Sanding

Heavy trains can be pulled by rail because the friction between steel rail and steel tyre is very low — very much less than the friction of a lorry tyre on today’s roads, so much less energy is wasted. Conversely, the driving wheels  of engines could easily slip if too much power was applied. The solution was to direct carefully-dried sand to where the wheel met the rail. Steam sheds needed heated sand-dryers. The LNW sometimes used small wind shields to stop the wind blowing away the sand — on the high hills wind could be very troublesome! However, it proved perfectly possible to get even such a simple thing as sanding wrong: On the 19” Goods  the initial sandbox position proved impossible to fill and had to be re-positioned.

Brakes

Considering the load they often had to stop, brakes were often atrociously poor. Early engines only had tender brakes and even when they were fitted to locomotives they were made of wood blocks, using poplar as it does not burn. Great care was required in bringing a train to a stop. The crew must have had some nervous moments in wet weather wondering if they could stop in time. The ‘Coal tanks’  were notable for their poor braking and there were reports on more than one occasion in the steep Welsh valleys of an engine whistling madly as it rushed downhill out of control pushed by its train, smoke pouring from smouldering brake blocks.

Cabs

Early engines had no cabs, simply a weather board   which gave no shelter. Several opinions are offered on why cabs did not appear sooner: Tradition has it that enginemen were a tough, hardy lot who took pride in withstanding the rigours of the weather. While there was plenty of heat from the fire, ascending the mountains of Shap or South Wales in the teeth of a westerly gale without any protection seems unnecessary bravado.

The late Prof. Tuplin blamed the need for cabs on small boys. Since they could never be dissuaded from experimenting to find out what happened if they dropped a brick down the chimney from a bridge, all too often they got their timing wrong and the brick hit the unfortunate crew. So his argument was that cabs became necessary to give protection. And who can say he was wrong?