Imaginary Locomotives

[Gilwell Park]

Didn't the LBSC propose a 2-6-2T version of the K?

[JimC]

There are sort of precedents for these two variations on a theme so not quite as unlikely as one might think... Lets see who gets internet points for both what it is and what precedents there were...

Edited September 17, 2021 by JimC

[rodent279]

2 minutes ago, JimC said:

There are sort of precedents for these two variations on a theme so not quite as unlikely as one might think... Lets see who gets internet points for both what it is and what precedents there were...

That's an Aberdare isn't it?

[JimC]

3 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

That's an Aberdare isn't it?

 

Null Pointe! Look again, and remember this is the fictional locomotives thread!

 

Although to be fair there are a few bits of modified Aberdare in it. Right era.

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by JimC

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, JimC said:

 

Null Pointe! Look again, and remember this is the fictional locomotives thread!

 

Although to be fair there are a few bits of modified Aberdare in it. Right era.

 

 

Frames of a Queen or similar 2-2-2? Some of those were rebuilt as 0-6-0s. 

[MikeOxon]

Several 'Sir Daniels' were converted to 0-6-0 so I assume that this is the 2-6-0 development.

[The Johnster]

Proportions suggest this loco is unworkable, especially the taper boiler version, as the valve chest and smokebox support is not in line with the chimney, meaning that the inside cylinders are out of alignment with the smokebox.  Might need extension of the frames at the rear to allow the firebox/boiler/smokebox assembly to sit further back to allow this alignment.  The backhead and the rear axle leaf springs will intrude into the cab less as well.

[JimC]

20 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 the valve chest and smokebox support is not in line with the chimney, 

If you mean the green structure, its meant to be a sandbox. I appear to have left the smokebox saddle off the parallel boiler version completely! Oops!

Edited September 17, 2021 by JimC

[john new]

Looks like it should be a 4-4-0 not a 2-6-0.

[The Johnster]

15 minutes ago, JimC said:

If you mean the green structure, its meant to be a sandbox. I appear to have left the smokebox saddle off the parallel boiler version completely! Oops!

Ah, I understand now.

[mccormackpj]

On 17/09/2021 at 11:10, Gilwell Park said:

Didn't the LBSC propose a 2-6-2T version of the K?

Here you go, from Part 1 of an article "Locomotive Design on the Southern Railway" in The Railway Magazine, March - April 1949.

Note from the text that this design was not a straightforward "tanked" K class. The axle-loading would have been higher than a K, so the wheelbase was lengthened in order to give a weight distribution acceptable to the civil engineer. Rather a handsome loco nevertheless, reminiscent of a GSR 850 / P1.

I've two questions: would the heavier axle-loading restrict it's usefulness on Brighton lines, and what is the purpose of having two steam domes?

[JimC]

They are simply Dean Singles converted to 2-6-0.  In real life some of the Sir Daniel 2-2-2s were converted to 0-6-0s. It was less complicated than you might imagine because by this stage the Sir Daniels were using the same boiler and motion as the Armstrong Standard Goods, so the biggest part of the job was realigning the cylinders.

 

So what I did was the same process with a late variant Dean Single. Holcroft tells us that Churchward considered a 4-4-0 conversion for the Dean singles, but when they looked at it in detail it came out too expensive. I decided money wasn't a problem (!!) and given new cylinders to the same basic design I reckoned that it was just possible to fit in the existing motion with the cylinders moderately steeply inclined round a carefully positioned leading axle, whilst the trailing wheels are where they were on the single. One has the "original" boiler, while the other has a standard 4. As well as the Sir Daniels, this also riffs on the conversions of 3521 class 0-4-4T (ex 0-4-2T) to 4-4-0s, which ended up with a mix of parallel and taper boilers.

In practice the more I look at it the more needs changing. In particular the amount of work needed on the frames. Holcroft tells us that Churchward didn't want to alter the cylinders, but the job proved to be impossible without making changes there. This would have been around 1908, so creating a class of sort of half baked Armstrong 4-4-0s or Aberdares when the new outside cylinder classes were so much better cannot have looked like a smart move. The Sir Daniel and 3521 conversions had been started around 1899/1900 when the future locomotive policy must have looked rather different.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by JimC

[DenysW]

I've posted below what I see as the British Imperialistic view of Gresley's response to the German early express diesels, even though it was written in 2015.

 

Is the actual truth that the Flying Hamburger (178 miles averaging 77 mph as a 2-coach Diesel Multiple Unit, 200 hp/coach) was too expensive in civil upgrades (curves, block working, freight bypass loops, etc.) for the lines that would have benefitted? On LNER I'm thinking probably Leicester/Nottingham, Harwich/Ipswich, Boston, Norwich, Peterborough: destinations that could have used an under 90 minute service to London for day-return business trips as well as tourism. Choosing Newcastle at 268 miles and showing steam could give a 4-hour service if you pushed it hard with a light load feels like an attention-diverter, not a rational debate about speed or market-suitability.

 

What would Gresley's Flying Bostonian have looked like with 1934 English Electric diesels? A 3-coach DMU with 300 hp/coach? A fiasco?

 

"How the LNER ensured that the Flying Hamburger was dead meat

By Mike Amos, Northern Echo Opinion Columnist, 2015

Excerpts:

The LNER was determined to resist the allure of diesel traction, particularly the crack German express known – at least over here – as the Flying Hamburger.

 

Papyrus, one of a class designed by Nigel Gresley, but altogether less well remembered than the streamlined and Gresley-inspired Mallard, was chosen to prove that it was possible to cover the 268 miles between Newcastle and Kings Cross in under four hours – the fastest timetabled train took five hours and seven minutes.

For 12 continuous (and downhill) miles near Peterborough, the six-carriage train averaged 100.6mph – “by far the longest distance ever travelled at such a speed by a steam engine".

The top speed was 108mph, the average 70.4mph; 300 miles were run at 80mph and the journey was completed in three hours 49 minutes despite delays because of an accident near Doncaster. All were world records."

[rockershovel]

9 hours ago, DenysW said:

I've posted below what I see as the British Imperialistic view of Gresley's response to the German early express diesels, even though it was written in 2015.

 

Is the actual truth that the Flying Hamburger (178 miles averaging 77 mph as a 2-coach Diesel Multiple Unit, 200 hp/coach) was too expensive in civil upgrades (curves, block working, freight bypass loops, etc.) for the lines that would have benefitted? On LNER I'm thinking probably Leicester/Nottingham, Harwich/Ipswich, Boston, Norwich, Peterborough: destinations that could have used an under 90 minute service to London for day-return business trips as well as tourism. Choosing Newcastle at 268 miles and showing steam could give a 4-hour service if you pushed it hard with a light load feels like an attention-diverter, not a rational debate about speed or market-suitability.

 

What would Gresley's Flying Bostonian have looked like with 1934 English Electric diesels? A 3-coach DMU with 300 hp/coach? A fiasco?

 

"How the LNER ensured that the Flying Hamburger was dead meat

By Mike Amos, Northern Echo Opinion Columnist, 2015

Excerpts:

The LNER was determined to resist the allure of diesel traction, particularly the crack German express known – at least over here – as the Flying Hamburger.

 

Papyrus, one of a class designed by Nigel Gresley, but altogether less well remembered than the streamlined and Gresley-inspired Mallard, was chosen to prove that it was possible to cover the 268 miles between Newcastle and Kings Cross in under four hours – the fastest timetabled train took five hours and seven minutes.

For 12 continuous (and downhill) miles near Peterborough, the six-carriage train averaged 100.6mph – “by far the longest distance ever travelled at such a speed by a steam engine".

The top speed was 108mph, the average 70.4mph; 300 miles were run at 80mph and the journey was completed in three hours 49 minutes despite delays because of an accident near Doncaster. All were world records."

Out of curiosity, when would the term "hamburger" in the sense of a patty of ground meat, have come into use in British English? It was certainly in use in the US before WW2, Steinbeck uses the term "hamburg steak" in Cannery Row and Grapes of Wrath 

[The Johnster]

Berlin-Hamburg is ballpark comparable to KX-Leeds in distance, but the traffic requirements were different for political reasons.  The KX-Leeds tended to be heavily loaded 14 bogies plus, needing a good portion of first class for the business clientele and catering facilities as well as providing for a large number of 3rd class customers.  The Flying Hamburger was an elite fast service for Party Officials, not for the hoi polloi even if they could afford 1st class and certainly not for untermench.

 

If a 1938 diesel train had been considered at 200hp per coach for the Leeds run (and don't forget these were the bread and butter earners more so even than Newcastle, and very much more so than beyond Newcastle despite the glamour of the Edinburgh non-stoppers), based on the Hamburger or the Zephyrs, it would have had to have been a least a 12 car set to cope with the traffic, and I am not sure that the through control technology was reliable enough at the time, not to mention that the vibrations would have taken some suppressing, very neccessary in first and catering.  There was little economic sense in running 2 coaches from Berlin to Hamburg, and it wasn't done for economic reasons or to make money, but to make a political point.  There was no need to make such a point in the UK, and no market demand for such a train.  So there was no such train.

 

In America the Zephyrs had proven the technology but were uneconomic as they could not carry enough passengers (the same mistake was made with Concorde, and not with the 747).   Any marketing graduate will tell you that the R&D people keep coming up with brilliant products that can't be sold at a price the market will bear, or that nobody wants, or both.  What the LNER's passengers wanted in the late 30s was reasonalbly fast and comfortable trains that could carry 6 or 7 hundred passengers, so that they could get from Bradford or Newcastle to London and back in a day for business or shopping/sightseeing, as opposed to very fast and dubiously comfortable trains that could barely manage 100 at a time unless they ran at 15 minute intervals...

[Flying Pig]

18 hours ago, DenysW said:

Is the actual truth that the Flying Hamburger (178 miles averaging 77 mph as a 2-coach Diesel Multiple Unit, 200 hp/coach) was too expensive in civil upgrades (curves, block working, freight bypass loops, etc.) for the lines that would have benefitted? On LNER I'm thinking probably Leicester/Nottingham, Harwich/Ipswich, Boston, Norwich, Peterborough: destinations that could have used an under 90 minute service to London...

 

Yes, obviously.  It's well-known that the LNER was quite poor.

 

But to give an idea of the scale of the task, see the timetables for London to Boston here.  It seems about two hours was the average for 1968 and that benefitting from considerable improvements on the ECML, higher average traffic speeds and considerably fewer freight and stopping passenger trains. Sub-ninety minutes looks like a very expensive proposition for the mid-1930s.

 

Don't let that stop you imagining the trains, though (I'd get proposals from Armstrong Whitworth as well as EE). BTW  @Captain Electra drew up a very nice streamlined diesel electric for the LNER on an old incarnation of RMweb, which I think has been reposted on the present forum, perhaps even in this thread.

 

[DenysW]

I agree with Johnster that Leeds is too far - the 1930s opportunity was probably population centres 80-130 miles from London if diesel gives you an average of 75 mph with 1-2 stops, to replace steam where the speed appears to have been 50 mph without excessive effort. Hence Boston, Leicester, etc.

 

Just a detail - whoever used the Flying Hamburger, it was designed, procured, and entered service during the Weimar Republic.

[rodent279]

12 minutes ago, DenysW said:

I agree with Johnster that Leeds is too far - the 1930s opportunity was probably population centres 80-130 miles from London if diesel gives you an average of 75 mph with 1-2 stops, to replace steam where the speed appears to have been 50 mph without excessive effort. Hence Boston, Leicester, etc.

 

Just a detail - whoever used the Flying Hamburger, it was designed, procured, and entered service during the Weimar Republic.

Given that, I've said this before, the GWR could have extended it's railcars into 6-8 car trains, possibly with an unpowered trailer or two, and put on a high speed limited stop London-Bristol/Cardiff/Oxford service.

Slightly diverging, reading the thread on Bishops Rd with interest, if steam on the Met was allowed for through freight up into the 1960's, could the GWR have sustained it's passenger services using diesel railcars?

[BernardTPM]

5 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

Don't let that stop you imagining the trains, though (I'd get proposals from Armstrong Whitworth as well as EE). BTW  @Captain Electra drew up a very nice streamlined diesel electric for the LNER on an old incarnation of RMweb, which I think has been reposted on the present forum, perhaps even in this thread.

There was also my double-engine, pre-War HSTish design earlier in the thread here. A lot of the AW traction department staff went to EE after the former closed in 1937. Armstrong Whitworth needed to make space for military contracts.

[PenrithBeacon]

3 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

There was also my double-engine, pre-War HSTish design earlier in the thread here. A lot of the AW traction department staff went to EE after the former closed in 1937. Armstrong Whitworth needed to make space for military contracts.

The site was bought back by the government after its sale to AW post WW1

[rockershovel]

Railways have ALWAYS been political, on some levels. Germany, in the modern sense was created by the railways (or more correctly, by State transport policy). Australia ran cross-country trains in a land with multiple track gauges, for political reasons. Mussolini's apocryphal achievement doesn't need repeating here. Abraham Lincoln considered the building of a trans-continental railway so important, that it continued even when the nation was locked in a fight for its very existence. It would have been inconceivable for Britain NOT to have fast, direct trains between its regional and central capitals, plus the great ports of Liverpool, Bristol and Southampton. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by rockershovel

[DavidB-AU]

On the subject of pre-war fast multiple units (and we're getting off the topic of "locomotives") I'll point out the Silver City Comet built in Australia in 1937. The double ended 660hp power cars are the equivalent of 5 GWR railcars or 0.8 DRG SVT 877s and could carry 3.5t of luggage. They were capable of operating in multiple (double heading) but rarely did, and the trailers didn't have through MU cables. The trailers were 57' long with seating for 44 first class or 59 second class passengers. As built there were second class trailers with a buffet and 47 seats, 2 of them later rebuilt to full dining cars with 22/24 seats. And they were fully air conditioned.

 

One power car could easily maintain 80mph with 4 trailers or 70mph with 5 trailers. It could cover the 422 miles from Parkes to Broken Hill in 8½ hours with 10 stops. Although relatively flat by Australian standards, the route has steeper ruling gradients than British main lines. Compare that with the 7½ hour non-stop Flying Scotsman of the same era.

 

It's not a stretch to imagine single ended power cars in a 2+8 formation of 2 first class trailers, 5 second class trailers and one second class with buffet. That would have a capacity of 88 first class, 342 second class and 7t of luggage/parcels.

 

The Comet also had full luggage/parcels trailers so it's not hard to imagine a TPO version.

 

Cheers

David

[Mol_PMB]

23 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Given that, I've said this before, the GWR could have extended it's railcars into 6-8 car trains, possibly with an unpowered trailer or two, and put on a high speed limited stop London-Bristol/Cardiff/Oxford service.

Slightly diverging, reading the thread on Bishops Rd with interest, if steam on the Met was allowed for through freight up into the 1960's, could the GWR have sustained it's passenger services using diesel railcars?

We can look across the Irish Sea to the GNR(I) ‘Enterprise’ of the 1950s to see how well that might have turned out. 

 

[Mol_PMB]

... and that set me thinking on the GNR(I) and GWR parallels. The Western Region was heavily into diesel-hydraulics based on German technology, and the GNR’s only main-line diesel loco was also a DH from Germany. What if the GWR/WR had ordered a batch of these instead of the 1500 panniers?

 

[BernardTPM]

At around the time the 1500s were being built the GWR did order six English Electric 350hp diesel-electric shunters, entering service in 1948. Pretty standard (like the LMS ones) but they had GWR style cast numberplates. The two gas turbines ordered by the GWR also had electric trransmission. Hydraulics came later, more a Western Region than GWR thing and well after the 15xx.