Imaginary Locomotives

[DenysW]

The romanticist in me that wants to have Nord locomotives in London (and SECR locos in Paris) thinks that we're being too rational/modern. The Night Ferries recycled war-surplus equipment. If you were building a new service, well before that, that made money from freight, and boosted status from express/luxury passenger services, then it's quite conceivable that Nord would have insisted on having an international no-changes service that its French competitors didn't have, and SER would have agreed - for the same access to France.  The SER posted fares for journeys across Europe, and annoyed its commuters by its (apparent and probably true) focus on continental journeys, laying the ground to make this worse with a rail ferry.

 

That means you build the train ferry so that the rails down the middle can take the weight of the locomotive, and that it sits at the open end that takes dangerous cargo. Yes for freight you don't take the locomotives - no publicity gain, and freight mostly doesn't care about more shunting time.

 

If accurate construction costings and valid traffic forecasts had ruled, then the London Extension of the MS&L (under the same Mr. Watkin) would never have been built, and not crippled LNER with its debt.

[MikeOxon]

8 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Lovely looking machine. Why the uneven axle spacing on the tender though?

Several early GWR tenders had uneven axle spacing   From 1866, Swindon-built tenders had iron-plate frames and most had  6' 2" + 6' 10" wheelbase.-

[5&9Models]

1 hour ago, MikeOxon said:

Several early GWR tenders had uneven axle spacing   From 1866, Swindon-built tenders had iron-plate frames and most had  6' 2" + 6' 10" wheelbase.-

It was quite common on early loco tenders for other railways too. I wondered if it was to do with the fact that they burned coke which is very light. Therefore you would need more support under the water (which is the heavy bit) and considerably less under the coke. On a six-wheel tender it would make sense to focus the support under the water by moving the middle axle back? Attached pic of Stephenson six wheel tender of the 1840s by way of explanation.

[MikeOxon]

3 hours ago, 5&9Models said:

On a six-wheel tender it would make sense to focus the support under the water by moving the middle axle back?

on the GWR tenders the middle axle was forward!  By 1866, they were burning coal, though.

[5&9Models]

1 hour ago, MikeOxon said:

on the GWR tenders the middle axle was forward!  By 1866, they were burning coal, though.

Well the GWR did like to do things differently didn’t they!  Pop goes my theory!

[JimC]

5 hours ago, 5&9Models said:

Well the GWR did like to do things differently didn’t they!  Pop goes my theory!

You'd have to draw up all the internals really to work out weight distribution. Shape of the tanks, shape of the coal space, internal dividers... Water pickup gear when that started to be fitted must have complicated things too. 

[Tumut]

Hello All,

Re comments on through working of steam engines via train ferries, in-steam locomotives would be an obvious fire hazard, and fires on ships are a highly dangerous combination ! ( Coal or oil fired boilers in the engine room excepted).

Regards, Tumut

[Compound2632]

Anyway, at the time, the range of an express passenger steam locomotive was around 100 miles - 150 miles (Even on the LNWR with water troughs) limited by the build up of ash and clinker on the grate. So quite apart from the awkwardness of having an engine sitting around in steam for several hours on the deck of your train ferry, it would have been useless by the time it was disembarked. Even without the Channel, the 400 mile run between Paris and London would have needed two or three changes - compare the similar length of the West Coast and East Coast routes to Glasgow / Edinburgh, with changes at Crewe and Carlisle on the one hand and Grantham, York, and Newcastle on the other. No Webb Compounds turning up at Glasgow Central or Stirling Singles at Waverley!

 

I presume at the time the Nord expresses changed engines at Amiens?

Edited November 2, 2021 by Compound2632

[DenysW]

Sad, and, sadly, probably true. And I thought the 'Race to the North' changed locomotives when they changed companies, not to de-gunge the locomotives. Sigh.

[Compound2632]

22 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Sad, and, sadly, probably true. And I thought the 'Race to the North' changed locomotives when they changed companies, not to de-gunge the locomotives. Sigh.

 

West Coast:

LNWR: Euston - Crewe 158.1 miles; Crewe - Carlisle 141.1 miles

Caledonian: Carlisle - Perth 150.8 miles; Perth - Aberdeen 89.7 miles

 

East Coast:

Great Northern: Kings Cross - Grantham 105.5 miles; Grantham - York 82.7 miles

North Eastern: York - Newcastle 80.6 miles; Newcastle - Edinburgh 124.4 miles

North British: Edinburgh - Dundee 59.2 miles; Dundee - Aberdeen 71.3 miles*

 

The fastest runs for the two LNWR sections in the '95 were Adriatic's 64.3 mph average down to Crewe and Hardwicke's mind-boggling 67.2 mph over the northern hills. After the racing was over, the LNWR organised a demonstration Euston-Crewe non-stop run, which achieved an average of 51 mph. That was only possible because of the water troughs - exclusive to the LNWR at the time - and must have required very careful management of the fire. [Source: O.S. Nock, Speed Records on Britain's Railways (David & Charles, 1971). My copy is the Pan paperback edition, which I had when I was eight and has long been in two volumes, having fallen in half at the photographic plates inserted mid-way through.]

 

*Nock does not explicitly stated that engines were changed at Dundee but he focuses on performance on the Edinburgh - Dundee section; I'm pretty sure an engine change would have been the normal practice - I can't see the excellent but little Holmes 4-4-0s running 130 miles.

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Compound2632

[Bittern]

On 01/11/2021 at 10:37, The Johnster said:

So, sadly, the idea of those lovely de Glehn compounds at Victoria. or purring through the middle roads at Ashford, or SECR D's gleaming in the sunshine at Gare du Nord, would never have been a reality even had ro-ro train ferries been available. 

I think if you wanted to justify it, the story would be that with through traffic they formed a coordination committee (like the SECR), or the GdN bought the SER, and picked group standard designs to use until the combined drawing office produced hybrid designs.

[11ty12]

I believe this idea has been done before, but I made a 4-8-0 A4, or a T2. I’m not sure how it would perform, but it looks nice

[DK123GWR]

17 minutes ago, 11ty12 said:

I believe this idea has been done before, but I made a 4-8-0 A4, or a T2. I’m not sure how it would perform, but it looks nice

It certainly looks magnificent, but you might struggle to fit the ashpan for the wide firebox in the same place as the rear wheels (which also look like they might intrude into the cab).

[jcm@gwr]

25 minutes ago, DK123GWR said:

It certainly looks magnificent, but you might struggle to fit the ashpan for the wide firebox in the same place as the rear wheels (which also look like they might intrude into the cab).

 

Which is probably why they created the P (2-8-2), not the T (4-8-0)!

[11ty12]

In a similar vein of 8-coupled engines, I cobbled together “Berkshire James.” Originally an LYR class 28 mogul experiment, now the largest rigid-frame tank engine ever to run in the UK.

[rockershovel]

The locomotive would not be revenue earning in the sense of the carriages, and it would certainly not be productive to allow it to become part of the ferry operators revenue stream..

 

Re locomotive endurance, the examples offered suggest that British locos had a range of 130 miles, more or less, because they were designed that way to match traffic loadings. How would locos be managed on longer runs such as London to Edinburgh? 

 

American practice suggests that the practical limit of a steam locomotive, ceteris paribus, was around 400 miles - by this time the tender would be the same length as the locomotive and the crew would be at the end of their shift. 

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Re locomotive endurance, the examples offered suggest that British locos had a range of 130 miles, more or less, because they were designed that way to match traffic loadings. How would locos be managed on longer runs such as London to Edinburgh? 

 

American practice suggests that the practical limit of a steam locomotive, ceteris paribus, was around 400 miles - by this time the tender would be the same length as the locomotive and the crew would be at the end of their shift. 

 

There gets to be a point where the wasted (non revenue-earning) energy involved in lugging about the coal and water for a longer run became uneconomic. The bogie "watercart" tenders that appeared on the Midland, Caledonian, LSWR, etc. at the end of the 19th century were really only a stop-gap pending the installation of water troughs (though that never happened on the LSWR). The LNWR had got round this in part very early on, with Ramsbottom's invention of water troughs, exploited to have very much smaller tenders than became common elsewhere, but the range of the engines was still limited by the grate area. The through working between London and Glasgow or Edinburgh of the big pacifics of the 1930s was possible because of their large grate area. 

 

Nock remarks somewhere of the Euston - Glasgow non-stop that a faster time could have been obtained if there had been a five minute stop at Crewe for the fireman to bring coal forward in the tender. But a one-minute stop would have sufficed to change engines (and crews) so I conclude that a hard time was being had by all for the benefit of the publicity department.

[Mol_PMB]

With any imaginary loco, there's a need to consider the real-world practicality.

Now, I'm an engineer and I appreciate that others may not be so concerned about such issues or indeed my OCD, so take this with a pinch of salt if you wish.

Basically, locomotives have either wide fireboxes or narrow fireboxes (a very small minority of narrow gauge or shunting locos had marine fireboxes but these are not suited to sustained high power outputs in a loco application).

Under the firebox you need an ashpan, dampers etc.

So, for a narrow firebox loco (think GWR 4-6-0s) you can't put an axle through the area under the firebox.

For a wide firebox loco (think LNER Pacifics) you can't put a large wheelset flanking the firebox.

There are some ways to bend these rules a little, such as an inclined grate. But the reality is that most loco designs either placed a narrow firebox between or behind the axles, or a wide firebox over small-diameter trailing unpowered wheelsets.

 

[Compound2632]

22 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

So, for a narrow firebox loco (think GWR 4-6-0s) you can't put an axle through the area under the firebox.

There are some ways to bend these rules a little, such as an inclined grate. But the reality is that most loco designs either placed a narrow firebox between or behind the axles,

 

In the vast majority of 4-6-0 designs, the trailing coupled axle is under the firebox, generally with a sloping grate and often with a divided ash-pan; it's the best way to get a long enough firebox. The earliest British 4-6-0, the Jones Goods, is laid out as an extended 4-4-0 with the firebox between the second and third coupled axles. It's significant that many designers of highly successful late 19th century 4-4-0s really struggled with the transition to 4-6-0s; Dugald Drummond is a prime example (whereas brother Peter followed the Jones layout with some success). It really needed a complete break with accepted practice, as achieved by Churchward.

[Clive Mortimore]

Weren't the roll on roll off train ferries used to transport the ROD locos and stock. Deck space is always premium on any ship a loco doesn't earn money but a full coach does hence locos not crossing on the ferries.

[billbedford]

3 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Weren't the roll on roll off train ferries used to transport the ROD locos and stock. 

 

Yes, but they had the coupling and connecting rods removed, and because of loading gauge restrictions on the SECR, the outer chimneys were also removed.  

[billbedford]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

In the vast majority of 4-6-0 designs, the trailing coupled axle is under the firebox, generally with a sloping grate and often with a divided ash-pan; it's the best way to get a long enough firebox.

 

The GER Clauds had the firebox between the middle and rear driving axles, which made for a long cab, and possibly the reason those transferred to Scotland where known as 'Hikers'

[PhilJ W]

It was the B12's that were transferred to Scotland not the Clauds. The nickname 'hikers' was because of the feed water pre-heaters mounted on top of the boiler that resembled a back pack

[11ty12]

I’m sure y’all have seen the Hornby “Baby E2,” since every model train enthusiast starts with a ready-to-run 0-4-0, but why is it called the Baby E2? You don’t call the regular E2 the “Adult E2.”

So I decided to create the “Adult E2,” an 0-8-0T

[tythatguy1312]

1 hour ago, 11ty12 said:

I’m sure y’all have seen the Hornby “Baby E2,” since every model train enthusiast starts with a ready-to-run 0-4-0, but why is it called the Baby E2? You don’t call the regular E2 the “Adult E2.”

So I decided to create the “Adult E2,” an 0-8-0T

it's mainly called the Baby E2 as it's far smaller than Hornby's regular E2 Model, gaining some features and proportions from Thomas. Alas, the idea of an LB&SCR 0-8-0T for short haul heavy freights is intriguing, if a little unlikely considering the nature of the railway. Maybe a wartime engine perhaps...