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Imaginary Locomotives


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I doubt if Bullied would have had much say after the 1940s. He was regarded as an oddball and his ideas would not have fitted into the austere life that we all suffered for nine years after 1945. His Pacifics were greedy on coal becasue drivers could not guarantee the cut-off would stay in one position and would work them at 50% cut off even though this did not please the fireman. Also they could not take in primary air, a thing that had crippled lesser locos in the 1920s and 30s. They were also a garage job if something needed attending to. After being expensively rebuilt it is said the drivers hated them because of the extra time needed to oil round three sets of valvegear, and they still remained coal eaters because some drivers continued to drive them as they had the originals.

 

Simplicity was the wartime and postwar keyword.

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Re hydraulics and ETH, it's not rocket science. Some US railroads started replaced steam heating boilers in early diesel locos with diesel alternator sets in the 1940s.

 

Presumably it would have been unthinkable for BR to use the popular GM-Detroit 71 series engine for ETH no matter how reliable and proven it was elsewhere in the Commonwealth, in which case something like a Rolls Royce C4TFL (about 130kW) would have been a logical choice.

 

Cheers

David

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Ive always and an image in my modeling mind, the line to Plymouth/Cornwall has been electrified but not along the sea wall section, so at Exeter a class 50(at the time GW green/gold) would go on front of electric unit and haul it to Newton Abbott and come off, so 7 or 8 50s were saved for this, i was tempted to re paint a 50 in this livery. owen

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Ive always and an image in my modeling mind, the line to Plymouth/Cornwall has been electrified but not along the sea wall section

Actually GWR had electrification plans for Devon and Cornwall in the 1930s but the war got in the way. The first section earmarked for wires was Exeter to Plymouth due to the South Devon Banks. They had already been working with Brown Boveri on the gas turbine (originally due to be delivered in 1940) so presumably they would have adopted the Swiss overhead 15kV AC 16 2/3 Hz.

 

Cheers

David

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Actually GWR had a plans to electrify Exeter to Plymouth in the 1930s but the war got in the way. They had already been working with Brown Boveri on the gas turbine (originally due to be delivered in 1940) so presumably they would have adopted the Swiss overhead 15kV AC 16 2/3 Hz.

 

Cheers

David

 

Stormy conditions and salty air at Dawlish wouldn't have made for very happy catenary, I suspect. Although at around the same time as these plans were on the drawing board, wasn't the GW mulling over the building of a new inland route which wouldn't be at the mercy of the sea?

 

David

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Stormy conditions and salty air at Dawlish wouldn't have made for very happy catenary, I suspect.

Parts of the US Atlantic coast had been electrified for over 30 years by then.

 

Does it cause any problems along the Northumberland coast today?

 

Cheers

David

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Does it cause any problems along the Northumberland coast today?

 

Cheers

David

 

Apparently it has done in the past and still does occasionally today, although I believe modifications have taken place since to deal with windy weather and a more durable type of contact wire substituted to account for corrosion problems.

 

David

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In N there were several available RTR at one point - a German bo-bo centre cab in bad mock BR blue, and a most peculiar fake BR blue 0-4-0 shunter. After that Lima started producing things that were vaguely the same shape as UK models, but were still borderline imaginary

 

To anyone interested, unless it's very recently sold, there was one of those godawful centre cabs in the erlestoke manor fund coach at bewdley. It made my eyes bleed.

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Many people go to great lengths to ensure that every detail of their engines is historically correct, then cheerfully place them in a ficticious piece of geography.

Discuss....

 

Not necessarily so.

Those detailed engines and rolling stock are usually given a prototypical, if fictitious, location to run in, with correct signalling and lineside features, are they not?

Probably the only exception , apart from train sets, is narrow gauge?

However, it might be an idea worth considering for the 2011 challenge - create a snapshot of a completely imaginary railway which might-have-been.

Must include at least one free designed loco, carriage and truck; which could be modified kits, RTR or scratchbuilt...

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The idea is probably as old as railway modelling, building a 'what - if' branch to a place that was never served by a railway. So long as everything is taken into account such as surveying the route to see what would be involved and potential traffic with particular regard to freight. Then a loco might be designed to work that route if has unique characteristics, or locos bought secondhand and adapted.

 

Locos on the M&GN were from the Midland Railway and the Great Northern yet, with reboilering/rebuilding, none ever quite looked like the locos still running on the original companies lines.

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The idea is probably as old as railway modelling, building a 'what - if' branch to a place that was never served by a railway. So long as everything is taken into account such as surveying the route to see what would be involved and potential traffic with particular regard to freight. Then a loco might be designed to work that route if has unique characteristics, or locos bought secondhand and adapted.

 

The Lyme Regis branch springs to mind where this happened in reality..

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Brian Heresnape's book on Gresley locomotives also has drawings of three proposed LNER tank engines which are quite interesting.

 

I built a model of Gresley's proposed P10 type a few years ago - very similar in size to the V1/3.

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Not necessarily more Westerns and Hymeks, but there could have been another more powerful class. Krauss-Maffei was building 3000hp diesel hydraulics at the time the Westerns appeared and 4000hp locos only 5 years later. There could very easily have been a 3000+hp 100mph diesel hydraulics on WR in the late 60s and potentially even a 4000hp

 

Drawings for just such an engine were prepared: two uprated Hymek engines in a Western bodyshell (it's in the David & Charles book on W.R. hydraulics).

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Hasn't the topic of hydraulics using ETH popped up on here recently? Namely, that one of the Warships was allegedly kitted out with some - but not all - of the necessary apparatus proving that such a conversion was not entirely pie-in-the-sky.

 

 

Dont recall the thread David, but both Brian Haresnape's BR Fleet Survey and Brian Webb's Locomotive Studies for D&C confirm as much - and at a quite early date as well. The loco was last-built D870. As the other David says above, it's not rocket science - the engines were to be uprated in order to power a generator set

 

As for the Hymeks, original plans were for 300 of the gorgeous beastscool.gif That might have included the Northern Division, before its transfer to the LMR appeared on the cards (another interesting 'what if' scenario), and it strikes me they'd have been handy on the Cambrian, although maybe too heavy in the axleloading. Apart from the tendency to standardise on electric transmission, I'd always understood the influx of 37s to South Wales was because a heavier, six-axle loco was more use for unfitted freight work in the Valleys

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Parts of the US Atlantic coast had been electrified for over 30 years by then.

 

Does it cause any problems along the Northumberland coast today?

 

Cheers

David

 

The Northumbrian coast section of the ECML is at a higher elevation, so you'd have to get some very big waves to cause the same amount of disruption as at Dawlish.

 

I was thinking about the GWR electrification project whilst trawling through page 2....! I seem to recall four different locomotive types were envisaged, the model for which came from electrified US railroads such as the Milwaukee Road and Pacific Electric, so it's more likely 1500V or 3000V DC would be used.

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Re: The electrification of the Exeter-Plymouth mainline.

 

It would have involved an inland diversion of the seawall section, starting at Exminster, going behind Dawlish and rejoining the old mainline between Newton and Teignmouth.

The main shed would have been at Newton, with a new steam shed at Aller for residual steam.

 

Regards

 

Martin

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The Northumbrian coast section of the ECML is at a higher elevation, so you'd have to get some very big waves to cause the same amount of disruption as at Dawlish.

 

I was thinking about the GWR electrification project whilst trawling through page 2....! I seem to recall four different locomotive types were envisaged, the model for which came from electrified US railroads such as the Milwaukee Road and Pacific Electric, so it's more likely 1500V or 3000V DC would be used.

 

 

I would have thought that, had the GWR gone in for big mainline electrification schemes, they would have wanted something that was pretty well state of the art AND tried & tested. They don't come much bigger than the New Haven and Pennsy systems were in the USA http://www.northeast.railfan.net/classic/NHdata4.html and http://www.northeast.railfan.net/classic/PRRdata9.html

Or, especially seeing as they had already approached the Swiss for Gas Turbine locomotives, the Swiss model (& German, Austrian) of 16 Kv AC lines would also have been seriously considered.

Food for thought, anyway!

Cheers,

John E.

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... I am not necessarily advocating freelance designs but, rather as we adopt characteristic architectural styles and standard buildings, we could postulate extra members of real locomotive classes. If the traffic demands it, we could also propose variants or sub classes of real designs. ...

One of my favourite 'what ifs' is the adoption of the cheaper Doncaster round top boiler for the BR standards. If I can find a cheap Bachmann WD body, there is every prospect of a standard 5 chassis receiving that boiler at some future point. The other possibility is a 100A boiler as used on the B1, but the jury is still out on that one.

 

I have for some years been running Peppercorn V5s, numbered on in sequence from the Gresley V3s. These are so much better than the poor Thompson L1, the build order for which was stopped in my alternative universe. The modificaton from the standard model consists of cutting off the forward valve guides, as the V5 has three independent sets of gear. My Gresley 2-8-2T is currently out of traffic, waiting on a replacement chassis installation. Whether classed as a P10 or P3, it really is a most handsome machine. I have a suitable chassis, but there is a strong temptation to put it under a K3 boiler to make the O6 2-8-0...

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Guest Phil

Dont recall the thread David, but both Brian Haresnape's BR Fleet Survey and Brian Webb's Locomotive Studies for D&C confirm as much - and at a quite early date as well. The loco was last-built D870. As the other David says above, it's not rocket science - the engines were to be uprated in order to power a generator set

 

As for the Hymeks, original plans were for 300 of the gorgeous beastscool.gif That might have included the Northern Division, before its transfer to the LMR appeared on the cards (another interesting 'what if' scenario), and it strikes me they'd have been handy on the Cambrian, although maybe too heavy in the axleloading. Apart from the tendency to standardise on electric transmission, I'd always understood the influx of 37s to South Wales was because a heavier, six-axle loco was more use for unfitted freight work in the Valleys

 

From what I understand, there some serious intentions to fit the Hymeks with a 27/2 style ETH generator set. The engineers needed a particular "cubic" area to fit the unit in but there just wasn't quite enough room so the project was abandoned. I'm sure I read this on a western hydraulic group forum or yahoogroup somewhere.

 

The Cambrian would have been an ideal playground for the Hymeks but as Pennine says, the axleloading would have been exceeded for the line back in the day.

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Guest Belgian

Back in 1985 Robin Barnes, a talented artist, produced a book with illustartions of a number of "might-have-beens". This was published by Janes and there's information about the contents on Robin Barnes

 

I have a copy of the book somewhere (most of my stuff is currently in store) and I would thoroughly recommend it if you can find a copy these days.

 

JE

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Obvious diesel-era "What-if" would be if internal BR politics hadn't cut short the WR's foray into diesel-hydraulic traction. We'd have seen more Westerns and Hymeks, with the equivalent reduction in the numbers of 37s and 47s. The 50s quite possibly are never even built.

 

In that scenario, the National Traction Plan would probably not have resulted in the early elimination of either the Hymeks or Westerns, and it's quite likely that at least the Swindon-built Warships would have lasted a few years longer as well. Possibly all three classes get air-braked, and some Hymeks and Westerns might have gone ETH. Warships would have been like the 40s, largely confined to freight except on summer Saturdays. Pairs of 42s on Freightliners, anyone?

 

 

Sorry to through a spanner in to your plan but the 50s were on hire to B.R. L.M.R. first so probably would have been built unless the whole of the W.C.M.L. had been electrified in one go.

 

Air brakes on the Warships and Westerns Ok I can run with that, but ETH I think would be a no no, no large electric generator to tap into or up rate. Keeping them as freight locos yes with some mods to the Hydraulic transmission.

Maybe more gas turbines and or gas turbine powered H.S.Ts. Though!!!!!!!

 

OzzyO.

 

PS. if this has been mentioned before sorry.

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Whether classed as a P10 or P3, it really is a most handsome machine.

 

It should classed P10 - in the book The Gresley Influence, it is referred to as such. Maybe this was to leave room for further classes of 2-8-2 tender locos?!

 

There was an earlier 2-8-2T of Gresley's depicted in the book too and referred simply as a 'P' - I think the P10 was much closer to becoming reality as there was a specific traffic for which they were intended. In the end furthe 2-8-0's were built, a shame really...

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Air brakes on the Warships and Westerns Ok I can run with that, but ETH I think would be a no no, no large electric generator to tap into or up rate. Keeping them as freight locos yes with some mods to the Hydraulic transmission.

 

OzzyO.

 

PS. if this has been mentioned before sorry.

 

The Warships had two dynastarters (in the nose coupled to the transmission via a shaft ISTR). On D870 it was planned to uprate this these provide ETH, as Pennine says above some parts were ordered and maybe even fitted but the work was not completed. The Westerns would have probably been similar. If it wasn't possible, a generator set as used in the push pull 27s could have been used instead, located in the boiler position.

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There are, at the back of RCTS 'Locomotives of the LNER' Part 2B, diagrams of a rebuilt B7 with 100A boiler and 2 B1-type cylinders; the original B1 diagram, and a B1 rebuilt with a standard BR3 boiler, from 1953. In the same publication part 5, there is a diagram of a proposed J21 rebuild for the darlington - Tebay services. This had 2-off 19"x 26" inside cylinders with 8" piston valves, J39 - type frames, a boiler at 200psi and an enclosed 2-window cab.

 

Also, I remember an article of might-have-beens in 'Backtrack' which included a diagram for a Great Eastern 4-4-0 mixed traffic loco dated 1915. It looked similar to a 'Belpaire Claud', but had 5' 7" drivers.

 

There's few for the LNER types to be going on with! Where would the GE 4-4-0s have been numbered in the Thompson renumering scheme? 2621-2649?

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