Railway General Knowledge.

hexagon789 · 16 May 2019

SteveyBee131 said:
It was indeed the NER who built Goole Signal Box. I'll let you have it because in retrospect I might have been a bit cruel asking for the year as well! (For the record it was 1909 )

@hexagon789, the floor is yours

Thank you.

Who was the first recorded person to be killed by a train?

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Peter Mugridge · 16 May 2019

hexagon789 said:
Thank you.

Who was the first man to be killed by a train?

It's probably too obvious to be William Huskisson, but I'll suggest him anyway.

hexagon789 · 16 May 2019

Peter Mugridge said:
It's probably too obvious to be William Huskisson, but I'll suggest him anyway.

Not who I'm thinking of. This poor chap was struck down in 1821, before the Liverpool and Manchester had opened.

DerekC · 16 May 2019

Hmm - so before the Stockton and Darlington as well. I am not sure it's going to help much, but was it at Killingworth?

Trackman · 21 May 2019

some sort of boiler explosion?

hexagon789 · 21 May 2019

Trackman said:
some sort of boiler explosion?

No, this chap was struck down by a train of coal wagons in Leeds.

DerekC · 22 May 2019

Then presumably on the Middleton Railway - but without Googling I don't know a name.

hexagon789 · 22 May 2019

DerekC said:
Then presumably on the Middleton Railway - but without Googling I don't know a name.

Yes it was on the Middleton, and I'll give it to you at that because I think this will drag on a bit otherwise!

The earliest recorded rail fatality occurred on December 5, 1821, when a carpenter, David Brook, was walking home from Leeds, England, along the Middleton Railway in a blinding sleet storm. He failed to see or hear an approaching train of coal wagons drawn by one of the Blenkinsop/Murray engines and was fatally injured.

DerekC · 22 May 2019

OK - an easy one. The interconnected Festiniog and Welsh Highland railways are very well known. Which three other 2ft gauge railways were once physically connected to them? (and a bonus point for any others I didn't know about!)

krus_aragon · 22 May 2019

The (GWR-sponsored) Ffestiniog and Blaenau Railway connected with the Ffestiniog Railway, and was originally built to the same gauge. The GWR ensured all bridges were built to allow widening to standard gauge, and unsurprisingly, this was done quite soon by the GWR after taking over.

On the (pre-) Welsh Highland side of things, both the Croesor and Gorseddau Tramways were operated at 2ft gauge, the Gorseddau being relaid to match the Croesor, which it met at Porthmadog Wharf. But given that these pre-date the WHR, and were partially absorbed by it, I'm not sure if they match what you had in mind.

Edit: I misread the question as 2ft-gauge lines that were connected, as opposed to ones that were connected to the FR/WHR.

DerekC · 23 May 2019

Absolutely spot on - yes, I didn't word the question very well because as you say, the Gorseddau Tramway (reconstituted as the Gorseddau Junction & Portmadoc Railway) was closed long before the WHR came into being. I suppose it's a bit arguable whether the Croesor, which never had an Act of Parliament, was a railway in the legal sense any more than the various quarry branches off the FR. Anyway it's definitely what I had in mind.

Your slate wharf.

krus_aragon · 23 May 2019

Thank you. As we ended up at the wharf, let's go overseas.

In 1933, what locomotive visited Montreal, Toronto, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, San Fransisco and Vancouver (among others) under a false identity?

DerekC · 23 May 2019

Was it the Royal Scot (4-6-0 LMS loco, later BR 46100)? I regret to say that I don't know which locomotive assumed this identity for the tour.

Mvann · 23 May 2019

If not it was the gwr loco king George v

Ignore that. George went to USA earlier than that

krus_aragon · 23 May 2019

DerekC said:
Was it the Royal Scot (4-6-0 LMS loco, later BR 46100)? I regret to say that I don't know which locomotive assumed this identity for the tour.

The locomotive did indeed assume the identity of Royal Scot, but that wasn't its original name...

EbbwJunction1 · 23 May 2019

No. 6133 rings a bell somewhere, but I'm not sure of it's name … Fury?

Actually, I've just checked, and I'm 100% wrong …. wrong number, wrong name!!

Peter Mugridge · 23 May 2019

I'm probably thinking of a different tour, but didn't 6220 Coronation and 6229 Duchess of Hamilton swap identities for a tour, meaning that the one in the NRM is in fact the original 6220?

krus_aragon · 24 May 2019

Peter Mugridge said:
I'm probably thinking of a different tour, but didn't 6220 Coronation and 6229 Duchess of Hamilton swap identities for a tour, meaning that the one in the NRM is in fact the original 6220?

That would have been for the follow-up "Coronation Scot" tour done in 1939, not the original 1933 one.

(Curious that the LMS swapped loco identities for both tours...)

Any last gasps at the original identity of the 1933 tour's locomotive?

DerekC · 24 May 2019

Well, I haven't Googled but I admit to looking at my Ian Allan Locospotters book for 1958/9. It doesn't help much, but I will have a guess at 6159 - The Royal Air Force.

(The Royal Scots must have been much in evidence at the time, because I have spotted at least half).

krus_aragon · 24 May 2019

DerekC said:
Well, I haven't Googled but I admit to looking at my Ian Allan Locospotters book for 1958/9. It doesn't help much, but I will have a guess at 6159 - The Royal Air Force.

(The Royal Scots must have been much in evidence at the time, because I have spotted at least half).

Close, but not quite.

If there aren't any other guesses overnight, I'll give the answer and let things roll onward to the next question.

krus_aragon · 25 May 2019

The answer is 6152 The Kings Dragoon Guardsman, which switched identities with 6100 Royal Scot for the tour of Canada and the United States.

@DerekC , as you identified the tour (and the assumed identity of 6100), you can have first refusal of the floor.

DerekC · 25 May 2019

OK, What happened at Craigellachie, and who did it?

hexagon789 · 25 May 2019

DerekC said:
OK, What happened at Craigellachie, and who did it?

Craigellachie, Morayshire or Craigellachie in Canada?

DerekC · 25 May 2019

hexagon789 said:
Craigellachie, Morayshire or Craigellachie in Canada?

Answering that is part of the question. Let's just say that what happened was of national importance.

DerekC · 26 May 2019

Let's go for a clue - the first one bent.

DerekC · 27 May 2019

OK -another clue. It happened at 09:22 on 7th November 1885.

Marton · 27 May 2019

The last fish plate bolt on the trans continental line

DerekC · 27 May 2019

Right event but not the component which was used in the ceremony. You can have it if you get the name of the railway involved.

Marton · 27 May 2019

Canadian Pacific ?

DerekC · 27 May 2019

Marton said:
Canadian Pacific ?

Absolutely right - the "last spike" in the Canadian Pacific link between east and west was driven at Craigellachie, British Columbia, by Donald Smith, Director, at 09:22 on 7th November 1885. The CPR couldn't afford a "golden spike", which was fortunate because Donald bent the first one! Trains didn't start to run through regularly until the summer of 1886 because the CPR had seriously underestimated the impact of snow in the Selkirk and Rocky Mountains and hadn't built sufficient snow sheds. Read "The Impossible Railway" by Pierre Berton for the full and fascinating story!

Your trackbed.

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