Talk:North British, Arbroath and Montrose Railway

DYK

Nominated for DYK at Template:Did you know nominations/North British, Arbroath and Montrose Railway. Simply south...... eating shoes for just 7 years 21:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Race to the North

I am finding such a bizarre range of reports differing in whether there was one race or two, or an informal series, as well as who "won". So, I have removed everything except the details that seem to be agreed until there is something credible. Of course, Race to the North ought to have sorted all this out. Thincat (talk) 21:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't a formal "race" as such, and there was no overall winner; but the fact that the last 38 miles were run over a shared line, meant that there was an effective "winner" for each day - whichever train passed Kinnaber Junction first would have a clear run to Aberdeen.

It was more of a rivalry - a question of honour if you like - that stretched over less than two weeks in August 1895 between two groups of railways. These were the LNWR & Caledonian in the west, running from Euston; and the Great Northern, the North Eastern and the North British in the east, running from King's Cross. Each group had a long-established timetable for their London-Aberdeen services, but one day that August, one group tried to poach passengers from the other by cutting a few minutes from their schedule. The next day, the other group would respond by cutting a few minutes from theirs, and so it went on, day by day. Various methods were used to enable the trains to run faster - they cut out some of the stops, used a second locomotive, and ran the train with fewer coaches (for example, over the Carlisle-Perth stretch, the gross weight of the coaches on 17 August was 207 tons - on 23 August it was just 72+1⁄2 tons). With such a short train, most of the prospective passengers could not be carried (particularly those who wished to travel to the stops that were no longer observed), and so a second train had to be run, with a larger number of coaches at a lower speed, which followed the first out of London by a few minutes, but naturally took much longer to reach Aberdeen. Eventually, both groups realised how silly it was and called a truce, following which they restored the train lengths and timetables to something like the original situation.

But as far as the North British, Arbroath and Montrose Railway is concerned, it was not an active participant - it had long since been swallowed up by the North British Railway, so it was really the NBR that did the "racing", using the NBA&MR line merely because it ran in the right direction. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:54, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I've now found a 1914 book online which I regard as reliable so I have added to the article and I have reserved a book from the library. Everything checks out with what you say and you have more details. Race to the North should really be updated but my mind is on this article right now. Thincat (talk) 19:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Ref 17

I'm a bit concerned over this reference in that it seems like it was a reference from a search engine. If you could find an alternative on the timings (e.g. timetable although that's a bit of a grey area). The reference in particular is the fastest timing on the East Coast Main Line and the Sleeper. Simply south...... eating shoes for just 7 years 22:16, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I've altered things a bit. Thincat (talk) 20:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)