Imaginary Locomotives

[JimC]

13 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

The meaning of the word "safely" was obviously different then.

Indeed, but because the broad gauge locomotives had so much more room on the footplate the railings were on the edge of the footplate, and the driver was at least between the railings and the boiler, not clinging on outside them.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

Back to possible GW tanks, here's a downsized 42xx 0-8-0T.

[Gibbo675]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

On the GW, the loco crews objected to cabs being provided because they restriced forward visibility, a thing repeated in Churchward's time when he tried a Great Eastern type cab on a County 4-4-0.  Back in the 1850s, it was common for drivers to leave the cab to go around the loco oiling while in motion at speed, and the GW's Iron Dukes and Rovers had handrails to enable this to be done safely; the cabs made it a bit more awkward. 

 

One of the bad accidents on the Settle and Carlisle, Hawes Jc, or Ais Gill can't off hand remember which, involved a driver possibly overruning signals because he had left the cab to oil around, a practice not required at that time but clearly old habits died hard. 

 

As for bailing out, Victorian conceptions of manliness, and the Birkenhead drill, there are stories of drivers pushing young firemen off the loco and then staying at their posts to do whatever they could to slow the train and lessen the impact.  John Axon, an Edgeley man who stayed at his post on a runaway 8F hauled freight from Capel-en-le-Frith in the 1950s and was posthumously awarded a GC, pushed his fireman off the loco in this way.  By the 70s when I was a freight guard at Canton, the general agreement was that you told your secondman to hide in the engine room, and did not join him until you were certain that you had done all that was possible to prevent or mitigate the impact; in many cases there was no time to take this action.  On the brake van, you were expected to stay at your post in order to protect the train in rear with detonators, and my view was that you were likely to be seriously injured if you abandoned ship at anything more than about 25mph anyway, no matter how well you had tucked and rolled.  By the time you were aware that you were running away, you were already going much faster than that.

 

George Tarr, one of my regular drivers and a great bloke, was driving a train of 45ton vacuum braked tanks up from Carmarthen Jc which suffered a broken axle on one of the tanks between Carmarthen Jc and Llansteffan Crossing; the train derailed when it encountered the turnouts at Llansteffan.  Speed was about 50mph.  The guard was riding in the back cab and had already taken shelter in the engine room of the 47, and George ordered his secondman in there as well.  The loco went over on it's left hand side and George, with the rest of the traincrew trapped but safe in the engine room (the front engine room door was distorted and jammed, and the rear cab buried in tanks and spilled heavy fuel oil), and with a broken leg, dragged himself out of the cab and towards Ferryside to flag down the down Paddington-Carmarthen papers, which had signals cleared for it.  Not surprisingly he passed out from the pain and was found some time later with the leg fracture compounded considerably, but the driver on the papers had seen his red Bardic and pulled up in good time.  The box was not manned at that time of night.

 

This was genuine full on classic Victorian derring do heroism, and he was in hospital for a good time afterwards, but made a full recovery and returned to work.  It was generally reckoned to be safer to stay with the ship, but you were required to show that you'd done everything and not abandoned the controls for the engine room until there was no alternative.  Loco crews felt safer on locos with noses like 37s than on flat front locos, though my view was that in any accident over about 30mph a nose wouldn't protect you much and in fact would simply shove equipment into the cab spac; they certainly missed the protection of a solidly built boiler between them and the accident, though.  Most fatalities on steam locos in bad accidents are caused by the failure of the tender front plate, resulting in an avalanche of coal that pins the crew to the firebox and death is from a combination of crush injuries and scalding; if there was time, most crews preferred to be outside the cab on the steps at the moment of impact...

 

 

Hi Johnster,

 

Another chapter of the book you don't seem to want to write !!!

 

Gibbo.

[rodent279]

3 hours ago, JimC said:

To give a bit more idea of what I mean, here is a sketch of a 42 and  Castle undressed as it were, with just the cylinders wheels and boiler, so that it makes the relationship of the parts a bit clearer.  Looking at the actual sketches, I think you probably could draw a 4-6-0T with a slightly modified Std 4 boiler, and a fair bit of adjustment to the wheelbase, but I think it would be more than a little optimistic to expect a Std 4 boiler to feed 4 cylinders at express speeds.  Still, what's the point of the topic if not to think up and discuss impractical ideas? I've just had a fun hour considering how a 4-6-0T might be done, so thanks for that:-)
 

Given all the above, I think a 4-6-2T might be a better proposition, with a std. no1 boiler.

[JimC]

25 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Given all the above, I think a 4-6-2T might be a better proposition, with a std. no1 boiler.

A Std 1 boiler might be a bit heavy on a 4-6-2 tank engine, but I sketched one with a Manor boiler some pages back.
Only two cylinder and 5'8 wheels though. The full on Star front end and 6'8 wheels might be quite a thing.

 

[AlfaZagato]

I foresee shadows of the 5100 class with that arrangement.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

A little freelance Hornby-style 0-6-0T, just for some fun.

[Flying Pig]

14 hours ago, JimC said:

The full on Star front end and 6'8 wheels might be quite a thing.

 

 

I'm seeing a 4-cylinder Baltic tank here - very much on-trend for the late pre-grouping period.  The difficulty is finding suitable work for it on the GW system.

[Zomboid]

Probably why they never built any

[Flying Pig]

22 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Probably why they never built any

 

The board probably saw some of the others being built at the time and recoiled in horror.

[Compound2632]

22 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

Were there any on the Irish 3 foot lines?

 

A few 4-6-0Ts on the broad gauge and the narrow. On the broad, The Cork, Bandon and South Coast had eight rather handsome examples built by Beyer Peacock between 1906 and 1920. They have a bit of a Worsdell look to them:

 

 

There were quite a number on the narrow gauge lines making up the County Donegal system - photo here.

[Ian Rathbone]

Here’s a model of the CB&SCR 4-6-0T in 4mm, builder not known. In later years they were just plain black.

 

 

 

Ian R

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Ian Rathbone

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

he had left the cab to oil around, a practice not required at that time but clearly old habits died hard. 

 

still at it in 1975... clearly that middle cylinder needs a bit of a lube

 

 

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

I'm seeing a 4-cylinder Baltic tank here - very much on-trend for the late pre-grouping period.  The difficulty is finding suitable work for it on the GW system.

Fast outer suburban/shorter haul expresses, Paddington-Oxford?

[Michael Edge]

2 hours ago, Ian Rathbone said:

Here’s a model of the CB&SCR 4-6-0T in 4mm, built by Mike Edge. In later years they were just plain black.

 

 

 

Ian R

 

 

I don't think that one is mine Ian - if it is I've no recollection or record of it.

The only 4-6-0T locos I've built are Baldwin and Hunslet narrow gauge ones.

[Corbs]

On 22/06/2021 at 13:14, Johnson044 said:

Closest thing I can muster is this little contraption I built a few years ago. Very, very loosely inspired by a William Bridges Adams light loco / carriage combination, but an altogether heavier engine and a separate saloon. The valve gear is purely fanciful and I've no idea if the valves could ever be made to work with the valve chests under the cylinders (I think Webb double singles on the LNWR have something similar). Mainly plastikard with Tri-ang Lord of the Isles driving wheels. The saloon is made from bits from the carriages from the Minicraft Japanese Vulcan 2-4-0 kit, which is an absolute cornucopia of useful parts if you are interested in freelance 7mm scale modelling. The transfers have a bit of a visible film around them, which is a pity.

I am a huge fan of this.

[rockershovel]

I had thought that if they were found anywhere, the Irish narrow gauge was probably the place to look. Large tank engines with leading bogies, and/or no trailing wheels seem to gave been something of a genre there. 

[Hroth]

On 24/06/2021 at 16:55, ScottishRailFanatic said:

Back to possible GW tanks, here's a downsized 42xx 0-8-0T.

 

Looks like a 94xx on steroids.

[JimC]

50 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

I had thought that if they were found anywhere, the Irish narrow gauge was probably the place to look. Large tank engines with leading bogies, and/or no trailing wheels seem to gave been something of a genre there. 

Perhaps weight? Seems to me if you take the classic mixed traffic mogul config with the drive on the second coupled axle and do everything you can to minimise axle loading you end up with the cylinders driving the leading wheels and the bogie taking the weight of the cylinders.

[Northmoor]

10 hours ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

still at it in 1975... clearly that middle cylinder needs a bit of a lube

 

 

That is some stunning footage of big steam locomotives - and 044s are BIG - in action.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

On a more electric subject, here's a proposal for an articulated high-speed train that could have been. It has a peculiar configuration, using 6-wheel bogies between each vehicle, and uses a pair of diesel power cars similar to DVTs in appearance, but using the same Paxman Valenta power units as the HST. The 6-wheel bogies are designed to increase smoothness of riding, in a similar way to the 12-wheel Pullman coaches of days gone by.

[The Johnster]

The articulation could be used to increase the width of the gangways.  

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

15 hours ago, JimC said:

Perhaps weight? Seems to me if you take the classic mixed traffic mogul config with the drive on the second coupled axle and do everything you can to minimise axle loading you end up with the cylinders driving the leading wheels and the bogie taking the weight of the cylinders.

 

Or do you?

 

 

17t axle load.  Drive on the centre axle, and nicely a balanced look to it.   

[Murican]

Here are my ideas for the BR Classification of the various big steamers I've discussed so far:

 

GWR Cathedral Class 4-8-0: 9P
Southern "Merchant Navy" Class 4-8-2: 9P8F
LNER Gresley I1 Class 4-8-2: 10P9F
LNER Peppercorn I2 Class 4-8-2: 9P8F
LMS 10MT "Conqueror" Class 4-8-4: 9P10F

[tythatguy1312]

3 minutes ago, Murican said:

Here are my ideas for the BR Classification of the various big steamers I've discussed so far:

 

GWR Cathedral Class 4-8-0: 9P
Southern "Merchant Navy" Class 4-8-2: 9P8F
LNER Gresley I1 Class 4-8-2: 10P9F
LNER Peppercorn I2 Class 4-8-2: 9P8F
LMS 10MT "Conqueror" Class 4-8-4: 9P10F

this isn't a fictional loco but I may as well put in my two cents and call the LMS Garratt a 9F