Turning tank engines?

[Wickham Green]

22 hours ago, The Lurker said:

Bromley North as originally built had a turntable. .........

Bromley North and Hayes had 'tables until electrification - no doubt there were others - Bembridge on the Isle of Widget may well be the one BR60103 remembered. 

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

In conversations with old hands from Bolton shed some years back when at the ELR it was generally accepted that tank engines, of which there were L&Y radials and LMS 2-6-4's, were always turned where and when possible. The exceptions were if late running was encountered to save time or if the locomotive had a diagram that included a lot of short to and from work. If the latter was the case then the engine might well be set to deal with gradient profile or sighting considerations being taken into account.

 

Gibbo.

[Wickham Green]

29 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

..... The exceptions were if late running was encountered to save time or if the locomotive had a diagram that included a lot of short to and from work...................

 

This, of course, would include Push-Pull working ( or Pull & Push or Auto Train or Motor Train if you prefer ) where uncoupling and turning would be totally impractical.

[Gibbo675]

3 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Folks,

 

In conversations with old hands from Bolton shed some years back when at the ELR it was generally accepted that tank engines, of which there were L&Y radials and LMS 2-6-4's, were always turned where and when possible. The exceptions were if late running was encountered to save time or if the locomotive had a diagram that included a lot of short to and from work. If the latter was the case then the engine might well be set to deal with gradient profile or sighting considerations being taken into account.

 

Gibbo.

 

3 hours ago, Wickham Green said:

This, of course, would include Push-Pull working ( or Pull & Push or Auto Train or Motor Train if you prefer ) where uncoupling and turning would be totally impractical.

Dear Whickam Green,

 

I would have thought that rather obvious which is precisely why I wrote, "where and when possible" in the bit you left out of your creative editing of my original post and funnier still that you included, "to and from work" in the bit you left in.

 

I despair,

 

Gibbo.

[Compound2632]

Looking through the Warwickshire Railways pages on the Midland suburban services around Birmingham one finds W.L. Good photographed examples of both 0-4-4Ts and 0-6-4Ts working bunker first in the early 20s; there are also examples of 2-6-4Ts working bunker first in photos of later date. Plenty of opportunities to turn the engines on these services, though enough triangular junctions to end up facing bunker first however you started out! 

 

Nevertheless, the point was well made earlier about photographers' preferences leading to bias in the data.

[asmay2002]

On 09/04/2019 at 11:10, jamespetts said:

That gives rise to one further question: I had always assumed that the purpose of express tank engines (such as the River class or the Brighton Baltic) was to reduce the time spent turning engines. If these engines would have been turned in any event, how were these preferable from the railway company's point of view to the equivalent tender engine?

You're hauling less dead weight around so either more load for the same fuel or less fuel to do the job.

 

[gpplumy]

and then you have industrials , where there were not usually turntables but turning triangles . most would run either way, and dont think all industrial routes are scunthorpe extends for miles. however most crew prefere bunker first, and if running slag or other hot wagons then the smokebiox had to be to the rear next to the wagons

[jamespetts]

Goodness - I see that this thread has generated a multitude of replies. This is all very interesting and more detail than I had bargained for! An intriguing discussion of the prosaic details of everyday operations now consigned to history.

[The Johnster]

17 hours ago, asmay2002 said:

You're hauling less dead weight around so either more load for the same fuel or less fuel to do the job.

 

And you take up less space in sidings, headshunts, and on turntables; the big Brighton tanks were produced at a time when railways used to 4-4-0s were having to go 6-coupled with big boilers to cope with increasing loads and were finding it difficult to reconcile the sheer size of these locos with operating practice...

[Wickham Green]

15 hours ago, gpplumy said:

and then you have industrials , where there were not usually turntables but turning triangles ........

The vast majority of industrial systems were little more than 12''-ft shunting puzzles so turning would have been a total waste of time. Those systems with a significant run of 'main line' were, more than often, steeply graded so smokebox uphill would have been advisable.

[phil-b259]

On 09/04/2019 at 11:35, burgundy said:

 

Most runs on the Brighton were sufficiently short for a tank engine to be able to cope quite well.

 

Which is the key factor in why tank engines were so popular on the LBSCR.

 

Why waste money on building longer tender engines (which as you note meant longer turntables and which took up more space on shed) if tank engines will do the job.

 

It was this philosophy which led Maunsell to start building the River class - had the p-way in Kent been better then they could well have been the dominant motive power on all but the heaviest of services.

 

[jazzer]

On ‎09‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 00:24, jamespetts said:

May I ask - in what circumstances were tank engines turned? I had assumed for a long time that tank engines were generally not turned as they could equally well run bunker first. There are plenty of photographs of large tank engines such as LMS 2-6-4Ts being run bunker first (such as here and here). There is also this photograph of an LNER V1 operating bunker first.

 

On the other hand, one does not seem to see photographs of locomotives such as LBSCR I3s, Js or Ls running bunker first. The photographs of the LMS tank engines running bunker first seem to be on local services. This leads me to wonder whether tank engines on passenger trains would generally be turned if the train was not a local train (i.e., if it was a secondary express train, or even a major express train on the lines, such as the LTSR or LBSCR, which ran tank engines on their main expresses).

 

I also note that North Woolwich once had a turntable at the end of the platforms, but that the passenger trains were exclusively hauled by tank engines.

 

Does anyone know the circumstances in which tank engines would have been turned, and whether this changed through time? I should be very grateful.

 The turntable at North Woolwich was really a space saving thing so that locos running into platforms 1 and 2 could be easily switched onto the engine release road that ran between the platform lines. At some point the small turntable was removed ( I think it was bombed in WW2 )  and replaced by points. I think Margate might have had a similar arrangement in at one point before rebuilding.

 

Of course pushing a turntable manually is very hard work and I cant imagine many crews doing it unnecessarily.  I cant remember any pictures of LBSC tank engines running tender first but I think most of the other lines seemed to especially when 2-6-2s and 2-6-4s became common. . Certainly on the LT &S 80 mph in both forward and reverse was common when they had a run missing a few stops. 

 

 

 

 

. 

Edited April 12, 2019 by jazzer

[bécasse]

On 10/04/2019 at 12:46, Wickham Green said:

Bromley North and Hayes had 'tables until electrification - no doubt there were others - Bembridge on the Isle of Widget may well be the one BR60103 remembered. 

Both turntables at Bembridge, a new larger one was installed in 1936, were effectively only used as sector plates. The only occasions when a loco was turned there occurred when a loco was due for shopping at Ryde Works and it turned up there the wrong way round (which was possible before the Newport-Sandown line closed in 1956), the chosen solution being to put the aforesaid loco on the Bembridge turn for a day where it was turned on the turntable on its final working (which involved leaving the carriages at Bembridge, working any wagons from there and St.Helens to Sandown and then returning to Ryde).

Edited April 12, 2019 by bécasse
typo

[The Johnster]

20 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Which is the key factor in why tank engines were so popular on the LBSCR.

 

Why waste money on building longer tender engines (which as you note meant longer turntables and which took up more space on shed) if tank engines will do the job.

 

It was this philosophy which led Maunsell to start building the River class - had the p-way in Kent been better then they could well have been the dominant motive power on all but the heaviest of services.

 

A big tank loco can carry enough coal and water for a non-stop London-Brighton run, 60 miles, a distance suitable for a lot of the Southern’s fast commuter jobs; you can see why Maunsell designed the Rivers. 

 

It is a matter of debate as to whether the Southern would have been better off improving the Eastern Section’s per way in the wake of the Sevenoaks accident rather than withdrawing the locos in a knee jerk reaction. Large fast tank engines were, as we’ve said, ideal in many ways for much of it’s work, and were introduced almost immediately upon nationalisation, LMS types followed by the Brighton designed Riddles 4MT tanks. 

 

 

The LMS had no such trouble with it’s big tanks, from the Fowler 2-6-4T on.  In the event the Southern put it’s money into the 3rd rail, never built another big tank engine for fast work, and converted the Rivers and the big Brighton tanks to moguls. 

 

The River design was in fact exonerated by a trial on the GN main line shortly after the accident; over 80mph was achieved and Gresley, who was on the footplate, reported that the loco’s ride and stability gave him no cause for concern.  One has to give credit to the steady nerves of anyone aboard the loco on this occasion; personally, I’d have been a bit apprehensive (by which I mean bl**dy  terrified) given the class’s well publicised ‘Rolling Rivers’ reputation, even if it was ill-deserved!

 

The GW seemed happy enough with their various large prairies, and the LNER seemed to show little interest before WW2 in big tanks. 

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

the LNER seemed to show little interest before WW2 in big tanks. 

 

... because it had inherited some perfectly serviceable nearly new examples that were adequate to its needs.

[jim.snowdon]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

A big tank loco can carry enough coal and water for a non-stop London-Brighton run, 60 miles, a distance suitable for a lot of the Southern’s fast commuter jobs; you can see why Maunsell designed the Rivers. 

 

It is a matter of debate as to whether the Southern would have been better off improving the Eastern Section’s per way in the wake of the Sevenoaks accident rather than withdrawing the locos in a knee jerk reaction. Large fast tank engines were, as we’ve said, ideal in many ways for much of it’s work, and were introduced almost immediately upon nationalisation, LMS types followed by the Brighton designed Riddles 4MT tanks. 

 

 

The LMS had no such trouble with it’s big tanks, from the Fowler 2-6-4T on.  In the event the Southern put it’s money into the 3rd rail, never built another big tank engine for fast work, and converted the Rivers and the big Brighton tanks to moguls. 

 

The River design was in fact exonerated by a trial on the GN main line shortly after the accident; over 80mph was achieved and Gresley, who was on the footplate, reported that the loco’s ride and stability gave him no cause for concern.  One has to give credit to the steady nerves of anyone aboard the loco on this occasion; personally, I’d have been a bit apprehensive (by which I mean bl**dy  terrified) given the class’s well publicised ‘Rolling Rivers’ reputation, even if it was ill-deserved!

 

The GW seemed happy enough with their various large prairies, and the LNER seemed to show little interest before WW2 in big tanks. 

The Southern's reaction to the Sevenoaks derailment may have been a bit knee-jerk, but it was two-fold. Herbert Walker's direction was, to Maunsell, convert the engines to 2-6-0 tender arrangement, and to the Civil Engineer (Ellson?) , to remedy the permanent way, notwithstanding that the engines might have exonerated themselves on better track. The railway considered that it had to be seen to be taking action, and directly. The permanent way was deficient, but sorting that out would not be a quick, or particularly visible, job; taking the engines out of service, particularly as they had already earned a reputation, was quick, and rebuilding to something that they knew worked, ie the 2-6-0 version at least got their value, as an asset, back into traffic. The public, who provided the revenue after all, could be reassured by actions they could see.

 

it left its mark on the Civil Engineer, in that he would not even countenance large tank locomotives for passenger work thereafter. The W's got by by being freight locomotives, and the arrival of the LMS 2-6-4s wasn't until after his reign had ended.

 

Jim

[burgundy]

Slightly at a tangent to this thread (but when was that ever a problem on RMWeb?!).

The 1922 Working Time Table provides details of the turntables available on the Brighton (and this is after some fairly significant investment during WW1). 

H class locos (both types) required at least a 52' table, K class required a 50' table and classes B2x and B4 required a 45' table with extension bars. All other classes could turn on a 42' table.

There were still a fair number of 42' tables around the system, with larger tables at key locations - particularly reflecting development during the war.

60' Brighton x2, Eastbourne, Newhaven, Three Bridges, Victoria

55' Bognor, Coulsdon, Guildford, New Cross, Portsmouth

52' West Worthing 

50' Battersea Wharf, Fratton, New Cross, Portsmouth, St Leonards, 

45 with extension gear Chichester, Eastbourne, Hastings, Horsham, London Bridge, Tunbridge Wells

45' Lewes, Singleton

42' Barnham Jnc, Battersea Wharf x 2, Epsom Downs, Epsom Town, Haywards Heath, Littlehampton, Pulborough, Seaford

On this basis, the big tanks (classes L, J and I) could operate throughout the system, although there were other constraints, not least the clearances in the SE&CR's tunnels between St Leonards and Hastings.

Best wishes 

Eric 

[D9020 Nimbus]

11 hours ago, The Johnster said:

...the LNER seemed to show little interest before WW2 in big tanks. 

 

The V1/V3 2-6-2Ts weren't all that small! Also they built further GC A5 4-6-2Ts and converted the ex-NER H1s into the A8 4-6-2Ts—widely used in the north-east until the late 1950s at least.

[GlenPudzeoch]

Could it also be that some tank engines were restricted in speed due to wheel arrangements?  I seem to recall something about M&s after an accident on the L&SWR line from Plymouth?

 

GP

[GlenPudzeoch]

ops tripe-o - L&SWR M7s