Sir Daniel Gooch

[Malcolm Robinson]

Barry Mead has just sent me this...........probably the most famous 'son of Bedlington'.

Metropolitan Railway (London Underground)

When this line opened to the public on 10 January 1863 with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, it was the world's first underground railway

Concern about smoke and steam in the tunnels led to new designs of steam locomotive. The first public trains were hauled by broad gauge GWR Metropolitan Class condensing 2-4-0 tank locomotives Nos. 320 and 321 designed by Daniel Gooch and built at Swindon. They were withdrawn in 1881.

To reduce smoke underground, at first coke was burnt, changed in 1869 to smokeless Welsh coal.

The London Underground when it opened in 1863.

[mercuryg]

An under-sung great man, tremendous engineer.

[Keith Scantlebury]

Barry Mead has just sent me this...........probably the most famous 'son of Bedlington'.

Metropolitan Railway (London Underground)

When this line opened to the public on 10 January 1863 with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, it was the world's first underground railway

Concern about smoke and steam in the tunnels led to new designs of steam locomotive. The first public trains were hauled by broad gauge GWR Metropolitan Class condensing 2-4-0 tank locomotives Nos. 320 and 321 designed by Daniel Gooch and built at Swindon. They were withdrawn in 1881.

To reduce smoke underground, at first coke was burnt, changed in 1869 to smokeless Welsh coal.

The London Underground when it opened in 1863.

Did you see the report on telly yesterday morning? They were running a steam loco with Victorian carriages to celebrate the 150th aniversarry of the origional line opening. They said that the first engines did not have cabs on them !! Can you imagine working on one them down there for a 12 hr. shift. Your lungs would be well and truly kippered!!!! Edited January 11, 2013 by keith

[Malcolm Robinson]

Did everyone know Queen Vic would ONLY travel by rail if Sir Daniel Gooch was in the drivers 'seat'!

When he laid the first transatlantic cable they lost it loads of times......and found it again to join more on?????? Take about a needle in a haystack!

Sounds like he was right handful at school, not the normal academic.

I like him and I like Longridge.

[Malcolm Robinson]

BTW,

A certain company in Bedders is on TV soon............the Restoration man fronted by George Clarke used them for a pretty intricate bit of engineering!

17th Jan. C4.

[Symptoms]

A couple of interesting articles from The Engineer Magazine of 1895 about the Metropolitian Line; the first one is about the rolling stock and the second about the line engineering. That second article clearly shows how the tube is all 'ups and downs' (even the new lines are), something obvious even today when taking the tube - you feel the motors pulling up gradient and coasting down gradient. The second article also outlines all the ventilation factors as hinted at by Keith.

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/journals/pdf/24214.pdf

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/journals/pdf/24215.pdf

[HIGH PIT WILMA]

As an old ex-miner,the question arises in my mind,as to why there are so many variations of gradient at all!

When extracting coal seams,you "follow" the natural strata "ground".

Generally-speaking,the strata rises to the west,and,obviously,dips to the east,with undulations occurring

along the way.

If in the days when they mined out the tunnels for the underground railway,they didn't have powerful enough

explosives to blast through the "cross-measure" of the strata,to keep a level horizon,then they would have

had to follow the horizon of the natural base stone ground where they chose to start the first section of tunnel.

Am i making sense to everyone on here?

On the other hand,bearing in mind London was still very young as a city,they may have had to alter the depth of the tunnel because of the differing

intensities of properties they were mining beneath.

I am wondering if anyone has any positive ideas about this?...or am i talking silly here?!!

[Symptoms]

Years ago on the telly I saw a programme about the tube and I recall a couple of geological facts mentioned.

Imagine London as the face of a clock. Between 7 o'clock, through noon and then around to 3 o'clock London is essentially built on clay so it's relatively easy to tunnel. Between 3 o'clock around to 7 o'clock it's built on mainly gravel type stuff and so is relatively difficult to tunnel through (keep the water out). This is one reason why SE London has few or no tube lines (until recently). It was also cheaper to run surface track into SE London ... lots of it on 'elevated' track for Southern Region (or whatever they were called way back). I also think that some of the tunnels had to go down deep (one is 200ft down) to miss the numerous rivers which ran north/south into the Thames. I'm sure there must be other factors. Of course a lot of the lines are near the surface and were constructed by 'cut and cover'. Anybody here who's ever travelled on the Underground will remember the strange sensations of the movement of the carriage - up and down, left and right - as the train moves forward through tunnels that are not straight or level.

Factor in the building development of SE London ... this FOLLOWED after the surface tracks were built. So all those agricultural spaces between the small villages and hamlets south of the Thames got built on

Edited January 24, 2013 by Symptoms

[threegee]

An under-sung great man, tremendous engineer.

...because his politics didn't suit local sensibilities at the time (or since)! Result: the town bit its own nose off to spite its face. Quite a few parallels there then, and something it honed to a fine art!

[Maggie/915]

Last week there was a programme on Shipbuilding on the River Clyde Thursday BBC4.

The whole programme was on laying cables, sadly our man never got a mention.

Worth watching if you can get it on I Player.

[Maggie/915]

The programme is called

Clydebuilt - The Ships that Made the Commonwealth.