Imaginary Locomotives

[Gibbo675]

8 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

How about a Swindon version of this:

"Turkish Crocodile" - TCDD diesel locomotive Nr. 27003 (Krauss Maffei Locomotive Works, Munich)

 

Hi Andy,

 

Looking at the bogies is that a centre cab version of a D1000 western ?

 

Gibbo.

[PhilJ W]

For trip working why didn't they make better use of the class 14's?

[Northmoor]

13 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

For trip working why didn't they make better use of the class 14's?

Unfortunately for the Class 14 - a technically successful design - had to survive in an era when trip working was being withdrawn where possible and so much of the wagon fleet was unbraked.  See previous posts from@The Johnsterabove about use of the 14s in the South Wales Valleys; they were not appropriate (and arguably unsafe) on unfitted freights on steeply graded routes. 

[The Johnster]

The Canton drivers’ view of the 14s were that you were lucky to get one to go, and once you’d got it to go you were even luckier if you could get it to stop…  Yet their post BR industrial owners were delighted with them; one would have thought that poor availability/reliability and poor brakes would have continued to br a problem but apparently not.  Presumably the lower speeds of industrial shunting work were more suited to the locos; another near miss for BR.  They could run up to 40mph. 

[rodent279]

There must have been a fair few trip workings in the Sheffield area where they would have come in useful, and possibly around London, but I guess that's all really, and a small, non-standard fleet might have been difficult to justify.

Edit: could they not have been used for empty stock working to/from Paddington & maybe Euston?

Edited September 28, 2021 by rodent279

[Northmoor]

12 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

There must have been a fair few trip workings in the Sheffield area where they would have come in useful, and possibly around London, but I guess that's all really, and a small, non-standard fleet might have been difficult to justify.

Edit: could they not have been used for empty stock working to/from Paddington & maybe Euston?

Possibly but again, is it a solution looking for a problem?  By the mid-80s empty coaches were taken out of Euston (up a steep Camden Bank) by "retired" older electric locos and before they were restricted to 40mph, they could be used for other things.  A Class 14 in that role could ONLY be used for that purpose on the WCML; 40mph freights wouldn't have been very welcome even then.

[Zomboid]

14s can't have been unsalvageable considering how many survived, and for so long, after BR got rid of them. But a small number of low powered, 40mph machines were never going to last long without a specific job. And there's not much they could usefully do that 37 couldn't do better.

[Andy Kirkham]

3 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Andy,

 

Looking at the bogies is that a centre cab version of a D1000 western ?

 

Gibbo.

They both had twin Maybach MD655 engines and Voith transmissions, so perhaps that is a fair assessment.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

The Stubby Swindonian

[PenrithBeacon]

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

For trip working why didn't they make better use of the class 14's?

If WR had designed these things in the late forties then they might have had a purpose. Instead it chose to make over 1Ks worth of pannier tanks. 

[AlfaZagato]

Could 20's only work multiple in pairs?

[PhilJ W]

14 minutes ago, AlfaZagato said:

Could 20's only work multiple in pairs?

No, they could and sometimes did work on their own but the view forward when running nose first was restricted so single locomotive working was not very common. All of the class one's had a similar problem (or worse) with the exception of the class 17's.

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, AlfaZagato said:

Could 20's only work multiple in pairs?

Believe up to 3 could work multi.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

Stubby Swindonian 2: The Shortening 

[rodent279]

23 hours ago, The Johnster said:

At Canton in the 70s we had a 90mph Gloucester job out and back with the 00.35 Cardiff-Peterborough parcels, 4E11, can’t recall the reporting number coming back now, load 4 GUVs.  Initially with a Hymek, pleasure to come to work shame to take the money not that I ever gave any back…. Then some idiot decided that a 25 would be ok to replace Canton’s Hymeks with.  31s maybe, but…
 

A 25 will do 90mph all right, but most of it’s effort is expended vertically to the extent that the springs bottom out; an hour of this was serious back pain and one driver reckoned he was 2 inches shorter in Gloucester than he’d been in Cardiff and another 2 in when he got back to Cardiff from Gloucester.  On top of that, one was frozen by draughts because the ccab windows shook open and deafened by the sheer volume as she banged and crashed her way along. 
 

Dreadful things.  

Can't help thinking that 90mph capability was never really needed on 25's, they'd have been more useful geared for 75, or even 60, given the jobs they spent most of their time on. A slightly higher TE would have resulted, which may have been useful as well.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

2023, here we come… 

Former DB ‘Shed’ wearing my logo design for GBR.

[DenysW]

Would this have gone better if the LMS twins had arrived in 1938/9 instead of 1947/8? Maybe at 1200 hp instead of 1600 hp to reflect the absence of turbo-charging pre-war. English Electric or Armstrong-Sulzer engines, although the EE look a little larger. Therefore 10 years+ experience of big diesels by nationalisation and 15+ by 1955, instead of not a lot.

 

I don't think this would have changed the decision in 1947 to continue with steam for a bit - that was political and macro-economic, not technical. It might have flushed out what we now realise, that steam engines can be flogged a lot harder for short periods than diesel engines can, so comparing a 1600 hp steam engine that can give 2400 hp for long enough to get up a short gradient with a 1600 hp diesel is apples and pears.

[jessy1692]

On 28/09/2021 at 07:40, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Andy,

 

Looking at the bogies is that a centre cab version of a D1000 western ?

 

Gibbo.

Very much is, I'm tempted to create an anglicised version now...

 

[jcm@gwr]

I'm going to stretch the boundary of plausibility with my latest cut-n-shut,

but first, the reasons behind it's creation.

We (my local MRC) took advantage of the lockdown(s) to give our clubhouse

a bit of a refurb, that meant taking down the layouts, unfortunately, that has

shown us some serious faults with our large 0 gauge layout. 

So we are building a new one, with a similar trackplan ('cos it worked well for

a club layout), and the guy drawing it, asked about clearances for the largest 

vehicles (we're trying to future-proof it as much as possible). 

It was decided that an Azuma coach, at 26m, was probably the largest we

would need to allow for, 597mm in 7mm scale!

 

I had a rummage in my 'that might come in handy, one day' box, and found a

couple of non-working Atlas F-units, so I thought, maybe a Super Deltic?

 

So I did

 

It looked better in primer

 

But at 625mm, it was too long, plus I realised that the bogies were in the wrong place,

so I just cut a piece of ply the right length, and screwed a pair of bogies on, at the right 

distance to match an Azuma.

Edited October 3, 2021 by jcm@gwr
maths!

[jcm@gwr]

Originally this was to be a clearance checking vehicle, but I thought it might

have space inside to fit a small vacuum cleaner, to create a maintenance

train, which would include our CMX track cleaning tank wagon.

That needs a decent loco to move it, so that meant twin motored. it also

meant less space, and more complications, so I'm going to build a dedicated

vacuum wagon.

So, out with the razor saw, again, and it went from 625mm to a slightly more

plausible 530mm

 

Then, as it's obviously one of the early diesels, being trialled alongside all the other prototypes,

I thought black over silver might look quite good

 

I had to strip all 4 bogies down, I should get 2 working ones, an un-powered, rolling

bogie and a pile of bits, I thought about the bits

 

It looks quite good as a Bo-Bo-Bo!

Edited October 3, 2021 by jcm@gwr
maths!

[LNWR18901910]

On 28/09/2021 at 13:07, ScottishRailFanatic said:

The Stubby Swindonian

What a fascinating locomotive! It looks more industrial, really. But for British Rail to own one, what classifcation would it have?

[LNWR18901910]

Lately, I have been focusing on the Pre-Grouping Era in recent times. For me, my absolute fave loco type from that period is the 4-4-0 tender locomotive. On the SREmG website, this one interests me the most (https://sremg.org.uk/steam/b1(se).shtml). I like its sleek elegance of a bygone time period and it did get me thinking; what if there was a 4-4-0 version of the LNWR Improved Precedent Class? I could definitely make a model of that one day!

 

Also, on Sam's Trains, Sam himself made his own 3D-printed steam locomotive to go with his own coaching stock! Go take a look-see!

 

[tythatguy1312]

13 hours ago, LNWR18901910 said:

What a fascinating locomotive! It looks more industrial, really. But for British Rail to own one, what classifcation would it have?

I suspect it would fit into the Class 13 designation, bumping those 08 fusions up, possibly to Class 16. 

[ScottishRailFanatic]

On 07/10/2021 at 01:11, LNWR18901910 said:

What a fascinating locomotive! It looks more industrial, really. But for British Rail to own one, what classifcation would it have?

Thanks! I agree with @tythatguy1312 on the classification, makes sense.

[ScottishRailFanatic]

Predecessor to the Stubby Swindonian…

… the Bantam Bristolian!