Imaginary Locomotives

[Hroth]

10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

True, very true. Cutting down an outside-cylinder loco, it's difficult to get below four-coupled. But I felt my streamlined Atlantic was a bit too front-heavy, so here's something inspired by those wonderful high-stepping French 2-4-2s:

 

 

Looks like something Hornby would have turned out for O gauge in the early 1940s if WW2 hadn't got in the way....

 

All it needs is a keyhole!

[cctransuk]

23 minutes ago, Murican said:

I decided to revise my Standard 9P 4-6-4s to be named after British authors instead. The fictional history being that when the decision was made, some of the "American Railroad" nameplates has already been created, so said nameplates went to several Standard Class 5 4-6-0s instead.

 

91200: William Shakespeare

91201: Joseph Conrad

91202: Frances Hodgson Burnett

91203: Arthur Conan Doyle

91204: H. G. Wells

91205: Mary Elizabeth Braddon

91206: Charlotte Brontë

91207: George Eliot

91208: Bram Stoker

91209: Mary Shelley

91210: Rudyard Kipling

91211: William Wordsworth

91212: Kenneth Grahame

91213: Robert Louis Stevenson

91214: Jane Austen

91215: H. Rider Haggard

91216: Samuel Butler

91217: George Gissing

91218: Anthony Hope

91219: Lewis Caroll

 

Did you intend to duplicate Britannia Class names?

 

CJI.

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Looks like something Hornby would have turned out for O gauge in the early 1940s if WW2 hadn't got in the way....

 

Funny you should say that. Here's F.W. Webb's 3-cylinder compound 0-4-0:

 

[Murican]

3 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Did you intend to duplicate Britannia Class names?

 

CJI.

I'm afraid I didn't.

 

That said, I suppose we could handwave that by giving the conflicting Standard 7s new names. Plus maybe give the other author names to more 9Ps so we can have some fun with alternate Britannia names:

 

70002: Queen Victoria

70004: Benjamin Disraeli

70005: Richard Trevithick

70006: Charles Darwin

70030: James Cook

70031: Thomas Becket

70032: Athelstan

70033: David Lloyd George

70034: William the Conqueror

70035: Walter Raleigh

Edited July 11, 2021 by Murican

[Compound2632]

T.W. Worsdell's locomotives lend themselves particularly well to Hornbification:

 

 

I think I'd better go to bed.

[Murican]

UPDATE: Going off the point about the author names and renaming Britannias, I decided to also expand the humber of my 9P 4-6-4s. That, and I also took it upon myself to shuffle the names around a bit.

 

Once again, bold denotes a preserved example.

 

 

91200: William Shakespeare

91201: Geoferry Chaucer

91202: Frances Hodgson Burnett

91203: Arthur Conan Doyle

91204: H. G. Wells

91205: Mark Twain - The only 9P whose namesake was not British.

91206: Charlotte Brontë

91207: George Eliot

91208: Bram Stoker

91209: Mary Shelley

91210: Rudyard Kipling

91211: John Milton

91212: Kenneth Grahame

91213: Robert Louis Stevenson

91214: Jane Austen

91215: H. Rider Haggard

91216: Alfred Tennyson

91217: George Gissing

91218: Anthony Hope

91219: Lewis Caroll

91220: Joseph Conrad

91221: William Wordsworth

91222: Robert Burns

91223: Mary Elizabeth Braddon

91224: Samuel Butler

91225: Thomas Hardy

91225: Percy Bysshe Shelley

91226: Beatrix Potter

91227: Lord Byron

91228: T. S. Eliot - The only 9P whose namesake was still alive at the time of its building.

91229: William Blake

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by Murican

[The Johnster]

Stratford Bill, Barnyard Kipper, and Billy Daffodils are already taken by Britannia pacifics.

[Hroth]

6 hours ago, Murican said:

91201: Geoferry Chauncer

 

Eh? 

 

Related to Geoffrey Chaucer, perchance?

 

Mind you, railways had previous in creative naming!

[Murican]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Stratford Bill, Barnyard Kipper, and Billy Daffodils are already taken by Britannia pacifics.

I addressed that earlier with some alternate names for the Britannia Pacifics.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/14790-imaginary-locomotives/page/325/&tab=comments#comment-4505842

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, Murican said:

91201: Geoferry Chaucer

 

30 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Eh? 

 

Related to Geoffrey Chaucer, perchance?

 

No, it's clearly a name that has slipped in from the Southern Region - a rather dodgy shipping line.

[Grizz]

Geoferry….’Earth Ferry’…..rather apt really. 

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

No, it's clearly a name that has slipped in from the Southern Region - a rather dodgy shipping line.

 

52 minutes ago, Grizz said:

Geoferry….’Earth Ferry’…..rather apt really. 

 

It reminded me of the pastime of questing for hidden locations using a GPS device. As Compound notes, the whereabouts of some sort of vessel.

 

So. Geoferry Chaucer would be "Satnav Ferry Chaser"...

 

 

[rockershovel]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Stratford Bill, Barnyard Kipper, and Billy Daffodils are already taken by Britannia pacifics.

 

Really? Why? 

[rockershovel]

11 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Fast running with a front pony is possible, but I'm not sure it is advisable or should be acceptable in the normal course of running a timetable; increased costs in terms of abused per way and locomotives that shake themselves to pieces.  Good riding is not just desirable from the point of view of crew comfort.  A four wheeled front bogie is a much better idea, and my view is that the ultimate British steam passenger loco, build for 100mph+ timetable running with 12 coach trains, would have been an enlarged 'Duke of Gloucester' in the form of an oil-fired 4-8-4 with 6'10" or even 7' driving wheels, in line with the later designs of very succesful fast passenger locos on many of the world's railways, including the 'Water Level Route' and the Union Pacific, the latter not famous for level track.

 

A 4-6-4 seems to be a bit of a one trick pony, only the NYC's Hudsons coming to mind as successful.  The LNER's single example was the 'Hush Hush', which was an experiment and not really designed or built for any commercial purpose; it happened to be available for rebuilding in A4 style at a time when another A4 was a useful thing to have, but failed to distinguish itself or prove superior to A4s or Peppercorn A1s.  It was not such a disaster as to not be allowed to work out it's economic life, though.

 

Indeed. The Americans had great success in the last days of steam with large, fast 2-8-4 and 4-8-4 types, using very heavy rail, a much larger loading gauge, cast steel locomotive beds replacing frames and mechanical stoking, operating very large trains over long distances. I don't believe that such designs would have been viable in U.K. and some of the technology (particularly the cast chassis) simply wasn't available. The late-1930s 4-6-2 types were the ultimate development of Stephenson type steam locomotives designed for Britain's basically Victorian railway system, and the BR Standards didn't really have anything to add, apart from discarding inside cylinders, compounding and designs with more than two cylinders. 

[John Besley]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

Indeed. The Americans had great success in the last days of steam with large, fast 2-8-4 and 4-8-4 types, using very heavy rail, a much larger loading gauge, cast steel locomotive beds replacing frames and mechanical stoking, operating very large trains over long distances. I don't believe that such designs would have been viable in U.K. and some of the technology (particularly the cast chassis) simply wasn't available. The late-1930s 4-6-2 types were the ultimate development of Stephenson type steam locomotives designed for Britain's basically Victorian railway system, and the BR Standards didn't really have anything to add, apart from discarding inside cylinders, compounding and designs with more than two cylinders. 

Looking at what DB did to their 2-10-0 etc. Its interesting to wonder what BR would have done to improve the Standards further if they carried on until the late 80's ....

 

Electric lighting, 8 wheel all wielded tenders, air braking, double chimneys,  Roller bearings.... BR Blue?

Edited July 11, 2021 by John Besley
Correction

[Northmoor]

36 minutes ago, John Besley said:

Looking at what DB did to their 2-10-0 etc. Its interesting to wonder what BR would have done to improve the Standards further if they carried on until the late 80's ....

 

Electric lighting, 8 wheel all wielded tenders, air braking, double chimneys,  Roller bearings.... BR Blue?

If they'd gone to the expense of designing and building new tenders for the remaining steam fleet, then steam wouldn't have been abandoned in the UK until the 21st century, although electric lighting and air braking capability would have made steam more "deployable" for longer. 

However, the waste of scrapping such new steam locos was in not deploying them to areas where the diesels that replaced them were no more effective.  There were plenty of short distance/low speed (because the wagons were vacuum-braked or unfitted) colliery to power station runs in South/West Yorkshire where the steam could have earned its keep while it was still depreciating.  The argument that you couldn't maintain two lots of infrastructure for steam and diesel doesn't stand up when they would be used on completely different traffics and serviced by different depots, just as electric and diesel stock usually is to this day.  It could be imagined that in Leeds, Holbeck remained a steam depot while Neville Hill would have become the diesel depot, as actually happened,

[rockershovel]

Modernisation didn't save the coal industry and it wouldn't have saved steam, either. With steel in steep decline (not least because of the virtual end of ship building) and coal reaching its brief apogee in the 1970s, the end of domestic coal use as solid fuel and town gas, the age of steam was done by 1980. BR wouldn't have "improved" the Standards (and I certainly don't think BR Blue would have been an inprovement) but simply worked concentrated on electrification and p/way upgrades, and worked them to the end of their useful Iives in the 1970s. 

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

2 hours ago, John Besley said:

Looking at what DB did to their 2-10-0 etc. Its interesting to wonder what BR would have done to improve the Standards further if they carried on until the late 80's ...

 

DB* didn't really do much to their Einheitsloks other than design them properly in the first place and then build lots of them.  Only China took an even more extreme view on standardisation, finishing the steam age with two types of 2-8-2 and one type of 2-10-2.  

 

*designed by the DRG  

Edited July 11, 2021 by Dr Gerbil-Fritters

[The Johnster]

I think that's about right, Rockershovel, and it is difficult to come up with a plausible scenario that would have seen active BR steam even up to 1980, which was Riddles' cut off date and what the Standards were designed to serve until.  The railway world changed very rapidly indeed after about 1954 and was barely recognisable 20 years later.  Playing 'Fantasy what if', let us suppose that a) the internal board politics that ousted Riddles and the 'old guard' and led to the 1955 plan never happened, and that b) a major war in the Middle East in the late 50s, the one that actually happened in '67, led to increase in oil prices and petrol rationing. 

 

This would have slowed the takeup of private car ownership, and of domestic central heating, and made long distance road haulage less attractive in the 1960s, with a consequent knock on to the motorway building program, which would have progressed more slowly and been in the form of upgrades to existing trunk roads rather than new builds (sort of like the dual carriageway of the A303).  This makes steam plausible on some routes until around 1980, but by that time the viably winnable coal would be running out.  Conversion of 9Fs to air braking and some sort of slow control device would have rendered them ideal for MGR working, perhaps with the Unions endorsing mechanical stoking, and a few locos might be handy to keep on the books for engineering/per way, especially on electrified routes where a depreciated steam loco is more attractive than dedicating an expensive new diesel.  Such locos might have some work in tourist areas as well.

 

There would have been no other passenger work for steam after 1968, as all services would be dieselised with locos or dmus, or electrified, and eventually there would be no vacuum braked or steam heated stock.  The core of steam work would have been the MGR, and the remaining unfitted mineral work, which would not have lasted long after 1980.  There would have been little point in developing the Standards further, and they'd have worked out their lives.  Post 1966, they'd have been in plain blue livery with double arrows on the tenders, and with yellow buffer beams, possibly with 4-character headcode panels.

 

My proposed 10P 3 cylinder 4-8-4 for the WCML, to haul 600 tons at 100mph+ is complete fantasy.  No new steam locos would have been built after 92220, and the current railway would look exactly the same as it does in reality.  An interesting speculation would be what might have happened to the preservation movement; with steam still in use in service to satisfy the cravings of enthusiasts throughout the 70s, and less locos at Woodham's, it would be much smaller and, I suspect the longer lines, WSR, SVR, GCR, NYMR and the like, would never have got off the ground.

[John Besley]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

If they'd gone to the expense of designing and building new tenders for the remaining steam fleet, then steam wouldn't have been abandoned in the UK until the 21st century, although electric lighting and air braking capability would have made steam more "deployable" for longer. 

However, the waste of scrapping such new steam locos was in not deploying them to areas where the diesels that replaced them were no more effective.  There were plenty of short distance/low speed (because the wagons were vacuum-braked or unfitted) colliery to power station runs in South/West Yorkshire where the steam could have earned its keep while it was still depreciating.  The argument that you couldn't maintain two lots of infrastructure for steam and diesel doesn't stand up when they would be used on completely different traffics and serviced by different depots, just as electric and diesel stock usually is to this day.  It could be imagined that in Leeds, Holbeck remained a steam depot while Neville Hill would have become the diesel depot, as actually happened,

The above ideas would lend to an interesting modeling excuse... rolling stockwise not much would have changed, the one giveaway as to the era would be in external items such as road vehicles, peoples dress, certain infrastructure - this is very clear in the videos of 1970 - 1977 of German steam

 

I did start something along these lines myself years ago as an industrial railway with a panner tank, Wren R1... road vehicles included Volvo F10, morris miner... Ford Cortina Mk3

Edited July 11, 2021 by John Besley
.

[Murican]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

Indeed. The Americans had great success in the last days of steam with large, fast 2-8-4 and 4-8-4 types, using very heavy rail, a much larger loading gauge, cast steel locomotive beds replacing frames and mechanical stoking, operating very large trains over long distances. I don't believe that such designs would have been viable in U.K. and some of the technology (particularly the cast chassis) simply wasn't available. The late-1930s 4-6-2 types were the ultimate development of Stephenson type steam locomotives designed for Britain's basically Victorian railway system, and the BR Standards didn't really have anything to add, apart from discarding inside cylinders, compounding and designs with more than two cylinders. 

To be fair, these engines are mostly just our imaginations at work,

[Zomboid]

3 hours ago, John Besley said:

lighting, 8 wheel all wielded tenders, air braking, double chimneys,  Roller bearings.... BR Blue

BR blue was designed for the diesel and electric era. It would have represented a break from the old dirty coal burning days. If steam had been retained in any form it's highly unlikely a rebrand would have been in the form that it was.

 

I'd imagine and residual steam engines would have been black, and who knows about the carriages. Most colours work with black locos!

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

BR blue was designed for the diesel and electric era. It would have represented a break from the old dirty coal burning days. If steam had been retained in any form it's highly unlikely a rebrand would have been in the form that it was.

 

I'd imagine and residual steam engines would have been black, 

 

BR's three residual steam locomotives were painted BR blue with the arrows of indecision in the 1970s. And very smart they looked too, to my youthful eyes.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Compound2632

[Zomboid]

Yes, I intended to exclude those one-offs. And I agree that it didn't look bad, but if there had been hundreds of steam engines carrying on the corporate image would probably not have been to paint them the same blue as the diesels, and indeed the diesels might not have been blue either.

[John Besley]

55 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Yes, I intended to exclude those one-offs. And I agree that it didn't look bad, but if there had been hundreds of steam engines carrying on the corporate image would probably not have been to paint them the same blue as the diesels, and indeed the diesels might not have been blue either.

Steam maintenance would have been centralised at one place and possibly keen steam crews would have transferred instead of working diesels so a core like minded staff would have ended up on steam...