Imaginary Locomotives

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

The Institute of Locomotive Engineers. It merged with the I.Mech.E in the late 60's.

 

Is that the same as ARLE?

[JimC]

Thinking on Hawksworth building more Castles rather than Counties, it's an interesting thought that while the Counties had his name on, he had most likely done a good deal of the actual design work on the Castle. 

Town Councillor and Justice of the Peace suggests a rather formal character, but he also sang in the Parish choir which is usually more sociable. 

A Hawksworth BR might not have had so many low powered designs, but the big challenge for a Swindon trained CME would probably have been adapting to the "different" build and maintenance standards on some of the other lines. Presumably Cook would have been solidly employed going round the factories improving engineering precision. 

[tythatguy1312]

I've suddenly got my eyes on Hawksworth actually building the Cathedrals rather than the idea being abandoned at the blueprint stage

[rodent279]

It might be a mistake to assume that a Hawksworth BR Standard range would have been clones of GWR types. If he had an ounce of sense, he'd have considered and incorporated best practice from all the big 4, and developed his own, non-GWR style.

[33C]

Damaged, boxed, Airfix "Biggin Hill" Found for a pound! Now one of the rare Bullied Atlantic's of the "Sea Battle" class, 21B1-12. This is 21B5, "Gravelines" one side and 21B9 " Taranto" the other. Other members of the class are from 21B1 "Battle of the Atlantic", 21B2 "Glorious 1st of June", 21B3 "Chesapeake", 21B4 "Sluys", 21B6 "Barfleur", 21B7 "La Hogue", 21B8 "Nile", 21B10 "Quiberon Bay", 21B11 "Trafalgar" and 21B12 "Jutland". Free running but i will fit with a Triang chassis in the future....... A new spin on the "Atlantic Coast Express" !    

Edited April 4, 2022 by 33C
added detail

[Clive Mortimore]

17 minutes ago, 33C said:

Damaged, boxed, Airfix "Biggin Hill" Found for a pound! Now one of the rare Bullied Atlantic's of the "Sea Battle" class, 21B1-12. This is 21B5, "Gravelines" one side and 21B9 " Taranto" the other. Other members of the class are from 21B1 "Battle of the Atlantic", 21B2 "Glorious 1st of June", 21B3 "Chesapeake", 21B4 "Sluys", 21B6 "Barfleur", 21B7 "La Hogue", 21B8 "Nile", 21B10 "Quiberon Bay", 21B11 "Trafalgar" and 21B12 "Jutland". Free running but i will fit with a Triang chassis in the future....... A new spin on the "Atlantic Coast Express" !    

Wonderful, back to imaginary stuff not another steam loco history lesson.

[JimC]

10 hours ago, rodent279 said:

It might be a mistake to assume that a Hawksworth BR Standard range would have been clones of GWR types. If he had an ounce of sense, he'd have considered and incorporated best practice from all the big 4, and developed his own, non-GWR style.

As Riddles err, didn't?

[Johnson044]

28 minutes ago, 33C said:

Damaged, boxed, Airfix "Biggin Hill" Found for a pound! Now one of the rare Bullied Atlantic's of the "Sea Battle" class, 21B1-12. This is 21B5, "Gravelines" one side and 21B9 " Taranto" the other. Other members of the class are from 21B1 "Battle of the Atlantic", 21B2 "Glorious 1st of June", 21B3 "Chesapeake", 21B4 "Sluys", 21B6 "Barfleur", 21B7 "La Hogue", 21B8 "Nile", 21B10 "Quiberon Bay", 21B11 "Trafalgar" and 21B12 "Jutland". Free running but i will fit with a Triang chassis in the future....... A new spin on the "Atlantic Coast Express" !    

That's more like it! What a refreshing change from Photoshop!

[rodent279]

2 minutes ago, JimC said:

As Riddles err, didn't?

Yes, he did, I'm not saying he didn't. Hawksworth would have done much the same, there might have been detail differences in a Hawksworth standard range, maybe a slightly different "look & feel", but given the need to provide common user, low maintenance locomotives, he'd probably have come up with similar solutions.

[AlfaZagato]

I think, had we seen Hawksworth in charge of BR, we may have seen one fewer class of Pacific, replaced by at 4-6-0 of equivalent rating.  A standard Class 6.

 

I admittedly do not know much about Hawksworth.  I only know the handful of classes attributed to him.    If the mention of his having a hand in the Castle is accurate, though, I could see forgoing a trailing truck at lease one level higher.

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, AlfaZagato said:

I think, had we seen Hawksworth in charge of BR, we may have seen one fewer class of Pacific, replaced by at 4-6-0 of equivalent rating.  A standard Class 6.

 

I admittedly do not know much about Hawksworth.  I only know the handful of classes attributed to him.    If the mention of his having a hand in the Castle is accurate, though, I could see forgoing a trailing truck at lease one level higher.

Plausible, maybe a Standard 5 with a County/8F boiler?

(And before anyone gets to work in Photoshop, not with a GWR style safety valve cover and copper capped chimney!)

Edited August 2, 2021 by rodent279

[Compound2632]

14 hours ago, rodent279 said:

It might be a mistake to assume that a Hawksworth BR Standard range would have been clones of GWR types. If he had an ounce of sense, he'd have considered and incorporated best practice from all the big 4, and developed his own, non-GWR style.

 

He would, after all, be working with much the same resources (in terms of drawing office staff) as was Riddles.

[tomparryharry]

One of the big deciding factors of post-war Britain was manpower.  People  leaving the services weren't about to return to a work situation where you were covered in sh1t, odd hours, and poor pay.  Old Oak had, at one point some 100+ vacancies for firemen. The advent of diesels was a lifesaver for BR; cleaner jobs, slightly better hours, and the pay, although poor, was still 'just about' liveable. 

 

I'd give my eye teeth to fire a Merchant Navy with 12 on from Waterloo to Exeter. The reality is somewhat different. It's 3am, it's hacking down, and you've got some grumpy old git on the regulator.  Coal? A tender full of Tilmo.... Little wonder the arrival of the Juice was warmly received.   

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

One of the big deciding factors of post-war Britain was manpower.  People  leaving the services weren't about to return to a work situation where you were covered in sh1t, odd hours, and poor pay.  Old Oak had, at one point some 100+ vacancies for firemen. The advent of diesels was a lifesaver for BR; cleaner jobs, slightly better hours, and the pay, although poor, was still 'just about' liveable. 

 

I'd give my eye teeth to fire a Merchant Navy with 12 on from Waterloo to Exeter. The reality is somewhat different. It's 3am, it's hacking down, and you've got some grumpy old git on the regulator.  Coal? A tender full of Tilmo.... Little wonder the arrival of the Juice was warmly received.   

Quite right, of course having served in the military in WW2, hundreds of thousands of men had also learned "trade-able" skills, like lorry-driving.... Of course in WW2 miners were reserved professions, but by the time of the 84-85 strike, I believe the same problem was hitting the coal industry; once young people had the option of doing something other than "goin' down pit", they generally took it.

As to how hard firing was, have you ever seen a fireman in steam days who wasn't a wiry build?  You either burned or sweated it off.  Years ago I remember laughing at some gym bunny on Blind Date who had been on a preserved railway and threw on a couple of shovel-fulls for the camera.  I was shouting, "Well done mate, now keep that up non-stop for the next 30 minutes!".

[John Besley]

24 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Quite right, of course having served in the military in WW2, hundreds of thousands of men had also learned "trade-able" skills, like lorry-driving.... Of course in WW2 miners were reserved professions, but by the time of the 84-85 strike, I believe the same problem was hitting the coal industry; once young people had the option of doing something other than "goin' down pit", they generally took it.

As to how hard firing was, have you ever seen a fireman in steam days who wasn't a wiry build?  You either burned or sweated it off.  Years ago I remember laughing at some gym bunny on Blind Date who had been on a preserved railway and threw on a couple of shovel-fulls for the camera.  I was shouting, "Well done mate, now keep that up non-stop for the next 30 minutes!".

Remember that as a fireman you built up the stamina as part of the job, learnt how to make the loco work for you - a lot of fine tuning can be done by adjusting the dampers to get the best out of the fire, a little and often, watching the road, knowing your regular mate as once your mastered that you can second guess his moves, with care you can get through the day with steam on the red line and not blowing off once - I have and that was on an Austerity- my most satisfying day ever

 

Even on a preserved line some drivers wont leave you alone to get on - others there a pleasure to fire to

[tomparryharry]

Going slightly out of scope, I always wondered why the 42xx locos were never fitted with a supplementary  water tank, of about 4,000 gallons. Taking water via the crane is hard work normally, but fitting a feed via the standard hydrant is certainly doable, and it's now considered de  rigueur on most, if not all, preserved locomotives on the main line. 

 

Vacuum fitting on the tank, and through-piped steam heat, of course. 

[Ben Alder]

With regard to the 0-6-2 M7, this happened to be a project I had been working on, using an N2 and T9 GBL boiler with some Nucast parts to do a smaller chunky tank as per the HR 0-6-4T. The body had been prepared and was ready to be assembled but the build had been sidelined by the Standard Saga. However, reading about the M7 gave me food for thought - the projected Peter Drummond tanks for the HR were all of a similar proportion, and not like his Banking Tank, so a spare M7 was dragged out of the stash and the body stripped down a bit. The whitemetal acquired parts were used for the splashers and cab roof and a J15 chassis that had been waiting for me to find a home for it tucked away neatly underneath it. It is a superb runner and the new loco glides round the layout most impressively. Here it is as of last night having been lined and waiting its final seeing to.

[Ben Alder]

Another look at the Stanier 2-6-2, a bit further down the road to completion...

[rodent279]

Going back to a BR standard 0-6-0T, BR obviously didn't think it had a need for such a thing because of the success of the 350hp diesel shunter. If it had felt the need for a steam replacement of the hundreds of 0-6-0 tank engines it had, some very elderly, it could have done a lot worse than either acquire secondhand, or build, a batch of Austerity  0-6-0ST's. No real need to design one from scratch.

[Northmoor]

1 minute ago, rodent279 said:

Going back to a BR standard 0-6-0T, BR obviously didn't think it had a need for such a thing because of the success of the 350hp diesel shunter. If it had felt the need for a steam replacement of the hundreds of 0-6-0 tank engines it had, some very elderly, it could have done a lot worse than either acquire secondhand, or build, a batch of Austerity  0-6-0ST's. No real need to design one from scratch.

Especially bearing in mind who was the Chief Designer of the Austerity tank.....

[Corbs]

A potential BR spec for an 18" 0-6-0 tank loco could have looked similar to the granddaddy of the Austerities, Hunslet 1506 built for the Pontop and Jarrow railway.

 

This design was adapted into the 48150, then the 50550 then the Austerity.

 

1506 had 4ft wheels and a belpaire firebox - I think this was built around the same time Hunslet were building Jinties.

 

Given BR's preference for side tanks, maybe something similar could be built using the bare bones of an Austerity.

Change the backhead mounted injectors for side feed, the wheels for 4ft 3in as with the saddle tank.

Maybe even, instead of the angled or squared bunker, something with a curved flare out like the Ivatt 2MT, maybe even a hopper bunker like the J94s.

Photo from Geoff Plumb / Plumbloco here:

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Corbs

[tomparryharry]

I don't think there was a preference for side tanks as such.  The Western had some 500+ of the 57xx pannier, most of which were still  a residual asset value.  The Eastern were still making J72's for the same reason.  I'm still thinking the 18" Austerity was 'about right'.  If you put an Austerity on  the top quarter (can't remember which one) you can oil up from the top of the footplate.  It's quick, simple, and properly done.  The only downside to the loco is filling the tank, and emptying the ashpan.  A hopper ashpan would have sorted hat out, or cutouts in the frame to to  allow  side doors  on the 'pan.  (as per SAR locomotives).  Refinements, such as proper springing & balancing the motion, goes a long way. 

 

The Western 15xx is perhaps the (almost ) ideal locomotive in this regard. Everything is 'get-atable', and probably far better than the equivalent 57xx pannier.  Its ride is terrible, so  lengthening the wheel base  to improve  the ride quality would be a positive improvement.   

[Corbs]

AFAIK the only saddle tanks BR built were the LMS 0F 0-4-0STs, everything else being pannier or side tank.

 

What I've described above is basically an Austerity without the hassle of climbing up to a saddle tank to fill it as you describe (and lower CoG if they were still thinking about that at that point). So as with the Ivatts I am theorising taking a proven design and tweaking it to fit into the aesthetic family, and also the working practices, of the others, without vastly altering the mechanicals.

 

Would be interesting to see in model form I think? I agree about the ashpan modifications.

 

To lengthen the 15xx chassis without needing carrying wheels I guess you'd move the rear axle further under the cab and the centre one closer to the firebox, keeping overall loco length similar?

 

Add full height side tanks like the other Ivatt Standard tanks (possibly with sloping fronts for visibility?) and a Standard-type cab and bunker.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

I sometimes wonder what a completely ‘Swindonised’ BR Standard 4 would look like…

(Photos are my own)

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, ScottishRailFanatic said:

I sometimes wonder what a completely ‘Swindonised’ BR Standard 4 would look like…

(Photos are my own)

What do you mean by "Swindonised"? The thing is, there's a lot of things that can claim Swindon ancestry in the BR standards anyway.

If you mean top feed and safety valves combined under a brass casing, I reckon that would have disappeared anyway. The standard 4 effectively has a Manor boiler, with a dome, safety valves over the firebox, and top feed moved further along the boiler.

The outside valve gear would have happened anyway, I guess the other regions wouldn't have been happy with inside gear. The only other noticeable non-Swindon thing is the inclined outside cylinders, probably a necessary compromise to fit within the composite loading gauge.

I don't honestly think a "Swindonised" BR std 4 would be drastically different. Maybe the cab & footplate would be a little different, maybe the tender would have been a smaller version of a Hawksworth tender.