Imaginary Locomotives

[Ravenser]

Just now, Suzie said:

 

Triang steeple cabs?

 

 

I was thinking of the Quayside electrics ES1 . But they'd be a bit vintage by 1931. The horsepower quoted implies what the USA called a "road switcher" - an 08 is just 350hp

Edited May 16, 2019 by Ravenser

[Corbs]

I wonder if a similar policy to what DBS has done now would have evolved, where they've essentially said 'hang on, why don't we just get the 66s to do the shunting, do away with the 08s, and only have to maintain one type of loco instead of 2'.

i.e. just order more goods Bo-Bo locos, or order another batch with lower gearing on the bogies.

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 hour ago, AlfaZagato said:

Can you imagine, teak EMUs?

 

Sadly, yes, I can. There seems no limit to the extent that the "modern" railway likes to refer back to historical (pre-group even) names, etc.

 

Many major improvements have been celebrated by running a steam special.

[rodent279]

Just now, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Sadly, yes, I can. There seems no limit to the extent that the "modern" railway likes to refer back to historical (pre-group even) names, etc.

 

Many major improvements have been celebrated by running a steam special.

To be fair, that's Britain for you. Wallowing in the past.

[Joseph_Pestell]

3 hours ago, RLBH said:

LNER thinking is quite clearly presented in the 1931 Weir Report - one of the case studies was wholesale electrification of the former Great Northern Railway, as in all of it. Even the marshalling yards. Consideration was given to only wiring those parts of the yards that main-line engines would use, and shunting with steam, but found that you had to wire up so much of the yard anyway that you might as well do the whole lot and get rid of steam entirely.

 

The amount of rolling stock required for this was:

• 35 2,400hp 2D2 express passenger locomotives

• 193 1,200hp Bo-Bo goods locomotives

• 28 1,800hp Co-Co goods locomotives

• 42 1,800hp Co-Co mixed traffic locomotives, of which 14 to have electrically-fired boilers for train heat

• 138 720hp Bo-Bo shunting locomotives

• 258 three-car EMUs

The express passenger locomotives were to be designed for 75mph, the goods locomotives for 35mph, and the mixed traffic would be goods locomotives regeared for 60mph and fitted with vacuum pumps. They were talking seriously about double-headed electric locomotives hauling 60-wagon unfitted coal trains, which is just mad!

 

The Co-Co mixed traffic locomotives are actually a pretty good match for the EM1s, whilst the express passenger jobs compare well with the EM2s. Note the huge number of EMUs - the advantages of multiple unit traction were obvious even back then.

 

The former LNER/Eastern Region does seem to have kept studying electrification, whilst the LMS/London Midland Region were pretty actively disinterested in it. A shame that the East Coast had to wait so long to finally benefit from all those studies.

 

Certainly a fun idea for a layout.

 

But no Mallard breaking a world record that still stands 80 years on.

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

That I think was the issue. Gerry Fiennes makes it plain that B1s and B17s simply weren't up to the job in the late 1940s . My suspicion is that the LNER Board was considering solving the problem by extending the Shenfield electrification to Ipswich . Riddles decided to solve it by building LMS- derived light Pacifics....

 

The 1931 scheme was a bit optimistic ... I'm trying to imagine the Spilsby branch or the Horncastle branch worked by a Class 306 EMU + a Shildon/Newport EF1 on the freight. It would make an "interesting" layout

Not sure the Brit's were LMS derived except in the most general stylistic terms; an LMS derived light pacific would have had at least 3 cylinders like a Royal Scot/Patriot/Jubilee, and probably a double chimney.  Motion was LNER derived, pretty much everything else was brand new; the LMS had no suitable boiler/firebox/smokebox combination for it though you might argue that the Southern did.  They went to the GE first presumably because that was where the need for them was greatest, but were not specifically designed for that route., so it's not really quite right to say that Riddles solved the GE's motive power issue by designing them, though solve it they undoubtedly did!  They were the best motive power it had ever had until the Class 47s and Clacton electrics appeared, the class 40, which was also first used here, being a step down in power, as remarked on by Sir Brian Roberston at the time.

 

The LNER might have extended the 1,500v DC system a lot further had they had more money and WW2 had not occurred, but they hadn't, and it did.  Electrifying the GC from Sheffield to Marylebone would have made a lot of sense as an extension of the putative Manchester-Sheffield-Wath scheme.  Nothing wrong with speculating what the result would have been (an EM2 would have run rings around a B17 and presumably outperformed a Brit, and give me an EM1 over a B1, or a Brush/Mirlees Type 2, any day), or the issues when conversion to 25kv AC became inevitable basically for the same as what it eventually cost anyway.  

 

More speculation can be indulged in if we want to electrify the ECML, where the trains are heavier and faster, before 1955; a 3.000 hp EM3 or 1,600hp twins geared for 100mph + running would have been needed to equal the A4s, eventually supplanted in reality by the Deltics, never mind improve on them.  Pairs of EM1s could have probably managed the mineral drags from Peterborough and the heavy traffic in the North East, and EM2s would have been the tool for just about everything else, with local and KX/Leeds/Newcastle/Edinburgh commuter traffic in the hands of Shenfield type emus.  This would cascade the pacifics to Scotland, especially the Waverley Route, and eliminate the pregrouping 4-4-0s; the A3s would probably not have had a role.

[Suzie]

Ilford used one of the Bo-Bos as a shunter, so perhaps a small shunter would not be needed.

[relaxinghobby]

There is much talk of super-large possible mainline locos here such as 4-10-2, mallets and super pacifics.

At the other end of the scale are shunters or switchers as they are called in the states.

 

Its from the cheap range from Bachmann H0 which seems to mean it only lacks valves gear. I think it is a USRA switcher from the 1918 to 1920 war period probably based on an already developed ALCO product. A quick internet search shows something similar dated 1913. If the big railways in Britain like the MR and GCR could buy American built locos such a loco could have ended up on a backwater railway in the UK like my industrial loop line, especially after the WW I period as cheap war surplus. The long bogie tender seemed too big so a smaller one was adapted.

Reg the fire lighter is just over 21 mm tall for comparison, the cab height is deepened and a front buffer beam and buffers are being added.

[AlfaZagato]

The perspective is messing with my eyes.   If you have four wheels there, I don't know that there is a particular prototype.   Even in the US, that would be heavy on the rails.    If you have six wheels, yes, that would be very near a USRA 0-6-0.    Was the original tender slope-backed, with a large lamp near the apex of the slope?

[BernardTPM]

3 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

Well, the Tyneside units in LNER days were red and cream, later blue and grey (wartime to make them less visible) before repainting in BR MU Green.

 

3 hours ago, Ravenser said:

I think they were much closer to the streamliner stock /garter blue than to BR Corporate image

Yes, the actual colours are given in the link.

[brack]

 Raven's NER express loco was a 2C2, so the 2D2 mentioned must've been a larger proposal, perhaps along the lines of the Pennsy R1, or maybe closer to European practise.

[Ravenser]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Not sure the Brit's were LMS derived except in the most general stylistic terms; an LMS derived light pacific would have had at least 3 cylinders like a Royal Scot/Patriot/Jubilee, and probably a double chimney.  Motion was LNER derived, pretty much everything else was brand new; the LMS had no suitable boiler/firebox/smokebox combination for it though you might argue that the Southern did.  They went to the GE first presumably because that was where the need for them was greatest, but were not specifically designed for that route., so it's not really quite right to say that Riddles solved the GE's motive power issue by designing them, though solve it they undoubtedly did!  They were the best motive power it had ever had until the Class 47s and Clacton electrics appeared, the class 40, which was also first used here, being a step down in power, as remarked on by Sir Brian Roberston at the time.

 

 

Riddles was essentially delivering a no-frills version of 1930s LMS practice , pursuing maintenance and operational economy rather than performance. It's a bit of a bee in my bonnet, but whatever he may have said in public he seems in practice to have been entirely hostile to diesel and electric traction, and to have delivered a reactionary traction policy at a critical time. It's sometimes suggested that the country couldn't afford oil for diesels and had plenty of coal, but in 1947-8 the railways were so short of decent coal that the Government launched a huge programme of converting steam engines to oil-firing, which was rapidly aborted , wasting £3 million at 1947 prices... That could surely have funded another 20 diesels like 10000, and kept them in diesel

 

Quote

The LNER might have extended the 1,500v DC system a lot further had they had more money and WW2 had not occurred, but they hadn't, and it did.  Electrifying the GC from Sheffield to Marylebone would have made a lot of sense as an extension of the putative Manchester-Sheffield-Wath scheme.  Nothing wrong with speculating what the result would have been (an EM2 would have run rings around a B17 and presumably outperformed a Brit, and give me an EM1 over a B1, or a Brush/Mirlees Type 2, any day), or the issues when conversion to 25kv AC became inevitable basically for the same as what it eventually cost anyway.  

 

Electrification south of Weekday Cross Jnc in Nottingham would have made no sense at all. Even at best the GC London Extension was a sparsely trafficked railway. On the other hand the LNER tried to promote electrification of the CLC only to be blocked by the LMS. Liverpool Central to Nottingham Victoria, with Colwick-Grantham electrified for the GN coal traffic would perhaps have made sense. An engine change at Nottingham rather than Sheffield and trains working through to Liverpool on 1500V would have been perfectly readonable

 

Quote

More speculation can be indulged in if we want to electrify the ECML, where the trains are heavier and faster, before 1955; a 3.000 hp EM3 or 1,600hp twins geared for 100mph + running would have been needed to equal the A4s, eventually supplanted in reality by the Deltics, never mind improve on them.  Pairs of EM1s could have probably managed the mineral drags from Peterborough and the heavy traffic in the North East, and EM2s would have been the tool for just about everything else, with local and KX/Leeds/Newcastle/Edinburgh commuter traffic in the hands of Shenfield type emus.  This would cascade the pacifics to Scotland, especially the Waverley Route, and eliminate the pregrouping 4-4-0s; the A3s would probably not have had a role.

 

The LNER Board authorised an order for 50 main line diesels in its dying months (duly cancelled under BR...) Those were presumably for the ECML north of Doncaster. I'm not sure the coal traffic in the NE really followed the ECML , and the LNER had had its fingers burnt with Shildon-Newport

 

But there's certainly enough information to make an early 1950s modern traction LNER layout possible....

 

Its interesting to speculate what those 50 main line diesels might have looked like

Edited May 16, 2019 by Ravenser

[Northroader]

No, I must disagree about the reasons for converting steam to oilfiring, the GWR started a limited programme in the West Country away from the coalfields. Some pillock in Whitehall thought what a brilliant wheeze this would be applied nationwide, and bases for oiltanks started appearing at depots all over the place. Then it was belatedly realised just how much it would cost in foreign imports costed in dollars, and the programme quickly dropped.

[The Johnster]

Important I think to remember that the country had just gone through a war that had not only left it broke and unable to fund major investment in diesel or electric power but had emphasised that we were vulnerable to a U-boat blockade of imports.  We had effectively no native oil resources that we were yet aware of, and there was a lot of political and economic sense in retaining coal as a major source of power, or at least there was in 1951 when the Britannias were produced.  This had changed radically by 1955 when the Modernisation Plan was published.  

 

I'd guess ECML diesel electrics to have followed the practice established by the Ivatt twins, twin power units of about 1,600hp each that could do 8P or 9F work, or 5MT work as single units.  Stylistically, something like the Sheffield scheme EM1/EM2 look.  Fun speculation.

[RLBH]

14 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

The first is the ex NER electric (can be covered EM2), the second the EF1/EB1 Shildon Newport electrics, three and four are EM1, six is Classes 506/306 and only the shunters /trip freight locos are unclear 

10 hours ago, brack said:

 Raven's NER express loco was a 2C2, so the 2D2 mentioned must've been a larger proposal, perhaps along the lines of the Pennsy R1, or maybe closer to European practise.

As noted, the express 2-Do-2 has an extra axle (and 600hp) more than the Raven EE1. A 2-Co-2 that's pretty much a ringer for the EE1 was proposed for lighter trains on the West Coast, but the Great Northern scheme involved fewer locomotives and providing two types was thought uneconomic.

 

14 hours ago, Ravenser said:

I was thinking of the Quayside electrics ES1 . But they'd be a bit vintage by 1931. The horsepower quoted implies what the USA called a "road switcher" - an 08 is just 350hp

The ES1 was 640hp, so the 1931 proposal is only slightly more powerful - but has rather less tractive effort, which definitely suggests something slightly faster and capable of trip working to me.

 

13 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Certainly a fun idea for a layout.

I've thought about it as an idea - I'd probably look to do somewhere like Doncaster, where electric, diesel and steam might mix. Needs a heck of a lot more room than I'm likely to have any time soon, though.

 

13 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The LNER might have extended the 1,500v DC system a lot further had they had more money and WW2 had not occurred, but they hadn't, and it did.  Electrifying the GC from Sheffield to Marylebone would have made a lot of sense as an extension of the putative Manchester-Sheffield-Wath scheme.  Nothing wrong with speculating what the result would have been (an EM2 would have run rings around a B17 and presumably outperformed a Brit, and give me an EM1 over a B1, or a Brush/Mirlees Type 2, any day), or the issues when conversion to 25kv AC became inevitable basically for the same as what it eventually cost anyway.  

 

More speculation can be indulged in if we want to electrify the ECML, where the trains are heavier and faster, before 1955; a 3.000 hp EM3 or 1,600hp twins geared for 100mph + running would have been needed to equal the A4s, eventually supplanted in reality by the Deltics, never mind improve on them.  Pairs of EM1s could have probably managed the mineral drags from Peterborough and the heavy traffic in the North East, and EM2s would have been the tool for just about everything else, with local and KX/Leeds/Newcastle/Edinburgh commuter traffic in the hands of Shenfield type emus.  This would cascade the pacifics to Scotland, especially the Waverley Route, and eliminate the pregrouping 4-4-0s; the A3s would probably not have had a role.

10 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

Electrification south of Weekday Cross Jnc in Nottingham would have made no sense at all. Even at best the GC London Extension was a sparsely trafficked railway. On the other hand the LNER tried to promote electrification of the CLC only to be blocked by the LMS. Liverpool Central to Nottingham Victoria, with Colwick-Grantham electrified for the GN coal traffic would perhaps have made sense. An engine change at Nottingham rather than Sheffield and trains working through to Liverpool on 1500V would have been perfectly readonable

To my mind, the logical extensions of Manchester-Sheffield-Wath are west to Liverpool (if the LMS will play nice), east to Immingham and Grimsby, and south only as far as Colwick. Grantham-Colwick was suggested for possible electrification by the British Rail 1951 motive power report, possibly linking in to Manchester-Sheffield-Wath. It's quite telling, in terms of traffic patterns, that there's no mention of continuing onwards from Grantham to Doncaster, Leeds or York.

10 hours ago, Ravenser said:

The LNER Board authorised an order for 50 main line diesels in its dying months (duly cancelled under BR...) Those were presumably for the ECML north of Doncaster. I'm not sure the coal traffic in the NE really followed the ECML , and the LNER had had its fingers burnt with Shildon-Newport

 

But there's certainly enough information to make an early 1950s modern traction LNER layout possible....

 

Its interesting to speculate what those 50 main line diesels might have looked like

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I'd guess ECML diesel electrics to have followed the practice established by the Ivatt twins, twin power units of about 1,600hp each that could do 8P or 9F work, or 5MT work as single units.  Stylistically, something like the Sheffield scheme EM1/EM2 look.  Fun speculation.

The diesel-electric order was for 25 single units, intended to work in pairs to replace 32 Pacifics on the principal expresses. There were 11 diagrams to be covered, needing 22 units, with a further three single units as spares.

 

Each unit was to have been 57 feet long and weigh 120 tons, with a 1,600hp engine generating 1,200hp at the rails. Eight powered and four unpowered wheels per unit, so I suspect an A1A-A1A arrangement would have been chosen. For appearance, the EM2 is probably a good guess; it's also roughly the right size to use as a starting point.

 

[Clive Mortimore]

Drawings of the proposed LNER diesels appeared in an edition of backtrack many moons ago. I think I still have a copy and will try and dig it out over the next few days.

[Michael Edge]

NER No.13 was a 2-Co-2, each axle individually motored - 2-D-2 implies rod drive coupling the axles.

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

NER No.13 was a 2-Co-2, each axle individually motored - 2-D-2 implies rod drive coupling the axles.

 

Depends which classification system you use. French 2D2s are not rod coupled.

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Depends which classification system you use. French 2D2s are not rod coupled.

UK normally uses a system based on UIC classification (with a pinch of AAR), hence 2-Co-2

(UIC would actually be 2'Co2')

Edited May 17, 2019 by melmerby

[Michael Edge]

3 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Depends which classification system you use. French 2D2s are not rod coupled.

Yes but I was assuming that it was the UK classification we were discussing.

[Zomboid]

In the British nomenclature "D" doesn't imply rod coupled, just that all 4 axles share a common drive/ transmission. For example the WR hydraulics were B-B and C-C, but weren't rod coupled.

 

I could imagine that they'd have been connected by gearing if they were actually connected.

[Clive Mortimore]

Getting back to using imagination, a Stanier Baltic class 5 P, a Stainer 2-6-0 Class 4MT and a Fowler 2-6-0 class 4MT.

[RLBH]

27 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

In the British nomenclature "D" doesn't imply rod coupled, just that all 4 axles share a common drive/ transmission. For example the WR hydraulics were B-B and C-C, but weren't rod coupled.

 

I could imagine that they'd have been connected by gearing if they were actually connected.

Nobody seems to have cottoned on to the real explanation, which is that I made a mistake and wrote 2D2 where I should have written 2-Do-2. Though a hoofing great electric motor and coupling rods wouldn't be without precedent.

 

The Stanier 5P Baltic tank is an impressive beast - but then I'm a sucker for a Baltic tank!

[Joseph_Pestell]

Would a 2-Do-2 chassis fit under the same bodywork as an EM2?

 

I am just wondering how corporate a look the LNER might have achieved with its various electrics and diesels.

 

Would the road switcher light Bo-Bo have been much smaller than the EM1, already a very compact locomotive?

 

Might there have been a use (heavy coal traffic) for twin units of EM1s permanently coupled together and with cabs just at the outer ends?

 

Edit: That last idea has just made me think that the express loco might be better built as a 2-Bo-Bo-2 articulated loco like they had in Italy.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Joseph_Pestell
Add

[Zomboid]

38 minutes ago, RLBH said:

Nobody seems to have cottoned on to the real explanation, which is that I made a mistake and wrote 2D2 where I should have written 2-Do-2. Though a hoofing great electric motor and coupling rods wouldn't be without precedent.

 

The Stanier 5P Baltic tank is an impressive beast - but then I'm a sucker for a Baltic tank!

The early crocs were rod coupled, so it's certainly a possibility. Though out of date by the 1930s.

 

Could also have had multiple electric motors driving a set of coupled wheels, in the same way that almost all steam locomotives have multiple "engines" (each cylinder could theoretically operate independently if they weren't mechanically connected via the wheels).