But is it art?

Do models really count as art? The idea of art is a slippery one, varying as it does from a symphony to a sculpture, taking in such diverse productions as popular music and films. Many have tried to extract what it is that makes art. At the very least, it has to be possible to share it although you mustn't confuse the materials used with the art itself. It has to have a human input. Some art is better than others. Strange but true, most people can agree on what is better though, often as not, they can't agree why.

16mm model of a Bridagelok 0-8-0 with tender. Photo courtesy Jim  Hawkesworth

 So why do I like this view taken on Pont du Lyn, a 16mm/foot (1:19 scale) layout created by the late Henry Holdsworth? It is 'just' a model of a Brigadelok, a German 0-8-0 locomotive which ran on 60 centimetre gauge. It is not wildly 'creative'. It is an adroit combination of World War 1 photographs taken in the Amiens area in March 1918 and then rendered in three dimensions. Henry was well-known - and respected for reanimating a photo; no-one has ever said 'where's the originality in that?' His gift was to take a photo and breathe into it a back-story, just as a good actor brings a script to life. This photo tells a story. The loco and tender are setting out to pick up the first train of the shift. The body language of the brakesman announces 'Heigh-ho, work again. When is the next break?' They are rumbling over a trestle bridge, typical of the period. The fog is gently rising - convenient for hiding the edges of the layout, it is true - but so typical of the beginning of a working night. Most movement had to be under cover of darkness. The model and the bridge are built to the same standard. The materials are authentic, and they are built with understanding of how a loco moves and a bridge supports loading. Why is it that the amateur puts plastic into a period model? Here, brass is brass and wood is wood.
The paint finish, that shell into which we pour our interpretation of the scene, is true art. It was applied with care. The effect would be spoiled by big thick paint runs (that 'Dulux finish' which betrays the amateur.) The bridge and locomotive are dirty, just as real-life is dirty, oil stains and rust streaks just where you would expect them. Yet, if you look closely, this is not a miniaturisation of real life. Here, again, is real artistry. The grey is not exactly Heeresfeldbahn standard grey as specified by the German Army. You can compare it with our photos taken at the Apedale gathering which appear in a previous post. The grey Henry used is actually slightly lighter. A small coloured object must be a few tones lighter if it is to have the same impact as a large one. Further, like a tiny Parthenon, where nothing is quite as it seems, the highlights and shadows are intensified so as to provide the impact that relief would have in life size. But with the art that hides art, you won't register these effects.
We are involved and delighted with the scene - well, at least, I hope you are! We can therefore tolerate the weaknesses. The track itself isn't to the same standard as bridge and model. The colour and texture haven't been worked on. The sad fact is that Henry didn't have a chance to finish the layout.  Yet, having the strong, almost alien line, taking the eye into the heart of the composition, works. It was in just the right place. 
Further, if you have been following our blog, you will also notice that the buffer beams are not the right colour. The locomotives actually sported a glowing red, presumably for safety reasons. The enemy couldn't see down to the level of the buffer beams, but their own people could. But, the observer would argue, there could be an explanation for the buffer beams. Pont du Lyn is supposed to be on the Allied side of the Front and because both sides used the same gauge, it was quite common, as war ebbed and flowed, to have stock from both sides on one railway. The Allies may have acquired this locomotive during an advance and put it to work. They would have thought the red a trifle too bright and slapped a coat of British Standard Grey over it. There we are; we are so delighted with the presentation, that we find excuses and reasons for the little weaknesses. The mark of good art is a willing suspension of disbelief.

16mm model of a Péchot-Bourdon 0-4-4-0T locomotive. Photo courtesy Jim Hawkesworth

  Here a Péchot- Bourdon locomotive makes its way out of Pont du Lyn station into the shadows. The night shift is under way. Behind the loco, the leading wagon is a box car, with a sliding door, carried on standard WD bogies. The locomotive was a special commission, and the wagon superstructure was made by Henry himself. He put it on  Wrightscale bogies. The same goes for the WD 'E' and 'F' class wagons in the sidings beyond.  The wise artist knows where to concentrate his efforts and when to call in other people. Titian expected his apprentice to painstakingly grind up pigments. In the same way, calling in other people or judicious use of proprietory kits gave Henry time to for his real love and skill - planning, painting, scenicking, the figures in the foreground and the station building behind.
Ah! The figures. Absence of the human form can render any artwork, especially a layout, pointless. All too often a clumsy figure spoils it. These model people all have point. One group are standing deedily in front of the F-class wagon, seeming to be in deep discussion, but probably trying to work out where best to go for a meal. Rule number 1 for a soldier is: look busy, rule 2: locate the cookhouse.
The fireman on the Péchot-Bourdon is just looking but do not under-estimate the importance of looking. He is checking down the train. If something is wrong at this stage, it will be ten times worse down the track and in the darkness. You can see the tension in that arm. There may be something slightly cartoon-like in these little figures but it actually suits the scale. The contradictory effect is to make them more human. Art can be more life-like by being less faithful to life. The remarks above about a pale colour palette, applied highlights and shadows apply even more to figures on a layout.
Here are some more favourite views.

16mm models of a Baldwin Gas Mechanical 50 horse power locotractor (right - a Wrightscale model built by Henry Holdsworth) and a Dick Kerr 45 h.p. Photo courtesy Jim Hawkesworth

 A Baldwin 50h.p. locotractor probably 'liberated' from the AEF is followed by a 45 h.p. locotractor built by Dick Kerr Ltd for the British War Department. Pershing discouraged the U.S. army from cooperating with the British, but the boys on the ground have done things their own way. The jaunty chap in the driving seat is wearing British Army khaki. Is the angle of his hat cocking a snook at all generals, or did he just hit the canopy when getting in? You make up the story. The Baldwin locomotive he is driving has had an eventful life. The rough-and-ready undercoating the metal had in the factory has almost worn off to be replaced by the unique patina of front-line life.
The Baldwin 50h.p. model is a Wrightscale production and the Dick Kerr is a special commission. Both have louvred side panels - a Westinghouse version of the 45 h.p. did not have louvres. The two locotractors were weathered by Henry. They look lovely together, part heavy carapace and part ethereal.

Some debris to clear. Wagons on Wrightscale bogies. Photo J Hawkesworth

Hunslet Quarry Tank Progress.

Hi, this month has seen some real progress in the workshop.  Days spent machining up parts has finally reached a stage where assembly can start.  The chassis are getting near the end  of the assembly process.

Progress mid- November, frame interior and wheels painted, chassis quartered.

They are all now erected and the internal parts finish painted.  The cylinder blocks have had their covers fitted, a lot of work since each cover is retained by five 12BA bolts.

All the slip eccentric valve gear in place.

By the end of the month the first chassis will be running on air. The only job left is to fit the valve chests, valves and valve rods to the cylinder blocks, add the pistons, rods and slide bars.  Then a squirt of oil and connnect up the air!  Hopefully they will all run well.  If they do, the first eleven names on the interest list will be contacted and given a delivery date.

Not among Péchot's babies

 Progress on the book is steady. The printer says that it will be ready for delivery 'in the week beginning November 24th' That probably means November 28th.

Jacket design by James Albon

It is hard to imagine the experience of the trenches, 1914-18. My grandfather wrote: 'We march up daily to work and it is rather like having the sea in front of you, that funny no-man's-land. One doesn't think of it as enemy country. It's just a kind of  "this far and no further" sort of place that one sees on the maps, almost wondering if it is for real. Of course you realise that you mustn't put your head up or march over the open in daylight but then again the impersonal feeling comes in and you accept it as a dispensation of Providence that this particular atmosphere should be full of bullets just as another is full of rain'

Over the period of the War, there was a significant change in British trench life. In the early stages of the Great War, the British were supposed to rely on the existing standard gauge and metre gauge railways to get them to within, say, 5 miles of the Front. The rest of the journey had to be achieved on foot, by horse or bicycle. My grandpa did acquire a bike. Provisions had to be lugged up by General Service wagons, pulled by teams of horses or mules, under cover of darkness on unmade roads which all seemed to share one characteristic - the ditch, invariably filled with freezing water.

Grand-pa and horse. Behind can be seen two General Service wagons

 'Top brass' considered trench railways a distractor, though they did sanction improvements to standard gauge lines.  Here and there, unofficial proprietory prefabricated rail was in use, often using material scrounged from the French. Early in 1916, the British took over a French Army sector. It had 'official' trench railways - three short 60cm lines linking the Front with the standard gauge network. Official eyes were half opened and 'Programme A' was born - mainly small wagons to be pushed by humans were supplied to run on 60cm gauge rail. During 1916. 'top brass' had more reason to look at the Péchot system proper. In the build-up to the Somme offensive, summer 1916, the attention of the British Establishment was focussed on shell production. The many problems of converting the peacetime economy and manufacturing of Britain began to be addressed but by July, it was clear that ammunition was not reaching the Front in sufficient quanities.  Eric Geddes, largely credited with solving the Munitions Crisis, was authorised to solve the crisis of Forward Transportation. The Directorate of Light Railways was formed and the seeds of the War Department Light Railways were sown. A thousand miles of track were ordered, and locomotives and wagons in proportion.
The British adopted many characteristics of the French, especially in the design of rail - though there were Bristish quirks. The gauge adopted was the French one, 60cm. The little push trucks 'Programme A' were rapidly superseded by 10 tonne bogie wagons which echoed the Péchot pattern.
One of the ways in which the British showed originality was in their Prime Movers. The four-wheeled petrol mechanical tractor built by the Motor Rail and Tramcar Company Ltd, better known as the Simplex, was completely British. In 1914, as the machines of war rumbled into action, Mr Abbott of the MR & TC  approached Lord Kitchener with his ideas. No doubt, he expected his design to be constructed to 2'6" (75cm) gauge which was then the British Army norm. Lord Kitchener himself dismissed him with 'This is not our way of working'

England doesn't need you! In 1914, Lord Kitchener turned down the offer of a rail tractor. Picture courtesy of the Moseley Railway Trust/Common Source

 It was a pity that the Army didn't look a little closer. Over the next couple of years, the French discovered the merits of internal combustion on the battlefield. A picturesque plume of steam during the day or glowing cinders at night were a delight for enemy gunners, less so for engine drivers, and thus petrol and later diesel rail tractors were used for forward working. In 1916, as the British began to adopt French ideas, the first order for a 20h.p. version of the Simplex was received - in 60cm gauge. By April, the prototypes were being field-tested. They were rugged and simple; by the end of the War, about 600 had been delivered. The two-cylinder petrol engine sat in the middle of the loco frame, the radiator at one end and the driver and controls at the other.  The seat faced sideways so that the driver could see both ways. What is more, the Dixon Abbott gearbox had three speeds in both directions. When a quick sharp exit was called for, and no turntable was available, the Simplex was your machine!

This 20h.p. Simplex tractor can be seen at the Welsh Highland Heriatge Centre. Photo courtesy of Steve Currin

 The War Office invited a design for a larger machine that could carry armour, useful for Front-line work. The MR & TC submitted a design which weighed six tonnes and had a 40h.p. engine which was immediately approved. Like the 20h.p. version, the driver sat sideways and the tractor could go equally fast in both directions. Unlike on the smaller one, the driver sat in the middle with the radiator to one side, the engine and transmission to the other. Three versions of the 'Tin Turtle' were produced: open; weather-protected; and the true tin turtle, the fully armoured model. 200 of these 40hp petrol tractors were delivered to the WDLR. There was another order for 112 but WJK Davies (Light Railways of the First World War) was not certain how many were delivered.

This bonny rake of 40 h.p. Simplexes were snapped at the Moseley Tracks to the Trenches event, September 2014. The middle one has the roof at the original height, the rear most has an altered roof  - taller and additionally supported.

The Simplex was truly British.What more can we say?

More of Péchot's little ones: various designs of rail

You have already heard about the Tracks to the trenches event at Apedale, Staffs, 12th-14th September this year.We had a lot of fun admiring the many locomotives and wagons running on 60cm track. Once they had been on different sides during the Great War, now they could all run together. A sleek German D-lok, a Péchot wagon and various khaki-clad British locomotives could all travel over the same track because they were all the same gauge.
Yet a few years before 1914, this would not have been possible.

Henschel 15968 built in 1918 It can usually be seen at Toddington, on the North Gloucestershire Railway. After the Great War it passed into civilian use but was bought by the preserved line in 1985. Photo M.D.Wright

Just before I get down to the level of the track, here, courtesy of the North Gloucestershire railway, is German No 1091 0-8-0T, D-lok for short. Don't offend her by remarking on her dazzling red buffer beams. We know just how she looked in the sad days of war. Admittedly, most people and machines of 1914-18 were all black, white or shades of grey - film and photographs of the period prove this. The Germans were different. Tell them that something is colour no 208 and they will immmediately see magenta, colour 106 and they will see burnt umber und so weiter.
I'm making this up, but the Germans did have precise colour charts - a sort of precursor of pantone. With these charts, the good people of the North Gloucs. Railway were therefore able to match the colours precisely and so are confident that the D-lok appeared just as shown.
It could all have turned out differently. The trench railways of the various nations could have run on varied gauges. Before 1888, the French military were seriously considering metre gauge for military supply. At the same time, they were already using Decauville 40/50cm gauge industrial railways in some of their military bases. 75cm track was available in Germany. The Austrians tended  to 70mm. For Germans and Austrians there  was plenty available as it was a commercial design, available from Arthur Koppel of Berlin. Zezula, in his contemporary account of narrow gauge in central Europe mentions Kopppel by name as a track supplier.

Although this rail is stamped Decauville, photographs of the time show that Koppel produced prefabricated rail to this pattern which was put to military use. It was sturdier than some. The sleepers are corrugated to give extra rigidity and project slightly beyond the rails themselves giving a wider and more stable  'footprint'. Courtesy JIm Hawkesworth

The British flirted with 15" gauge, but settled for a very small stock of 2'6" gauge. It is a complicated story, and I say more in "Colonel Péchot: Tracks to the Trenches"

The Book! Published December 2014

Someone changed this outlook and this exuberant variety of gauges. That person was Prosper Péchot. In 1882, he sent his Memorandum to the Ministry, explaining that a system based on 60cm gauge could answer the needs of an army. For the rest of his career, he struggled to convince his superiors that prefabricated 60cm track was the way to bring the battle to the enemy's doorstep. Carefully he designed the right sort of track to ensure that his railways could be quickly rolled out. He realised that there was a trade-off between axle load, durability and portability and so he settled on 9kg/metre rails, and eight sleepers per 5 metre length. The sleepers were of 'box-lid' shape, to prevent the substrate from slipping away. They extended well beyond the rails and were set closer together than commercial prefabricated track of the period.

Track to the Péchot design. It appears in catalogue 130, being marketed commercially by the Decauville company. Courtesy Jim Hawkesworth

 By 1887, a 60cm test track was set up at Toul, north-east France.  In 1888, there were serious trials - 60cm against metre gauge. We know that since 1886, the world's Press had been watching French military developments. In June 1888, the Ministry decided in favour of his system. 'Artillerie 88' ie the Péchot system became the one in official use.
Quite suddenly, the Prussians and in due course all the other Germans adopted 60cm gauge. We have to remember that the Press had been invited and reported on the French trials. Records mention 60cm gauge being used in Prussia for the first time in spring 1888. By 1889, the strange little locomotives that the Germans used had been superseded by locomotives that looked suspiciously French.
Péchot track was and wasn't copied. The Germans tended to use prefabricated track sparingly, moving on to rail conventionally laid on wooden sleepers as soon as possible. A reserve was kept for quick repairs, as can be seen in photographs of the period. Photographs taken on German lines in the Great War show that the 'corrugated-sleeper' commercial pattern was still sometimes used.
Yet although the commercial design was convenient the Germans copied the Péchot sleeper, though not completely. Fach and Krall in their book on Heeresfeldbahn - German military narrow gauge show the new standard in prefabricated railways. The military pattern was pressed, like the French ones. For ease of manufacture, there was an obvious 'fold' which did the job of gripping the substrate.

This metre length of  prefabricated track is as used by the German Army. Something very similar was used by the British. Although it is a much simpler pressing, the track exhibits most of the essentials oif the Péchot design. The sleepers extend well beyond the rail, they are set close together and have a box-lid shape. Courtesy MD Wright

The British came very late to 60cm gauge - officially not until 1916. Though they were suspicious of Johnny Foreigner's Metric system, they saw the merits of standardising. They mixed prefabricated and conventionally laid track - in the proportion 60%:40%. They had great difficulty imitating the beautiful pressed steel Péchot sleepers and so theirs also have a 'folded' look, with corners. The rail was in 20lb/yard weight (the nearest Imperial equivalent to 9kg/metre) though supplied in metric lengths! The prefabricated track had nine, rather than eight sleepers per 5 metre length - super for durability, but a greater weight to carry by squaddies labouring in battle conditions.  People such as the author of 'Colonel Péchot: Tracks to the Trenches' can easily confuse the German and British designs.

HUNSLETS, first batch progress

Hi, it has been a few weeks since the last workshop report.  I have not been sitting doing nothing. Three weeks have gone by on a trip abroad, to France to see some friends; last Monday we were sitting having lunch at the Brasserie de la Gare in Agen 29' in the sun,  tidying up a garden with three days of bonfires, draining down the water before winter and seeing family on the way out.  Now back in Aboyne, we walked into a howling gale and horizontal rain. So it was unpack and get into the chill of the workshop. 
The Hunslets, the first batch of eleven locos, are taking shape with all the frames erected.

Two of the eleven frame sets of the first batch.

 I decided to review how I was going to detail the frames which led me to revise the etch.  I produced a nicely detailed overlay for the steel frames that avoids the time and money wasted on fitting 32 small rivets  and 16 very expensive hex headed bolts. Heavy cylinder flanges were added to the design.

The part completed frame showing the new detailed overlay and the cylinder bolting flange.

The other platework parts in place.  The additional etch parts are the detailed buffer beam overlays.

The last photos show where most of the time has gone, making the couple of hundred parts that eleven locos need for their valve gear, cranks and wheels.

Some of the machined parts needed for the valve gear and chassis (15 parts x 12 locos!)

The final push before the chassis will run on air is to machine the cylinder covers, pistons, rods and spindles, oh yes and machine up the slide valves. (The wheels, axles and bearings are already made)
There is, though, a good chance this might get done next month.  The most recent annoyance is that 1 1/2" by 20 gauge copper pipe is no longer made.  Since all my small locos use this for their boiler shells I have just had to pay out £1600 to have some drawn for me.   As a friend said "at least if you die before you use it all the price of copper is always going up......" Seriously it is getting harder to source a lot of materials. I suppose this is the consequence of two trends, one being a further contraction of manufacturing in the UK and so many folk purchasing their models from China, the other the trend towards metrication.

About the book and other babies

After twenty years, many travels together and much care, our baby is ready to leave home!

My Book ready to print.

It is easy to explain how our interest started. To people interested in trains anyway, the Great Little trains of Wales appealed greatly. Long before it was rebuilt, we paced the line of the Welsh Highland Line.We had happy afternoons at Leighton Buzzard and sneaked into old quarries. In France, we visited the 'petit train de la Haute Somme' All of these, and many others already closed had chosen 60cm/two foot for their gauge. All of them exuded atmosphere, quaintness and just a touch of melancholy, a hint of ghosts flitting left-of field.

When we investigated, we found that every one of these lines was indeed haunted. Moelwyn in Wales, Lion in Leighton Buzzard, and a host of relics at the Somme railway were left over form the First World War.

Some of the relics found at Froissy, Haute Somme.

They were survivors - people, animals, machines had all perished during fifty months of carnage. Much has been written about soldiers and horses, tanks and aeroplanes but nothing much about the railways.

To explain why we kept on with our research, you have to understand that we are born contrarians. Once we suspected that something was buried, we had to start digging. More than once, we have been called terriers - with some justice! We found out that there was a forgotten network of 60cm railways, used by both the Allies and the Central Powers during 1914-18. If laid end-to-end it would have stretched nearly ten thousand kilometres. Unlike the usual prewar agricultural or industrial railway, this network could manage tonnages normally associated  with properly laid and engineered standard gauge lines.

Yet all was forgotten.

Only last night on television, a respected historian trod the familiar dodgy ground. We all know that in Europe in 1914, there was a network of railways, standard gauge and metre gauge, serving the towns and villages of the time. Suddenly, the Western Front was constructed in this landscape, with very little regard for the railway network; each side was obsessed with denying as much territory as possible to the other. This meant that the Front was, on average, a good 5 miles (8 kms) from the nearest railhead. 

BEF troops entrai in France. It was march or take the narrow gauge to the Front.

Later in the War, the average distance from railhead to front increased to around ten miles (16 km) to keep loading stations out of the range of enemy artillery. Every five miles of three hundred plus miles of Front needed per day, in quiet times, at least 800 tonnes of supplies (including fresh water) and in the period leading up to an offensive about 3,600 tonnes. It was exactly as if a great belt of new towns, with all their requirements, had been suddenly dumped on open country. The respected historian explained that some horses were imported from America to provide transport from standard gauge railway line to front line.

Let us do the arithmetic. The very best equine transport, the mule, can carry up to 72kg with any sort of endurance. The ponies etc drafted in were simply not capable of that. Four mules hitched to a General Service Wagon can transport up to 2 tonnes. Remember, the unmetalled roads of the time were less than optimum. Transport had to be at night, because they were tempting targets. Looking at my grand father’s war letters, we see that, what with the dark, the mud and other obstacles, they could only manage 1000 yards an hour. In other words, a 10 mile round trip would, without mishap take all night. 11,500 mules plus muleteers were required to transport the supplies needed for every 5 miles of Front on quiet days.  Productivity would rise if wagons were used, but one’s imagination would be rather stretched; 2000 wagons coming and going daily on a few unmade country roads. On the other side of No-Man’s Land was the equally ponderous German front, the equivalent of another string of new towns whose industry was destruction and whose needs were equally great. The Germans of course could not import American horses and mules.

Ah! other respected historians interpose. The technology of the lorry was just coming into its own. A Thorneycroft J-type lorry, for instance, could transport 3.5 tonnes of supplies and move rather faster than a mule. The Voie Sacrée, supplying Verdun, is then cited. Every night, a procession of French lorries made its way from the station of Bar-le-duc up to the beleaguered citadel. What has been forgotten is that, parallel to the road ran a military-built multiple track narrow gauge rail way.

Given these problems, you may now be wondering why the war of 1914-18 went on for so long. There had been wars before. Since the American Civil War half way through the 19^th century, conflict was either resolved in a few months, as in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1, or took the form of asymmetrical warfare, as in the Boer War 1899-1902. What the respected historians don’t seem to ask is how millions of combatants over hundreds of miles managed to exist in their trenches for four long years.

The difference was due to the life and work of Colonel Péchot. For years, without modern trucks, tanks and aircraft, supply in the field was limited. The standard gauge railway network was useful – up to a point. Vast armies could slug it out for a few weeks or a guerrilla force could harry a larger force for years. It was not possible for grand action on a long timescale, not until Péchot devised an efficient system of military 

A British built loco for the French Army.  A Kerr Stuart Joffre Class engine (Apedale- Tracks to the Trenches 2014)

transport. His superiors in the French Army grudgingly adopted it. The Germans copied his technology and made effective adaptations. By 1914, the Germans had almost perfected their system and the Allies, particularly the British, spent long years trying to catch up. More than one contemporary French general felt that victory needed a good narrow gauge network.

Our 'baby' tells you the story of this quiet man who had such a profound influence .

Forget War Horse meet Charlie

We must not forget that the Pechot military railway system did not only affect human beings. He designed it from the first to do away with animal haulage. This was humane. Horses and other beasts of burden were usually issued with one-way tickets into war zones.  There are stories of dead horses used as blankets during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. A horse expiring in the siege of Stalingrad hardly touched the frozen earth before a dozen hungry citizens were carving off horse-meat. To these sad stories have to be added the tales of the Western Front. The British and French kept cavalry behind the lines, awaiting the moment of the break-through. At the beginning of the war, especially behind British lines, horse power was used to lug supplies to the newly dug trenches. Poor horses!
In November 1915, my grand father went to the Front near Le Touret with the 222nd Field Company RE . It was very wet and he was not comfortable. In a letter to my grandmother, 12th December, he described his cheerless morning. 'A Bosche sniper heard me splashing along in 3ft of water in the front trenches. Every time I fell into a hole and got extra wet, I cursed and he fired, and made very good shooting too. But I was quite safe as I was in a trench' A couple of days later he added 'None of us are very bright at present. I have my fourth cold since I came outy, Cassells has a West Coast liver, Stevens is seedy and the Little Man (their Major) sits and mopes all day long'

Here is Charlie, looking wary, which is perhaps not surprising. Behind him, a bit out of focus, are the wagons used by the British Army up until mid 1916 to transport supplies up to the trenches, often under the most miserable conditions. Courtesy Jackson family

 At least they were alive! His letter continued by describing their latest return to the Front. ' We had a very funny march back up here. We found three inches (7.5cm) of water over the road, and as all these roads have deep six foot (180 cm wide) ditches on either side, they are pretty difficult. If you drive a little out of the straight, you disappear, wagon and all. We dropped two wagons and a corporal into a ditch but pulled them all out again without mishap. Tomlinson's company which went through in the dark left half their wagons there all night. We have not drowned anybody yet, but a lot of drowned horses are lying about the roads. I don't suppose you can conceive what this countryside is like in parts. Where we were, 1000 yards an hour was jolly good going. and one had probably been down on one's nose three times before the hour was up. Of course that is by night. Walking 1000 yards by day is not encouraged. The Bosche is great believer in flares and sends one up every five minutes to keep his spirits up. At first one hates them but after a bit ones one comes to regard them as a blessing as one can get one's bearings by them'

Here are Charlie and my grandpa.

That winter, he met Charlie the horse. By March they had got to know each other quite well. He wrote to my grandmother. 'March 9th 1916. A beautiful frosty morning, and I am feeling quite jovial which is a new thing for me. I was very late up for the last two nights and am in late tonight as I had to go up to the 212th (the sister Company) to arrange about a working party. I had a slight disagreement with Charlie on the way. Charlie said that "by the rules of his Trade Union an eight hour day was long enough" Our argument lasted some considerable time but in the end I persuaded him.
You wouldn't know him these days. He has had his hair cut and is awfully pleased with himself'

This is an Artillerie 88 wagon as used by the French. It runs on bogies, so that the long overall length of the wagon does not matter. It has a well to keep the centre of gravity low and for ease of loading and unloading, the stanchions can be removed. Its capacity is 5.5 tonnes of compressed hay; animal forage was an important item of freight. Courtesy Raymond PECHOT

 Fortunately for all the Charlies, the British Front were about to learn what the French and Germans already knew. Even as man and horse were having their disagreement about the proper length for a working day, some of the British took over a section of front-line from the French 10th Army. This had three 60cm gauge railway lines which included Artillerie 88 rolling stock and the new lighter Decauville 1915 wagons. Even the 'top brass' realised that what the French had was useful. A railway line doesn't stray into a ditch, even in the dark or wet. A train requires a fraction of the man-power needed by a wagon train. From Charlie's point of view, such trains were of interest because a serious quota of all wagons carried forage. Best of all, for the few, the fortunate few, some mechanical tractors scrounged, stolen or improvised, and the horses could wait peacefully at the rear of the lines..

Tracks to the Trenches

We attended the Apedale 'Tracks to the Trenches' (12th-14th Seprtember) commemoration of transport to the front line of World War One.(organised with the Moseley Trust) It was a vibrant event. Everyone from primary school-children to venerable grand-parents were there, both enjoying a day out and trying to get to grips with the experiences of the foot soldiers. You can visit the event's own website.  www.ww1-event.org

Raising steam for the big day ahead

 The guidebook to the weekend was beautifully produced. The introduction 'The narrow gauge railway at war' explained the point of the event and all the locomotives and wagons assembled there. Briefly, logistics - the trail ensuring that timely supplies reach the battlefront - are not glamorous but they are vital. The front-line, especially on the Western side, depended on 60cm gauge railways, quickly laid and relaid to provide soldiers with weapons, ammunition, food and forage. 
Unfortunately, the article had relied overmuch on an article written elsewhere. Mistakes had crept in. For example, the Paris Exposition (Exhibition) for which the Eiffel Tower was built was in 1889 not 1878. The Germans adopted 600 mm gauge in 1888, not 1889 when their first locomotives were built. The story about Arthur Koppel visiting the Paris exhibition and having an epiphany under the Eiffel Tower is charming, but just a story. For many months, hard-nosed Prussian 'observers' had been watching the French Army. The future enemy was the source of their ideas!

Henschel"Brigadelok" of 1918. One survivor of arround 2500 built. The attractive wine red frames are prototypical, the red buffing beams are not but are necessary for safety.

The father of portable railways was a French artillery officer, Prosper Pechot. From the time of the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1) he had been agonising over the next war, and how to avoid another defeat for his country. Victory, he knew, would go to the side which was better supplied. The Decauville Company started marketing portable track, largely for agricultural purposes, from 1876. Pechot saw the potential for military applications. Genius is application as well as  inspiration. With much theorising and experimentation, he worked out that 60cm/600mm track with the right design of sleepers, bogies and mechanical haulage could carry supplies in the volume required by a serious assault.
Paul Decauville, Director of the Decauville Company was the first to encourage him, from 1880 onwards, building prototypes so that he could test his ideas. For various reasons, his superiors were suspicious. Early in 1886, the Navy realised the potential and Pechot helped them move 34 tonne guns up vertiginous slopes and remote beaches. The Press finally brought the Army round and Pechot's ideas were officially adopted in 1888.  Then the French Army took a long rest. By 1914, the initiative was with the Germans who had no less than 1000 kilometres of portable track, wagons and locomotives, all ready to support the Schlieffen Plan and invasion. France, then Britain and later the AEF had a lot of catching up to do.

Built for the French Army, a "Joffre" class 0-6-0 built by Kerr Stuart in Stoke

 

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Recent progress on the Hunslet

The start of the month saw the arrival of the laser cut steel frames, buffer beams and rods.  The design work for the etches was completed and sent to the etch company.  Two weeks later this arrived and was assembled.  It went together quite well and exactly fitted the laser cut frames.

The laser cut frames assembled and the test etch made up

At this stage I could have gone ahead but there were some problems.  The first was the tank wrapper had been etched at full thickness to allow for a riveted tank version to be built at some point.  However this was a mistake since it took too long to form the thick metal to conform to the tank frame even after annealing.  The other problem was the detailing of the steel frames was time consuming and expensive.  So, like the buffer beams I decided I would use an etched overlay for the frames that had all the detail on to exact scale.  I also took the opportunity to tweak the etches to simplify their assembly.
The last photo shows this revised etch. I will probably assemble the parts again just to check that everything fits before I go into serious production . If there is a market later on for an etched tank version the overlay can be a separate small etch.

The new etch showing the frame sides and half-thickness tank wrapper.

Time is not being wasted while waiting for these parts.  The Britan lathe is hard at work making bearings, steam fittings, and all the turned parts each engine will need.

He had no truck with these

Why do some folk like rail-mounted guns so much? They pop up in films such as Doctor Zhivago - the best version, the one with Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay and Omar Sharif in which the armoured train bristling with guns is positively a character in its own right. The guns were effective fund-raisers, appearing on war-time campaign postcards, bought by the thousand by the public. They pop up in novels - the sort I wouldn't admit reading! They were loved by newspapers. Pictures from the Boer War show rail-mounted machine guns heading up a train. They are depicted on the front of serious histories. You can't get a more serious historian than Christian Wolmar and his 'Engines of War - how wars were won and lost on the railways' On the book jacket there is a picture of the massive gun the Germans used on the Russian front.
Even my 'other half', normally a reasonable person, is keen. He longs to build a model of such a gun. Oh well, go on, let's have a picture!

Postcard of rail-mounted gun sold to as part of the War Bond Campaign during World War One. The landscape suggests that the gun is on trial in Scotland. The material was passed by the censor who may have demanded that details were omitted. Messrs A.M. David London

When we were planning illustrations for our book 'Colonel Pechot:  tracks to the trenches', Malcolm was very keen to include a picture of a rail-mounted gun.   He was overjoyed when Dr Christian Cenac gave us permission to include a drawing of an affut-truck, the version of the rail-mounted gun which was used on the Pechot system. That is why 'truck' is in the heading. There are some excellent drawings in Cenac's book '60 cm track used to supply the French fronts during the 1914-18 War'
Speaking personally, I am not so keen on the affut truck/rail mounted gun. Truck=bogie can easily be confused with truc=thingy/widget, another splendid French word and so I think of them as 'rail-mounted thingymebobs'. 
To be honest, they were not a great deal of use. If you ask me, a rail-mounted gun is great for selling books but a bit explosive - like sex really.
But as you are reading on, I assume that you want to know all about the affut-truck Peigne. As the name suggests, the idea came to General Peigne. He saw the Pechot system being installed around the frontier fortresses in the 1890s. Rather than trains loading and unloading guns, why not fire them from the train!  There was even the suitable Canet gun carriage. Nothing to his mind seemed more logical and simple. Why hadn't Pechot thought of it?
The 120mm and 155 Court (short-barrelled) guns were both tried on the affut truck. http://fortificationetmemoire.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/AFT2.bmpTo prevent damage to the track, there were fold-out supports which the crew deployed before shooting. Trials were not a great success. The system was a bit flimsy and the operators tended to lose the keys provided for winding out the supports.  A second generation of affut-truck had more sturdy fold-out supports. The fiddly keys were replaced with solid bars with special cradles on the supports.
A photographs in Voie Etroite magazine no 81 shows  an affut-truck with 18 soldiers, plus an inspection squad.  Photographs taken around the place forte/frontier fortress of Epinal  circa 1900 suggest that each gun had a crew of five, not counting the crews bringing ammunition. http://www.fortiffsere.fr/artillerie/index_fichiers/Page1488.htm
Exercises showed that these guns were not actually much use. If they fired, they gave away their position to observers.They could move to shelter before enemy artillery were trained on them, but the rail could not and it suffered accordingly. No wonder Pechot did not approve!
The war service of the rail-mounted gun was short - on the Pechot lines at least. Rather surprisingly, the affut-truck Peigne emerged after the war. Voie Etroite no 79 shows a German 0-8-0 Brigadelok (ceded to France as part of war reparations) pushing a rake of them along the network at Toul. But no, none have been found decaying on a forgotten siding in postwar years.

Hunslet Quarry Tank- Work starts

Hi, I thought it was time to report what is happening in the Wrightscale workshop.  After designing a tool for the laser cutter to work from and taking the prototype to bits to measure all the component to be etched I have finally reached the start of the first batch to be built. The metal is in stock, the castings likewise, and the first batch of laser cut parts and the etch arrived last week.

The first sheet of laser cutting, the loco sides frames, are in the workshop for assembly.  The water tank has been assembled to test the design. Soon there should be an assembled chassis.

I think I am going to overlay the steel frames with etched overlays with the axlebox, rivet and bolt detail etched, rather than assemble the frames using actual scale bolts etc.  It is hard to believe but a single 3/64" brass rivet is now 6p, so I think soldering in 32 per loco pair of frames is a bit over the top.  I have made provision for riveted  running plates and also the water tank can be riveted too.
So now it is test assemble the frames, machine a batch of axleboxes, slip eccentric components, wheels, cranks, crankpins, cylinder covers, valve chests, valves, pistons......... and the chassis can be completed and air tested.
Soon be will be writing to the first few on the interest list to offer them an engine.  Hopefully this batch will be completed later this year. So watch the blog and follow the progress.
Sarah's book- Colonel Péchot: Tracks to the Trenches is getting near the end; she is doing the final proof reading.  So if you want a copy of the authorative book on the innovation of narrow gauge military transport with loads of good photos, lots of drawings, maps and 22 years of research watch out for her postings over the next couple of months.

From 1888 to 2014 and still going strong

The sight of a Pechot wagon at the Apedale Heritage Centre may seem unremarkable. To see it loaded with rail may not excite much interest, save a small sigh of satisfaction. After all it's better to move rail-related material on a railway rather than using road transport. Would you believe it but we have followed a lorry carrying a Caledonian sleeper carriage! But I digress.

Photo courtesy Jim Hawkesworth

Yet this photograph deserves a closer look. Pechot wagons - Artillery 1888 material, to give them the correct name - were built between 1888 and 1893. The one making its way around the yard at Apedale is a sprightly centenarian. In fact, in Tolkien terminology, it has celebrated its eleventy first birthday. As our friend Jim Hawkesworth gathers, the wagon was used by the French army until the Second World War. Somehow it escaped the Germans. It was then used industrially in northern France. At some point, it lost the stanchions which go into the little pockets you can see as bulges along the wagon side. Not only did the stanchions serve to retain the load on the wagon, but they could also be used as re-railing bars. The wagon has also lost the brakestands which should be at each end. Recently, it was purchased by an English enthusiast for  light duties and an honourable retirement.

Photo courtesy Jim Hawkesworth Beside the coupling chain can be seen a pocket to take the re-railing bar - going off the rails occurred all too frequently.

Not many wagons of this age look this good. Other countries such as Germany and Britain emulated the Pechot system. They simplified the design - cut corners, you might say. By the 1960s, their wagons were sad, battered shadows, bulging at the side, bowed below by their load.Their reasoning was sound enough. Even the admirers of Artillerie 1888 admitted that it was 'too complicated, too expensive, too perfect. It couldn't be manufactured in the quantities required for war' (Lt Georges Mangin, who saw service during the First World War) All the same, if you want wagons which wear well, nothing beats a good Pechot design. If the brakestands are removed by some reason, the brakes can still be operated by a screw lever.

The stanchions have survived on this wagon, and also the brake-stand at the left hand side.

The Apedale wagon is not exceptional. When we visited Fermont, a post on the Maginot line, we found another Pechot wagon. It is not quite in original condition; it has been repainted. Originally Artillery 1888 wagons were grey; as we all know, colour was invented half-way through the 20th century! The history of the wagon was something like this. It was used by the French Army and retained at the end of the First Word War. Once plans were made to create the Maginot Line, it was moved east to the frontier with Germany. During the Occupation, it was pushed into the deepest part of the Maginot fortification. When enthusiasts decided to preserve Fermont as a historic monument, the wagon was returned to the surface. There it sits. Like the Apedale wagon, it's still game. Unlike the one in England, it can't move - it is on a short length of track!

Tracks to the trenches - someone else got our title

As you know, we have been preparing a book about Colonel Pechot, a modest French soldier who, almost single-handedly, introduced 60 centimetre gauge railways as a way of supplying an army at war. These  narrow gauge railways were used by both sides on the Western Front and elsewhere between 1914 and 1918. We therefore were going to call our book 'Colonel Pechot: Tracks to the Trenches' If it doesn't say what's inside the tin, folk aren't going to buy the tin; and what applies to groceries, applies also to literature!

The good people at the Apedale Heritage Centre - Loomer Road, Chesterton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs ST5 7RR - have used our title! We are fond of Apedale. It is on an industrial site which took advantage of 60cm equipment that was sold off after the First World War. The site, now run by volunteers, features a coal-mine that can still be visited and an abundance of preserved stock, some of which dates back to the time of the Great War.  One or two photos in our Pechot book were taken there, so we always look to see what's new, so to speak. This time, we were startled to say the least!

We saw a trench!

Digging a trench is hard work and involves some extra materials. You can see how they stand out against the freshly turned earth. When the War began, French soldiers actually had to fight in bright blue uniforms. The British were more fortunate to be in khaki.

For an instant we wondered if we had been swept back in time, but no, the world was still in full glorious colour, and the sound was working perfectly. We went over to investigate. Three lads were indeed digging a trench system.

The trenches are being constructed with corrugated iron, sandbags or, just seen, woven willow

This is to be part of the Living History display at their World War 1 Event which will take place 12th - 14th September. They decided to call the event 'Tracks to the Trenches'
For more details go to www.ww1-event.org

We took a closer look. Three sorts of trenches were under construction. Some had walls of corrugated iron. A length of trench was being skilfully sided with willow - back in the days of the War, some of the conscripts were old-fashioned hedgers and used their skills in the earth of the Western Front. Some trenches were walled with sandbags. Interestingly, if pressed, most veterans of World War 1 used to recount a version of the 'hand' story. A corpse has been incorporated into a trench wall; the hand protrudes. Any soldier passing shakes the hand. My grandpa, who was at the Western Front, used to tell the story. A similar tale was brought home by the soldiers from the Potteries. As Staffordshire is the county of the hearty hand-shake, story ends with the hand coming away in a soldier's grip! If there is a moral to the tale it is this. Veterans of the Great War knew that their listeners would never comprehend the full horror of their experiences. They fell back on macabre humour!

We looked into the construction. As it had been raining, the trench floors already looked authentically muddy. Although they looked deep, walking has to be achieved half-crouching. The trenches follow the authentic pattern of the Western Front, never straight for long. They weren't designed by drunkards; they zig-zig in order to foil enemy gunners.

The material at Apedale is mainly British. The British came late to 60cm railways, starting the War with a small amount of 2'6" gauge material, as I recounted in an earlier blog. Haulage was supposed to be accomplished by animal or human power.

To complete the Trench experience, you have to imagine the full-size version of this locomotive chugging towards the Front. Steam locomotives would stop short of the trenches and allow a petrol-powered one to take the train the rest of the way. Model of a British War Department Baldwin 4-6-0T by Wrightscale

Trench railways were introduced in a 'bottom-up' sort of way. Once the boys on the ground saw the Pechot system, they imitated it. Between spring and autumn 1916, the Top Brass followed, adopting the metric 60cm gauge in preference to 2'

Another system was being developed during the War. You could see from the photographs taken at Apedale how well bright colours show up against mud. The British had learned the value of khaki during the Boer War of 1899 to 1902. The art of camouflage continued to be studied during the 1914-18 War. Indeed, while my grandpa was running bent double along the trenches, Malcolm's grandpa was developing camouflage.

This model was built by Jim Hawkesworth, using a Wrightscale WD bogie kit. It shows a War Department water tank in camouflage. As well as using field colouring, the shape has been 'broken up' to help disguise the shape. WD wagons followed the idea introduced by Pechot - use braked bogies and standardise as far as possible

What if there hadn't been a Pechot?

Looking back at the fifty three months of the Great War, no-one thinks it could have been different. Somehow huge armies on several Fronts magicked the resources to slug it out for a protracted period. In fact, since the American civil war, nothing on this scale had occurred. The answer, we believe, is that portable narrow gauge railways, quickly laid, had overcome the logistics problem. Millions could be fed, watered and reinforced on the field.

Yet the invention was not inevitable. History turns on human will, not on faceless 'forces'. If Pechot hadn't devoted his considerable energies over a life-time to military transport, the French wouldn't have had a supply system ready - well - almost. There were the little problems of actually getting stuff made and training up the troops. They overcame such problems for the best possible reason - the opposition already had railways and trained troops. We are confident that the German Feldbahn system - of just such portable railways - owed its existence to the fact that, some years before the War, they saw what the French were doing!

A 60cm railway goes into the French fort  of Bois L'Abbe near Epinal. Before 1914, the French strategy was to depend on a network of these forts to deter invaders. Supplies and reinforcements were quickly moved thanks to the little railway which was equally at home inside as out.

There was nothing 'inevitable' about the Pechot System. We can imagine how things might have been if there had been no Prosper Pechot. Let us look at the British experience. In the 1870s, around the time that Pechot was looking at difficulties in military transport, the British Army were aware of these problems and setting their best minds to it. Those minds were in the Royal Engineers - allow me to be a little prejudiced - my Grandpa was a Sapper! Railways were the best form of military supply for the period but were hard to lay quickly, one obstacle being steep gradients. Mother Nature does not like flat spaces. If there are any, she fills them up with water. Elevated track in 18" (45cm) gauge looked promising. This was the Fell System. 500 man-days, it was calculated, were required to construct each mile of track. After a few trials in 1872-4, the Engineers filed a report and that was it.

The British Pechot, Mr Henry Handyside, lately Assistant Engineer to the Government of Nelson Province, New Zealand, then came forward. The Handyside Patent System enabled a locomotive to be used as a stationary engine to haul  its train up inconvenient gradients. Existing locomotives could be retrofitted with the necessary equipment. The need for civil engineering was much reduced. Handyside got into the Press and found himself a commercial backer. In 1876, the Royal Engineers were moved to witness trials, and by November 1876, they were ordering their own version - in their favoured gauge of 18". Trials went on until 1885 when it was decided to abandon the system Handyside System altogether on the grounds of unit and operational cost. Metre gauge lines were proposed as an alternative although no-one was delegated to look into the matter. Naivety or complacency? You decide. By 1914, 2'6" (75cm) was the British Army's gauge of choice - not that they had much material anyway (4 1/2 miles).

In the period 1874-80, Captain Pechot of the French Artillerie had conducted trials to determine which gauge would be best for portable military track. When his superiors were too mean or cautious to help him, he turned to Paul Decauville the industrialist. He encountered opposition from the French equivalent of the Sappers. At the time that the British abandoned their trials, the French concluded to their own satisfaction that metre gauge would do for military purposes.  Pechot looked to the Navy for support. Then the Press discovered that all France's defences could be blown to smithereens by high explosive. The Government were forced to act. By sheer force of personality and the sacrifice of all his weekends, Pechot showed that 60cm gauge could, cheaply and quickly, provide the new mobility that was required.

And what of the Germans? They had favoured 75cm for military gauge. When the French were conducting trials around Toul, they too switched gauge to ... 60cm. Soon after the Pechot Bourdon loco appeared, the Germans switched from small locomotives with conical boilers and horse-drawn wagons to a system of bogie wagons of roughly the same dimensions as the Pechot ones, pulled by locomotives analogous to the Pechot one. They worked even harder at field supply than the French. By Christmas 1914, at the time when most experts decreed that the War would be over, it had only just begun.

More progress in the Workshop

More work has been going into the batch of Quarry Hunslets.  Last time I prepared the bar stock to make the cylinder blocks.  This time more of the same.  The first operation is to machine the middle of the block away to form the valve face.

Using the table stops on the mill makes machining the valve face quick work.

This is recessed so that the valve chest sits under the smoke box of the engine. Then narrow grooves are milled across the width of the block, these are to take 1/16" wide keys that retain and lock the block into the frames.  They also provide a useful point to index the block when machining the locations for the cylinders themselves.  Again the face of the machine vice provides the datum, material in the slot  providing a useful stop.  In this way all the blocks end the same size and the cylinders are parallel and the same distance from the face of the frames.  All done without measuring just using a centre finder, the machine vice face  and the stops on the machine.
The next stage is bench work with a small drill press and a pendant drill. This is the bit where a mistake is starting to be costly. First the centre line have to be lightly marked on the valve face.

Having machined the valve face the tool marks have to abraded away without the flatness being lost.

Then the hardened drilling jig is clamped on, sighting the scribed lines through the holes in the jig.  Then the ports are drilled through.  I have found that round ports work perfectly well and drilling them all the same size does not adversley affect the running of the engine.

Using the jig to drill the ports.

Then all the steam ways have to be drilled into the block  and sockets formed to take the inlet and exhaust steam couplings. Connecting the exhaust to the central exhaust ports is the bit I like least since it has to be done by eye using a pendant drill.  If you miss the port  you can write off the block.  The drill press is used to drill from the cylinder face to the inlet ports , it is a deep hole and can wander if the chips are not cleared.

All the steam ways drilled, next make the cylinders.The valve face is offset to one side to give room for the exhaust pipe.