be crossed.  George put in a cast iron bridge in 1823. The bridge was situated between the Brusselton and Etherley inclines, so it was worked by horses, not traveling engines.  

I must say, on satellite view, the word "river" appears to quite generous.   

Gaunless Bridge, as illustrated in The Engineer, 1875.

Parts of this bridge are preserved at the Science Museum.

This bridge is an obvious target for 3D printing for a layout.  Visually unusual and completely free standing , no buttresses needed.

Bee 

Edited Thursday at 21:09 by What About The Bee

[Rallymatt]

The Gaunless Bridge has now been fully restored and currently is available to view at Locomotion, Shildon. The World’s first Railway Town. The next part of the plan is to have it re-instated in its original location across the River Gaunless. 
This is all quite special to me being ‘of the area’. The Gaunless was at the end of our gardens. As a kid I cycled to Shildon wagon works to watch the shunters arrange newly made wagons, even got tea and cake and a crafty ride/drive on an 08! Many years later I have cycled the far reaches of the original S&D railway line into High Etherly, somehow Stockton and Darlington doesn’t really describe it well. An early addition to S&D Railway was the line through to Parkhead (later named Blanchland) now a cycle path. The highest standard gauge Railway in Britain. One of the First Railways of all was of course Stephenson’s Bowes Railway using gravity and stationary engines with ropes and the very first stop on the London Underground, the World’s first Underground Railway was at Kibblesworth, County Durham, only a few metres from the Bowes line. As we celebrate S&D at 199 and look forward to a very special 200 years next year, it’s worth remembering all the pioneering railway accomplishments and people that changed the world forever from a little corner of North East England 😁

Edited Thursday at 22:03 by Rallymatt

[What About The Bee]

Hilariously, I seem to have posted this two hours too early.  I guess 1 part per million is acceptable.

OO Locomotion No.1 is now due 13 Nov.   My excitement is palpable.  Hurry Hornby, before I burst in anticipation.

Thanks for the correction on the bridge location @Rallymatt.  I could not understand why this looked so good.  Is this the restored bridge at Shildon?

 

Bee

 

¹ 2 hours / (199 years × 365.25 days per year × 24 hours per day) = 0.000001

[Rallymatt]

@What About The Bee yes that is the section now on display at Shildon. The deck is to be added when the bridge is in place. That’s the next big project for this. It’s just been finished in time for summer display, it does look rather good. 
I can assure you the River Gaunless is a real river, it might not be the Mississippi but it caused the Romans problems! The Vikings, not so much. 🤣

[What About The Bee]

20 minutes ago, Rallymatt said:

that is the section

That is the entirety of the bridge!  Four spans.  George originally built it with three, but due to ice flow(?) issues, he re-built it with four.  Just as shown in The Engineer illustration of 1875 (see initial post).

Buttress to Buttress, it appears about (roughly by eye, nothing scientific) to be 40ish feet or thereabouts.  Perhaps as much as 48 feet, if we can go by the 4 foot sections of black fence.

Bee

[Rallymatt]

@What About The Bee 😁 ok, you pop over with your best wellies and let’s see how tame you find The Gaunless, we have a saying here, ‘still waters run deep’ and as every child of the 70’s knows , ‘currents can be killers’ hence the fall in popularity of a school desert which will undoubtedly be banned by the word police ‘spotted  (short name for Richard)’ 

Returning briefly to reality, both the River Gaunless and River Wear are known for the gorge like cuttings they make through the limestone leaving steep sided banks along rivers. Nothing is flat round here except the beer! 😁

[What About The Bee]

Re: The Gaunless River.  I surrender the field.  I have no wish to interfere with local pride.  I hereby accept that the Gaunless is a river.

I was attempting to estimate the span between buttresses, not disparage the river.   

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaunless_Bridge  states that the total span between buttresses was 50 feet, with the longest section at 12' 5".  Apparently, the editor of the Wikipedia page doesn't understand imperial measurements and arithmetic.  

Bee

[LTSR_NSE]

Later in the article it mentions that all four spans are identical in length at 12ft 5in, so either this is a typo (and should say 12ft 6in) or else the total has been arrived at by someone more used to metric & has simply been misread as saying 12 ½ ft.

[What About The Bee]

Because, clearly, ½ foot = 5 inches.  Ah, the joys of decimalization. 🤣

Bee

 

[LTSR_NSE]

I’ll happily admit that if I saw 12.5 ft recorded digitally, I’d be unsure which was meant! 🤷‍♂️

[96RAF]

Remember anyone can write a Wiki, even me. There is as much truth in some Wikis as come out of politicians mouths, others are good.

[RB51]

7 hours ago, LTSR_NSE said:

12.5 ft recorded digitally,

That would indeed be confuduling. R-

[Aussie Fred]

I thought it was 12 feet 4.82 inches, but I could be wrong

[What About The Bee]

The Brusselton Incline Group pose an interesting problem.

The winding engine is directly at the apex of the hill.  See the 1875 water color and the 1826 drawing.

Assume a set of chaldrons is pulled up to the winding engine.  Due to the location of the winding engine, the chaldrons are still headed up hill, at the conclusion of winding.  The winding engine cannot draw the chaldrons over the top.

How are the chaldrons brought over the apex, such that they are now on the down hill slope on the other side.

Seems obvious, at first.  In practice, controlling tons of coal in loaded chaldrons, with the primitive brakes, could be quite challenging 

Have you an answer?

Bee

[LTSR_NSE]

My solution would be:

I imagine winding wheel is attached to leading wagon (on each side) during the uphill climb.

At the top there could be an anchor point to attach leading wagons to whilst winding ropes/cables/chains are transferred to trailing wagons.

Anchor ropes/cables/chains are then detached and winding wheel proceeds to pull both sets of wagons to just past their tipping points.

Once past tipping point, either winding ropes/cables/chains are detached for a couple of terrifying rides to the bottom.

Or (since winding mechanism is strong enough to raise them) trailing wagons are attached to anchor points whilst winding ropes/cables/chains are swapped between wagon trains.

Anchor ropes/cables/chains are then detached and winding mechanism is run in reverse to lower wagons in a controlled manner!