Imaginary Locomotives

[Flying Pig]

10 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The man the LMS needed was Hawksworth not Stanier. The LMS did get, eventually, a loco designer, their own Terry Coleman and the Duchess is very much his locomotive.

 

Where, then, would Hawksworth and Coleman have taken LMS loco design in the 1930s and beyond?  Would the welded construction and high boiler pressure that Hawksworth used on the Counties have been practicable ten years earlier?

[rockershovel]

15 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Where, then, would Hawksworth and Coleman have taken LMS loco design in the 1930s and beyond?  Would the welded construction and high boiler pressure that Hawksworth used on the Counties have been practicable ten years earlier?

 

Probably not, given the situation outlined in this reference https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30639558.pdf

[PenrithBeacon]

56 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Where, then, would Hawksworth and Coleman have taken LMS loco design in the 1930s and beyond?  Would the welded construction and high boiler pressure that Hawksworth used on the Counties have been practicable ten years earlier?

The WD 2-10-0 had an all welded boiler before the Counties and it was a firm part of American practice for many years before that. It's not a great idea though to have an all welded steel Belpaire firebox. The corners are too sharp for the heat stresses. This is one reason why the Americans gave up on the Belpaire.

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Until, that is, when the names ran out and everything was numbered, sometimes with a name, mostly without.

Being pedantic, which of course I love, numbers can go to infinity and names are only limited by the number of letters available and the namers' imaginations, so they can effectively go to infinity as well.  Of course, if you lay on your side, infinity only goes up to 8...

 

4 hours ago, melmerby said:

The GWR's Early Broad gauge engines were named, not numbered.

Again, pedantry, but all the GWR's broad gauge locomotives (engines are just the cylinders, pistons and motion bits) were named, including the late ones.  AFAIK, though I 'm happy to be corrected, the first standard gauge GW locos to be named were the 'River' class 2-4-0s

[john new]

On 08/05/2020 at 22:34, john new said:

Or if the first tunnel had succeeded. Probably rapid adoption of electrics like they used in the US. (St Clair tunnel? - I have the answer but not accessible tonight)

I have finally had time to check this. I was correctly thinking of the St Clair electrics. Ordered 1905, operational by 1908. Saved the deaths of loco crews from asphyxiation when working steam through the old St Clair tunnel between the USA and Canada.

 

Source: Hennessey, R A S. 2017, Eclectic Electrics, pp 7-11. Publisher the SLS.

The book is in print and order details are at https://www.stephensonloco.org.uk/SLSpublications.htm 

Edited May 19, 2020 by john new

[melmerby]

34 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Being pedantic, which of course I love, numbers can go to infinity and names are only limited by the number of letters available and the namers' imaginations, so they can effectively go to infinity as well.  Of course, if you lay on your side, infinity only goes up to 8...

 

Again, pedantry, but all the GWR's broad gauge locomotives (engines are just the cylinders, pistons and motion bits) were named, including the late ones.  AFAIK, though I 'm happy to be corrected, the first standard gauge GW locos to be named were the 'River' class 2-4-0s

Best tell the GWR they got it wrong then as they incorrectly called them "engines"

(see official GWR publications)

Some BG locomotives were built without names but with numbers.

e.g. 3021-28, however when converted to the standard gauge they acquired names.

Admittedly they were "convertibles" built to be converted to standard gauge but being "pendantic" they were built for the BG

[The Johnster]

Fair enough.  I was discounting convertibles but you are right, they were built for the Broad Gauge.  Engine, though incorrect, is frequently used in even official railway parlance to denote locomotives.  But when I was at Canton in the 70s we rarely called  them engines and never called them locomotives (sometime we referred to big engines and small engines); we called them all diesels, a diesel being, just as incorrectly, the noisy thing at the front that pulled the train.  Steam locos, when they were talked about, were either collectively 'the steam' or identified by class, eg 49xx (which meant any Hall or Modified Hall), 56xx, 50xx (40xx referred to Stars) and so on.  The TOPs system, when it came into use, was very natural and obvious to WR men.

[JimC]

17 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The man the LMS needed was Hawksworth not Stanier. 

But the job wasn't locomotive designer. The job was to be the senior executive to make the big decisions, knock heads together and get as many as possible of the LMS technical staff pointing in the same, preferably correct, direction. Would Hawksworth have been better at that? 

[brack]

If I wanted to be obscure, I'd point out that the SLNCR never numbered any of its locos. When they bought a secondhand 060 off the GNRI they removed its number and called it glencar (with an A on the cab side as they'd already had a glencar).

[rodent279]

42 minutes ago, JimC said:

But the job wasn't locomotive designer. The job was to be the senior executive to make the big decisions, knock heads together and get as many as possible of the LMS technical staff pointing in the same, preferably correct, direction. Would Hawksworth have been better at that? 

Stanier, like Collet, was a workshop man, a production engineer, he was more than just a locomotive engineer. Unlike Collet, who was very reluctant to allow any deviation from the successful principles established by GJC, Stanier was prepared to challenge tradition, and let talent lower down the ranks flourish. He also reorganised the whole motive power department of the LMS, and set in train the modernisation of many motive power depots.

Mistakes were made, avoidable mistakes even, but such is the price of progress. You don't learn by getting it right every time, you learn by getting it wrong, and understanding why.

[AlfaZagato]

To be fair, the principles set by Churchward were rather more progressive than his contemporaries at the MR, whom I understand drove LMS engineering much until Stanier took the reins.

 

I will admit, though, that Collett seemed to lack originality when it came to locomotive design.   His 'new' designs were evolutionary, and his rebuilds focused more on crew comfort than performance.   Collett had a better eye for coaching stock.   I think his bow-ended stock was influential.

[DavidB-AU]

15 hours ago, brack said:

Maude.

 

And the other 24 named J36s

 

And the LNWR DX Goods. 54 of them were given names.

 

Ceers

David

 

[JimC]

3 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

Collett seemed to lack originality when it came to locomotive design.

Plenty of innovation on the detail engineering and manufacture though.  If Gresley's big ends had been as good as Collett's then the LNER might have had rather fewer reliability problems in WW2. 

[rockershovel]

It’s only possible to “let talent lower down the ranks flourish” if you have a robust system for identifying and developing that talent, and differentiating between the original, the genuinely valuable and the simply misconceived or insufficiently thought out. 

 

It is also necessary to have a clear, fully developed policy in sufficient detail. 

 

Britain never really learnt to do either, and still hasn’t. It’s why railways in the U.K. were so far off the pace between 1930 and 1950 as European railways embraced electrification and US lines developed the diesel locomotive.

Edited May 20, 2020 by rockershovel

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

It’s only possible to “let talent lower down the ranks flourish” if you have a robust system for identifying and developing that talent, and differentiating between the original, the genuinely valuable and the simply misconceived or insufficiently thought out. 

 

It is also necessary to have a clear, fully developed policy in sufficient detail. 

 

Britain never really learnt to do either, and still hasn’t. It’s why railways in the U.K. were so far off the pace between 1930 and 1950 as European railways embraced electrification and US lines developed the diesel locomotive.

British railways were not that far off the pace. The LNER were planning and preparing for both the Woodhead and Shenfield electrifications and the GWR were seriously considering diesels west of Exeter. Both projects were disrupted by WW2.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

British railways were not that far off the pace. The LNER were planning and preparing for both the Woodhead and Shenfield electrifications and the GWR were seriously considering diesels west of Exeter. Both projects were disrupted by WW2.

 

The Germans had diesel-electric high-speed two-car railcar sets in series production by the mid 1930s. The Americans had viable diesels in service by the late 1930s; they went straight to dieselisation after WW2 and had virtually eliminated steam traction by 1950, before the first BR “Standard” was even designed, let alone the first experimental diesel locos appearing here. 

 

BR diesel locos, when they appeared, used mostly German engines, or licences copies which were often unsatisfactory. 

 

The Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 locomotives entered service in 1934, 139 were built between 1934 and 1943. The very successful Swiss “crocodile” locomotives were in service by the 1920s.

 

British railway companies were a decade behind the times, in the 1930s; Gresley’s Pacifics were based on a design (the PRR K4) which was already past its best. WW2 only disrupted development which should have been done ten to fifteen years earlier. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by rockershovel

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

British railways were not that far off the pace. The LNER were planning and preparing for both the Woodhead and Shenfield electrifications and the GWR were seriously considering diesels west of Exeter. Both projects were disrupted by WW2.

But after WW2, the railways were Nationalised and a job creation scheme dressed up as a Modernisation Plan was implemented.  A plan which largely introduced lot of slightly newer versions of what the railways already had, rather than addressing the real problem which was operating practices unchanged since Victorian times.

[rockershovel]

3 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

But after WW2, the railways were Nationalised and a job creation scheme dressed up as a Modernisation Plan was implemented.  A plan which largely introduced lot of slightly newer versions of what the railways already had, rather than addressing the real problem which was operating practices unchanged since Victorian times.

 

Which is true enough, but British industry was far behind the times. They wasted large sums in the 1950s and 1960s, developing diesel locomotives which could have been built before the war, as the Germans and Americans had done. NBL simply couldn’t manage the necessary quality, and went abruptly into liquidation. The Swiss and Germans had produced electric locos capable of far more challenging routes than Woodhead, as early as 1919; the Americans had highly successful main-line electric traction in 1935

[Clive Mortimore]

35 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

The Germans had diesel-electric high-speed two-car railcar sets in series production by the mid 1930s. The Americans had viable diesels in service by the late 1930s; they went straight to dieselisation after WW2 and had virtually eliminated steam traction by 1950, before the first BR “Standard” was even designed, let alone the first experimental diesel locos appearing here. 

 

The Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 locomotives entered service in 1934, 139 were built between 1934 and 1943. The very successful Swiss “crocodile” locomotives were in service by the 1920s.

 

British railway companies were a decade behind the times, in the 1930s; Gresley’s Pacifics were based on a design (the PRR K4) which was already past its best. WW2 only disrupted development which should have been done ten to fifteen years earlier. 

We had coal and at the time extremely very very little oil. It was a big risk in 1955 that we adopted diesel traction as we had buy in oil from abroad. had the modernisation plan been allowed to continue without interference from outside there would have been more electrified lines using British coal in the generating process.

[brack]

I suspect the financial state of the railways plays a part.

 

Raven had successful electrification decades earlier, but when the infrastructure needed replacement/repair in the 30s shildon-Newport was deelectrified and given back to pregrouping steam locos as the LNER couldnt afford to renew it.

Armstrong was building far superior diesel locos than US builders in the early 30s, but coal and labour was cheap and water plentiful here, so the railways saw little need to change and couldnt afford the investment. The southern did electrify quite a bit of territory.

Where did the armstrong diesel electric locos go? Colonies without native coal reserves, arid regions.

The N&W persisted with steam in the US as coal/water were in rich supply, it was labour costs that pushed them to dieselise in the end. The swiss electrified because they had no native fuel but vast hydroelectric potential.

The circumstances surrounding railways have a bigger influence than the ideas and practises of management: The Junin railway on the altiplano had double fairlies, not because they were innovative, but because the line was steeply graded and twisty. They dieselised in the 1930s not because they were forward thinking but because it ran through a desert and they had no water.

English builders produced electric locos to export around the world and even to canada (EE and Beyer Peacock built box cabs for Montreal harbour) in the 20s and 30s. They didnt use them here because there was no pressing need or finances to do so - indeed the harbour board took the wires down as it was too expensive and sold the locos to CN, who ran them until the mid 90s.

The technology and capabilities were here, but the finance wasnt, and there was a huge amount of existing infrastructure built up around steam and the existing operating arrangements - the NER tried 40t bogie hoppers and automatic couplers in the 1900s, but colliery and staith facilities were designed around existing 4w hoppers, so they fell out of use. Can you imagine the cost of trying to reequip the uk railway system with fully braked bogie wagons and knuckle couplers at any point between 1900 and 1950? It would only be possible if everyone did it, and there was little likelihood of the various lines agreeing to something that costly.

We only began to move slowly away from Victorian wagon design after all the traffic it was built for disappeared and the wagons were withdrawn and not replaced in the 60s.

 

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Not only did the Crab come from Horwich, a locomtive that was technically not too dissimilar to the BR Standards despite being 25 years earlier, it was the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway that electrified the first main line railway in the country.

 

Gibbo.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Folks,

 

Not only did the Crab come from Horwich, a locomtive that was technically not too dissimilar to the BR Standards despite being 25 years earlier, it was the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway that electrified the first main line railway in the country.

 

Gibbo.

But very shortly after the LBSC electrified some lines with High Voltage AC OHLE, much more modern.

Pity they later got changed to third rail DC!

[The Johnster]

18 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

To be fair, the principles set by Churchward were rather more progressive than his contemporaries at the MR, whom I understand drove LMS engineering much until Stanier took the reins.

 

I will admit, though, that Collett seemed to lack originality when it came to locomotive design.   His 'new' designs were evolutionary, and his rebuilds focused more on crew comfort than performance.   Collett had a better eye for coaching stock.   I think his bow-ended stock was influential.

I think I agree with this.  He signed off on some very good designs, in particular the Castle, though that was little more than a fattened up Star, the 56xx, probably the nearest thing to original thinking he ever came up with but little more than a Rhymney R class built out of Swindon standard parts, and the Hall, a rehash of a Churchward loco that was never built.  In fact the Churchward loco that was never built would have had 5'8" wheels and been more useful than a Hall; Collett later built it as the Grange.  

 

Once the Hall was built and made a name for itself (and it was very successful remember, and influenced the Black 5, B1, and BR standard 5MT designs), he realised that he could tinker with the range of standard driving wheel sizes, and came up with a non-standard 6'6" for the King, which was a waste of time because of it's limited route availability, and started tinkering with large prairies and moguls with 5'6" and 5'3" drivers that made little practical difference.  The large prairie in both boiler iterations from Churchward was already a pretty good loco, but Collett thought he could improve it.  

 

He upped the boiler pressure for the 61xx to enable faster getaways from stations on the tightly timed Paddinton suburban jobs, and presumably the extra maintenance and downtime cost was worth it, then made the 81xx variant, which seemed pointless, and the 31xx with no.4 boiler and 5'3" wheels, arguably little better than a Churcward 3150 and used as a Severn Tunnel banker, though the rapid acceleration made them handy on the Porthcawl-Cardiff commuter service.  

 

It is significant that Hawksworth ordered more 5101s, effectivel the Churchward loco.

 

Collett also deviated from the Churchward range of boilers, notably the no.10 for the smaller absorbed/constituent Welsh 0-6-2Ts, in particular Taff A.  This found it's way on to the 2251 Collett Goods, which always seemed a bit pointless to me as do all big 4 0-6-0s, a Dean Goods without the route availability, and eventually on to the Hawksworth 94xx and 15xx.

 

This ignores progress in works practice, the replacement heavy duty buffers, a better cab than Churchward's (to be fair to Churchward, he'd put a GE Holden type cab on a 4-4-0 and the drivers complained it obstructed their sightlines).  

 

Interesting comment about the influence of the (wooden body framed) bowended coaches.  He built flat enders later in his tenure, so wasn't much influenced himself by them, and IMHO failed to take advantage of the bowended format by using buckeye couplings.  The bowenders that were influential were the ECJS stock, which evolved on the LNER and which Bulleid took to the Southern with him.  It was the predecessor of the Mk1s, which in turn were the basis of much of the multiple unit stock of the 50s and 60s.

 

I'd also take issue with the idea that his rebuilds concentrated on crew comfort.  He reduced the cab size on many of the rebuild South Wales locos, and was forced by South Wales enginemens' complaints to fit sliding shutters to GW tank loco cabs to keep the draughts out when the loco was standing in a cross wind in exposed locations.  His rebuilds were to bring the 1923 acquisitions into line with Swindon practice as far as possible, and replace their boilers with Swindon standard types as far as possible, which sounds like good standardisation practice but led to an increase in different boiler mounting plates, and cab components.  Practically every type of tank loco had a different cab under Collett, not that Churchward's were any better.  

 

Collett was a good all round CME, but was preceeded by a giant and another giant was his contemporary.  More to the point, he was what the GW had available when Churchward retired, so that was that.  It is inevitable that he would continue the Churchward tradition, and be criticised where he deviated from it, but at the same time it was equally inevitable that the hardest jobs needed bigger boilers than were in the Churchward range.  The no.10 is also pretty inevitable as part of the GW's 'improve or scrap' attitude to 1923 acquisitions.  The no.14 was probably a mistake, but the Grange's no.1 made it too heavy for secondary routes and and the moguls were not powerful enough.  Perhaps a pressure increase or 3 cylinder layout... 

 

All a bit academic now.

Edited May 20, 2020 by The Johnster

[Northmoor]

24 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Collett was a good all round CME, but was preceeded by a giant and another giant was his contemporary.  

 

That is probably the most pertinent statement about Collett and indeed anyone in his position.  He is judged in comparison to an exceptional predecessor instead of on his own record.  A bit like trying to manage Manchester United after Sir Alex Ferguson, it was only ever going to be downhill from there; Collett did well not to make the GWR fleet worse.

[melmerby]

IMHO the Collett era could be generally described as "Steady Progression" with one or two hiccups along the way.

There was nothing groundbreaking and his "finest hour" was the King which was a bit of a mish-mash.

The desire to squeeze the most power out of the 4-6-0 layout led to something that didn't have much in the way of standard components and a very limited roure availability.

 

The GWR did tinker with buckeyes but never adopted them, maybe if they had the LMS would have had to follow suit as the "odd man out"