Imaginary Locomotives

[billbedford]

10 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 The British controlled the oilfields of the Middle East but never seriously began dieselisation. 

 

No, but almost all RN ships were oil fired by the end of WW1, though some of the earlier Dreadnoughts still had oil sprays in coal fired boilers. 

[whart57]

10 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

No, but almost all RN ships were oil fired by the end of WW1, though some of the earlier Dreadnoughts still had oil sprays in coal fired boilers. 

Surely that had more to do with the convenience of oil in the specific circumstances of warships. Coaling a battleship was very labour intensive and coal bulky to shift. Bit of an issue at Scapa Flow never mind the far flung bases around the world 

[tythatguy1312]

27 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Surely that had more to do with the convenience of oil in the specific circumstances of warships. Coaling a battleship was very labour intensive and coal bulky to shift. Bit of an issue at Scapa Flow never mind the far flung bases around the world 

undoubtedly, especially as passenger ships made the switch en masse after the war. Although it did also come with a reduced crew requirement, easier storage and more efficiency, meaning ships could go for longer or slightly faster. It also stopped coal merchants from sticking empty cages in the barges to sell the displaced coal to the LNER or whatever. From what I can tell the reason British railways didn't switch was the need to import, which drove up the price. Adding to this, British engines never got big enough to need 2 firemen except debatably the LNER U1, negating any crew savings and requiring equipment that was significantly more advanced than "a shovel".

[whart57]

The rail unions were also opposed to crew savings, and argued successfully for the retention of the "fireman" well into the diesel era.

 

In Europe when the need to tend a fire under a big kettle went away the man doing that was also taken away, and it could be argued that this made marginal branch lines more economic to run using internal combustion motors. Britain had the "flying bananas" on the GWR, but otherwise the branch line train was a steam-hauled job requiring three men to run it. The Netherlands on the other hand was bringing in petrol and diesel powered railcars from 1923 on.

 

 

There's something brutish about these units with the massive radiator up front. In the spirit of this thread you have to wonder what it would have looked like had the LMS or LNER tried a similar experiment.

 

The styling department of the NS did get to work and came up with this unit just before WW2

 

 

A composite 2nd and 3rd class (the Netherlands abolished first class rather than second when going to a two class system). The small folding doors between the compartments give access to the engine room. Sadly for this series of eight units WW2 intervened. Fuel rationing limited their deployment after the German invasion in 1940 and in 1945 only one was still in working order. Two heavily damaged units were restored to service in 1950, but the rest were simply missing. Two eventually turned up on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

 

After the war diesel electric units completed the replacement of steam traction on the branch lines

 

 

The later Dutch railbuses were fitted with the Scharfenberg coupling, interestingly the Germans retained traditional buffers and couplings on their schienenbussen

 

 

I believe that was so they could take the odd van or coal truck with them, thus saving on a freight working. This was an important consideration because if we take the example of the Colonel Stephens railways, the savings made using petrol railcars were not fully realised if the railway still needed to stoke up a steam engine for the goods train. But if the railcar was made powerful and robust enough to tow 2-3 goods trucks then it was unlikely to be much cheaper to run than a steam engine.

[tythatguy1312]

11 minutes ago, whart57 said:

you have to wonder what it would have looked like had the LMS or LNER tried a similar experiment.

Luckily they did, and they had a variety of railcars & railmotors, albeit almost all on the LNER. 
The Whitworth unit looks a lot like their Sentinel railcars, and was quite a stylish unit for a railcar

Then there's the Clayton unit, which makes a Royal Scot look like an A3 in terms of looks


the LNER also had a Metrovick Railcar, seems rather unlike their most famous British rolling stock for looking quite nice. 
They also made decently extensive use of Steam Railcars constructed by Sentinel Waggon Works, they're alright.

Overall, they were decent cost cutting measures for the cash strapped LNER, but they weren't very adaptable, which was ultimately their downfall. Well that and the Unions. The Pre-LNER Companies had a few too, of which 1 is miraculously preserved.

[john new]

21 hours ago, DenysW said:

In case we're drifting OT into geopolitics (etc. etc.) I give you a (re?)post of an early 4-6-0 in Midland livery, courtesy of Compound2632:

 

 

I wish the Midland had duplicated the nameplate on either side of the number instead of as-shown, but as this, clearly, was a prototype I think they can be forgiven. Less forgivable is their use of vertical pickets on the fence instead of Midland diagonal.

Not being particularly knowledgeable on things Midland I took this post and image initially at face value, looking at it again it is clearly a photoshopped hoax. Several give always when looked at closely, not just the obvious duplicated nameplate.

[tythatguy1312]

8 minutes ago, john new said:

not just the obvious duplicated nameplate.

or the duplicated dome? I really doubt most British boilers could keep up the steam demand for 2, yet alone whether the cylinders could use all that steam

[john new]

4 minutes ago, tythatguy1312 said:

or the duplicated dome? I really doubt most British boilers could keep up the steam demand for 2, yet alone whether the cylinders could use all that steam

I initially thought one was a dome the other possibly a sandbox, yes the dome and in particular the duplicated tree behind it are proof of the copy. A neat idea but let down in the execution.

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by john new

[BernardTPM]

The simple cut and paste has left it with a rather unweildy long wheeelbase too. It would be more plausible if the front pair of drivers were nearly touching to bring down the overall fixed wheelbase, then reposition a single dome.

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, tythatguy1312 said:

or the duplicated dome? I really doubt most British boilers could keep up the steam demand for 2, yet alone whether the cylinders could use all that steam

 

One dome for each cylinder, with independent regulator, so the left cylinder can do more work when turning right, and vice-versa. 

 

10 minutes ago, john new said:

A neat idea but let down in the execution.

 

Kind of you to say so!

[john new]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Kind of you to say so!

Not meaning to insult, genuinely impressive work which initially fooled me, just thinking a bit more time on it would have helped the illusion.

Edited December 27, 2021 by john new

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, john new said:

Not meaning to insult, genuinely impressive work which initially fooled me, just thinking a bit more time on it would have helped the illusion.

 

No offence taken. As far as I can remember, I only spent about ten minutes on it. Someone with more skill and experience, along with better software (I was using Word!) could no doubt make a better job of it but I'm unconvinced it would be worth it!

 

 

 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

 

 

I believe that was so they could take the odd van or coal truck with them, thus saving on a freight working. This was an important consideration because if we take the example of the Colonel Stephens railways, the savings made using petrol railcars were not fully realised if the railway still needed to stoke up a steam engine for the goods train. But if the railcar was made powerful and robust enough to tow 2-3 goods trucks then it was unlikely to be much cheaper to run than a steam engine.

I agree the rail unions prevented many savings from being made - understandable, it's what their members paid them to do - but the lesson which never seems to be learned about using "light railcars" to make rural branch lines economic, is that it isn't the rolling stock that's the problem, it is the cost of the infrastructure and the fact that stations are often forced by geography to be well away from the centres of the villages.  As soon as a motorbus and a delivery van became available, they could do the same job as the railway twice as effectively, in half the time and at half the cost.  

 

But those German Uerdingen railbuses are lovely; I have a Fleischmann pair on my desk here that I am halfway through repainting.

[john new]

10 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I agree the rail unions prevented many savings from being made - understandable, it's what their members paid them to do - but the lesson which never seems to be learned about using "light railcars" to make rural branch lines economic, is that it isn't the rolling stock that's the problem, it is the cost of the infrastructure and the fact that stations are often forced by geography to be well away from the centres of the villages.  As soon as a motorbus and a delivery van became available, they could do the same job as the railway twice as effectively, in half the time and at half the cost.  

 

But those German Uerdingen railbuses are lovely; I have a Fleischmann pair on my desk here that I am halfway through repainting.

And more conveniently as the bus/tram routes were far closer to a doorstep service for many residents than one railway station often at quite a distance from where people actually lived.

[Suzie]

Probably was not worth the effort. 

 

[whart57]

31 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I agree the rail unions prevented many savings from being made - understandable, it's what their members paid them to do - but the lesson which never seems to be learned about using "light railcars" to make rural branch lines economic, is that it isn't the rolling stock that's the problem, it is the cost of the infrastructure and the fact that stations are often forced by geography to be well away from the centres of the villages.  As soon as a motorbus and a delivery van became available, they could do the same job as the railway twice as effectively, in half the time and at half the cost. 

 

Those first Dutch streamliners were in fact intended for another purpose namely to run stopping trains in between the faster mainline trains. In common with many others the first reaction the Dutch railways had to motor bus competition was to put loads of halts on their existing lines. Then they discovered this just slowed the trains down, all that extra stopping and starting. So the idea was to serve the halts with a diesel car and keep the mainline trains just stopping at the major stations. They ended up shutting the halts where local growth didn't result in an upgrade anyway.

[tythatguy1312]

26 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Those first Dutch streamliners were in fact intended for another purpose namely to run stopping trains in between the faster mainline trains. In common with many others the first reaction the Dutch railways had to motor bus competition was to put loads of halts on their existing lines. Then they discovered this just slowed the trains down, all that extra stopping and starting. So the idea was to serve the halts with a diesel car and keep the mainline trains just stopping at the major stations. They ended up shutting the halts where local growth didn't result in an upgrade anyway.

so the Dutch took the exact opposite route to Germany, the US and Swindon? Never thought I'd see a line take the opposite route

[PhilJ W]

57 minutes ago, Suzie said:

Probably was not worth the effort. 

 

Would a boiler that long be very efficient?

[brack]

1 hour ago, Suzie said:

Probably was not worth the effort. 

 

That looks so much more plausible, I can relax now...

 

Hang on, how long is that firebox?

[Traintresta]

5 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Would a boiler that long be very efficient?

Something tells me this needs photo shopping like the MR Compound that somebody did earlier on this thread, to shorted the distance between the leading and centre coupled axles.

[whart57]

27 minutes ago, tythatguy1312 said:

so the Dutch took the exact opposite route to Germany, the US and Swindon? Never thought I'd see a line take the opposite route

 

They did both. Some IC railcars were intended for branch line use, like these four wheel jobbies intended for use in Zeeland

 

Although this pic is taken on the preserved SGB line, unusually for preserved stock, this railcar is on its original stamping ground.

 

Another use to which railcars were put to work on were the odd stubs around the network. The one I posted earlier with the massive bus radiator was intended for use on the line from Zwolle to Kampen, a branch poorly laid out for operating as part of a wider network.

Gouda to Alphen was another line that lay across the main traffic flows and that was another early recipient of railcars.

 

It mustn't be overlooked that the Netherlands Railways were looking to banish steam, at least from the passenger service, by the early 1940s. They would probably have achieved it had WW2 not intervened.

[whart57]

Why am I posting this stuff in here? Well because one of the more speculative ideas I have for model railways is what would a light railway in the hands of a true moderniser have looked like. If instead of running services with a patched up Terrier a light railway had gambled on using IC powered railcars, particularly ones with enough oomph - and braking power - to attach a coal wagon or a van.

[PhilJ W]

Just now, whart57 said:

Why am I posting this stuff in here? Well because one of the more speculative ideas I have for model railways is what would a light railway in the hands of a true moderniser have looked like. If instead of running services with a patched up Terrier a light railway had gambled on using IC powered railcars, particularly ones with enough oomph - and braking power - to attach a coal wagon or a van.

And diesel locomotives? The three BTH Bo-Bo locomotives supplied to the Ford motor company in 1931 were said to be capable of 35mph. More than an adequate speed for a branch line freight.

[whart57]

Some light railways would only have the one powered vehicle though.

[brack]

Have we discussed Gresley's diesel?

 

In 1935 the lner looked at the fortunes of the coal trade and decided renewing the electrical equipment for shildon-Newport wasn't worth it (Raven's main line electrification scheme is the great 'what if' for british railways - without the interruption of ww1 and the economic travails that followed, an electrified ECML would've been a trail blazer and probably pushed forward similar schemes elsewhere in the country).

This left a bunch of working electric locos with nowhere to run. In the early 30s, gresley and EE proposed putting a beardmore diesel engine and generator in a new body with end cabs for the Peterborough coal traffic and keeping the existing frame/bogies/motors). In the end, beardmore doubted that their engine would be suitable, so it didn't happen. Main line diesel electric locos in the early-mid 30s? Remember that Beardmore/westinghouse had built the Canadian National diesel electrics in 1929 (first main line diesel road locos in north america) - it was doable, presumably they'd have struggled to get a diesel engine to churn out 1100hp in the weight/space available, so the loco wouldn't have been as powerful as it was in electric form.

 

Maybe it'd have looked like a mini 76?