Fowler 4F, really a poor loco?

[LMS2968]

That wasn't how it worked, not after Stanier became CME anyway, although it was what happened before that. The Operators / Traffic Dept, whatever you want to call them, requested a number of locos from the CME to do specific duties over specified lines. It was then up to the CME to decide if an existing design was to be provided or work begun a new one. Stanier would not have wanted the 4F, but as I've said elsewhere, the Drawing Offices had difficulties coming up with a replacement within the weights allowed.

 

Don't believe everything you read from Brian Haresnape.

[John_Miles]

You've said this before, but I'm still waiting. Cox, who was no more fond of the LNWR than of the Midland said that they were good engines, despite that their hot box record was about 50% worse than the 4Fs', but didn't mention the comparative loadings. It should also be said that the G2as - G1s with higher boiler pressure - retained their original boxes and axle diameters; the G2s proper had increased sizes to match their power output.

 

I still await your evidence regarding the downgrading of the lubricant used. As has already been stated, Sir Joshua Stamp had instituted statistical analysis of loco performance, including casualties. This formed the basis of the mass withdrawal of some classes, and had the oil change caused a spike in axlebox performance, this would have been made apparent very quickly, questions asked, heads roll and a reversion to the earlier product demanded.

 

I answered this in this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/133032-lms-locomotive-design-features-analysed/?hl=%2Badrian+%2Btester

 

and as you posted after my answer, I presume you read it.

[coachmann]

The late Brian Haresnape and I corresponded on BR liveries, in fact his last letter to me was just before his tragic death. He tried to cover a lot of ground in his livery books, which was a big ask. Anyone with knowledge would spot the mistakes anyway. I cocked up with a caption in a magazine article on BR liveries several decades ago and once it is in print, you are doomed!  

[OFFTHE RAILS]

I've just finished reading "Mendips Enginemen" by A W Smith, a former Branksome fireman and Donald Beal's regular mate. His thoughts on the 4F are scathing "There is nothing I can say in their favour" then he goes on to list the short comings. A weak boiler, rough riding, poor footplate including a slatted footboards which at anything above slow drew ash up from the pan and boiler front.

Is this just one firemans opinion or is the critism justified?

Interesting - In the same book where Smith condemns the 4F as having a weak boiler he rates the LMS 2P 4-4-0 highly. They have the same G7S boiler......

Possibly the firebox ashpan airways differed....

Ian

[LMS2968]

The late Brian Haresnape and I corresponded on BR liveries, in fact his last letter to me was just before his tragic death. He tried to cover a lot of ground in his livery books, which was a big ask. Anyone with knowledge would spot the mistakes anyway. I cocked up with a caption in a magazine article on BR liveries several decades ago and once it is in print, you are doomed!  

Yes, been there, got the tee shirt...

 

But he did seem to have a few errors more than desirable.

[Compound2632]

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway had over 85% of its goods stock as fully fitted vacuum brake and the remainder through piped by circa 1910.

 

Sorry to return to this OT remark but what is your source for this statement? Perusal of Noel Coates' two volumes on L&Y wagons certainly doesn't support it. I will give you that the L&Y does seem to have been building a high proportion of vans and other specialised vehicles - including loco coal wagons - with AVB by this date.

[LMS2968]

I answered this in this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/133032-lms-locomotive-design-features-analysed/?hl=%2Badrian+%2Btester

 

and as you posted after my answer, I presume you read it.

Indeed I did, but it was a while ago and there was an awful lot in that thread!

 

I still await the source on the lubrication. Post war, the LMS had three grades of lubricating oil: No. 1 express goods working; No. 2 local goods working; No. 3 shunters.

 

 

This is from the LMS Maintenance book for the 8Fs:

 

 

As to the Ds' axleboxes, Ted Talbot in his book on the lNWR eight-coupled locos hardly mentions them, although he cover the various classes very thoroughly, warts and all!

[ejstubbs]

There has been a lot of misinformation about 4Fs which has been discussed in length elsewhere on RMWeb so I am not going to repeat it here.

 

That's OK, plenty of other RMWebbers have stepped in to give all the well-rehearsed old arguments one more airing...

Edited August 26, 2018 by ejstubbs

[The Johnster]

Interesting - In the same book where Smith condemns the 4F as having a weak boiler he rates the LMS 2P 4-4-0 highly. They have the same G7S boiler......

Possibly the firebox ashpan airways differed....

Ian

 

And possibly a loco that manages fine with big 7' wheels on a light and easily timed secondary passenger duty might, with the same steam raising and machinery, perform differently when required to slog on a heavy goods train.  The ashpan airway on the 2P was higher off the ground and had more space beneath it, but I doubt that this would be the deciding factor.  That said, a fire will draw better both from the ashpan and the chimney when it is popping along at a decent speed*,more usual with a 2P than with a 4F.

 

*Of course, the fire doesn't do any speed at all, just stays in the firebox unless something has gone very badly wrong, but the firebox is attached to the loco and tends to follow it around at about the same speed as the rest of the loco.  Alternatively, the loco stays still and the driving wheels propel the rest of the universe past underneath it; relativity gets a bit confusing sometimes!

[Gibbo675]

Sorry to return to this OT remark but what is your source for this statement? Perusal of Noel Coates' two volumes on L&Y wagons certainly doesn't support it. I will give you that the L&Y does seem to have been building a high proportion of vans and other specialised vehicles - including loco coal wagons - with AVB by this date.

My dear Mr Compound,

 

I have read rather a lot of books upon all manner of subject topics including the L&Y and its mania to fit vacuum brakes to its wagons over the last forty odd years and all I know was that it was a reliable source, a book on BR wagons perhaps, or even a L&Y Journal type publication, who knows ? It may have been that they were aiming for that figure by that date but were not quite there.

 

Unfortunately I am unable to furnish you with this specific detail.

 

The reason for this is that my head is a shed, sorry about that !

 

Gibbo. 

[PenrithBeacon]

Interesting - In the same book where Smith condemns the 4F as having a weak boiler he rates the LMS 2P 4-4-0 highly. They have the same G7S boiler......

Possibly the firebox ashpan airways differed....

Ian

Before the Scots appeared the 2Ps could be on expresses from Euston. True they were restricted to seven coaches without a pilot but they were rostered for express passenger service.

[Compound2632]

Before the Scots appeared the 2Ps could be on expresses from Euston. True they were restricted to seven coaches without a pilot but they were rostered for express passenger service.

 

Their antecedents, the 483 Class, were the most numerous class* of express passenger engines on the Midland in late pre-Grouping and early LMS days. The Midland's main lines weren't particularly flat.

 

* Marginally more numerous than the standard 2P engines.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Before the Scots appeared the 2Ps could be on expresses from Euston. True they were restricted to seven coaches without a pilot but they were rostered for express passenger service.

I remember Midland-built 2Ps running Gloucester - Birmingham semi-fasts showing a good turn of speed with light loads. The stoppers were only booked one minute longer unaided from a standing start up Lickey than an express with bankers. I'm not sure how a 4F coped when one of those was used, which happened quite often between the 2Ps being scrapped and Barnwood getting some Standard 4-6-0s.

[pH]

A regard the G&SWR, of course they liked the 2P and Compounds, because prior to them coming, they only had two superheated locomotives on the whole line!

Not so. While there were not many superheated G&SWR engines, there were more than two. By the time of Grouping, there were the following:

 

2 '512' class 4-6-0s (I presume these are the two engines you're referring to)

6 '325' class 4-4-0s

11 '33' class 2-6-0s (the 'Austrian Goods')

6 '540' class 4-6-4Ts (the 'Baltics')

1 '394' class 4-4-0 ('Lord Glenarthur')

 

Also, by the time the first Compounds and 2Ps arrived, superheating of the 6 '331' class 4-4-0s had been started by the LMS. Eventually, 5 of these were superheated, though the last of these was not done until 1931.

[DCB]

Interesting - In the same book where Smith condemns the 4F as having a weak boiler he rates the LMS 2P 4-4-0 highly. They have the same G7S boiler......

Possibly the firebox ashpan airways differed....

Ian

The 2P was a much better "Balanced" design.  Tales of the S&D and G&SWR have 2Ps working absolutely all out, maximum cut off almost blowing off and slogging it out on 6 and 7 coach trains up the gradients at not that much more than a walking pace at times.  The 2Ps were limited by their cylinders the 4Fs by the boiler though

I beleive the boiler was essentially the same on the 4F and  the Belpaire 2P ( and the Belpaire 3F)  but obviously the 2P had a different smokebox and a very different chimney, so the drafting was different.

The 2p could also fly down the banks riding very well up into the 80s on light trains or piloting while the 4Fs became distinctly uncomfortable. 

The 4F had very cramped valve gear and huge inclined cylinders squeezed in around the leading coupled axle.  Th inclination couldn’t have helped the axlebox wear. I don’t for one second believe the traffic department wanted more 4Fs, they probably wanted more 3Fs but Derby said they were obsolete and the 4F was the white hot leading edge of technology. P Johnson in “Firing Days at Saltley” comments on how sluggish the 4Fs were compared to the 3Fs until they “Warmed up” a comment made about a lot of Superheated locos vis a vis their saturated counterparts.  It would be interesting to compare 4F and 3F (or Dean Goods) steaming rates.   When introduced 1911? the Midland had no suitable power for the fast fitted freights then becoming popular, the 4F made sense as a lash up of a superheated 3F as a temporary expedient for fast freights but the GWR, GNR, LBSCR etc had 2-6-0s in development if not in service, while the  LNWR, GCR and Caledonian had settled on the 4-6-0 while the Highland outscourcing design to I think North British Loco co had modern 4-6-0s ( Clan Goods) with Walschaerts valve gear for the same sort of work.  Such a shame they didn’t build 8 4Fs and 800 Clan goods instead of the other way round.

[coachmann]

A glance at the small firebox on a Dean Goods is enough to tell me I would be shoveling coal all shift. This is what happened on the L&Y A Class 0-6-0's if asked to do a road job instead of pilot work. On a 4F, I only threw a couple of shovel fulls down each side the box. It wasn't my engine and so I don't know what the fireman thought of the machine. I'll bet the men at Lees would have been glad of half a dozen 4F's in place of the A class once they got used to them. The shed had Fowler 2-6-2T's and 7F 0-8-0's. I mean things couldn't have gotten any worse, but it was an LNWR outpost in L&Y territory and the men stubbornly refused to admit they had crap.

[Compound2632]

 

P Johnson in “Firing Days at Saltley” comments on how sluggish the 4Fs were compared to the 3Fs until they “Warmed up” a comment made about a lot of Superheated locos vis a vis their saturated counterparts.  It would be interesting to compare 4F and 3F (or Dean Goods) steaming rates.   When introduced 1911? the Midland had no suitable power for the fast fitted freights then becoming popular, the 4F made sense as a lash up of a superheated 3F as a temporary expedient for fast freights but the GWR, GNR, LBSCR etc had 2-6-0s in development if not in service, while the  LNWR, GCR and Caledonian had settled on the 4-6-0 while the Highland outscourcing design to I think North British Loco co had modern 4-6-0s ( Clan Goods) with Walschaerts valve gear for the same sort of work.  Such a shame they didn’t build 8 4Fs and 800 Clan goods instead of the other way round.

 

 

Terry Essery.

 

The two prototypes were built in 1911; volume production began in 1917. The Class 4 goods engine was rather more than just a superheated Class 3; bigger cylinders as well as bigger boiler, hence more power. They were certainly thought of as mixed-traffic engines - in the Victorian tradition of regarding AVB/Westinghouse-fitted 0-6-s as such. On the other hand, 4-4-0s were used on fast freights by night as well as passenger trains by day. Don't overlook as well the fact that the Midland had 42ft turntables at many of its principle goods engine sheds - which would require . Engines have to be turned!

 

There were other infrastructure requirements. If a 4F could haul a train that was as long as could be accommodated in the refuge sidings, there was no need for anything more powerful.

 

Not a bad locomotive but a locomotive that has received a bad press. 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Compound2632

[The Johnster]

Their antecedents, the 483 Class, were the most numerous class* of express passenger engines on the Midland in late pre-Grouping and early LMS days. The Midland's main lines weren't particularly flat.

 

* Marginally more numerous than the standard 2P engines.

 

But the trains were short, certainly in comparison with the LNWR's; the Midland's policy was for frequent services of shorter trains within the capacity of the 'small engine' policy.  The hills north of Leeds demanded double heading, and this was commented on in an unfavourable light in the enquiries to the accidents at Ais Gill and Hawes Junction, both of which involved light engines being forgotten by signalmen; the sheer number of light engine movements putting undue pressure on the signalmen and the line's capacity in the view of the Inspectorate.

[LMS2968]

Midland engines were built, not unreasonably, to meet Midland operating conditions, which were very different from most other railways'. From the Grouping, James Anderson, who believed that Derby represented perfection in all things (a similar view prevailed at Swindon, though probably with greater justification) became locomotive superintendent and decided that the new, enlarged system should be run on Midland lines and with Midland locos. That this didn't work wasn't the fault of the locos, but they were removed from the cossetted environment in which they worked so well and into the much harsher, especially on the LNWR, reality of LMS traffic generally. The 4F design was, in any case, already twelve years old at this point.

 

It wasn't that the Derby 4 was a bad engine; in Midland days it had been a good one. But it wasn't really the right one for the LMS and BR, but the LMS's failure to design a viable alternative gave it a lifespan, and build total, far beyond what should really have happened.

[Compound2632]

But the trains were short, certainly in comparison with the LNWR's; the Midland's policy was for frequent services of shorter trains within the capacity of the 'small engine' policy.  The hills north of Leeds demanded double heading, and this was commented on in an unfavourable light in the enquiries to the accidents at Ais Gill and Hawes Junction, both of which involved light engines being forgotten by signalmen; the sheer number of light engine movements putting undue pressure on the signalmen and the line's capacity in the view of the Inspectorate.

 

Exactly so - the two companies' passenger traffics were different in nature, owing to the companies' different geographies - the Midland main line serving many more centres of population than the West Coast main line; where they were in direct competition, between London and Lancashire and Scotland, the LNWR having the lion's share of the passenger traffic; etc. The Midland's small engine policy, if we are to call it that - and it was really only so after c. 1905 - was a result of this different approach to passenger traffic, rather than a consequence of it. But as you say, this approach broke down on the rather different conditions of the Settle & Carlisle. The Midland management was aware of this at the beginning of the century - with the company's most powerful engines, the first two Compounds, being allocated to the heaviest Leeds-Carlisle expresses. At that point, the run of Midland express passenger engines were bigger and more powerful than their LNWR equivalents - and the LNWR was making extensive use of double heading from the 1890s through to grouping.

 

On a point of fact, only the Hawes Junction accident involved light engines. The Ais Gill accident was in part due to a shortage of pilot engines, along with poor-quality coal at Carlisle.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Compound2632

[APOLLO]

 

Brit15

[PenrithBeacon]

But the trains were short, certainly in comparison with the LNWR's; the Midland's policy was for frequent services of shorter trains within the capacity of the 'small engine' policy. The hills north of Leeds demanded double heading, and this was commented on in an unfavourable light in the enquiries to the accidents at Ais Gill and Hawes Junction, both of which involved light engines being forgotten by signalmen; the sheer number of light engine movements putting undue pressure on the signalmen and the line's capacity in the view of the Inspectorate.

The Midland did not have a small engine policy! This is enthusiasts tosh! The 4F was larger than many other companies 0-6-0 designs and the Compound was very much a medium sized engine well into the 1940s having a heating area comparable with the Stanier mogul for example.

 

What the Midland did have was a network that was built in the 1840-1900 period that needed it’s bridges renewing so it could deliver the sort of services required for the 20th century. The problem was that it depended on the coal trade to do this and that coal trade was undermined by the development of the LD&ECR. This railway is often derided by enthusiasts because it didn’t get to Lancashire or the East Coast but it provided good profits for the GCR and GER and syphoned off traffic from the Midland whose profitability was severely impacted by the railway.

 

Quite simply the MR had to delay bridge renewal on many lines because finance wasn’t available in part because of the LD&EC but also WW1. Eventually the LMS and later the REC did the work.

 

And you shouldn’t think that other railways got away with it either. For example the design of the Claughtons and the Castles were badly affected by civil engineering issues. There are other examples too.

[coachmann]

 At that point, the run of Midland express passenger engines were bigger and more powerful than their LNWR equivalents - and the LNWR was making extensive use of double heading from the 1890s through to grouping.

My ribs are killing me through laughing.............Oh dear..........Midland engines were bigger and more powerful than their equivalent on the LNWR!  I can't follow this thread any longer... It's unbelievable.

[bbishop]

Midland engines were built, not unreasonably, to meet Midland operating conditions, which were very different from most other railways'. From the Grouping, James Anderson, who believed that Derby represented perfection in all things (a similar view prevailed at Swindon, though probably with greater justification) became locomotive superintendent and decided that the new, enlarged system should be run on Midland lines and with Midland locos. That this didn't work wasn't the fault of the locos, but they were removed from the cossetted environment in which they worked so well and into the much harsher, especially on the LNWR, reality of LMS traffic generally. The 4F design was, in any case, already twelve years old at this point.

 

It wasn't that the Derby 4 was a bad engine; in Midland days it had been a good one. But it wasn't really the right one for the LMS and BR, but the LMS's failure to design a viable alternative gave it a lifespan, and build total, far beyond what should really have happened.

 

So you mean Operating Superintendent?

 

Bill

[Compound2632]

My ribs are killing me through laughing.............Oh dear..........Midland engines were bigger and more powerful than their equivalent on the LNWR!  I can't follow this thread any longer... It's unbelievable.

 

At the time of which I was speaking, around the turn of the century, Crewe was turning out Webb's 4-cylinder compounds of the Jubilee and Alfred the Great classes - 40 of each. Put these alongside the contemporary Johnson Belpaires (also 80 in number). It would be unfair to draw a comparison with the Compounds.

 

Go back just another ten years and compare Webb's minuscule 2-4-0s with Johnson's 4-4-0s...

 

And anyway, who could possibly object to the sight of two such perky little engines at the head of a train?

 

Glad to be providing entertainment!

Edited August 27, 2018 by Compound2632