BR 4MT tanks on Parcels & Goods ?

[PenrithBeacon]

On ‎16‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 01:20, The Johnster said:

IIRC the original intention was that all of the standard locos were to be mixed traffic machines, and the 9F was an anomaly in that sense.  Duke of Gloucester should not really be considered with the standards as it was a one off to replace an 8P, 46202 Princess Anne destroyed in the Harrow accident.  

Excepting that 46202 was really destroyed, just badly damaged; not quite a repair job but it could have been done. Riddles though wanted to have the credit for creating a full range of locomotives. Very much a vanity project.

 

The 9F could have been a mixed traffic engine and some of them were marked 9 instead of 9F. But steam heating equipment would have essential.

[The Johnster]

Well, steam heating was hardly a deal breaker, could probably have been fitted at a main shed.  Evening Star was allocated new to Canton, and the shed put it on the Red Dragon 3 times in the first week, presumably because it was green and shiny and had a nameplate (!) with no comment from the enginemen and the experiment only stopped when somebody official noticed it at Paddington.  The loco was able to time the train unassisted between the bottom of the Severn Tunnel and Badminton, and run happily at the 80mph+ with 14 on that the schedule demanded.  

 

Fast running was also achieved by this loco and other 9Fs on the Somerset and Dorset during the summer loans to cover the Pines.  The 90mph ECML exploit is well known, but the WR and S & DJ work was regular and commonplace.

[Nearholmer]

I wonder how long Evening Star would have lasted on express passenger work before one of its many bearing surfaces overheated, or some vital pin sheared, causing a spectacular failure at high speed? Probably a good job that a it was spotted at Paddington!

[The Johnster]

Well, the S & D worked it's summer loaners pretty hard and fast, and AFAIK never had any such problems with them.  Danny Levi, a Green Park driver who'd transferred to Canton that I remember from my days there in the 70s, told me that they were as fast as a Bulleid light pacific, steamed as easily, and were twice as strong; this may have been a subjective sort of opinion as many drivers' were, but the basic principle is clear enough!

[jim.snowdon]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I wonder how long Evening Star would have lasted on express passenger work before one of its many bearing surfaces overheated, or some vital pin sheared, causing a spectacular failure at high speed? Probably a good job that a it was spotted at Paddington!

If the said 9F could make it all the way from Cardiff to Paddington not just once but three times without distress, the probability was that it was quite capable of doing so on a regular basis. As it is, those were not the only occasions on which 9Fs found themselves on passenger duties, even if officialdom (and not necessarily the engineers) did not like it.

 

Jim

[PatB]

ISTR David Shepherd, in his book on the birth of the East Somerset, recounting numerous anecdotal instances of 9Fs going rather faster than they should have done during the final days of steam. 

[LMS2968]

6 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

If the said 9F could make it all the way from Cardiff to Paddington not just once but three times without distress, the probability was that it was quite capable of doing so on a regular basis. As it is, those were not the only occasions on which 9Fs found themselves on passenger duties, even if officialdom (and not necessarily the engineers) did not like it.

 

Jim

Does the fact that one engine in first class nick (brand new) can do something mean that all 251 of them are equally capable? Problems arise with the square of the rpm, and the small wheels of a 9F meant that there was a lot of potential for damage at high speed to both the engine and track if this had been done consistently. The 9Fs were very smooth riding machines, giving crews an impression that all was well, which might not always have ben the case.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, LMS2968 said:

Does the fact that one engine in first class nick (brand new) can do something mean that all 251 of them are equally capable? Problems arise with the square of the rpm, and the small wheels of a 9F meant that there was a lot of potential for damage at high speed to both the engine and track if this had been done consistently. The 9Fs were very smooth riding machines, giving crews an impression that all was well, which might not always have ben the case.

But that applies to just about any engine.  Rundown engines could be a nightmare for the footplate crew and they suffered breakages of various sorts although rarely (fortunately) breakages which threatened the safety of passengers.  

 

There's no doubt about it that 9Fs could run fast and they did so on the ECML and - to a lesser extent - on the Western.  'Evening Star' was regularly used on passenger work albeit not 'The Red Dragon' and the only reason it was used on the 'Dragon was - according to the Foreman who put the engine on the job (who I later knew as one of my supervisors) - because the booked engine failed and 92220 was standing open and in steam needing little prep before it could go off shed.  It had apparently already been used on opassenger work so it was hardly novelty just that this time it was going to be a faster opassenger train (but hardly very fast on the timings of those days).  The Driver who worked came back more than happy and was keen to take it again apparently.

 

But it was a freight engine and it had small wheels and there was obviously commonsense in not putting it on fast  (for those days) bookings so it was stamped on.  As also happened on the ECML after reports of 9Fs running at very high speed (90mph was claimed in one case) began to come out.

[LMS2968]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

But that applies to just about any engine.  Rundown engines could be a nightmare for the footplate crew and they suffered breakages of various sorts although rarely (fortunately) breakages which threatened the safety of passengers.

Agreed. The obvious LMS example was the mixed traffic Black Five, hopelessy overworked on express passenger turns for which it was never designed and not suitable. Yes, Black 'uns have been timed at 90 mph, and there is a feeling among enthusiast that this is evidence that they WERE suitable for express work. Such people have not travelled on the footplate of a run down Black 'un at 60 mph - I have and it was little short of terrifying! I still don't know how the fireman got coal through a firehole which was bouncing around all over the place.

 

A run down big wheeled engine will run better at speed than a small wheeled one - after all, that's what it was intended to do. And all the masses of coupling and connecting rods, of valves and valve gear, will be moving more slowly, reducing the stresses to both machine and track.

[Titan]

I believe the problems with the 9F's was not so much the danger of something breaking or going wrong, but much accelerated wear of the pistons and valve gear. Not only would the piston speeds have been much higher than designed for, the loading on them increases with higher speed too, so a double whammy of extra wear. Any driver may have been oblivious to this as despite that they seemed to ride smoothly and perform well at speed, perhaps giving a false sense of capability. When the reason for some 9F's having abnormally high rates of wear were discovered, then instructions on not to do that with them were issued...

[The Johnster]

16 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

If the said 9F could make it all the way from Cardiff to Paddington not just once but three times without distress, the probability was that it was quite capable of doing so on a regular basis. As it is, those were not the only occasions on which 9Fs found themselves on passenger duties, even if officialdom (and not necessarily the engineers) did not like it.

 

Jim

Don't forget it must have worked back with a stopper as well, less sustained high speed running perhaps but it's still a good schlep from Swindon to Newport...

[The Johnster]

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

But that applies to just about any engine.  Rundown engines could be a nightmare for the footplate crew and they suffered breakages of various sorts although rarely (fortunately) breakages which threatened the safety of passengers.  

 

There's no doubt about it that 9Fs could run fast and they did so on the ECML and - to a lesser extent - on the Western.  'Evening Star' was regularly used on passenger work albeit not 'The Red Dragon' and the only reason it was used on the 'Dragon was - according to the Foreman who put the engine on the job (who I later knew as one of my supervisors) - because the booked engine failed and 92220 was standing open and in steam needing little prep before it could go off shed.  It had apparently already been used on opassenger work so it was hardly novelty just that this time it was going to be a faster opassenger train (but hardly very fast on the timings of those days).  The Driver who worked came back more than happy and was keen to take it again apparently.

 

But it was a freight engine and it had small wheels and there was obviously commonsense in not putting it on fast  (for those days) bookings so it was stamped on.  As also happened on the ECML after reports of 9Fs running at very high speed (90mph was claimed in one case) began to come out.

The Red Dragon was not particularly fast work by concurrent WR standards, none of the South Wales trains were, compared to, say, the Bristolian, Cornish Riviera, or Paddington-Birmingham 'Inter City', and was loaded for a 7P loco, normally a Britannia.  The other standard bearers, the Pembroke Coast Express and the South Wales Pullman, were Castle jobs.  The selling point of these trains was that they were non stop from Newport, but running time from Newport was 2 hours 55 minutes.

 

This equates to an average non-stop speed of about 53mph, a bit pedestrian for an express.  By 1972 it was down by a full hour, with speed restrictions at junctions raised and loads limited, an average of about 77mph with a 47 and 9 airco mk2s, still within the 90mph line speed.  Interesting but academic to speculate what a Castle might have done with such a load under those conditions...

 

What was really needed was a capable loco for a tough long slog with 14 coaches unassisted, 16 assisted to Stoke Gifford, on the up run (the down was much less arduous) from the bottom of Severn Tunnel to Badminton at between 50-60mph without breaking the fireman's back, though it might have broken his heart...  A 9F is absolutely perfect for this, though less so for the faster work further upline.  The Britannias were well regarded for it as well, as the Saints had been in their day; something about 2 cylinder slogging I suppose.

 

West of Stoke Gifford, there is little opportunity for really fast running anyway; line speeds were 75mph from there to Leckwith Jc with plenty of other restrictions and the 90mph line speed between Leckwith and Briton Ferry is pretty restricted over much of it's length and includes gradients.  What Canton wanted, and had since 1927, was Kings and they got them for a brief period at the end of steam operation of the named trains; no timing reduction was attempted.  Hymeks, hopelessly underpowered, took the mantle on from the Kings, and were well out of their depth!

Edited July 21, 2019 by The Johnster

[RLBH]

On 20/07/2019 at 18:06, DavidCBroad said:

i suspect that the BR left hand (HQ) did not know what the right hand (Swindon, Doncaster etc) was doing.

I'm not entirely convinced that one hand knew what its fingers were doing, much less the other hand!

On 20/07/2019 at 18:31, Nearholmer said:

Because nobody would be daft enough to buy 500 race-horses, when most of the jobs could be done by less expensive-to-keep animals.

That was more or less the LMR's opinion of the prototype Deltic. Great performance, come back to us when it doesn't cost a fortune to run.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Staying off topic a bit with the 9F situation, we discussed this recently and I calculated that the wheel speed of a 9F at 90mph would be approximately 505rpm, whilst the A4 at 126mph is 530rpm. 

Given the slightly longer cylinders (IIRC) of the 9F that would mean at 90mph it's pistons would be doing about the same speed along the bore in mid stroke as Mallard at 126mph. 

[DCB]

On 20/07/2019 at 19:54, LMS2968 said:

Would you care to explain that please? Why would it make more sense to employ two sets of men, use two lots of coal and incur two lots of maintenance instead of using one larger engine and the economies that brings, or should the LMS / LMR reverted to Midland Railway ideology from pre-1923?

Nothing wrong with pre 1923 Midland idiocy.  Why BR adopted Midland idiocy in 1955 with thousands of type 2s intended to run double headed (In case one broke down?) with just one driver and secondman maybe an inspector and a couple of fitters

Its pretty well documented that Duchesses didn't steam well on Perth Coal.  Crewe pleaded with Perth not to use Duchesses on ill in turns between the runs on the sleepers so after topping up the tender with Perth coal they had dug down to some good Crewe coal before the climb to Beatock and Shap on the return run. The sleepers were not tightly times, well within the range of a 6ft wheel loco, but again its well documented that Duchesses did suffer badly form slipping, worse it seems than the Princess's. Using pairs of Black 5s which thrived on Perth Coal and could also work other turns instead of lounging around Perth loco all day sounds like a good idea to me, as does loco changing at Carlisle instead of Crewe like the Caley and LNWR did.   Me thinks Crewe loco and Crewe works couldn't bear to lose the prestige of being involved in the Anglo Scottish sleepers.     This dislike of Perth (Scottish?) coal is maybe why the Duchesses were all scrapped by the end of 1964 while the Gresleys with smaller substantially smaller fireboxes, 40 vs 50 sq ft continued on the Aberdeen Glasgow LMS route trains for at least one more year.  The Loco the LMS needed was the GWR 47XX, but at a push I reckon a King would have done a better Job.  OK the Duchess was faster, 114 against 108 but that was a stunt whereas the King achieved 108 on the CRE with paying passengers aboard

The Duchess was a racehorse mainly employed on carthorse duties.  The LMS had plenty of work for at least 10

[LMS2968]

Not with you on any of that. The point of a wide firebox and matching ashpan was that allowed the use of inferior coal containing a lot of ash and a lower thermal content. If a Pacific struggled on Perth coal - and they weren't too happy with it - then a narrow firebox would be worse off. This became more of an issue over long distances and a Black 'un to Carlisle would be fine, but going on to Crewe was a  different matter.

 

The Big 'uns could run - and had to. The overnight trains were heavy and the overall times don't look challenging, but they involved several prolonged stops and point to point timings were often quite tight. The Perth Postal usually loaded over 600 tons and sometimes got around 700; these engines were expected to work them unassisted, and did so. Allan C Baker has a lot to say about these trains, about the engines that worked them, and about the crews who manned them.

 

The diesel ethos was that you built smaller, cheaper locos and ran them in multiple; you had the same manning requirements whether you had one big diesel or five small ones. It didn't work because the maintenance regime applied to each engine, so you had five times the maintenance costs - or however many - against the single big diesel's costs. But like a lot of other issues, all the requirements and problems of dieselisation weren't realised when the decision to go that way was made, but that's another story.

 

And by the way, the Stanier Pacifics' withdrawal owed more to the electrification between Crewe and Euston and the plethora of EE Type 4s (Class 40s) than anything else, perhaps influenced by a Chief from the ex-LNER who had no time for them. But there were only 22 Deltics across the Pennines...

[jim.snowdon]

53 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

Nothing wrong with pre 1923 Midland idiocy.  Why BR adopted Midland idiocy in 1955 with thousands of type 2s intended to run double headed (In case one broke down?) with just one driver and secondman maybe an inspector and a couple of fitters

There's a world of difference between working a train with two steam locomotives, needing four people to operate, and two diesel-electric locomotives working in multiple and needing only two people (and even one of those was really only retained to keep the unions happy). The reference to maybe an inspector and a couple of fitters is a red herring.

 

58 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

The Duchess was a racehorse mainly employed on carthorse duties.  The LMS had plenty of work for at least 10

To get authority to build 36 Coronations late in the 1930s on a railway that was still a private company needed a sound business case and support from the operators. The LMS didn't build them for the fun of it but for getting heavy trains over a route whose northern part is anything but a racecourse.

 

Jim

[doilum]

2 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

There's a world of difference between working a train with two steam locomotives, needing four people to operate, and two diesel-electric locomotives working in multiple and needing only two people (and even one of those was really only retained to keep the unions happy). The reference to maybe an inspector and a couple of fitters is a red herring.

 

To get authority to build 36 Coronations late in the 1930s on a railway that was still a private company needed a sound business case and support from the operators. The LMS didn't build them for the fun of it but for getting heavy trains over a route whose northern part is anything but a racecourse.

 

Jim

Were gathering war clouds an influence on the authorisation?

In the event of war heavy troop movements on the wcml, and if somehow peace prevailed, a loco to take on the A4s.

[jim.snowdon]

6 minutes ago, doilum said:

Were gathering war clouds an influence on the authorisation?

In the event of war heavy troop movements on the wcml, and if somehow peace prevailed, a loco to take on the A4s.

Bear in mind that the authority would need to have been sought well before the arrival of the first locomotive, not least to allow for the time required for the detailed design and the manufacture of not just components but tooling and the procurement of raw materials.

 

Jim

[TheSignalEngineer]

2 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

If a Pacific struggled on Perth coal - and they weren't too happy with it - then a narrow firebox would be worse off. This became more of an issue over long distances and a Black 'un to Carlisle would be fine, but going on to Crewe was a  different matter.

Perth liked to get the last bit of coal dust out of the wagon into the tender.

A temporary measure by Kevin Lane, on Flickr

[bingley hall]

On 12/07/2019 at 22:35, Pete the Elaner said:

Sorry to state the obvious but...

They were designed for freight, which is why there were 4MTs, not 4Ps.

 

I can't believe 5 people agreed with the above. 

 

http://www.burystandard4group.org.uk/80097-br-4mt/history-of-the-standard-4-class

 

The Standard 4 tanks were originally allocated to all regions of British Railways, except the Western. They became particularly associated with the London, Tilbury and Southend Line (LT&S) working commuter services out of London until that route was electrified in 1962.

They were also widely used in East Sussex and Kent working from Brighton, Tunbridge Wells and Three Bridges on those lines of the former London Brighton and South Coast Railway that were not electrified. Another group worked from Polmadie depot in the Scottish region on the Glasgow commuter services. Note that from July 1962, a batch displaced by electrification of the LT&S was transferred to the Western Region’s Swansea (East Dock) and Shrewsbury districts, as well as other regions.

 

 

[Pannier Tank]

23 minutes ago, bingley hall said:

 

I can't believe 5 people agreed with the above. 

 

 

I did suggest "I thought they were designed for Mixed Traffic hence 4MT." (see reply 7 posts down from the one you quoted) but was accused off  "being a little picky" !!

[DCB]

10 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

To get authority to build 36 Coronations late in the 1930s on a railway that was still a private company needed a sound business case and support from the operators. The LMS didn't build them for the fun of it but for getting heavy trains over a route whose northern part is anything but a racecourse.

 

Jim

They were ego tripping to top the LNER, pity they didn't top the P2s which was a much better concept for the heavy sleeper trains.

I suspect Perth had coal rather like the GWR used, too soft for the wide firebox locos but ideal for the Caley locos with their fierce draft and narrow fireboxes.  Which ever I have never seen any suggestion of poor steaming with pairs of Black Fives hauling the same trains north of Perth.

[jim.snowdon]

It's called competition. As it is, when it comes to the engineering, the Coronation is a better machine than the P2, which was blessed with the dynamics of a large 0-8-2, questionable valve gear and middle big end and frames that tended to be on the light side.

 

Now, where were we? BR class 4 tanks.

 

Jim 

[pH]

1 minute ago, jim.snowdon said:

Now, where were we? BR class 4 tanks. 

 

Oh, we left them loooooong ago!