Relics of the steam age...
QUESTION How many old steam railway era roundhouse locomotive sheds are there left in the UK?
Barrow Hill roundhouse at Barrow Hill, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, is a 16-acre site which served Staveley Coal and i ron works. Built as Staveley roundhouse in 1870, after 1948 it became known as Barrow Hill to avoid confusion with the ex-Great Central shed nearby. it was operational from 1870 until 1991.
in 1991, local enthusiasts, with help from Chesterfield Borough council, restored the derelict site to keep the roundhouse alive. The site is now Grade ii listed and used to restore and keep both steam and diesel locomotives and is home to the Deltic Preservation Society depot and museum.
Barrow Hill roundhouse holds steam festivals each year along with occasional real ale and music festivals. My grandfather, Jack Baker, worked there and the roundhouse has one of the little Blackie’s steam locomotives he drove (no 41708) which is still operational.
Margaret Edge, Worksop, Notts. rounDHouSeS are large, circular or semi- circular structures surrounding or next to a turntable. They were used to repair and store steam locomotives.
early steam l ocomotives normally travelled forwards only and later models were optimised for forward travel; a turntable allowed rolling stock to be turned around for the return journey. once a common feature of Britain’s railway network, there is today just one in full working order, Barrow Hill, near Chesterfield.
There are three further roundhouses still intact. The world’s first was built by robert Stephenson in 1839, for the north Midland railway. it was described as ‘a polygon of sixteen sides, and 190 f t diameter, lighted from a dome- shaped roof, of the height of 50 ft.
‘it contains 16 lines of rails, radiating from a single turn-table in the centre: the engines, on their arrival, are taken in there, placed upon the turn-table, and wheeled into any stall that may be vacant. each of the sixteen stalls will hold two, or perhaps more, engines.’
Having narrowly escaped demolition after the closure of Derby railway works, this Grade ii-listed building has been restored as the main campus of Derby College, catering for more than half the college’s 25,000 students. Chalk Farm roundhouse was originally built in 1847 by the london and north western railway and was used for only a decade before becoming a warehouse. The building fell into disuse just before world war ii but reopened in 1964 as a performing arts venue.
St Blazey roundhouse is located in Par, Cornwall. it dates from the opening of the Cornwall Minerals railway on June 1, 1874. engineer Sir Morton Peto built a semi-circular engine shed of nine 70 ft lines around a turntable. each shed had a 58 ft long pit between the rails for servicing engines. The area also had a repair shop, fitting shop, smithy, boiler house and a 2,500 gallon water tower. each line could accommodate two of the 0-6-0 tank engines built for the railway.
The roundhouse has since been converted into industrial units, but since april 1987 the adjacent wagon repair shed has been used to service diesel l ocomotives, passenger trains, and wagons used for china clay traffic. The turntable has been retained to turn the preserved steam locomotives that still visit Cornwall on special main line workings. This roundhouse is under threat through lack of funds.
David Evans, Bude, Cornwall.
QUESTION How do marine scientists calculate fishing stocks — and how accurate are they?
FiSHerieS stock assessment involves estimating how many fish there are and forecasting how many there will be in the future and is a very imprecise science.
Fish in the sea cannot be seen directly. They move about, looking for food or places to spawn eggs. The number of young f i sh a stock produces varies enormously from year to year. levels are determined by a whole range of factors from numbers of adult fish, to predators or prey there are and even prevailing currents. Marine scientists rely on catches and sophisticated guesswork. The model most often used to assess commercially-important fish stocks in european waters is virtual population analysis ( VPa). records of f i sh l anded are used to estimate a ‘virtual’ population.
The model defines the number of fish in a ‘cohort’ based on fishing history and age of the fish. a cohort is a set of fish all having (approximately) the same age. The fisheries model tries to measure the impact catches have on population.
To increase the accuracy of the data the results of fish surveys are built into the VPa, a process known as ‘tuning’. it gives a general view of how many fish there will be in the stock over the next two to three years (the short-term forecast) and ten years (the medium-term forecast). This is important for fisheries management, both for setting the next year’s quotas, and for evaluating longer-term strategic goals.
D. Crofts, Grimsby, Lincs.
QUESTION When doctors carried brandy in their bags, what benefits did they think it had over whisky and/or other kinds of alcohol?
FurTHer to earlier answers, robert Burns had no doubts about the relative values of brandy and whisky, as related in two verses of his poem Scotch Drink. Wae worth that brandy, burnan trash! Fell source o’ monie a pain an’ brash! Twins mony a poor, doylt, druken hash o’ half his days; An’ sends, beside, auld Scotland’s cash To her warst faes. and on the likely ill effect on the health of the nation from the loss of the duty free concession that had been granted to James Forbes’s distillery at Ferintosh: Thee, Ferintosh! o sadly lost! Scotland lament frae coast to coast! Now colic-grips, an’ barkin’ hoast, May kill us a’ For loyal Forbes’ Charter’d boast Is taen awa!