Tuesday Treasures - December 2024

TUESDAY 17 DECEMBER

Christmas for the Railway Staff – 2

In the spirit of Christmas and the New Year coming, our Blog today from the Great Western Trust collection relates to an official card produced by the GWR London Division Locomotive and Carriage Department for the 1903/04 holiday festival. Whilst sadly unissued to an individual or maybe another Company, our illustrated example still has lots of historical interest.

First we have the message addressed from John Armstrong, from the Department’s Offices based at Westbourne Park near Paddington. That location was the prime London locomotive shed until replaced by the magnificent, but now utterly lost, Old Oak Common facility, a few mile to the west.

Second we can perhaps smile that the message includes Armstrong’s ‘hearty’ Christmas greetings, which coming from a senior officer of the GWR, is a step beyond the more common and less expressive phrasing we see today on official Christmas cards.

Finally, the best topic of all, is the splendid official photo centrepiece of 4-4-0 No 3297 Earl Cawdor then sporting that massive boiler of pure Churchward experimental design, installed in July 1903, and the large almost North Eastern Railway style double windowed cab. The idea was that even pressure could be maintained on the undulating road in the west with a high reservoir capacity in the boiler. However, no advantage could be found and the net result was that a great deal of extra hot water, and therefore weight, was carried round the system.

The large cab was replaced by a standard GWR pattern one in November 1904, and the boiler with a standard one in October 1906.

Clearly that image alone was being used to promote the very forward looking activities of the GWR Locomotive and Carriage Department to a wider audience. Indeed, Churchward was concurrently overseeing similar evolution in GWR carriage stock too.

John Armstrong retired in 1916 and his valedictory review published in the Great Western Railway Magazine explains his relationship in the Armstrong dynasty that was so prominent in GWR history:

“Mr. John Armstrong, the London Divisional Locomotive and Carriage Superintendent, retired on September 30th, at the age of 65 years, and on the completion of half-a-century's service. A second son of the late Mr. Joseph Armstrong, who succeeded Sir Daniel Gooch as Locomotive Superintendent, and nephew of the late Mr. George Armstrong, late superintendent of the Northern division of the Locomotive department, he entered Swindon works in 1864 and after acquiring a thoroughly practical acquaintance of locomotive engineering was appointed, in 1878, district superintendent at Swindon, subsequently obtaining further experience in the South Wales and South Devon districts.

“In 1883 he became superintendent of the London division with charge of the Carriage department in the section between West Drayton and Aylesbury, and in 1889 the remainder of the division was placed under his control. Since that time the growth of the London division has been almost phenomenal, and today – although it is not actually the largest – it is perhaps the most important locomotive centre on the system. During the time Mr. Armstrong has been at Paddington he has had charge of the Royal train, and it stands to his credit that in all the Royal journeys, which include the Jubilee celebration trips from and to Windsor, the funerals of Queen Victoria and King Edward, and the welcome home of Lords Roberts and Kitchener, there was no hitch throughout that period.

“What perhaps was Mr Armstrong's biggest task during his term of office was associated with the transfer, in 1906, in connection with the scheme known as Paddington Improvements, of the London locomotive depot from Westbourne Park to Old Oak Common, where the engine shed alone contains four 65-ft. turntables, each equipped with 28 radiating roads, representing a total of 112 engine pits. Mr. Armstrong's interest in the employees of the Locomotive department did not end with his business hours, as his long and devoted interest in the G.W.R. Temperance Union, as Chairman of its Council, testifies. He was the founder and President of the Old Oak Common Railwaymen's Temperance Institute, the quarters of a variety of interesting social movements over which, when business admitted it, he has presided. A large circle of friends regret Mr. Armstrong's severance from official life, and he carries with him their wishes for many years of health and happiness.”

After a long year of Tuesday Treasure Blogs, this is our last of 2024, so that our Trustees and volunteers can take a well-earned rest and focus for once on relaxing with family away from things railway, that is if we can ever put aside our consuming fascination for this amazing and extensive subject!

From all the Trustees and volunteers of the Great Western Trust we wish our Blog readers a Happy Christmas.

TUESDAY 10 DECEMBER

Enticing the Americans – Part 5

With four previous blogs covering this wide topic, we thought that with winter on its way, and for some of us, already arrived, that to lift our spirits on cold dark nights we should return to it with the Great Western Railway’s publicity for the summer holidays in 1931.

From the Great Western Trust collection we illustrate the eye catching cover of the fold-out brochure for American tourists of a certain wealth, for a variety of Land Cruises by Motor Coach and Train. That phrase alone is strikingly catching as most wealthy American tourists were very much aware of, and enjoyed, sea cruises on luxury liners, so the GWR boldly used that same cruise description with luxury of course, to bring an alternative and intriguing special transport tourist offer to those same potential customers.

Issued from the GW Offices on 505 Fifth Avenue, New York City by G E Orton the GWR’s General Agent in the USA, the brochure is beautifully constructed and overflowing with attractive tour offers. No less than five such different cruises were on offer, four being 5 day duration, but one of 13 days. They all began and ended with train travel, but also used (we quote) ‘magnificently appointed motor coaches purchased by the company expressly for these Cruises’ plus first class hotel accommodation and a GWR representative accompanying each cruise to ensure all arrangements are in place. The whole scheme was (again we quote) to ‘provide the maximum of sight-seeing without fatigue, which could not be run under more comfortable conditions or at cheaper cost.’

What cost? Well the 5-day cruises were close to 62 Dollars (£12:12 shillings) and the 13 day cruise was a hefty 128 Dollars 88 cents (then equivalent to £26). That longer cruise was in today’s rough exchange, a cool £1,500…hence only the wealthy could afford it!

The brochure helpfully includes a set of coinage equivalents, including that One Pound was then equal to Five Dollars!! A long way from the exchange rate today!

The Great Western Railway Magazine published testimonials from American Land Cruise participants in its March 1931 edition:

This page showing locations visited by the Land Cruises was published in Great Western Railway Magazine, March 1931 edition

From Mrs B Jackson, 837, Sherman, Denver, USA. “It gives me great pleasure to be able to tell you that my trip with Land Cruise No. 3 has been a great success. It more than came up to my expectations, and I have never had a more enjoyable week in all my extensive travels.”

From Miss H M Hume, Waldorf Hotel, Aldwych, WC2. “We have just finished Land Cruise No 1 (a party of four Americans), and wish to recommend it heartily to anyone wanting a delightful motor tour. The hotels were most comfortable, the programme of sight-seeing was varied, the coach very satisfactory, and the personnel very attentive and thoughtful.”

It is interesting that the cover of this brochure uses art deco typefaces, plus the GWR initials in a roundel. The roundel was officially launched as the standard monogram ‘for all practicable purposes’ in the Great Western Railway Magazine’s September 1934 edition, more than three years after this brochure was published. The Great Western Trust collection includes examples of experimental GWR monograms used in the early 1930s, until the familiar GWR roundel was adopted.

Maybe the Americans, being more forward-looking than the British, were tested with the art-deco design of this brochure.

TUESDAY 3 DECEMBER

Up in the Air

Scheduled passenger helicopter services between London Airport and Waterloo began on 25 July 1955. Even if all eight trips on a day were sold out, British European Airways (which originated in the 1930s as Railway Air Services) still made a loss of over £300 and the flights were terminated on 31 May 1956. Photo from: Nationaal Archief (Netherlands)

‘We used to have a service into London, running the Westland Sikorsky 55 Whirlwind. For safety reasons the Ministry decided that, as the last three miles of its course would be over the River Thames, that it should carry floats. Floats were duly fitted and it started flying. Then, because the august gentlemen of the House of Lords protested about the noise of the helicopter it was decided to fit silencers – another weight penalty.

Then the Port of London Authority came along – “I see your helicopter has floats on it. What are they for?” And it was explained that they had been fitted in case it had to come down in the River Thames. Back came the reply: “Jolly good show, in that case it becomes a vessel in navigable waters and it must carry an anchor and chain.” And it did!’

What, I hear you ask has this got to do with the Great Western Trust? Well the above is a short extract from a talk given on 23 January 1958, to the British Railways (Western Region) London Lecture and Debating Society.

The cover of the transcript of the meeting

The speaker was Mr M G Housego, the Press & Public Relations Officer, Ministry of Transport & Civil Aviation, who was himself from a railway family and was a senior civil servant having entered the service in 1935. He was relating an episode from the time when helicopters were used to ferry important passengers from the airport to central London and the bureaucracy that the transport industry faced then. Nothing, it seems, changes. Mr Housego provided a wealth of information about London Airport which was officially renamed London Heathrow in September 1966.

A photograph taken inside the control tower at Heathrow, published in the transcript of the meeting

The Great West Aerodrome was established in the early 1930s by the Fairey Aviation Company and would have developed sooner had not the Second World War intervened. As a result civil operations began on 1 June 1946 and growth thereafter was rapid. The technology seen here in Aerodrome Control may look archaic but it was highly advanced seventy years ago.

The Great Western Trust holds a comprehensive collection of lecture papers dating from 1906 – beginning with what was entitled the GWR London Debating Society. Its successor, the British Railways (Western Region) London Lecture and Debating Society lasted well into the 1970s having presented over five hundred papers with such diverse topics as ‘Notes on American Railroad practice’ (1928) to ‘A visit to the USSR’ (1959).

• Tuesday Treasures - Latest Blogs

« Back To Tuesday Treasures Index