The Great Fire At Brown Marshall - A New Light on Lulu?
The biggest problem in researching early TR history is usually lack of concrete facts. For years it has seemed obvious that the reason for buying the solitary Lancaster Railway Carriage & Wagon Company coach, No. 4 Lulu, must be either that Brown Marshall could not supply immediately or that the railway wanted to save money. But there matters have rested.
Sometimes you can get a new line by making a cross-reference. I noticed that the Festiniog had changed from Brown Marshall to Ashbury in 1867-8 and as the FR has a very large archive, I wondered whether any reason for doing so had been recorded. A query to Peter Johnson initially yielded that it was probably another case of either supply or price. But following up the question in the British Newspaper Archive, he promptly discovered that there was a fire at Brown Marshall at the end of July 1866.
There was too, a huge blaze which destroyed an entire erecting shop, 30 finished carriages and the frames of some more – at last a solid reason why the firm might not have been able to supply another carriage without substantial delay, just as the TR was finally ready to open for passengers. The Birmingham Journal reported on 4th August 1866:
EXTENSIVE FIRE AT THE BRITANNIA CARRIAGE WORKS
A very serious fire broke out on Sunday evening last, in the extensive works of Messrs. Brown Marshall, and Co., Saltley, The works cover about thirteen acres of ground, and employ about 900 hands. At present the company are very busy with a number of large orders, the most important of which are for the Delhi Railway. The nature of this work naturally requires shopping of a very extensive character, and when the fire broke out every portion was full of carriages, the major portion of which were almost completed. There is one range of shopping which measures 100 feet in length by 200 feet in breadth, and this is only separated from the portion destroyed by a brick wall. The shop which was wholly destroyed was 160 feet long by 50 feet deep. It contained about thirty finished carriages - twelve first-class, for Delhi; twelve Ulster goods vans; and three for the Glasgow and South-Western line. Besides these there were a number of other frames which were completely destroyed. The fire was first seen about six o’clock . . . The flames also set fire to three or four vans which were standing on the line of the London and North-Western, and much injury was done to them... In addition to the fire engines we have named, there was also a small engine belonging to the works, which rendered eminent service. This was drawn into the shop adjoining the one on fire, and was kept constantly playing on the walls and roof, by which means the whole place was doubtless saved. The damage sustained by the firm alone is estimated by them at £5,000.
Thus the second carriage reported as ordered and on its way in Tyler’s second report may well have been No. 4 Lulu.
It is not known how the TR chose Lancaster but No. 4 was one of the earliest carriages the firm built. Founded in 1863, it began building wagons in 1865, not producing its first carriages until March 1866, according to Gillian Woodhouse in a short history based on reports from the Lancaster Gazette. I have reconfirmed the key facts. Reported shareholders’ meetings of the period mention major problems of attracting sufficient capital and gaining orders for the new company, so it is likely that the firm would have been very keen to do a quick cash job for the TR.
Lancaster RC&W later produced many high quality vehicles but Lulu was a coach built by a company that hadn’t done much coachbuilding – to which the obvious comment is that it shows. John Bate describes the original construction as that of a typical 19th century goods van, an outer framework with a single skin of planks on the inside. The original door height of only 4’10 ½” was less than ideal, even for shorter 19th century passengers.
No. 4 was also remarkably similar to the many crude, old-fashioned Third class and Parliamentary train vehicles used by main line companies too impecunious, parsimonious or contemptuous of their poorer passengers to offer them anything better. Assuming that Lulu was the second TR carriage, this is a good reason why the McConnels reverted to Brown Marshall for the final pair of carriages, today’s Nos 1 and 2. These were bought to strengthen the set in time for the summer tourist traffic.
At that time only the comfortably-off could afford to take holidays. They needed to be convinced that narrow gauge travel was safe, comfortable and in fact jolly good fun. In an acutely class-conscious society, more Lulus simply would not have done. The BMs on the other hand were very good vehicles for their date, miniature versions of the latest main line practice. The Dolgoch viaduct photo, believed to date from 1867, shows every sign of being a PR shot. I believe it was specifically arranged to show off the classy BMs and that No4 was deliberately excluded. This would still hold true even if the photo were slightly later.
I think Lulu was bought as a stopgap, rather than as a workman’s vehicle, but by default it became one, being basically used for quarrymen’s trains and as reserve Third class in the holiday season. I can find only one photo of No4 being used in the standard mixed train of two carriages plus van.
Another important aspect of the Brown Marshall blaze is how it affected delivery of the van. The original works drawing is dated 19 July 1866. As this was only 10 days before fire broke out on July 29th, it seems very unlikely that the vehicle was finished by then.
It is not known whether the van was present for Tyler’s inspections, but it has seemed likely that it was because he would presumably have commented adversely on lack of a brake vehicle for passenger trains. The blaze offers the possibilities that Brown Marshall expedited all existing orders for which it still had the material and No. 5 was delivered on time, or that it was delayed and Tyler accepted its absence as circumstances beyond the TR’s control, or that it was seriously delayed and this was a reason for further delay in starting passenger services on 22 December 1866, some six weeks after Tyler gave his approval on 8th November.
Many thanks are due to Peter Johnson, John Bate and Martin Fuller for their help.
Eddie Castellan
