The Great Eastern page 3

This, however, is comparing large things with small, for the Lancashire & Yorkshire is a great line, and the North London, which has become officially, as it has always been in reality, an extension of the North Western, is only 12 miles long. Originally it was The East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway, its object being to give the North Western access to the trade of the Thames, which the South Western had secured at Nine Elms and the Great Western had endeavoured to get at Vauxhall. Beginning in a small way, the minerals and merchandise business increased until by extensions the passenger traffic was developed to surpass it and became of such importance that goods trains had to cease from running during certain hours of the day; and now, owing to tram and other competition, passengers are falling off while goods are slowly growing. Short as the line is, it carries more than half a million passengers a week, and handles 1| million tons of minerals and 1,768,000 tons of miscellaneous goods in the course of a year.

By minerals we mean mainly coals, and this reminds us of the enormous quantity stacked on the line at Stratford as a reserve, apparently in case of a strike or a break in the communications. The Great Eastern, however, has not a large coal-carrying business, though it has been trying to obtain one for years. Coal was the main cause of its wars with the Great Northern which ended in the peace of 1879, whereby the joint line to Black Carr junction was finally agreed upon.

Our railways carry about 400 million tons in a year, though only 261½ million tons are raised, which means that half the output is recorded twice. Of these the North Eastern carries 48 millions and The Great Eastern 7½, almost the same amount as that dealt with by the Alexandra line at Newport, which is only one of the South Wales group that carry some 50 million tons between them. In those parts the handling of coal for wagon loads and ship cargoes is a fine art. To see it at its best you must go to Newport, or Cardiff, or Penarth, or Barry. No tipping a ten-ton wagon down a ship's hold in these days. There is a crane to every hold in the ship, and to the end of its chain is fixed a giant coal-scuttle. The scuttle is laid on a yielding platform in a pit in such a way that its mouth is fed from a short shoot just long enough to bridge the gap between it and the rail-end. The wagon runs up, kicks up behind, shoots its ten tons into the scuttle, which is hauled up and swung down into the vessel, where the conical bottom opens and spreads the coals around as gently as you would put them on the fire. But before it reaches the scuttle it has to be put into the truck at the collieries, and the way that is done is quite as ingenious as it is in South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire, whence much of the coal comes that goes down the lift at Whitechapel.

Curiously enough, the 7½ million tons carried in every part of its territory by The Great Eastern is almost exactly the total quantity brought to London by all the railways put together, the rest of the 16 million tons consumed by the metropolis reaching it by sea or, in small quantities, by canal. That most London coal is sea-borne is something not generally known.

The first to wake up the Eastern Counties was George Hudson, who during his chairmanship effected many reforms, though unfortunately the railway king did not reign long enough. To him, of course, were due many of the amalgamations, for amalgamation was everywhere the keynote of his policy. He it was who founded the locomotive works at Stratford opened in 1848, Hudson's Town as the place was called for years, which now cover 55 acres and give employment to some 5000 people.

Many notable engineers have been locomotive superintendents of the company. Following Braithwaite came William Fernihough - "the power of the engine is limited by the strength of the rail," said he, and then after an interval came in 1850 the builder of the first engine at the works, John Viret Gooch. Then in 1856 came Robert Sinclair, the first of The Great Eastern men, followed by William Kitson in 1865, to be next year succeeded by S. W. Johnson who went to the Midland in 1873, when William Adams took over, to leave for the South Western in 1878. Then for three years followed Massey Bromley, to be followed in 1881 by T. Wilson Worsdell who went to the North Eastern in 1885, making room for James Holden who was succeeded by his son, S. D. Holden, in January 1908.

Some weird little engines were used by the independent companies, and the early Eastern Counties array was not much to be proud of; in fact it was not until Sinclair took the reins that anything not best forgotten was done. He brought out a class of singles noteworthy in their day - cylinders 16 in. by 24 in., 87-in. drivers, 45-in. leaders and trailers, heating surface 958, weight 32 tons - which were built by Fairbairn and - of all people in the world for an English company - Schneider of Creuzot! Another well-known class of his was his 8-wheeled tanks, 2-4-2, cylinders 15 in. by 22 in., coupled wheels 66 in., leaders and trailers 43 in., each pair carried on a Bissell truck so that the rigid wheel-base was only 6 ft. Further, the tanks of these engines were beneath the boiler and between the frames, and there was a cab that so pleased the enginemen that they presented the designer with a testimonial in which they greeted him as the inventor of the cab as applied to locomotives.

Mr. Johnson's first effort was a class of 4-4-0, with cylinders 17 in. by 24 in., bogie wheels 43 in., coupled wheels 79 in., heating surface 1200, which began a new era. They were large engines, and the appearance of the turn-out was rather ridiculous owing to their being accompanied by the very small tenders with wooden frames which had been at work for years. This state of things, however, did not last long, and soon The Great Eastern engines became characterised by continuous improvement in power and appearance.

Mr. Adams followed, and carried on the improvement. Mr. Bromley is best remembered by his class of single expresses, some of which were built by Kitson and some by Dubs. They were 4-2-2's, with cylinders 18 in. by 24 in. having valves on top worked by a rocking shaft, 90-in. drivers, and a heating surface of 1226, the engine weighing 41 tons 13 cwt., and engine and tender 77 tons 12 cwt. More useful engines, however, were his bogie expresses of the 600 class, with cylinders 17½ in. by 24 in., and 90-in. driving wheels, and his 0-4-2 tanks - and with regard to tank engines it may be as well to note that, though space does not admit of our saying much about them, they form half of the engine stock on some of our great lines, and in some cases work more than half of the fast passenger traffic.

The first of them was the Novelty already mentioned, carrying the water in a tank under the boiler and the coke in baskets on the platform. She might be described as a well-tank, though the present well-tanks carry the water in a tank beneath the footplate, side-tanks carrying it mainly in tanks on the frame plates over the driving wheels, and saddle-tanks having it on the top of the boiler. The Novelty, however, led nowhere, for the two engines "after her style," as ordered for the Liverpool & Manchester - the William the Fourth and the Queen Adelaide - had 4-wheeled tenders pushed along in front of them, and the tank engine may be said to have begun with the Ariel's Girdle on the Bentley and Hadleigh branch of the Eastern Union.

This famous little well-tank was in the 1851 Exhibition along with the Little England, "designed," as Robert Hunt said, "with the same object, namely, of obtaining speed, safety, and economy in express and other quick traffic." The Ariel's Girdle was in 1856 transferred from the Eastern Union to the St. Ives branch of the Eastern Counties, on which in 1849 there was but one train a day, and owing to an increase of business in the first few months - which went no further - the service was doubled, the other train being a composite coach drawn by a horse. This mixed traffic of two trains per diem went on for six years, and it was to replace the horse that the Ariel's Girdle was obtained. She was designed by Bridges Adams, and was a 4-wheeler with 5-ft. drivers until, in 1868, she was altered to a 6-wheeler with four wheels coupled, the wheels measuring 4 ft., in which form she ended her days on the Millwall Extension in 1879.

The rail-motor also began on The Great Eastern with Samuel's Little Wonder, built as an inspection car for the officials, which was first used on the 23rd of October 1847 in a trip to Cambridge. In length 12 ft. 6 in., with the frames hung below the axles of the four 40-in. wheels, her floor was only 9 in. above the rails; and the two cylinders, one on each side of the vertical boiler, were 3| in. by 6 in. The boiler, 4 ft. 3 in. in height and 19 in. in diameter, had 35 tubes with a heating surface of 38 sq. ft., that of the circular firebox being 5| sq. ft. She carried seven passengers, the water-tanks for 40 gallons being under the seats.

She weighed about a ton and a quarter, travelled at from thirty to over forty miles an hour, and was so successful as to lead on to the Enfield, designed by Bridges Adams for the Enfield branch. This was a 4-wheeled tank with a 4-wheeled carriage mounted together on the same frame. The front and hind wheels were flanged, but the 5-ft. drivers and the pair of wheels behind them were without flanges. The six carrying wheels were a yard in diameter, the cylinders were 7 in. by 12 in., and carried outside on the frame at the base of the smokebox, with the buffers just above them. The boiler, of the ordinary locomotive type, was 30 in. in diameter, and double as long, and contained 115 tubes having a heating surface of 230 sq. ft., the firebox providing 255 sq. ft. The coach was a composite, with two first-class compartments in the middle and a second-class at each end. The height above rail-level was only 9 in., hence the placing of the buffer-beams on rising brackets. The branch becoming busy, two ordinary carriages were added, so as to form a short train, and the motor was also used for hauling the goods and coals. On a trial between Norwich and London the Enfield made the best record up to then, 126 miles in 3 hours 35 minutes; and on the 14th of July 1849, she replaced the ordinary engine on the 10 a.m. train from Shoreditch to Ely, and completed the journey in eight minutes under time.

The compound engine originated at Stratford with Nicholson & Samuel's patent in 1850, and it had its second start in 1884 when Mr. Worsdell built No. 230, a 4-4-0 passenger engine with two inside cylinders, the high-pressure being 18 in. and the low-pressure 26 in., the stroke being 24 in., the bogie wheels 37 in., coupled wheels 84 in., working pressure 160. This was followed by a 6-coupled goods engine, and, after a long series of trials, ten more compound passenger engines were built in 1885, the year that the inventor left for the North Eastern where the system was first introduced on a large scale.

Mr. James Holden during his long reign added largely to the blue brigade, and the black one too, and left them at a high pitch of excellence. One of his great achievements was the introduction of oil fuel. The company, having adopted oil-gas for lighting its carriages with, were turning the waste product into the waters of the Channelsea and the Lea when the sanitary authorities interfered, and means had to be discovered for getting rid of it elsewhere or utilising it. Mr. Holden resolved to try it as a substitute for coals in his engines. He led it from a tank in the tender by pipes to two injectors in the firebox plates some fourteen inches above the fire-bars, on which he kept a fire of small coal. To each injector he fitted two separate steam supplies, one for inducing and atomising the liquid fuel by a central jet, the other for supplying air to the atomised fuel by means of a ring of small jets around a blower placed near the nozzle. He thus ensured perfect combustion, and distributed the spray so well that no fire-brick was necessary, and he applied it so effectively that one ton of oil was equal in heating effect to twice the weight of steam coal; while the contrivance had the great advantage of allowing of coal being used at any time the supply of liquid fuel ran short.

Petrolea was the first of the oil-burners, and so successful was that engine that the system was generally adopted. She was a 2-4-0, cylinders 18 in. by 24 in., leading wheels 48 in., coupled wheels 84 in., heating surface 1230, her weight being 42 tons, that of the tender 32£ tons, and the tender carried 500 gallons of oil. One of the later of the oil-burners is the Claud Hamilton, a 4-4-0, with cylinders 19 in. by 26 in., bogie wheels 45 in., coupled wheels 84 in., heating surface 1630, pressure 180, boiler 4 ft. 9 in. by 11 ft. 9 in., her 6-wheeled tender having 49-in. wheels and carrying 2790 gallons of water and 715 gallons of oil. The newer engines have the Belpaire firebox, the first so fitted being No. 1850, which has a heating surface of 1706, and similar internal details to the Claud Hamilton. This similarity of parts is characteristic of the present Stratford system, the three largest classes of engines differing only in their wheels.

One engine which has been modified was of a class by itself. This was the 3-cylinder 10-coupled tank, known as the giant Decapod, built to show what steam could do in competing with electricity so far as starting quickly was concerned - an engine in fact that with a 315-ton train could start from a state of rest and in half a minute be travelling thirty miles an hour. It had ten 54-in. wheels, the tyres of the middle pair being flangeless, as those of the old broad-gauge engines used to be. Two outside cylinders, each 18½ in. by 24 in., drove on the middle pair of wheels, whilst a third cylinder of the same dimensions, placed between the frames, drove on the second pair. The boiler was 5 ft. 3 in. in diameter and 15 ft. 10 7/8 in. between tube-plates, and the heating surface 3010 sq. ft. The Decapod would have done the work it was built to do, had the permanent way and bridges been strong enough to carry it with safety, but the old bridges were designed to carry much lighter loads, and a great deal of money has been spent to strengthen the bridges to carry the heavier engines now in use on this line.