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Imaginary Locomotives


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31 minutes ago, DenysW said:

I think this has comprehensively answered the question of whether a Merchant Navy boiler, put on a King's engine would work without articulation extending the drivers to under the tender. No it won't.

 

With articulation you then get to chose between a 4-4-0+0-2-4 (weird but might work), a 4-4-0+0-4-2 (more symmetrical, mixed traffic, some issues at speed in reverse), and a 4-4-0+0-4-4 (fully symmetrical, but repeatedly rejected when suggested by Beyer Peacock in Garratt configuration). It's my non-expert view that none of these would get past the Locomotive Committee as offering a visible improvement over existing types. Sigh.

What you need is a sizeable freelance railway company formed in 1923, which has probably been influenced by Swindon design but, like the SR under Bulleid, would be willing to take a rather unconventional approach at times - and one driven to modernise traffic in a way which would have encouraged them to look beyond what was possible with a simple evolution of Churchward's 4-6-0s. Luckily, I'm trying to create the locomotive history of one of those.

 

The West Country Railway would have adopted fully fitted freight trains by the time such a proposal came around. This would include a number of long-distance workings over other companies metals - particularly stone trains and traffic from the various ports on Lundy (which would use standardised shipping containers as soon as BR had the infrastructure in place to unload them). It would also continue to deal with heavy, long distance passenger trains of the sort the Kings were designed for during holiday seasons, even if it would move to more frequent, lighter trains from the mid 20th Century (possible opportunity for a modern Atlantic?).

 

A fast, powerful locomotive with high tractive effort would certainly grab their attention for fast freight and heavy passenger use. The WCR would consider proposals from any private builders producing designs to meet this specification.

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13 hours ago, DK123GWR said:

A fast, powerful locomotive with high tractive effort would certainly grab their attention for fast freight and heavy passenger use. The WCR would consider proposals from any private builders producing designs to meet this specification.

 

I've included this one before I think. Its an imaginary Hawksworth 47xx development  with full length frames and a front bogie. If we imagine that Hawksworth upgraded the boiler to 280psi like the Counties then the tractive effort would be nearly 38,000 lbs, which ought to be high enough for most duties. With the front bogie it ought to be a bit steadier than the 47s. There might need to be a ballast weight on the front buffer beam as fitted to the 93xx.
 

1687118701_4700based4-8-0.JPG.82230579485913a8921fdf099717efba.JPG

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22 hours ago, JimC said:

Here's a shot at the 4-4-2 version! The axle loading on the driving wheels would be truly spectacular! Not a culvert left intact! The taper on the boiler achieves nothing of course so its not a useful concept.
1509963277_442-KingMnavyboiler.JPG.2b68737d8608dc4bdb5b1f71c8448fea.JPG

What it would achieve to put a MN boiler on a King chassis? Well, even though its little longer, it is a much bigger boiler overall, with a bigger grate and much more heating surface, both in the firebox and in a longer barrel with consequently longer tubes. As nothing comes for free, what that would do to the axle loading, already I believe somewhat optimistically calculated for the Kings... 
It would be interesting to see the drawing. I  cannot see that there would be the slightest chance of fitting a wide firebox boiler to a King chassis, my guess it is that the drawing was for comparison purposes not a design study. As for axle clearance in my sketch, that's not really the issue - the wheels themselves passing through the firebox would be more of a design challenge!

 

So, you took my suggestion and made a GWR Express Passenger Atlantic? Well done.

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5 hours ago, JimC said:

 

I've included this one before I think. Its an imaginary Hawksworth 47xx development  with full length frames and a front bogie. If we imagine that Hawksworth upgraded the boiler to 280psi like the Counties then the tractive effort would be nearly 38,000 lbs, which ought to be high enough for most duties. With the front bogie it ought to be a bit steadier than the 47s. There might need to be a ballast weight on the front buffer beam as fitted to the 93xx.
 

1687118701_4700based4-8-0.JPG.82230579485913a8921fdf099717efba.JPG

 

Does it need such a long grate?  Could you give it a sloping throatplate and shift the boiler forward, saving some overhang at the back?  That might allow the cylinders to sit more centrally over the bogie.

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48 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Although I like JimC's loco I think it might fail the GWR obsession with keeping to 65 ft turntables.

The overall wheelbase is 61' so it would fit on a 65' turntable, but it would need to be one of the later Mundt design ones. I doubt it could be balanced properly on the older ones.

 

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2 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Does it need such a long grate?  Could you give it a sloping throatplate and shift the boiler forward, saving some overhang at the back?  That might allow the cylinders to sit more centrally over the bogie.

Its still a Standard 7 boiler, wouldn't want to alter it too much.

Yes, the cylinder position is probably impossible, I hadn't thought of that. Tricky this locomotive design stuff.
A more cost effective option might be to modify the boiler by adding a short parallel section, so that it goes up to say King tube length, and then the cylinders can move forward. But that upsets the rod length. I'll have to look at how the longer standard size rod looks. Getting the cylinders more over the bogie can only be a good thing 

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This two-off design (one for the Palatinate railway, one for K. Bay. Sts. B) probably should have remained imaginary, but it might have been just the thing for light expresses in the late 1890/1900s faced with just one or two severe inclines. It's a 4-2-2 until the driver lowers the extra wheels (with their extra cylinders), making it a 4-2-2-2. Imagine this on the South Devon Banks. Reportedly had high maintenance but good steam efficiency.

 

What would/should the British pre-Grouping companies have developed this concept into when 4-2-2's dropped back out of fashion?

 

image.png.d0ef7c36a2e4905f1a2633306542982b.png

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If I was trying to sell the concept of retractable wheels, I'd be pushing the fact that they don't consume steam or lubricant when lifted out of service (unlike LNER's later 727 and 2171), emphasising that the resulting dead weight still improves traction, and pointing out that always-in-use booster wheels are incompatible with high speeds.  I'd be ignoring the resulting unequal tyre wear-rate implying quite frequent adjustment to the diameter of the small wheels, and the mechanical nightmare that is the valve gear system.

 

It must have been even more hypnotic to watch in action than Walschaerts gear. Starting tractive effort on the big wheels was around 19,000 lbf, but I haven't found a diameter for the small cylinders to get a total value.

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25 minutes ago, DenysW said:

I'd be ignoring the resulting unequal tyre wear-rate implying quite frequent adjustment to the diameter of the small wheels, and the mechanical nightmare that is the valve gear system.

 

And the fact that free-running 4-4-0s and Atlantics were possible by the time the second wave singles became obsolete.

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"And the fact that free-running 4-4-0s and Atlantics were possible by the time the second wave singles became obsolete."

 

In the UK yes. In Bavaria they seem to have gone straight to 4-6-0 for passenger services, and (starting in 1908) 4-cylinder compound 4-6-2 for expresses. Were we waiting for Churchward's  Great Bear to work/fail on Pacifics as a design?

 

The Kraus 4-(2)-2-2 was supplied in the same year (1896) that Maffei supplied a 1-off Bavarian 0-4-4-0 Mallet. It looks like K.Bay.Sts.B. asked their two main suppliers to give them an innovative design that did hills and bends, and the variable-wheel-layout was Kraus's reply. They did the same with their Glassbox, one-man-operated design, also before WW1.

 

They don't seem to have had the same dead hand of standardisation right or wrong the Derby exerted on the Midland and LMS.

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19 hours ago, cctransuk said:

Clearly NOT imaginary, but way weirder than anything that I've seem on here!!!!

 

Hi CCTRANS,

Was going to ask where it was and what they carried. But went to the You Tube link and found out what I wanted to know.

 

John Isherwood.

 

Edited by cypherman
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5 hours ago, DenysW said:

They don't seem to have had the same dead hand of standardisation 

 

There certainly was standardisation on the railways of the German Empire / State - classes built in numbers put Ramsbottom's mass-produced DXs firmly in the shade!

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2 hours ago, John Besley said:

Moving on any idea what the BR standard look alike is meant to resemble that has just been run into a quarry in Mission Impossible.... 

 

Is the set supposed to be in the UK or in Eastern Europe?

 

Social media has taken to calling it 'Mocktannia' 

 

spacer.png

 

Does look like what would happen if a Frenchman designed a BR Standard. 

Edited by scots region
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"There certainly was standardisation on the railways of the German Empire / State - classes built in numbers put Ramsbottom's mass-produced DXs firmly in the shade!"

 

Following the 1923 amalgamation of the German railways into the DRG, yes.  With a very large dose of the Prussian way was the way to follow. The Prussians were also the largest in miles of track, so not just that their capital was Berlin.

 

Prior to that the railways were still in line with the geographical borders from before German unification in 1870, with quite often rivalries that reflected who was on which side in the Austro-Prussian war of 1868. Bavaria and most of the western state with Austria, who were annihilated militarily.

 

 

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18 minutes ago, DenysW said:

"There certainly was standardisation on the railways of the German Empire / State - classes built in numbers put Ramsbottom's mass-produced DXs firmly in the shade!"

 

Following the 1923 amalgamation of the German railways into the DRG, yes.  With a very large dose of the Prussian way was the way to follow. The Prussians were also the largest in miles of track, so not just that their capital was Berlin.

 

Ah, well, perhaps it was the Prussian State Railways I was thinking of. Several classes numbering well over 1,000 locomotives. That does imply a measure of standardisation! But I'm not au fait with what developments or variations there may have been within a single class.

Edited by Compound2632
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Prussia greatly expanded in the Victorian era, mainly due to Bismarck’s foreign policy, coupled with industrialisation producing military hardware and a railway network which was capable of moving an army on to a frontier at short notice. Then it was pick a quarrel, have a nasty little war, and absorb some territory at the end of it. There was a war with Denmark over Schleswig Holstein, a war with Austria, putting Bavaria in its place and gaining Hanover, and then with France, gaining Alsace Lorraine. At the end of this in 1870 the Prussian king became the German Emperor, but the old States (Lander) kept their own kings, archdukes, or whatever, in the system, and their railways (landerbahnen) kept their independance, not disappearing until the Reichsbahn was formed after WW1. Systems such as Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, Hesse, Wurtemberg. The Rhineland was part of the Prussian set up, also a great deal of what is now Western Poland. The Prussian Railways developed standardised classes in the 1900s, which were built in large quantities through WW1.

P8 4-6-0 had about 3,800 examples, G7 0-8-0 about 2,800, and G8 0-8-0 had around 6,000 built, including some for Poland and Rumania, and after the war these classes spread all over Europe, with later sub classes with different boilers and pony trucks, as well as the later G10 0-10-0.

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On 18/08/2021 at 10:44, rodent279 said:

Interesting proposition, though I'd imagine a merchant navy boiler would be somewhat wasted on a King chassis.

The earlier discussion regarding re-boilered 'Kings' set me thinking about the unloved 'Bear'. 

 

Churchward is reported to have been a good friend of A.W.Gibbs of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which influenced the design (and appearance) of the No.100 prototype.  Some think Churchward was led a little astray by French influence, which led him into the complexities of 4 cylinder engines, whereas the American designers managed to do all that was necessary with 2 cylinders.

 

So, what if Churchward had been succeeded by a similarly American-influenced CME? 

 

The PRR had moved on to Pacifics by the First World War and their K4 class could have provided a model for Churchward's successor.  He could have taken the unloved 'Bear' and updated it along American lines, with two cylinders (less weight and complexity) and a longer firebox with combustion chamber, together with a correspondingly shorter boiler barrel.  Someone has claimed that the over-long boiler of the original 'Bear' was acting as a condenser by the time the gases reached the smokebox end!  A higher degree of superheat would be another improvement.  Other alterations would be easily-accessible outside Walschaerts gear, outside bearings on the trailing axle, and a decent-sized cab.

 

I'm afraid this is just another rough-and-ready Photoshop job but I've tried to show what might have  emerged in the 1920s below:

 

1277020027_GWR_GreatBearII.jpg.1b6d02c742b65278a3c9d40cb04e2300.jpg

 

'Evening Star' had 20" diameter inclined cylinders so, perhaps 21" might have been possible on the more generous GWR loading gauge.  With 6' 3" drivers (lighter wheels) and a boiler pressed to 250 psi, tractive effort should not be very far short of the 40,000lb of the King and with some of the weight carried by the trailing axle.

 

The PRR K4s received 'streamlining' in the 1930s so perhaps this engine could have competed with Duchesses and A4's in this 'modernist' trend.

 

Mike

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44 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

The earlier discussion regarding re-boilered 'Kings' set me thinking about the unloved 'Bear'. 

 

Churchward is reported to have been a good friend of A.W.Gibbs of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which influenced the design (and appearance) of the No.100 prototype.  Some think Churchward was led a little astray by French influence, which led him into the complexities of 4 cylinder engines, whereas the American designers managed to do all that was necessary with 2 cylinders.

 

So, what if Churchward had been succeeded by a similarly American-influenced CME? 

 

The PRR had moved on to Pacifics by the First World War and their K4 class could have provided a model for Churchward's successor.  He could have taken the unloved 'Bear' and updated it along American lines, with two cylinders (less weight and complexity) and a longer firebox with combustion chamber, together with a correspondingly shorter boiler barrel.  Someone has claimed that the over-long boiler of the original 'Bear' was acting as a condenser by the time the gases reached the smokebox end!  A higher degree of superheat would be another improvement.  Other alterations would be easily-accessible outside Walschaerts gear, outside bearings on the trailing axle, and a decent-sized cab.

 

I'm afraid this is just another rough-and-ready Photoshop job but I've tried to show what might have  emerged in the 1920s below:

 

1277020027_GWR_GreatBearII.jpg.1b6d02c742b65278a3c9d40cb04e2300.jpg

 

'Evening Star' had 20" diameter inclined cylinders so, perhaps 21" might have been possible on the more generous GWR loading gauge.  With 6' 3" drivers (lighter wheels) and a boiler pressed to 250 psi, tractive effort should not be very far short of the 40,000lb of the King and with some of the weight carried by the trailing axle.

 

The PRR K4s received 'streamlining' in the 1930s so perhaps this engine could have competed with Duchesses and A4's in this 'modernist' trend.

 

Mike

 

Fascinating and horrifying at the same time, good work.  

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