Landships II

thorst · Colonel

Locomotives at Cambrai

Pzkpfw-e · Commander in Chief

Looks a lot like this beasty. goo.gl/images/qGQ9Su Dean 0-6-0
However, we've en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midland_Railway_700_Class too!

thorst · Colonel

The problem is, a lot of them look quite similar. Without more background, I don't know which details would help to identify them.

Pzkpfw-e · Commander in Chief

Here's a thread with many pictures of the flatbeds & loaded tanks, the only ones showing the locomotives, are either the ones you've already posted, or their mainly hidden by loaded wagons!

www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php

28juni14 · Hero

Thorsten, Indeed these are 0-6-0 locomotives. Original property of Great Western Railway and shipped to France in early 1917. This lok is easily identified by the prominent sand dome, squared firebox immediately behind the boiler, and "fendered" drive wheels unique to English steam. They were built in the company's shops at Swindon. They were quite robust goods locomotives and served in large numbers on the GSW. They were painted a soft Green and I would think they retained that color while serving in France.

The Great Western Railway remained in existence until after WW2 when the mother country embraced socialism and all railways were nationalized.

You should be able to obtain dimensional drawings of this most successful lok. I haven't looked, but I would think there would be a rail fan club in England harboring artifacts. The Great Western served virtually all of Wales, Cornwall and all the way from London to the Midlands. Personally, one of my favorite European rail lines.

MFG

28juni14

PeterEm · Corporal

Fascinating photo! As others, have indicated, the central loco is an ex-Great Western 0-6-0 loco universally known in the UK as a "Dean Goods", widely used in France by the Railway Operating Division (ROD) of the War Department. What distinguishes it is the very large dome (BTW a steam not a sand dome), the conical brass safety valve cover over the square-topped firebox known as a Belpaire, and the distinctive tender with raised central section. There is a fragment of the cab and tender of another one at the extreme left of the image. Official livery in service was khaki with large white ROD on the tender, but I have seen photos of one with wartime modifications but still lettered "Great Western", so presumably still in GWR green. Using "Dean Goods" as your search term should access all the information about them you could need, including drawings and links to the 1:76 model of one recently released in the UK by Oxford Diecast (which includes an ROD liveried version).

The other locos in the photo, however, are something else. These are the locos at the front of the other two tank trains and the one directly behind the Dean Goods. They all seem to be 0-6-0s of a similar type,and one is lettered ROD, but they aren't Deans. They have round-topped fireboxes and largely rectangular cab front windows, their domes are noticeably smaller, they have rectangular tenders with an angled top and the two with visible running plates have distinctive double splashers ( one large one covering the wheels and a smaller one for the ends of the coupling rods). This is unusual for 0-6-0s, as the wheels are normally too small to need them. And the cabs seem slab-sided, angular and decidedly un-British. I can't currently match them to any UK type I know.

Best wishes, Peter

Peter Smith · Captain

French railway locomotives would undoubtedly have been used to haul trains from port of entry (Le Havre?) to the Front. WD locomotives would most probably have been used in the local area for marshalling, shunting etc and working on WD lines. So the unidentified locos could be French, or possibly Belgian. However, ROD requisitioned about 600 assorted locomotives from a dozen or so UK railway companies in 1916 so it could be one of those. In 1917 they began ordering the standardised 2-8-0 loco based on the Great Central Railway 8K design.

As in the UK, there were numerous private railway companies and independent manufacturers in France and Belgium in the WW1 period and myriad designs of locomotives and rolling stock - making identification extremely difficult.

In Braille-ish Scale any continental railway stock will be HO - 1:87. Hornby do - or did - a nice Dean Goods in OO. Mainline used to do one too, possibly still available under another brand.

In 1:35 you'd be looking at something in Gauge 1. Mercian Models certainly make a Dean, but it's £485. There may be others. There might be something French in Gauge 1, but it will undoubtedly be similarly expensive - or worse. Railway wagons had long lives and didn't change much. You might get away with one of the several WW2 vintage bogie wagon kits available in 1/35. Plenty of choice in OO.

PeterEm · Corporal

If Belgian, a quick Google brought me here:

http://www.dereensteen.be/De-enig-bewaard-gebleven-Gilain-stoomlocomotieven

It's a Belgian Railways Class 41 built between 1905 and 1913, and you can see the distinctive cab front window shape, and double splashers which make it quite a good candidate. Looking at the original photo again there are even hints of the hoods over the cab front windows and the class 41's double cab side windows, which was a feature used by only a handful of UK railway companies at the time (though they became much more common later, as on "Flying Scotsman"). Of course, if they are Belgian, this raises the question of whether the Allies would have had access to enough of them for three to be photographed at the same place and time in 1917, and whether the ROD was ever authorised to requisition any of them!

Peter (Martin, not Smith)

green_acorn · Captain

Thorsten,

In 1/87 there was a small French company called AMF87 produce a post-war example of the purpose designed 40 ton Parrot tank wagon used for the Battle of Cambrai along with Great Western railway Macaw flat wagons. The link is https://www.amf87.fr/prestashop/wagons-plats/1230-k271-plat-40t-type-tp-wd.html This wagon design became the WW2 Warflat.

AMF87 also produce post-war examples of the WW1 Well Wagon (https://www.amf87.fr/prestashop/wagons-sp%C3%A9ciaux/84-k220-plat-surbaiss%C3%A9-%C3%A0-bogies-ex-wd-mod%C3%A8le-court.html)that is seen in images of the A7V Hagen at the Tank Corps worshops at Erin probably in December 1918 (https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205245500).

In 1/76 Bachmann Branchline are releasing an example of the Parrot wagon along with a resin tarpaulin covered MkV later this year.

Oxford Rail produce 1/76 Warwell wagons, I believe the WW2 versions were improved versions of the WW1 well wagons I mentioned. I have suggested to Oxford Rail that they do a special WW1 Warwell, and pointed them to the IWM images.

GRAModels of the UK also produce resin kits of the various wagons http://www.gramodels.co.uk/ in UK scales from 1/32 to 1/148.

Cheers,

Chris

thorst · Colonel

Hello,

thank you all for the very helpful input!

After reading your posts and comparing them to the high-resolution scans of the pictures I ordered from the IWM, I agree that the GWR 2301 class is at the front of both trains. The Belgian Class 41 also looks convincing for the second locomotives of the trains in the picture. There is another picture which shows even another class:

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205281007

(unfortunately, the IWM forbids embedding on this one)

The first one is again a GWR 2301, but the second one is different because of the non-square firebox and the larger windows.

I need some more time to check everything which was mentioned here about the wagons, but I really appreciate the help!

As far as models are concerned, I am not looking for H0 or similar models. If anything, I am thinking about scratch building a tiny-scaled diorama (about 1/2XX-1/350) which shows the whole scenery, but learning more about the railway aspects is just one part of the preparation, as it would require more information about the surrounding landscape, buildings and the like.

Again, thank you very much for all the help!

Best regards,

Thorsten

-- Edited by thorst on Tuesday 20th of March 2018 07:26:25 PM

-- Edited by thorst on Tuesday 20th of March 2018 07:27:04 PM

28juni14 · Hero

The natives of the land that gave the world James Watt, and Stephenson, seem to know their British railway trivia!

Thorsten, If I may suggest a book for your library; "The Great Train Race; Franco - German Rivalry 1815 - 1914", Alan Mitchell

Peter Smith · Captain

You could think about using Z gauge as the basis if you're looking at that sort of scale. There is a limited selection of wagons, locos and scenery as well as track already available in that scale, which might short-cut some scratchbuilding

PDA · Legend

pic attached

Granty101 · Colonel

Thorst,

Have you tried Googling 'Railway Operating Division' ? The R.O.D. operated many different UK manufactured locomotives, as well as French, Belgium and American built Baldwin machines.

There is also a couple of books available that deal with the R.O.D. and it's use/action in Northnern France and Belgium.

Hope this helps?

Grant

PeterEm · Corporal

New book on British Railways in WW1 (Was: Locomotives at Cambrai)

thorst · Colonel

Locomotives at Cambrai

PeterEm · Corporal

Hi Thorst,

I didn't actually buy the book myself, so my comments were based on leafing through a sample at a model rail show. The book does have a large number of scale drawings (ie with measurements), but I can't be sure that there are drawings or measurements for everything you'll need. It's possible that the Trust could provide that information, so it may be worth an email to them.

Best Wishes,

Peter

jch_in_uk · Captain

The ROD also used US built 'Baldwin' locomotives in France, both 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 versions

jh