Trivia: Ideas and concepts that didn't work out

[steamybrian]

I was thinking of the many railways or stations that were partly built and then abandoned such as here in the South East-
Northern Line Heights extension- Edgware- Bushey Heath and electrification of Finsbury Park- Finchley Central/Alexandra Palace
Chessington South- Leatherhead
Lullingstone station
... there are many more around the country..

 

[gg1]

Public telephones on trains for example the Connex class 365s.

The phones did at least last longer than a lot of other suggestions on this thread, being in use for 10-15 years, longer than the service life of a fair few 1950s/60s diesel loco classes.

 

[edwin_m]

I was thinking of the many railways or stations that were partly built and then abandoned such as here in the South East-
Northern Line Heights extension- Edgware- Bushey Heath and electrification of Finsbury Park- Finchley Central/Alexandra Palace
Chessington South- Leatherhead
Lullingstone station
... there are many more around the country..

Most or all of these were abandoned after WW2 because of some combination of shortage of funds and the Green Belt policy meaning that development was no longer permitted in the areas they were to serve.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Bulleid Double Deck suburban units.

The Leader class

The Irish Turf locomotive.

Possibly his unrebuilt SR Pacifics

 

[Mat17]

Pacers as a short term stop-gap. They went on to have longer careers than some of the DMUs they replaced.

 

[Rescars]

I was thinking of the many railways or stations that were partly built and then abandoned such as here in the South East-
Northern Line Heights extension- Edgware- Bushey Heath and electrification of Finsbury Park- Finchley Central/Alexandra Palace
Chessington South- Leatherhead
Lullingstone station
... there are many more around the country..

Most or all of these were abandoned after WW2 because of some combination of shortage of funds and the Green Belt policy meaning that development was no longer permitted in the areas they were to serve.

Also the electrification of Sanderstead via Woodside in preparation for the Southern Heights Light Railway which never happened.

 

[edwin_m]

Pacers as a short term stop-gap. They went on to have longer careers than some of the DMUs they replaced.

Doesn't that actually make them a success? I believe for some routes in the 1980s, it was Pacers or closure.

Arguably the failure here was the Class 210 - over-specified and over-expensive, and probably delayed DMU replacement until BR abandoned the idea in favour of something simpler.

 

[Mat17]

Doesn't that actually make them a success? I believe for some routes in the 1980s, it was Pacers or closure.

Arguably the failure here was the Class 210 - over-specified and over-expensive, and probably delayed DMU replacement until BR abandoned the idea in favour of something simpler.

I wasn't alluding to their success, more to the fact they were supposed to be a short term, stop gap. They turned out to be very long term. I would have preferred them fully refurbishing more of the better quality first gen DMUs (101s) and not bothering with the pacers at all.

 

[matchmaker]

The "Fell" 0-4-4-0 prototype diesel-mechanical locomotive.

It was a 4-4-4-4 The 4mm scale model of it by KRM is the most badly designed and constructed RTR locomotive I have ever owned

 

[edwin_m]

The 4mm scale model of it by KR?M is the most badly designed and constructed RTR locomotive I have ever owned

Truly accurate to prototype then?

 

[ThirteenArches]

No one mentioned Paget yet? But Doug Self's site is packed with efforts from heroic near- misses to absolute screamers. I don't know where you'd put the Samuda brothers in that spectrum.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

No one mentioned Paget yet? But Doug Self's site is packed with efforts from heroic near- misses to absolute screamers. I don't know where you'd put the Samuda brothers in that spectrum.

I see that this site includes a reference to the Franco-Crosti boilered 9F locos. I know nothing of how successful (or not) that they were, but I'll just offer them as a possible contribution to this topic.

 

[The exile]

I wasn't alluding to their success, more to the fact they were supposed to be a short term, stop gap. They turned out to be very long term.

As, of course, was the HST!

 

[norbitonflyer]

De-electrification of the Tyneside suburban network. It was so unsuccessful that plans to re-electrify it were already being drawn up just a few years after the last EMUs ran, and the first of the new generation of Tyneside Electrics (the Metrocars) entered service just 13 years after the last third rail EMUs ran.

The third rail infrastructure was life-expired by the time it closed in the late 1960s, as was most of the rolling stock (execpt the dozen or so BR-built units that found a new home on the Southern Region).
Similary, there was no money to update the pre-WW1 Newport to Shildon electrification when it became life-expired in the late 1930s.

 

[Rescars]

Given current weather conditions in the north, perhaps it would be timely to mention the GWR's attempts to use jet engines as a means of snow clearance in the winter of 1947. IIRC it shifted the snow rather well, but also turned a lot of ballast into shrapnel with pretty devastating effects on lineside structures, signalling, etc. Back to the drawing board ......!

 

[Ghostbus]

Tram trains?

Certainly doesn't feel like they're seen as a must have. A game changer.

 

[edwin_m]

Tram trains?

Certainly doesn't feel like they're seen as a must have. A game changer.

Essentially a niche product with a fairly limited number of potential applications in the UK (but more relevant countries that have widespread tram networks).

 

[DanNCL]

The third rail infrastructure was life-expired by the time it closed in the late 1960s, as was most of the rolling stock (execpt the dozen or so BR-built units that found a new home on the Southern Region).
Similary, there was no money to update the pre-WW1 Newport to Shildon electrification when it became life-expired in the late 1930s.

The same argument could have been used at the same time to de-electrify the Merseyside lines and the Manchester-Bury line but it wasn’t. Both had equally life expired infrastructure, and in the case of Manchester-Bury non standard too.
The oldest units on Tyneside at that point were only one year older than the oldest 502/503s on Merseyside, which kept going until the early 1980s.

Ultimately they could (and in my opinion should) have done the same as Merseyside and kept the same stock running on the same life expired infrastructure until funding came a decade later either for something akin to the 507s, or indeed quite possibly still ended up with Metro in 1980 as actually happened.

 

[eldomtom2]

Tavern Cars. While the concept, has found favour in some places on the continent it's never really taken off here, despite a few different attempts over the years.

An interesting sidenote is that the 1949 attempt was considered such an affront to good taste by many that questions were raised in Parliament! https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1949/jun/27/railway-buffet-cars-design

Mr. Driberg (Maldon)

A few weeks ago the country was electrified by the news that the Railway Executive or British Railways were about to entertain their passengers with a new kind of buffetcar, or, as it became known, tavern-car, embellished and adorned in mock-Tudor style. Words fail me, for once, to express the full horror and disgust that I felt when this announcement was made, and I think it will save time if I simply quote a sufficiently concise letter, of three sentences only, that appeared in "The Times" shortly afterwards:— "Sir,—The appearance on British Railways of tavern cars dressed up to look like old English inns with painted brickwork and false beams is the reductio ad absurdum of the mania for the fake antique. These cars are ridiculous, even by the silliest roadhouse standards. It is deplorable that a public authority should set such an example."
That letter was signed by the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Principal of the Royal College of Art, the Chairman of the Council of Industrial Design, the President of the Architectural Association, the President of the Design and Industries Association, the Principal of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, the Chairman of the Council of the Royal Society of Arts, the hon. secretary of the Society of Industrial Artists, the Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Master of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry, and by a former chairman of the Industrial Art Committee of the Federation of British Industries.
I do not think that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, to whom I am grateful for waiting to answer this Debate, will suggest that these signatures were merely those of unpractical, "long-haired" aesthetes. That correspondence in "The Times" was paralleled by similar letters and comments in the "Manchester Guardian," the "Spectator," and in much of the responsible Press and the technical Press. The innovation also excited the attention of some of our most respected humourists, Beachcomber, Osbert Lancaster, and others.

I can't help wondering whether they would have been more successful had they had windows, so that punters would have been able to look out and see where they were....in those far-off days prior to the advent of onboard announcements).

They had windows, but small and high up ones compared to regular stock.

 

[Rescars]

Given current weather conditions in the north, perhaps it would be timely to mention the GWR's attempts to use jet engines as a means of snow clearance in the winter of 1947. IIRC it shifted the snow rather well, but also turned a lot of ballast into shrapnel with pretty devastating effects on lineside structures, signalling, etc. Back to the drawing board ......!

It seems the LMS tried similar arrangements during the same winter, with the same results. The LNER thought of trying it too. One additional entertainment about this set-up with the jet exhausts angled towards the snow at track level was the ability of the jet engines to overpower the locomotive(s) and propel the train backwards!

 

[Harpo]

Public telephones on trains for example the Connex class 365s.

Mercury card phones in the buffet cars on Liv St to Norwich. Later traced to being a cause of early push-pull failures by creating interference over the lighting circuit carrying computer instructions between loco and driving trailer.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

That never seemed like a good idea to me. I used it around London a couple of times for the novelty because I lived locally at the time but trundling round North London and avoiding the centre always seemed pointless and doomed to failure.

If had a more consistent timetable and better promotion, it could have become something more permanent. I'd argue Reading may have been a more lucrative western terminus for the service, and a consistent eastern terminus (Norwich or Ipswich) would have helped too. Crossrail would have rendered it redundant by now in any case.

The Lartigue system didn't really catch on, apart from the Listowel and Ballybunion.

Wasn't that system designed more with the intent of being a temporary set-up for military use in desert environments? With the tracks relatively easy to dismantle and move?
Not sure it had much success in those applications either of course!

 

[edwin_m]

Wasn't that system designed more with the intent of being a temporary set-up for military use in desert environments? With the tracks relatively easy to dismantle and move?
Not sure it had much success in those applications either of course!

I can't see how a system that gets in the way of anyone trying to cross it, and has a lot of complexity wherever a point is needed, has any benefit in this situation over the sort of temporary narrow gauge conventional track that was actually used.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

There's a lot of stuff especially with Virgin's brash branding which was never emulated by other TOCs. Who knew that mid-20th century nostalgia would still take preference over groovy interior lights, remanding first class as "club class" and renaming the stuffy old Buffet Car "The Shop".

Then there's the monument to the failed era of neoliberalism that is Ebbsfleet.

I remember at Underground stations in London in the mid-2000s they'd have these public computer terminals where you can browse the internet and check your emails. The mouse was this solid metal ball within the keyboard casing that you had to roll around, which was always fun as a child. They weren't there for more than a few years.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I can't see how a system that gets in the way of anyone trying to cross it, and has a lot of complexity wherever a point is needed, has any benefit in this situation over the sort of temporary narrow gauge conventional track that was actually used.

Which is probably one reason it wasn't particularly successful... though as a concept it has merit- those raised tracks would be less likely to become buried following a sandstorm, and the likelihood of crossing traffic in a desert environment will be fairly low.

 

[edwin_m]

Which is probably one reason it wasn't particularly successful... though as a concept it has merit- those raised tracks would be less likely to become buried following a sandstorm, and the likelihood of crossing traffic in a desert environment will be fairly low.

The sand might just blow through the trestles, but if it did pile up it could still block the train even if it didn't reach the top of the trestle. Desert railways have to include some means for wandering camels to cross.

 

[ThirteenArches]

Though the Listowel & Ballybunion DID carry sand (it terminated in a sand quarry on the beach), there were few camels wandering in Co Kerry to trouble its life. There was another Lartigue monorail built: Le Monorail Feurs-Panissières (in French). It was never opened, following an accident during commissioning and poor performance when loaded - it failed to pull a trainload of officials to the upper terminus, and had to creep ignominiously downhill. Unlike the Ballybunion line, which was flat and crowflight- straight, it went up a hill and round some pretty sharp corners. The line is now a bike trail.

 

[matchmaker]

Truly accurate to prototype then?

I suspect the prototype was more reliable!

 

[Sun Chariot]

It was a 4-4-4-4 The 4mm scale model of it by KRM is the most badly designed and constructed RTR locomotive I have ever owned

I'm genuinely interested in your experience of this model. It’s a model I wanted but I'd seen a couple of online posts (other fora) which were not complimentary of it.

Not for this thread - but if you are happy to share your insight on RUK forum thread Whats your latest acquisition? I will be very appreciative. Thanks in advance.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Though the Listowel & Ballybunion DID carry sand (it terminated in a sand quarry on the beach), there were few camels wandering in Co Kerry to trouble its life. There was another Lartigue monorail built: Le Monorail Feurs-Panissières (in French). It was never opened, following an accident during commissioning and poor performance when loaded - it failed to pull a trainload of officials to the upper terminus, and had to creep ignominiously downhill. Unlike the Ballybunion line, which was flat and crowflight- straight, it went up a hill and round some pretty sharp corners. The line is now a bike trail.

My feeling about the Lartigue system is that, as first conceived, a cheap lightweight system with animals as the motive power, it worked admirably, especially in the deserts of North Africa. The problems all came when Lartigue start to mechanise it, introduce heavier rolling stock and track which led in turn to some very expensive, clumsy fudges.