Midland Railway 0-6-4T

[carlwebus]

Hi

 

I just bought the 0-6-4T loco model shown in my picture.  I knew it wasn't what it purported to be.  The Midland 2000 class Flatirons never made it to BR - let alone to late crest!

 

But I cannot  find a record of the loco - except that it was probably scrapped in 1938.

 

Can anybody fill in some history?

 

Also I wonder  what make of kit is is from?

 

[uax6]

I'm guessing its a SE Finecast kit. Still available as are parts from them....

 

Andy G

[Joseph_Pestell]

You are correct that they were withdrawn in 1938. Some years before that they had been relegated to freight work as they were unstable at passenger speeds leading to a derailment. Not the only tank loco with large water tanks to suffer that fate.

 

IIRC, the design dates back to 1907, so they had a reasonable length of service.

 

The SE Finecast (Wills as it was back then in the early 70s) was my first whitemetal kit. I think they do a chassis kit for it these days but back then it just slotted onto a standard Triang-Hornby Jinty chassis.

[uax6]

They do do a chassis kit now, you are correct.

 

Andy G

[brossard]

I started a thread here:  http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115104-deeley-0-6-4t-flatiron-water-pickup-apparatus/  I didn't finish because I switched to 0 gauge.  The part built kit was sold to a member.

 

I made a scratch chassis but SEF do an etched one.

 

John

[Joseph_Pestell]

We are assuming the OPs loco is 4mm scale. Slater's do it in 7mm.

[EddieB]

Like Joseph, the Wills "Flatiron" was my first attempt at a whitemetal kit, fitted on to a Triang-Hornby Jinty chassis (with seriously undersized driving wheels) and Romford bogie wheels (on Jackson insulated axles, IIRC).

 

A class of forty, all were built in Derby in 1907, keeping the same numbers (2000-2039) throughout their career.  As if the large tanks weren't enough, class members 2012-2039 were fitted with water pick-up apparatus.  All were reboilered with the G7S superheated boiler during 1922-7, and all withdrawn between 8/1935 and 11/1938 (2012, the supposed "late crest" example in the OP's photo).

[Steamport Southport]

We are assuming the OPs loco is 4mm scale. Slater's do it in 7mm.

 

Not with a RTR chassis and sitting on OO gauge track though.

 

 

 

Jason

[John_Miles]

The class was notable for being rather slow. They were tried out on the LT&SR and couldn't keep to time. They were initially used on suburban passenger services, for example around Manchester and Birmingham. The design of the tanks led to instability at speed. There were two major derailments IIRC, one on the Nottingham Lincoln line and one near Ashchurch on the line from Evesham.

[chris45lsw]

The class was notable for being rather slow. They were tried out on the LT&SR and couldn't keep to time. They were initially used on suburban passenger services, for example around Manchester and Birmingham. The design of the tanks led to instability at speed. There were two major derailments IIRC, one on the Nottingham Lincoln line and one near Ashchurch on the line from Evesham.

The Nottingham-Lincoln derailment was on 6 June 1928.  2015 hauling the 8.00pm Lincoln-Tamworth mail derailed at 60mph between Swinderby and Collingham.  There was one fatality and a number of other injuries (mainly Post Office staff).

 

Chris Knowles-Thomas (of Collingham!)

[DCB]

The Nottingham-Lincoln derailment was on 6 June 1928.  2015 hauling the 8.00pm Lincoln-Tamworth mail derailed at 60mph between Swinderby and Collingham.  There was one fatality and a number of other injuries (mainly Post Office staff).

 

Chris Knowles-Thomas (of Collingham!)

Midland locos were noted for being both speedy and also powerful sloggers at low speeds, it was the lack of power in the middle and upper speed ranges which they lacked. Many large tank engines were unstable at speed but running off straight track into a field and turning over at 60 mph was a bit extreme, at a time when new 2-6-4Ts were running up to 80mph without issue.

The 0-6-4T was great PR for the Midland with minimal work.  Drape tanks and bunker onto a bog standard 0-6-0 and something as flashy as a LNWR or GC 4-4-2T was in service quickly.  It may even have had other advantages over the old 0-4-4T, apart from a bigger cab. The nonsense also produced LNWR and GC 4-6-2 tanks which were ujseful engines as well as various 4-6-4T s about which the less said the better.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Not with a RTR chassis and sitting on OO gauge track though.

 

 

 

Jason

I couldn't get the photo big enough to be sure.

[John_Miles]

One of the reasons for the instability was they put side play on the front axle - just like we do with models but with all that water slopping about in those long tanks, it wasn't a good idea. The Locomotive Superintendent did submit some other designs with a leading pony truck but couldn't get them past the Civil Engineers who were a major brake on Midland locomotive development.

[The Johnster]

I have often wondered why baffles were not tried in the tanks of tank engines required to run at any sort of speed, in order to dampen the surging movement of water within them (this might have been an advantage in tender tanks as well).  I suspect the flatirons were too compromised a concept to be much of a success anyway, but baffles might have transformed the running of the 'Rivers', which had the potential to be very useful engines indeed on the Southern's fast outer suburban runs, a concept proved in early BR days by LMS and BR standard 2-6-4 tanks.

[PenrithBeacon]

One of the reasons for the instability was they put side play on the front axle - just like we do with models but with all that water slopping about in those long tanks, it wasn't a good idea. The Locomotive Superintendent did submit some other designs with a leading pony truck but couldn't get them past the Civil Engineers who were a major brake on Midland locomotive development.

The MRs civil engineer always gets the rap, but the truth is that the railway expanded very rapidly in the period 1850-1880 and a lot of the construction work was done as cheaply as possible. This left a legacy of weak bridges hence small engines and an anxious civil engineer.

 

The LMS started to resolve the issue but the depression held it back. It wasn't solved until the war years.

 

Regards

[John_Hughes]

The MRs civil engineer always gets the rap, but the truth is that the railway expanded very rapidly in the period 1850-1880 and a lot of the construction work was done as cheaply as possible. This left a legacy of weak bridges hence small engines and an anxious civil engineer.

 

The LMS started to resolve the issue but the depression held it back. It wasn't solved until the war years.

 

Regards

 

The Flatiron tanks were pretty enough engines, but - as others have suggested - the absence of slosh-plates in those big tanks may well have contributed to their instability, and one wonders why that simple solution wasn't at least tried out on one or two members of the class.

 

The SR River tanks had no problems at all when tested on the LNER's better quality track, but were clearly very unstable when running on their home turf. Slosh-plates might have helped there too, but what was really needed was immediate and thorough attention to 'line and level' as well as proper ballasting to avoid 'pumping'. But conversion to tender engines was perhaps the most cost-effective approach there in the medium term.

[PenrithBeacon]

The Flatiron tanks were pretty enough engines, but - as others have suggested - the absence of slosh-plates in those big tanks may well have contributed to their instability, and one wonders why that simple solution wasn't at least tried out on one or two members of the class.

 

The SR River tanks had no problems at all when tested on the LNER's better quality track, but were clearly very unstable when running on their home turf. Slosh-plates might have helped there too, but what was really needed was immediate and thorough attention to 'line and level' as well as proper ballasting to avoid 'pumping'. But conversion to tender engines was perhaps the most cost-effective approach there in the medium term.

The problems with this engine were to do with its design not the civil engineering.

The LMS decided, rightly, that they were coming to the end anyway so it was better to withdraw them.

[kevinlms]

The problems with this engine were to do with its design not the civil engineering.

The LMS decided, rightly, that they were coming to the end anyway so it was better to withdraw them.

Agreed. A small class of 40 locos & the LMS had some excellent 2-6-4T's at the time of withdrawal. Why waste money on old stagers.

[The Johnster]

The Flatiron tanks were pretty enough engines, but - as others have suggested - the absence of slosh-plates in those big tanks may well have contributed to their instability, and one wonders why that simple solution wasn't at least tried out on one or two members of the class.

 

The SR River tanks had no problems at all when tested on the LNER's better quality track, but were clearly very unstable when running on their home turf. Slosh-plates might have helped there too, but what was really needed was immediate and thorough attention to 'line and level' as well as proper ballasting to avoid 'pumping'. But conversion to tender engines was perhaps the most cost-effective approach there in the medium term.

 

 

While I would agree that Per Way standards were not the best on the Southern's Central and Eastern sections, a legacy of cheap and cheerful construction in the first place in many instances, it is only right to mention that much of the underlying geology of Kent and Sussex is not favourable or conducive to the best standards of tracklaying or maintenance; chalk grinds into a clay and will not drain, and that's the nearest thing down there to proper rock, everything else is gravels and alluvial clays.

[Leander]

Agreed. A small class of 40 locos & the LMS had some excellent 2-6-4T's at the time of withdrawal. Why waste money on old stagers.

'Scrap and build' was the phrase used to describe Stanier's re-stocking of the LMS loco fleet in the 1930s. Outdated pre-grouping designs were replaced in quantity, with this class, given its known deficiencies, having no chance of survival.

[PenrithBeacon]

'Scrap and build' was the phrase used to describe Stanier's re-stocking of the LMS loco fleet in the 1930s. Outdated pre-grouping designs were replaced in quantity, with this class, given its known deficiencies, having no chance of survival.

This is undoubtedly true, but what I find odd is that these problems only seem to have appeared in their fourth decade of use. Why?

[relaxinghobby]

How did the Midland Flatiron tanks compare to other big 0-6-4 tanks of other railways?

From a similar era the North Staffordshire Railway class F with 5' 6" coupled wheels.

The SECR J class fast passenger tank with  again 5' 6" wheels and the Lancashire, Derbyshire

and East Coast Railway also had an 0-6-4t but I think it was a small wheeled, slow, coal hauler?

[John_Hughes]

Scrap and Build there certainly was, and given the inadequacy of much of the former MR locomotive stable (the 'small engine' policy lasted long after its sell-by date) it was certainly necessary.

 

I do find myself wondering, however, why some of former LNWR loco classes survived the cull while locos like the Flatirons were turned into razor blades. I instance the coal tanks and the Super D classes; the former wasn't terribly good at stopping, and the latter, it's said, sometimes wasn't much of a cop at moving itself, let alone a goods train!

 

Politics?

[PenrithBeacon]

Scrap and Build there certainly was, and given the inadequacy of much of the former MR locomotive stable (the 'small engine' policy lasted long after its sell-by date) it was certainly necessary.

 

I do find myself wondering, however, why some of former LNWR loco classes survived the cull while locos like the Flatirons were turned into razor blades. I instance the coal tanks and the Super D classes; the former wasn't terribly good at stopping, and the latter, it's said, sometimes wasn't much of a cop at moving itself, let alone a goods train!

 

Politics?

The LMS had a policy of 'local standardisation' where pre-group locomotives which weren't going to be replaced by LMS standards in the short and medium term where collected together into geographic regions so that they could be put to good use. In this way various pre-group designs lived on into the 1950s and some into the 1960s too. Those engines that could be replaced by LMS standards such as the Midland and NSR 0-6-4Ts went quite quickly, or as soon as their boilers needed replacement. Others, like the LYR, MR and CR 0-6-0s, lasted pretty well until the end of steam.

 

Beames, at Crewe, did a lot of work to bring the 0-8-0s into the 20th century. He had the lubrication system, the axleboxes and the brakes redesigned in the 30s which was one reason why they lasted until 1964. Other LNWR designs went early and non except the 0-8-0s wouldn't have lasted much into the 1940s if it hadn't have been for WW2. I saw the last Cauliflower (itself an example of local standardisation) at Preston in the mid-fifties on its way to Crewe for cutting up. They were replaced by Ivatt 2-6-0s in Cumbria in the fifties and by MR 2Fs at Willesden in the late 40s, yet another example of local standardisation.

 

Much the same can be said of the LNER too about local standarisation.

 

Regards

[coachmann]

With large driving wheels, a set of guiding wheels would have solved the problem, hence the Fowler 2-6-4T and its deriviants.  But the MR fckwits in charge of the LMS never learned from this nor any other development and trotted out a further drawing for an 0-6-2T as late as 1930. The final outcome was a 2F boiler mounted on a 2-6-2T chassis complete with with inadequate bearings and short-travel valves. We know it as the Fowler 2-6-2T, but even Stanier barely improved on the design with his taper boiler version. It took Ivatt and Riddles to sort matters out with the 2MT Mickey Mouses.