Imaginary Locomotives

[DenysW]

" ... pretty much all the work on the Great Western could be done by engines whose fuel consumption was within one's man's skilled shovelling capacity?"

 

Slightly mixed feelings about statements like this because the steam world seems rather full of circular reasoning. See, for example, the Wikipedia entry on fitting a Standard 9F with a mechanical stoker. Re-worded conclusion: a locomotive (boiler + drive train) designed to be at the limit of one skilled man's peak capability, did not need auto-stoking because the need for it didn't arise continuously. Hmmm. Some similar stuff on French-style superheaters that worked but the steam just come out hotter from the cylinders. Because the cylinders hadn't been increased in size to match the hotter gas?

 

So my question is about how much the GWR and BR(WR) relied on double-heading to overcome this? And not just for severe inclines like the South Devon Banks.  According to my Yorkshire Post photographic book, the postwar Liverpool-Leeds-Newcastle service was routinely double-headed by combinations such as a D49 4-4-0 plus an A3, or a Jubilee + a Royal Scot. The Harrow & Wealdstone crash in 1952 included a Jubilee class double-headed with a Princess Royal. I don't believe there was a single UK steam engine capable of these duties  - due to the lack of mechanical stoking limiting the grate size.

 

It's my feeling that, given the 45% higher capacity on their boilers available from Broad Gauge, GWR would have used it to the full and introduced dual fueling (standard vs. smaller coal) and mechanical stoking on their red routes. They might well have then had to go down the American articulated-locomotive route to avoid rebuilding all the civil structures to 30 tons/axle.

 

Or they might have shrugged and (in modern business-speak) said that the business case for the increase in revenue caused by more powerful traction didn't justify the infrastructure costs. I think their sustained marketing posture (GWR has the most powerful locomotives in the UK, plus maybe a bit of 'Brunel was right') might well have pushed them down the mechanical stoking route. But only for Broad Gauge.

 

[Compound2632]

The thing is, these isolated examples of double heading do not reflect the vast majority of the the work required of the engines involved. It would be wasteful to provide engines designed for these extreme cases when for almost all the time they would be working at no more than half to two-thirds of their capacity; more economic by far to put two engines on the train for that small fraction of the work requiring greater power. 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

The thing is, these isolated examples of double heading do not reflect the vast majority of the the work required of the engines involved. It would be wasteful to provide engines designed for these extreme cases when for almost all the time they would be working at no more than half to two-thirds of their capacity; more economic by far to put two engines on the train for that small fraction of the work requiring greater power. 

Precisely; the LMS (and LM region later) didn't demand a class of 9P locos to operate Birmingham to Bristol so that once a day it could climb the three miles of the Lickey incline unassisted.  They employed a specialist loco (or a combination of a few) optimised for the specific role of banking that stretch, which could be used to the full half a dozen times a day. 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

They employed a specialist loco (or a combination of a few) optimised for the specific role of banking that stretch, which could be used to the full half a dozen times a day. 

 

Many more times a day than a dozen!

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, DenysW said:

The Harrow & Wealdstone crash in 1952 included a Jubilee class double-headed with a Princess Royal.

Both of which were written off after it, Windward Islands having broken it's back, a very rare outcome, in even very severe collisions as the structural integrity of the boiler and frames is immense, and as good an indication as any of the awful forces unleashed.

 

The Liverpool 8P jobs, loading to 15 or 16 bogies, were recognised as amongst the heaviest on the WCML, which is why the Turbomotive was used on them, and it continued in this role after it's rebuild as Princess Anne, but the train it hauled for such a tragically short distance out of Euston that day was not overloaded, or double headed for that reason; Windward Islands was working home and attached to the train to save a path, according to Rolt in 'Red For Danger'.  It has some bearing on the outcome of the crash, as all factors in such instances do, in that one might (I wouldn't, but one might) argue that had Windward Islands not been present, the accelleration up Camden Bank and further out would have not been as rapid, and Princess Anne's driver might have had a little more time to pull his train up and reduce casualties or even manage to stop short of the wreckage. 

 

These sorts of outcomes are down to luck, good or bad, and as it happened the Liverpool train piled in at a good speed while the last movements of the original collision were probably still in progress; there was no chance that the further disaster could have been avoided.

[Northmoor]

43 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Both of which were written off after it, Windward Islands having broken it's back, a very rare outcome, in even very severe collisions as the structural integrity of the boiler and frames is immense, and as good an indication as any of the awful forces unleashed.

 

The Liverpool 8P jobs, loading to 15 or 16 bogies, were recognised as amongst the heaviest on the WCML, which is why the Turbomotive was used on them, and it continued in this role after it's rebuild as Princess Anne, but the train it hauled for such a tragically short distance out of Euston that day was not overloaded, or double headed for that reason; Windward Islands was working home and attached to the train to save a path, according to Rolt in 'Red For Danger'.  It has some bearing on the outcome of the crash, as all factors in such instances do, in that one might (I wouldn't, but one might) argue that had Windward Islands not been present, the accelleration up Camden Bank and further out would have not been as rapid, and Princess Anne's driver might have had a little more time to pull his train up and reduce casualties or even manage to stop short of the wreckage. 

 

These sorts of outcomes are down to luck, good or bad, and as it happened the Liverpool train piled in at a good speed while the last movements of the original collision were probably still in progress; there was no chance that the further disaster could have been avoided.

This also raises the important point of why more and more powerful locos weren't necessary; competing with the growth of the private car from the 1950s onwards required improved point-to-point train frequency (something well understood in the later BR era and post-BR), not longer and longer trains hours apart.  Once trains are up to Load 15/16, you are running out of platform length at most stations, while at termini or important intermediate stations, it leads to queues to exit platforms.  Much better to potentially have 500 people arriving hourly than 7-800 arriving every two hours.

[PenrithBeacon]

22 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

This also raises the important point of why more and more powerful locos weren't necessary; competing with the growth of the private car from the 1950s onwards required improved point-to-point train frequency (something well understood in the later BR era and post-BR), not longer and longer trains hours apart.  Once trains are up to Load 15/16, you are running out of platform length at most stations, while at termini or important intermediate stations, it leads to queues to exit platforms.  Much better to potentially have 500 people arriving hourly than 7-800 arriving every two hours.

They were necessary, but the steam locomotive was running out of options. The future lay with electricity.

[John Besley]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Both of which were written off after it, Windward Islands having broken it's back, a very rare outcome, in even very severe collisions as the structural integrity of the boiler and frames is immense, and as good an indication as any of the awful forces unleashed.

 

The Liverpool 8P jobs, loading to 15 or 16 bogies, were recognised as amongst the heaviest on the WCML, which is why the Turbomotive was used on them, and it continued in this role after it's rebuild as Princess Anne, but the train it hauled for such a tragically short distance out of Euston that day was not overloaded, or double headed for that reason; Windward Islands was working home and attached to the train to save a path, according to Rolt in 'Red For Danger'.  It has some bearing on the outcome of the crash, as all factors in such instances do, in that one might (I wouldn't, but one might) argue that had Windward Islands not been present, the accelleration up Camden Bank and further out would have not been as rapid, and Princess Anne's driver might have had a little more time to pull his train up and reduce casualties or even manage to stop short of the wreckage. 

 

These sorts of outcomes are down to luck, good or bad, and as it happened the Liverpool train piled in at a good speed while the last movements of the original collision were probably still in progress; there was no chance that the further disaster could have been avoided.

https://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/angels-and-errors-how-the-harrow-wealdstone-disaster-helped-shape-modern-britain/&ved=2ahUKEwjkqeX09dHyAhXCR0EAHcHjAqwQtwJ6BAgXEAE&usg=AOvVaw2HYCHdnKfqinKGIpId_aHl&cshid=1630092269732

 

Makes for interesting reading...

[PhilJ W]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The thing is, these isolated examples of double heading do not reflect the vast majority of the the work required of the engines involved. It would be wasteful to provide engines designed for these extreme cases when for almost all the time they would be working at no more than half to two-thirds of their capacity; more economic by far to put two engines on the train for that small fraction of the work requiring greater power. 

And with diesel or electric locomotives working in multiple its even easier to match the tractive effort to the load thats why in the USA you have enormous trains with half a dozen or more moderately powerful locomotives.

[DenysW]

Yes to all the above. But was there much general double-heading, especially on GWR? Enough to trigger a need for the more powerful/same length locomotives that Broad Gauge could have allowed? My reference was mostly Liverpool-Leeds-Newcastle because that's what I had evidence for - the Yorkshire Post subscribing to the belief that Leeds is the centre of the only known universe. I regret distracting us into Harrow & Wealdstone.

[The Johnster]

The need for bigger locomotives with wide fireboxes and outside or multiple cylinders arose during the first 20 years or so of the 20th century, when more holidays for workers and better pay overall created a demand for heavier trains at the same time that restaurant cars and toilets on board trains, accessed through gangways between long, heavy, bogie coaches that had to be enlarged to carry the same number of bums on seats to make up for the lose space of the side corridors, dispensed with the need for refreshment/comfort stops on long haul runs, which had been handy for changing locomotives.  So, trains were faster, heavier, and ran longer distances between stops, all of which needed a change in thinking for CMEs.

 

For about 25 years, starting around 1875, an express passenger train in the UK was hauled by an inside cylindered 4-4-0, while slower traffic was handled by outdated 2-4-0s or 0-6-0 versions of the 4-4-0s.  The availability of steam sanding allowed a reversion to singles in the closing years of this period, an indication of the reluctance of the CMEs of the day to abandon the principles of the past.  In the Edwardian era, the revolution in coaching stock and faster timings meant that there were, in quite a short time, atlantics, 4-6-0s, big mixed traffic moguls, big prairie and pacific tanks,, all with outside cylinders, and 8-coupled heavy freight locos, some of which retained inside cylinders.  The scene was revolutionise over a mere 2 decades, though many of the older locos hung on for many years afterwards.

 

So far as this affected the GW, whose CME was an enthusiastic adopter of the new scene, and was quite skilled at it, the broad gauge had gone 20 year before, which was a long time on railways in those days.  Development of broad gauge locos had effectively ended in the 1860s, and the core of the fleet had been the Iron Dukes and Rovers right to the end.  It would be difficult to trace a continuation of any broad gauge locomotive policy into the 20th century.  The Iron Dukes were beasts in 1850, 70mph, but with very light trains of wooden 4 or 6 wheel carriages.  They would have been hopelessly outclassed and irrelevant to anything that happend on the railway following the introduction of the Churchward 4-6-0s.  There was never a broad gauge loco that could have even approached the performance of a Saint, never mind a Star, and what was big in 1850 could be reproduced 150 years later around the boiler and working of an Hunset Austerity. 

 

The question was, I think, would a bigger locomotive capable of eliminating double heading on the South Devon banks have been built had the broad gauge been retained into the 20th century.  I would say the answer is 'probably not', for the same reason no such standard gauge loco was ever built.  There is little reason to think that axle loads would have been any different on the broad gauge, and neither would have been the loading gauge, but there is an advantage in that a wider firebox could have been used and still positioned between the rear driving wheels of a 4-6-0.  Yes, but a locomotive capable of putting out such a demand for steam over the relatively short schlep from Newton Abbot to Plymouth would have been a bit wasteful from Paddington to Newton Abbot; it was better to provide assisting locos that could be used for other work as well.

 

In general terms, it doesn't matter what gauge is used though obviously the smaller ones are particularly suitable to mountainous terrain and tight curves.  What matters is that the gauge is standardise over a network of railways in order to facilitate through traffic and eliminate transhipment costs.  Stephenson's standard gauge proved capable of doing everything that Brunel's broad gauge did, and though it took a little while to catch up with the Iron Dukes, it did and overtook them.

[JimC]

27 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

could be reproduced 150 years later around the boiler and working of an Hunset Austerity. 

The last Rovers had a boiler about the size of a Manor and over twice the heating surface of an Austerity, but of course there's a gulf the size of an ocean between a 140psi boiler and the 225psi Manor one, not to mention 18*24 cylinders and 18*30.  And the new Iron Duke only needed to do the work of a Hunslet Austerity (if that...).

Edited August 27, 2021 by JimC

[The Johnster]

But there's a limit to how far you can expand the size of your locomotives within the UK loading gauge irrespective of how far apart the rails are.  As I've said, you can get a wider firebox in between the rear drivers, and there is room between the frames for bigger cylinders.  Not so much outside cylinders where the same limitations are imposed by the loading gauge, which is not radically different from that of the standard gauge.  Somebody said you could get 46% more coal in a train of the same length because of the extra width of the wagons, but you can't, because you will exceed your axle loading limit.  In order not to, you have to have more, and shorter, wagons to spread the load, the tare weight and extra rolling resistance, or relay with heavier rail and strengthened formation/bridges, all of which will skew the economic viability into a ballpark more akin to the standard gauge equivalent. 

 

Consider Hitler's Breitspurbahn, which looks very impressive and a rather good idea in the publicity material.  This was to be a 10 metre gauge system with triple decked coaches complete with swimming pools, shops, restaurants, more akin to an ocean liner.  It was intended to allow the Master Race to travel in comfort and at 250kph between Berlin and Vladivostok after Russia had been defeated.  It was completely impractical; there was artwork showing behmothic locomotives with a sort of Steampunk Gotterdammerung aspect to them, steam, diesel, and electric.  It was considered that the best available fuel in the Siberian sections would have been local timber, so some of the steam locos were wood burners.  These things would have weighed many thousands of tons, and one would question how they were to be prevented from sinking in to the earth, or if they were capable of moving their own bulk over what would have been massive inertia and rolling resistance.  Where tunnels were required, through the Urals and the mountains around Lake Baikal, they would have had to have been of a suitable bore, and even with the Thousand Year Reich's expected limitless supply of untermench to build it the cost would have been unthinkable.  An overbridge for an autobahn would have been over a kilometre long when you included the ramps each side, and any river or other crossings would have had to have been not only excessively wide, but also capable of supporting the enormous weight of the trains.

 

German railway engineers tasked with developing this rubbish knew that it was ridiculous, but of course couldn't say so, and managed to lay several kilometres of useful double track standard gauge of which the outer rails were to 10 metre gauge out of the idea.  It was as insane and deluded as the lunatic that thought it up, and a good illustration that the limits imposed on increasing the power and capacity of trains are not affected by increasing the gauge.  For a railway to work, it must operate efficiently and effectively so as to make money, or so as not to lose excessive amounts of money if it is a public service ethos enterprise, and to do this it must be based on sound engineering principles that actually work, which is not the same as unsound engineering principles that, with no background or experience in this sort of thing, you think could be made to work by people motivated with guns to their heads.

 

 

[DenysW]

I actually understood this thought as much more modest, and therefore much more interesting. Brunel's broad gauge was radically bigger between the rails, but only moderately bigger between the tracks. Stephenson started at 4'8" gauge, 4'8" between the tracks, giving a loading gauge just over 9'. JimC's drawing shows that Brunel took this only to 11'6, not the 14' that 7' between the tracks would have given.  Also that the mixed-gauge outline is basically Stephenson's loading gauge.

 

So I thought the question was more - if you had an 11'6" width and 15' height in your loading gauge and used all of the extra 2'6" on boiler diameter at the same total length, would you get a loco so much better that it would be worthwhile? And worthwhile includes whether there's a need for it, as well as whether it would have amazing headline numbers. And whether it triggers knock-on costs of civil structures and mechanical stoking.

 

 

[Compound2632]

10 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The need for bigger locomotives with wide fireboxes and outside or multiple cylinders arose during the first 20 years or so of the 20th century, when more holidays for workers and better pay overall created a demand for heavier trains at the same time that restaurant cars and toilets on board trains, accessed through gangways between long, heavy, bogie coaches that had to be enlarged to carry the same number of bums on seats to make up for the lose space of the side corridors, dispensed with the need for refreshment/comfort stops on long haul runs, which had been handy for changing locomotives. 

 

I recently read a report of a Midland Railway shareholders' meeting from the late 1890s. The subject of working expenses was under discussion. A shareholder opened his remarks, addressed to the Chairman, with: "Of course none of us like corridor carriages..."

 

3 minutes ago, DenysW said:

I actually understood this thought as much more modest, and therefore much more interesting. Brunel's broad gauge was radically bigger between the rails, but only moderately bigger between the tracks. Stephenson started at 4'8" gauge, 4'8" between the tracks, giving a loading gauge just over 9'. JimC's drawing shows that Brunel took this only to 11'6, not the 14' that 7' between the tracks would have given.  Also that the mixed-gauge outline is basically Stephenson's loading gauge.

 

But wasn't it part of Brunel's original concept that the vehicles would sit between the wheels? Whilst that may seem bizarre to us, to anyone accustomed to road carriages of the time, it would be perfectly natural. So there was no call, in his mind, for a wider six-foot way.

[MikeOxon]

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

........Somebody said you could get 46% more coal in a train of the same length because of the extra width of the wagons, but you can't, because you will exceed your axle loading limit.  ........

 

.........Consider Hitler's Breitspurbahn, which looks very impressive and a rather good idea in the publicity material.  This was to be a 10 metre gauge system with triple decked coaches complete with swimming pools, shops, restaurants, more akin to an ocean liner.  .......

 

.......For a railway to work, it must operate efficiently and effectively so as to make money, or so as not to lose excessive amounts of money if it is a public service ethos enterprise, and to do this it must be based on sound engineering principles that actually work, .......

 

 

3 points:

 

1.  Large bogie wagons would address the axle loading - after all, large coal wagons seem to run successfully in USA.

 

2.  There seems to be some confusion here between the known German plans and fantasy films.  The German gauge was to have been 3m (9' 10.1") and only double decks were proposed.

 

3.  the Nazi state was not dedicated to 'public service'.  Criteria for expenditure were quite different.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

But wasn't it part of Brunel's original concept that the vehicles would sit between the wheels? Whilst that may seem bizarre to us, to anyone accustomed to road carriages of the time, it would be perfectly natural. So there was no call, in his mind, for a wider six-foot way.

If you look at drawings of the original broad gauge passenger stock it becomes obvious that the passenger spaces are largely between the wheels. Also the wheels were of large diameter protruding into the passenger space.

[DenysW]

So I see a version of this suggestion, liberally paraphrased, as "What if Brunel's parting shot at the Gauge enquiry and the resulting 1846 Act of Parliament had been to instruct Gooch to produce a class of ten locomotives that used the broad gauge possibilities to the full?" Gooch then produces a boiler design appreciably greater in diameter (but the same length) as the  best standard gauge competition, and has to re-engineer every detail to make it all work. Is the result an early 2-6-2 powerhouse? Or does he just find the resulting loco won't have a revenue-earning duty (or can't be stoked), and quietly abandons the request?

 

This is independent of what happening to the coaches, although the attitudes of the time do explain why Brunel's loading gauge wasn't 14'.

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I recently read a report of a Midland Railway shareholders' meeting from the late 1890s. The subject of working expenses was under discussion. A shareholder opened his remarks, addressed to the Chairman, with: "Of course none of us like corridor carriages..."

 

 

But wasn't it part of Brunel's original concept that the vehicles would sit between the wheels? Whilst that may seem bizarre to us, to anyone accustomed to road carriages of the time, it would be perfectly natural. So there was no call, in his mind, for a wider six-foot way.

 

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

If you look at drawings of the original broad gauge passenger stock it becomes obvious that the passenger spaces are largely between the wheels. Also the wheels were of large diameter protruding into the passenger space.

Yes, this is correct; Brunel's idea was that larger diameter wheels for carriages would give a more comfortable ride, no doubt infuenced by road coaches.

[rockershovel]

A propos broad gauge vs standard gauge loading gauge, if BG and SG stock are to use three-rail dual-gauge track with a common running rail, sharing passenger and goods facilities ( as appears to have been common practice) then the distance outside the tracks must be the same?

[rockershovel]

Surely a BG loco could accommodate two firemen, if stoking was an issue?

[john new]

52 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Surely a BG loco could accommodate two firemen, if stoking was an issue?

Yes, but at cost of the extra man. 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, john new said:

Yes, but at cost of the extra man. 

Agreed, but the question under discussion is whether a BG loco could handle a load requiring SG double heading. So, would the larger BG loco with second fireman be cost-effective for that duty, and would the loco be worth building in terms of its overall cost? Might it have been viable to drop the extra fireman at, say, Newton Abbot to join a returning train? 

[rockershovel]

Since we are discussing the limits of hand-firing, didn't some LMS locos have coal pushers on the tenders, to reduce the work of moving coal forwards? This doesn't appear to have been thought worthwhile on the BR Standards. 

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

This doesn't appear to have been thought worthwhile on the BR Standards. 

 

Perhaps because none of them were being designed to work Euston - Glasgow non-stops?