Templot Club Archive 2007-2020
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posted: 27 Dec 2012 19:49 from: Bob Ellis click the date to link to this post click member name to view archived images |
Since I am building a model of Hawes Joint station (MR/NER) in the Edwardian era, I have spent many hours researching documents and books and analysing photographs of the inside-keyed permanent way known as 'Improved Settle and Carlisle' that the Midland Railway introduced in 1875 and laid at Hawes a couple of years later. The inspection report in 1878 for Hawes station states: "The Permanent Way consists of a bull-headed rail that weighs 82 lbs per lineal yd. It is fished and fixed with inside wooden keys in Cast Iron Chairs that weigh 42 lbs each. The Chairs are fastened...to Sleepers laid transversely at an average distance of 3 ft apart." Contemporary photos show that this permanent way remained in place until at least 1921 and that there were nine sleepers per rail, more or less evenly spaced except for the closer spacing of the end two and of those either side of the fishplate. Bob Essery, in MRJ No.22, included a diagram of I. S. & C. rail lengths and sleeper spacings, but this does not agree with the photographic evidence at Hawes because all the sleeper spacings are the same except those either side of the rail joint. The 1876 inspection report on the Settle and Carlisle line describes the (unimproved) S & C permanent way as 80 lbs per lineal yard with chairs weighing 40 lbs each. The average distance between the sleepers is 3 ft except for those next to the rail joint, which are 2 ft 6 ins apart. S.W. Johnson's presidential address to the I.M.E. in 1898 states that both the standard S and C and the Improved S & C used 24 ft lengths of rail. C.E. Stretton's article on permanent way in the Locomotive Journal in 1904, but originally prepared in 1893, confirms that the rails were 24 ft long, but adds that the principal improvement was a change in the profile and weight of the rail to reduce the incidence of fractures together with a corresponding alteration in the design of the chair. This implies that no change was made to the spacing of the sleepers. But the figures don't add up! Based on this evidence, the S & C rail introduced in 1870 and the I. S. & C. rail ntroduced in 1875 appear to have comprised seven sleepers at 3 ft centres bookended by ones with 2 ft 6 ins centres and end projections of 1' 1" to which the fishplates were attached, giving a total length of 25 ft 2 ins, whereas the rails are known to have been 24 ft long. I am not as bothered about the S & C rail, but I would like to know the correct sleeper spacings for the I. S. & C. rail. Can anyone help? My own guess is that the middle seven sleepers were 2 ft 11 ins apart, the outer pairs at each end were 2 ft 2 ins apart and the projection at each end for the fishplate was 1 ft 1 in. However, I would rather work from evidence than from guesswork, if that evidence is available. Any help would be much appreciated. Bob |
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posted: 27 Dec 2012 22:58 from: Alan Turner
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The rail is 24ft and with average sleeper spacing of 3ft this gives 8 spaces. Using 8 sleepers the spacing would therfore be: 1ft-6ins, 7 at 3ft and 1ft-6ins. Alan |
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posted: 27 Dec 2012 23:07 from: Martin Wynne
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Alan Turner wrote: The rail is 24ft and with average sleeper spacing of 3ft this gives 8 spaces.Hi Alan, I was thinking the same, but Bob says: Contemporary photos show that this permanent way remained in place until at least 1921 and that there were nine sleepers per rail,Are you sure Bob? 1877- 1921 is 44 years -- that's a long time for track to remain unchanged. regards, Martin. |
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posted: 27 Dec 2012 23:12 from: Lynbarn
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Hi Bob, While it would be excellent to model the railway as per exact details laying sleepers on the prototype would not have been done with a rule and exact measurements. It would have been done by the experiance eye of the navvies, so sleepers could and would have been out by a couple of inches either way, personally I would use the photos as a guide and if your modelled trackwork looks the part then it more that likely is bang on. It is only in todays world of mechincal handling and computer operated machinary that you can achive exact dimension on sleepers and track. |
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| Last edited on 27 Dec 2012 23:13 by Lynbarn |
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posted: 27 Dec 2012 23:44 from: Bob Ellis click the date to link to this post click member name to view archived images |
Alan: Thanks for the suggestion, but there were definitely nine sleepers per 24ft length of rail. This is confirmed by half a dozen different photos taken at Hawes. Martin: I take your point about 44 years being a long time for the track to remain unchanged, but the photos I mentioned range from 1900 to 1921 and show that the inside-keyed 24ft track was in place throughout that period, not only in the goods yard but also on the running lines. I think that a beautiful photograph taken in 1903 may hold the key as to why this I. S. & C. track lasted so long at Hawes. Behind an excursion train hauled by an N.E.R. Class 59 engine and alongside a lovely M.R. bracket signal lay several lengths of bullhead rail, which I think were waiting to be used to replace sections that were life-expired. I suspect that I. S. & C. rail that had been replaced on busier lines was being re-used on the Hawes branch. Thus, the formation would remain the same even though the rails themselves were replaced at least once. Lynbarn: I agree with your comments up to a point, but the permanent way men would have had some kind of measuring devise to achieve reasonable consistency and to ensure that the sleepers alongside rail joints were in the right place. The photographs show fairly consistent spacing, especially in the long straight runs through the platforms and across Gayle Beck to the west. While there would have been minor variations, I would like those variations to be from the correct M.R. sleeper configuration. |
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| Last edited on 27 Dec 2012 23:46 by Bob Ellis |
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posted: 28 Dec 2012 13:12 from: Bill_Lobb
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Hi, Bob According to a document of Midland Straight Track that a kind member of the Midland Railway society sent me from the PRO, 1874 track of 24', 83lb rail with 9 sleepers had spacings of: 1'1", 2'5", 2'10"(x6), 2'5", 1'1". I think that even adds up to 24', which is not invariably the case. Bill |
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posted: 28 Dec 2012 13:51 from: Bob Ellis click the date to link to this post click member name to view archived images |
Thanks very much, Bill. That is precisely the information I needed, so I am very grateful to you. | ||
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posted: 30 Dec 2012 22:34 from: Alan Turner
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Bob Ellis wrote: Lynbarn: I agree with your comments up to a point, but the permanent way men would have had some kind of measuring devise to achieve reasonable consistency and to ensure that the sleepers alongside rail joints were in the right place. The photographs show fairly consistent spacing, especially in the long straight runs through the platforms and across Gayle Beck to the west. While there would have been minor variations, I would like those variations to be from the correct M.R. sleeper configuration. You have clearly not hand laid real track. The gang would have used 9 sleepers and would have spaced them by eye and experience. There would be no use of any measuring device. Alan |
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posted: 31 Dec 2012 18:17 from: Bob Ellis click the date to link to this post click member name to view archived images |
Thanks for your comment, Alan. You are quite correct in assuming that I have never hand-laid real track. As a professional historian, the need has never arisen - I can't think why!  Your comment helps to explain an anomaly that appears in the photographs, where the gaps between the end two sleepers and the sleepers either side of the fishplate seem consistently closer to one another than a respective distance from centres of 2' 5" and 2' 2" would suggest. |
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| Last edited on 31 Dec 2012 18:19 by Bob Ellis |
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posted: 1 Jan 2013 13:57 from: Judi R
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It seems that local practice varies considerably. On the track-laying that I have overseen, the PW Supervisor marked the sleeper positions on the rail head with chalk prior to clipping up. There would, of course, be some adjustments (shoving) when closing up to existing trackwork. Judi R |
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posted: 1 Jan 2013 14:11 from: Phil O
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When I have been involved in removing track to replace ballast and sleepers, when relaying we used the marks left by the chairs on the rail to roughly replace the new sleepers, never measured anything, even timbering under S & C we used the old marks a bit of shoving was sometimes required to get the chairing on the timbers but that was all. I should mention that this is on a heritage line not a relay on Network rail or the precedents. Cheers Phil |
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posted: 1 Jan 2013 18:06 from: Bob Ellis click the date to link to this post click member name to view archived images |
The last few posts on this topic have referred to the laying of replacement track and have set me to wondering whether it would also have been true that everything would have been done by eye when new lines were being laid in the 19th century. These lines were laid by contractors (Benton & Woodiwiss in the case of Hawes station in 1877/8, under the supervision of the Midland Railway's resident engineer, Frank Lynde, and engineer-in-chief, John Crossley). Am I naive in assuming that the contractors would have used some sort of measuring device to lay a new line like this and that the supervising engineers might also have used one to check that the contractors were implementing their instructions correctly? I can see that marks on the rails, position of sleepers, and an experienced eye could be used to instal replacement track, but I find it hard to believe that the contractors and supervising engineers would not have used something to ensure that the track was laid with a reasonable degree of accuracy when it was first installed. |
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posted: 2 Jan 2013 16:21 from: Alan Turner
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Bob Ellis wrote: The last few posts on this topic have referred to the laying of replacement track and have set me to wondering whether it would also have been true that everything would have been done by eye when new lines were being laid in the 19th century. These lines were laid by contractors (Benton & Woodiwiss in the case of Hawes station in 1877/8, under the supervision of the Midland Railway's resident engineer, Frank Lynde, and engineer-in-chief, John Crossley). Am I naive in assuming that the contractors would have used some sort of measuring device to lay a new line like this and that the supervising engineers might also have used one to check that the contractors were implementing their instructions correctly? I would suggest unlikely. They would simply work on the basis of 9 sleepers for each rail length. I think once you have done a couple the setting out of the sleepers would become second nature. After all the only important ones are next to the joint the rest are just evenly spaced out. Alan |
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posted: 3 Jan 2013 12:09 from: Martin Wynne
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Alan Turner wrote:After all the only important ones are next to the joint the rest are just evenly spaced out.Hi Alan, Beyond the joint sleeper the next spacing is usually shorter than the average, and often the next spacing too. I think it unlikely that the p.w. departments would issue drawings showing these variable spacings, sometimes to 1/2", if there was no attempt to make sure the track as built does actually comply. It seems such a simple thing for the gang to make up some spacing jigs by nailing together a few bits of wood, rather than rely on spacing by eye. Many companies offered an award to the gang which maintained the "Prize Length" of track -- presumably you could hardly expect to win if your track didn't match the drawing.  This from an interesting page about Ingleton Viaduct: "I wasn’t interested in making the ballast look tidy! But the Chief Engineer and the Chief Inspector walked through every length once a year and the best one got a prize. We never won. I didn’t want to work on a prize length - the ganger was usually so obsessed with it!” From: http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/bridges/ingleton.html regards, Martin. |
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posted: 11 Jan 2013 20:24 from: Bob Ellis click the date to link to this post click member name to view archived images |
I have just received an interesting document from Dave Harris, the co-ordinator of the Midland Railway Study Centre at Derby. The document is dated 17 December 1917 and deals with relaying M.R. track. The first sentence reads: "In future when laying in new road or adjusting the position of the rails and sleepers in an existing road, please arrange to have the rails placed in the chairs to the spacing shown on the attached diagrams." These diagrams show the sleeper spacings for the various rail lengths and weights introduced by the M.R. from 1857 to 1911. The implication is that existing track was renewed using the same rail lengths and sleeper spacing as it had had when first laid unless a specific decision was taken to ungrade it to more modern track. This would explain why Hawes station still had inside-keyed track laid in 24 foot rail lengths until the early 1920s. The document confirms Bill Lobb's statement in an earlier post about the Improved Settle & Carlisle track laid by the M.R. from 1874. "According to a document of Midland Straight Track that a kind member of the Midland Railway Society sent me from the PRO, 1874 track of 24', 83lb rail with 9 sleepers had spacings of: 1'1", 2'5", 2'10"(x6), 2'5", 1'1". " Bob Ellis |
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