GC loading gauge

[Peter Kelford]

The GC was famously built to a 'Continental Loading Gauge', but in the absence of the Berne Gauge, what was this supposed to be exactly? To add to the confusion Wikipedia suggests that the line would have to be re-gauged anyway if continent train services were to become a reality, which makes the wonder - what was the GC build to in feet and inches or metres and centimetres?

 

[bunnahabhain]

It was built to a more generous than standard UK loading gauge but was NOT built to a continental loading gauge. This is a common myth with no basis in reality and is constantly and incessantly perpetuated by authors who don't study their case material properly and regurgitate others findings.

 

[Peter Kelford]

It was built to a more generous than standard UK loading gauge but was NOT built to a continental loading gauge. This is a common myth with no basis in reality and is constantly and incessantly perpetuated by authors who don't study their case material properly and regurgitate others findings.

So to what loading gauge was it built? I'm guessing that it's not the GC loading gauge (ex UIC C1)...

 

[bunnahabhain]

So to what loading gauge was it built? I'm guessing that it's not the GC loading gauge (ex UIC C1)...

It was built to the standard MSLR loading gauge. Search for the MSLR railway drawing type 27 which will show the loading gauge.

 

[Peter Kelford]

It was built to the standard MSLR loading gauge. Search for the MSLR railway drawing type 27 which will show the loading gauge.

Thanks - i.e. nowhere near continental gauge.

 

[bunnahabhain]

Thanks - i.e. nowhere near continental gauge.

There was no "continental loading gauge" at the time the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway was constructed.

 

[Senex]

It was built, like other new railways at the time, to meet the requirements of the Board of Trade then in force. If it hadn't been, the inspectorate would not have sanctioned its opening for passenger traffic. The inspection reports often make interesting reading — for anyone who doesn't know them, they're in the MT6 class in the National Archives (better known to some of us as the Public Record Office).

 

[PartyOperator]

Nowhere near the current continental loading gauge(s) but about average for the UK. Also not a ‘high-speed’ alignment - it’s not really less bendy than comparable lines like the MML and probably wouldn’t ever have been suitable for >125mph (if that).

Really the only historic line that was significantly over-specified was the GWML, but even then the structure gauge isn’t that much larger than average and the long stretches of 200mph-capable curve radii will never see speeds above 125mph anyway.

 

[Roast Veg]

The particular point of note, and something that has unfortunately helped perpetuate the myth, is that the considerable use of island platforms meant that increases in loading gauge would have been much more straightforward at those stations.

 

[Peter Sarf]

The particular point of note, and something that has unfortunately helped perpetuate the myth, is that the considerable use of island platforms meant that increases in loading gauge would have been much more straightforward at those stations.

Also I seem to recall that the main line North from Marylebone was built with absolutely no level crossings ?.

 

[swt_passenger]

The GC was famously built to a 'Continental Loading Gauge', but in the absence of the Berne Gauge, what was this supposed to be exactly? To add to the confusion Wikipedia suggests that the line would have to be re-gauged anyway if continent train services were to become a reality, which makes the wonder - what was the GC build to in feet and inches or metres and centimetres?

There’s been a thread about this every year or two since I joined the forum, this one has a few details:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gcr-loading-gauge.167557/
My post 2 in that thread is a link to a uk.railway newsgroup discussion from 1998 denying this myth.
Post 12 in that thread is interesting regarding Wikipedia - although the article has since been amended many times...

 

[hwl]

Isn't it about time that some one edited Wikipedia to bust that myth once and for all?
(it pops up on the forums every few months)

Here is the evidence on plate for any wikipedia editors:

http://www.swithland-signal-works.co.uk/plans/27_CLEARANCE_DIAGRAM.jpg

9'3" wide - 282cm, so pretty much C1 for 20m stock /W6 etc for freight.
13'5" high in the centre - 409cm just 12cm higher than current stock max., with most stock being a bit lower
10'5" high at the sides 317cm - about 18cm lower than current passenger norms.

UIC GC:
329cm wide +47cm
470cm high so +61cm in the centre or +153cm at the vehicle sides...

 

[swt_passenger]

Isn't it about time that some one edited Wikipedia to bust that myth once and for all?
(it pops up on the forums every few months)

Here is the evidence on plate for any wikipedia editors:

http://www.swithland-signal-works.co.uk/plans/27_CLEARANCE_DIAGRAM.jpg

9'3" wide - 282cm, so pretty much C1 for 20m stock /W6 etc for freight.
13'5" high in the centre - 409cm just 12cm higher than current stock max., with most stock being a bit lower
10'5" high at the sides 317cm - about 18cm lower than current passenger norms.

UIC GC:
329cm wide +47cm
470cm high so +61cm in the centre or +153cm at the vehicle sides...

Indeed your linked diagram is now a reference [14] on the current Wiki article...

 

[hwl]

Indeed your linked diagram is now a reference [14] on the current Wiki article...

Oh yes the article looks far better than it previously did. I love the "by uninformed..." bit!

 

[swt_passenger]

The GC was famously built to a 'Continental Loading Gauge', but in the absence of the Berne Gauge, what was this supposed to be exactly? To add to the confusion Wikipedia suggests that the line would have to be re-gauged anyway if continent train services were to become a reality, which makes the wonder - what was the GC build to in feet and inches or metres and centimetres?

I think you maybe need to re- read the Wiki article, Peter. In its current version, it is definitely saying that it was NOT built as such. Is your original post possibly based on an earlier version of the Wiki article that you’d remembered?

 

[Peter Kelford]

I think you maybe need to re- read the Wiki article, Peter. In its current version, it is definitely saying that it was NOT built as such. Is your original post possibly based on an earlier version of the Wiki article that you’d remembered?

I read it a couple of nights back. It quoted a contemporary piece of writing of some sort.

 

[edwin_m]

The particular point of note, and something that has unfortunately helped perpetuate the myth, is that the considerable use of island platforms meant that increases in loading gauge would have been much more straightforward at those stations.

But every single island platform has an overbridge or underbridge at one end, which would have to be re-built if the tracks were moved further out from the platform.

 

[Nottingham59]

But every single island platform has an overbridge or underbridge at one end

Not necessarily. My understanding is that many structures were built over-size and would be able to accommodate larger loading gauges or a outer fast line at central platform stations, for example this bridge at Rothley: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:63601_entering_Rothley.jpg

 

[Peter Kelford]

Seeing as the GC has a loading gauge nowhere near continental gauge (whatever that was) then where did the myth come from?

 

[LowLevel]

Isn't it about time that some one edited Wikipedia to bust that myth once and for all?
(it pops up on the forums every few months)

Here is the evidence on plate for any wikipedia editors:

http://www.swithland-signal-works.co.uk/plans/27_CLEARANCE_DIAGRAM.jpg

9'3" wide - 282cm, so pretty much C1 for 20m stock /W6 etc for freight.
13'5" high in the centre - 409cm just 12cm higher than current stock max., with most stock being a bit lower
10'5" high at the sides 317cm - about 18cm lower than current passenger norms.

UIC GC:
329cm wide +47cm
470cm high so +61cm in the centre or +153cm at the vehicle sides...

It has been tried, many times. The usual Wikipedian style fool who is determined that they're correct just reverts it.

 

[hwl]

It has been tried, many times. The usual Wikipedian style fool who is determined that they're correct just reverts it.

The text currently look much better than it used to so they haven't at the moment!

Watkin was an ambitious visionary; as well as running an independent trunk route into London, where he was chairman of the Metropolitan Railway, he was also involved in a project to dig a channel tunnel under the English Channel to connect with the rail network of France,[3] a scheme vetoed several times by the British Parliament for fear of military invasion by France;[4] however, this project was effectively moribund by the time work on the GCML commenced, and historians who have examined the available primary sources have found no contemporaneous statement by Watkin that he envisaged through workings over the lines he controlled from Manchester to France.[5][6][7][8]

Although it is frequently claimed (by authors not referencing primary sources) that Watkin's Great Central Main Line was designed to a continental European loading gauge, more generous than the usual specification on British railway lines, with the aim of accommodating larger continental rolling stock when the line could be connected to a future channel tunnel[9][10][11] this is untrue:[12][13] it was built to the standard Great Central loading gauge of the time,[14] which was in fact slightly more restrictive than some other British railways; and it was certainly not to Berne gauge which is some 8 in. (200 mm) taller and was not agreed and adopted until 1912/13.[15]

Enough credible primary sources in there to make justifying change tricky?

 

[swt_passenger]

Seeing as the GC has a loading gauge nowhere near continental gauge (whatever that was) then where did the myth come from?

If you read through the whole of the uk.railway thread that can be found by following the link in the 2018 discussion, it refers to a number of authors who appear to have repeated the same basic claim, I’ve never seen any of the books, by Calvert, Dow, Henshaw etc, but they predate the internet and were presumably just accepted without debate back then. To a certain extent they were probably describing what people annoyed by the closure wanted to read...

 

[Nottingham59]

Seeing as the GC has a loading gauge nowhere near continental gauge (whatever that was) then where did the myth come from?

The confusion seems to come from the fact that the European loading gauges prevalent at the end of the nineteenth century were not the same as the UIC-GC gauge mentioned above. The "Gabarit passe-partout international" (PPI) which was agreed at Berne in 1912 was smaller than UIC-GC. The French loading gauge at the time was smaller still. The PPI dimensions are shown here: http://railroadmanuals.tpub.com/TM-55-2200-001-12/img/TM-55-2200-001-12_481_1.jpg The PPI is wider than the MS-LR loading gauge, and taller, but crucially has the same height at the corners (10 ft 5 in above the rail). This means that provided that you can slew the track across horizontally and that the structures are wide enough, as at Rothley, you could run PPI (Berne) gauge passenger cars on the Great Central mainline (at least those that have a flattish roof profile). PPI gauge locomotives might not fit because the chimneys would be too tall. At least that is my understanding, but perhaps someone else knows better.

 

[edwin_m]

Seeing as the GC has a loading gauge nowhere near continental gauge (whatever that was) then where did the myth come from?

That would certainly accommodate a larger gauge, but looks to me like it was allow loops to be laid at a later date if needed, as they were from the start at some stations. Were all station bridges without loops of this dimension, and were all the ones with loops even wider to allow for gauge enhancement? The answer to that would say a lot about whether provision was made for enlarging the gauge.

 

[Peter Sarf]

That would certainly accommodate a larger gauge, but looks to me like it was allow loops to be laid at a later date if needed, as they were from the start at some stations. Were all station bridges without loops of this dimension, and were all the ones with loops even wider to allow for gauge enhancement? The answer to that would say a lot about whether provision was made for enlarging the gauge.

Lot simpler if the GC had not bothered making bridges to a longer reach than immediately necessary.... Like all the UK motorways .

 

[Peter Kelford]

Lot simpler if the GC had not bothered making bridges to a longer reach than immediately necessary.... Like all the UK motorways .

Or maybe Welwyn viaduct...

 

[Peter Sarf]

Or maybe Welwyn viaduct...

Ouch, yes.

 

[Merle Haggard]

The GC 2-8-0 was adopted by the ROD and built in great numbers. Many railways hired or bought them in the years after WW1 and the LNWR was one. However, they were banned south of Stafford, which suggests that the GC loading gauge was more generous than some other lines. In LMS days they were also out of gauge on the former Midland Railway lines. The LNWR itself had a comparatively generous gauge; to work on other parts of the LMS ex LNWR engines had the cab eaves reduced, which suggests that the critical point on the GC loading gauge may have been the width over cylinders.
More recently - in my trainspotting days - coal trains from Colwick via the GN/LNW joint line were almost always in the hands of WDs, O4s being banned south of Melton, that being the point on the joint Line where the infrastructure changed from GN built to LNW built.
As am aside, I have a W Leslie Good photo of LMS ROD 9641 at Rugby and I did once see an O4/8 heading for Northampton Castle from the East so every rule has its challenges.

 

[BahrainLad]

Really the only historic line that was significantly over-specified was the GWML, but even then the structure gauge isn’t that much larger than average and the long stretches of 200mph-capable curve radii will never see speeds above 125mph anyway.

Do you have a link to more information about this aspect of the GWML?

 

[Nottingham59]

I was intrigued by this question, so for my exercise today I cycled to Whitwell Farm Cutting nature reserve, just south of Nottingham . The bridge there crosses a double track section of what was the GC main line.

From the colour of the bricks and the design, I think the bridge there is an original dating from 1899. The structure gives 7.93m clearance between the vertical sides and is 5.37m tall from the ground to the centre of the arch, measured by a handheld laser tape measure. I don't know how these dimensions compare with other lines - I'll see if I can measure a bridge on the MML from above somehow.

Anyway, I overlaid this image with the MS&LR clearance diagram that HWL so kindly pointed us to, scaling it against the far edge of the arch (i.e. against the inner black arc in the image)

There seems to be plenty of room horizontally, but not that much vertically. So my guess is that this bridge was designed to allow the possibility of having wider rolling stock at a later date.