Imaginary Locomotives

[Niels]

On 14/04/2019 at 16:35, SteamedLyons said:

Interesting this cut and weld.

Try it on a LNER P2 and get something like:

Surburban LNER P2

Edited April 16, 2019 by Niels

[RLBH]

2 hours ago, Niels said:

Interesting this cut and weld.

Try it on a LNER P2 and get something like:

Surburban LNER P2

Wasn't there a Gresley 2-8-2T (possibly to be classed P10) that was never built?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

20 hours ago, RLBH said:

... a 5MT 4-6-4T is something I keep playing around with. It would definitely be an imposing (and capable) locomotive. I fear that weight would be its' downfall, though - Baltic tanks kept falling foul of it in Britain...

Improvement in technique might well make it more practical in weight by the time Riddles was in office. Where it falls down I suspect is in coal and water range. The justification for the larger boiler over the class 4 is that higher sustained power output is required. So a significantly larger water reserve is required for safety as compared to the class 4 tank, and that constrains the coal capacity to much as that of the class 4 = probably out of coal well before the shift had ended if being worked to its power potential. (The success of the LMS/BR class 4 2-6-4T development indicates a 'sweet spot' for large tank locos within the UK's railway system's constraints.)

 

19 hours ago, RLBH said:

...a 2-8-4T version with 60" drivers, which would be a seriously imposing machine for short-distance heavy freight work.

You may well have seen a model based on the Stanier class 4 2-6-4T with the '2-6' removed and the 8F running gear substituted? Practically 'builds itself' for a very handsome 2-8-4T that looks very convincing. A BR standard 5 based 2-8-4T on 60" wheels would be something...

 

1 hour ago, RLBH said:

Wasn't there a Gresley 2-8-2T (possibly to be classed P10) that was never built?

An outline proposal. Another easily achieved from RTR parts, take a worn out split chassis V1 or V3 , and 'Doncasterise' a Stanier 8F mechanism with cylinders, gear and trucks stripped off the V1/V3, put the body on top, done!

[Corbs]

34 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

 

You may well have seen a model based on the Stanier class 4 2-6-4T with the '2-6' removed and the 8F running gear substituted? Practically 'builds itself' for a very handsome 2-8-4T that looks very convincing. A BR standard 5 based 2-8-4T on 60" wheels would be something...

 

from a few pages back, this photoshop

[SteamedLyons]

Noting the feedback, I'd try to rectify the range problems, but we'd end up back where we started... Very nice to see people discussing the idea though, made my day for sure, especially Corbs' usual speedy lashup!

 

21 hours ago, Satan's Goldfish said:

I'm Looing at it and wondering if the boiler could be a bit longer (looks potentially a touch short compared to fire box and smoke box size) and it then makes a very imposing 4-8-4 tank...

I'd agree about the boiler looking out of proportion honestly, but I'm not entirely sure why it ended up like this. Perhaps the initial disaster I mentioned lead up to this caused more damage than we'd thought! I might look into a 4-8-4 actually, I've already done a standard 8F and a 4MTT is definitely a massive gap in the roster (the only standard tank I haven't done!) It is at a much smaller scale, however, 34 pixel's tall as an average, so while that'll give an impression I doubt it'll be as nice as the few large scale mock-ups I've done. I'm going to include a said 8F below as a test to see how it comes out on here, and if it looks good, people can still make it out okay and enjoy it I might post more of the smaller stuff!

 

[The Johnster]

We've seen the BR standard 2-8-4T before, but I reckon it would have probably had smaller than 5' driving wheels and might even have been a 2-10-4T with 4'8½" wheels.  Such a loco would have been a bit niche; Lickey and Worsborough banking, heavy transfer or other short haul freight, and hump shunting, but pre-1955 BR was not shy of producing niche locos such as the 77xxx if they saw a need.  I doubt it would have had the water or coal capacity for the other usually mentioned short haul heavy jobs, the Newport Docks-Ebbw Vale and Tyne Dock-Consett iron ore trains.  

 

It might just even have had 3 cylinders for smoother starts and to keep within the loading gauge over width, and of course 3 cylinders leads us into Duke of Gloucester country with British Caprotti valve gear and double chimneys.  While we're at it, let's have boosters on the trailing wheels as well to get those heavy loads under way.  I'd stop short of smoke deflectors, though; this thing's never gonna go fast enough to use them...

 

In the event, there were enough 9Fs to go around for Ebbw Vale, Consett, and the Lickey.

[RLBH]

3 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

We've seen the BR standard 2-8-4T before, but I reckon it would have probably had smaller than 5' driving wheels and might even have been a 2-10-4T with 4'8½" wheels.  Such a loco would have been a bit niche; Lickey and Worsborough banking, heavy transfer or other short haul freight, and hump shunting, but pre-1955 BR was not shy of producing niche locos such as the 77xxx if they saw a need.  I doubt it would have had the water or coal capacity for the other usually mentioned short haul heavy jobs, the Newport Docks-Ebbw Vale and Tyne Dock-Consett iron ore trains.  

I think such a machine is more credible as a tender than a tank locomotive, probably for exactly those reasons; main line work for a handful of big 8-coupled tank engines probably existed, hence the GWR 72xx class, but not much, else there would have been more like them!

 

As a tender locomotive, the Riddles 8F 2-8-0 makes perfect sense - use a 5MT boiler and cylinders and 60" drivers from the 9F, you get similar tractive effort to a Stanier 8F but slightly higher speeds and better balancing. It all fits together quite nicely. There's definitely work for something like this, but there are also the best part of a thousand ex-War Department 2-8-0s that work perfectly well.

 

For Consett and Ebbw Vale, there's the Durrant 2-14-2T, or better yet a 2-8-2+2-8-2 Garratt.

 

[The Johnster]

I’d go for a Garratt for Ebbw Vale; much better on those sharp Western Valley curves.  But where a big tank scores over a tender equivalent is in adhesive weight. 

 

 

[Gibbo675]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

I’d go for a Garratt for Ebbw Vale; much better on those sharp Western Valley curves.  But where a big tank scores over a tender equivalent is in adhesive weight. 

 

 

Hi Johnster,

 

You need one of these for the valleys:

 

Granted it will look better once finished.

 

Gibbo.

[Javier L]

9 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Johnster,

 

You need one of these for the valleys:

 

Granted it will look better once finished.

 

Gibbo.

Ill say, this reminds me very much of the Erie Tripex, What a fascinating machine!

[AlfaZagato]

47 minutes ago, Javier L said:

Ill say, this reminds me very much of the Erie Tripex, What a fascinating machine!

Now we'll need to discuss what Riddles would create for a triplex.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Johnster,

 

You need one of these for the valleys:

 

Granted it will look better once finished.

 

Gibbo.

Nah, rigid wheelbase is too long.  

[Gibbo675]

12 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Nah, rigid wheelbase is too long.  

Hi Johnster,

 

It is a Kitson-Meyer type and they are a type of bendy tank engine.

 

Gibbo.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Johnster,

 

You need one of these for the valleys:

 

Granted it will look better once finished.

 

Gibbo.

1 minute ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Johnster,

 

It is a Kitson-Meyer type and they are a type of bendy tank engine.

 

Gibbo.

Ah.  In that case I think it needs a chimney at the bunker end and smaller driving wheels to clear whatever that trunking beneath the cab is (steam pipes?) on the Western Valleys’ bendy bits. 

[rockershovel]

Actually, I could really picture a sort of GWR-era FCAP Kitson-Meyer slogging through the Western Valleys! 

[micknich2003]

Rockershovel, possibly something like this?.

[rodent279]

What about a subtle twist on what's already there?

How about a 9F, but with 3 cylinders, slightly smaller so no need to be inclined? Smoother starting, smoother at speed, maybe even with British Caprotti gear? Is that a useful beast?

[rockershovel]

50 minutes ago, micknich2003 said:

Rockershovel, possibly something like this?.

 

Something very much like that, yes!

[micknich2003]

5 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

Something very much like that, yes!

Rockershovel, if I live long enough I will have a go at a model, Gauge 1 would be nice.

[rockershovel]

11 hours ago, micknich2003 said:

Rockershovel, if I live long enough I will have a go at a model, Gauge 1 would be nice.

 

It would definitely need to be an Edwardian, pre-Grouping style, though. Kitson-Meyers seem to have done their best work where nothing else could cope with the conditions, and distances were fairly short (the Andean locomotives being notable exceptions to the latter, although the Trans Andine Railway was only 248km in all). 

 

Of course, there’s this

https://philmortimer.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/building-the-kitson-meyer/

 

Garratts seem to have displaced them by being a generally superior design. 

 

 

[Compound2632]

I hadn't come across Robert Stirling (the younger) before. 

[PhilMortimer]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Of course, there’s this

https://philmortimer.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/building-the-kitson-meyer/

 

Why thank you Sir! I enjoyed building this one a lot for my formative OO9 layout. (No dinky 0-4-0T's for me!) I can't claim the design, as it is a copy of a freelance model built by John De Frayysinett of County Gate fame with whom I was fortunate to work with at the Peterborough exhibition whilst back in the UK in 2013. I was able to measure up his loco at the time and build a near exact copy for myself. It runs with some garratts (NGG16's and K1) and I have a couple of others to do if I ever get the 7mm garratts finished! (See link below) I'd like to do John's 2-6-6-2T Mallet as well, for which I have most of the dimensions! Now that would be a narrow gauge beast!

 Cheers,

 

Phil

 

Edited April 17, 2019 by PhilMortimer
Spelling error

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, PhilMortimer said:

Why thank you Sir! I enjoyed building this one a lot for my formative OO9 layout. (No dinky 0-4-0T's for me!) I can't claim the design, as it is a copy of a freelance model built by John De Frayysinett of County Gate fame with whom I was fortunate to work with at the Peterborough exhibition whilst back in the UK in 2013. I was able to measure up his loco at the time and build a near exact copy for myself. It runs with some garratts (NGG16's and K1) and I have a couple of others to do if I ever get the 7mm garratts finished! (See link below) I'd like to do John's 2-6-6-2T Mallet as well, for which I have most of the dimensions! Now that would be a narrow gauge beast!

 Cheers,

 

Phil

 

 

Not at all, I thought it deserved an audience, especially in the context of the discussion. I also remember the thread about building the Garratt, which must have dissuaded many a potential buyer..

[PhilMortimer]

The Garratts are actually progressing and coming towards the end of the build. I just haven't posted much about them for a bit, as most of the work at the moment is detailing and tbh, not that interesting to see. I hope to post some progress next week. The kit is OK, but it is a complex loco to build. And I'm trying to bring things up a notch, as well building two.......... I hope I haven't discouraged anyone - it's the only kit that makes up this interesting prototype. As others have show, some nice models can be made from it eventually.

 

If and when I ever get round to building the OO9 mallet, I will of course post some details on the build here (since it is freelance) and in my build threads.

Edited April 17, 2019 by PhilMortimer
Additional Information

[Niels]

On 16/04/2019 at 23:40, rodent279 said:

What about a subtle twist on what's already there?

How about a 9F, but with 3 cylinders, slightly smaller so no need to be inclined? Smoother starting, smoother at speed, maybe even with British Caprotti gear? Is that a useful beast?

There is another phantasy way.

WD locomotives came around  850 as 2-8-0 and 150 as 2-10-0.

They were built without reproci etc balancing and that is good on lousy tracks and tolerable at speeds below say 25 mph.

Coming home they were not really liked.

The distance between center of leading wheel and second driver was 13 feet and11inches.

On a B16 (made by my Hero mr Raven) the distance between front boggie wheel and driver is 14 feet.

Take the austerities and remove the first driver  and leading wheels.

Put in a three-cylinder compound machine over a boggie and drive unto the now first driver.

It will now have balance and riding like an A4 and better fuel economy.

After say 100 years of experiments the swedes found their ideal locomotive.

Twenty of these three-cylindered beauties:

 

Best Swedish lokomotive

 

UK could have had almost 1000 for nothing.

UK loading gauge makes drive unto first set of driver nessecary and connecting rods will be as short on A2/2s

Photoshopping anyones?

Edited May 9, 2019 by Niels