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Was the GWR really so conservative?


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Of course top link LNER/ER drivers were well known for low flying. Gerard Fiennes wrote of one day when the 266 Down "Scotch Goods" (regularly hauled by an A4) was delayed leaving KX and didn't get away until 16.50. It caught up to the Talisman at Retford.

 

Cheers

David

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This info is quoted from the RCTS Detailed History, but speeds of 90 mph with 9Fs were recorded on several occasions (eg 92184 on an up Edinburgh express between Grantham and Kings Cross). A 9F was recorded at 86 mph working a train of 22 empty cartics between Weaver Junction and Crewe. The piston speed of a 9F at 90 mph is comparable to that of Mallard on its record breaking trip (2352 for 9F v 2293 ft/min) whilst it's driving wheels would rev at 8.4 (9F) v 8.82 per second.... little wonder the Authorities were concerned about wear and damage.  

 

Around 210 of the class were recorded on passenger services - across all regions including Crosti boilered and Tyne Dock locos with air pumps - often on summer extras where their power enabled good time keeping - replacing previously used unsuitable power like 4Fs (from the LM), which had the effect of causing havoc with the timetables. They weren't fitted for steam heating so unsuitable for use on passenger trains in the winter. 

 

So 9Fs were definitely not just seen on the WR on passenger and high speed work. 

 

The Evening Star use on the up Red Dragon and down Capitals United in June 1960 was in place of a failed Britannia - it was rostered several times in July until the Reading incident. WR 9Fs from Bristol and Laira had been used on holiday specials previously.  

 

Edited by MidlandRed
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On 19/11/2019 at 00:24, runs as required said:

Would the wires have been stormproof along Dawlish - Teignmouth or would Exeter - Newton Abbot have been inland?

dh

 

OLE can be extremely robust if you design it to be!

 

Things like closer and more substantial mast, heavy duty contact wire (essential for DC overheads due to grater currents and lower voltages) will make a big difference to how ‘stormproof’ they are.

 

If you take a look at the way spray / waves crash over the Glasgow suburban network where it hugs the coast / Clyde estuary then designing something to be ‘Dawlish proof’ is very doable.

 

The big problem these days is actually not the electrification system itself - it’s the fancy electrics / electronics in modern trains which tends to object to being doused in seawater. The whole problem with Voyagers for example is they have regenerative braking to make the brake pads / discs last longer - but the resistors used to get rid of the electrical energy don’t work too well if they are coated in sea salt.

 

Back in the 1930s / 1940s electric train designs were a lot more simple.....

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The railway along the Clyde Coast at Saltcoats is vulnerable when a combination of high tide and strong winds occurs; The Electrical Control Room will not reset the OLE Circuit Breakers after 3 consecutive trips. Therefore when such conditions are forecast a planned withdrawal of the service (timed around high tide) is arranged and advertised. As well as the effect of seawater crashing onto the railway, large lumps of debris can be carried by the waves, thus there is a real danger of trains becoming stranded, and damaged, on the sea wall, with no safe means to evacuate passengers and traincrew.

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17 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

This info is quoted from the RCTS Detailed History, but speeds of 90 mph with 9Fs were recorded on several occasions (eg 92184 on an up Edinburgh express between Grantham and Kings Cross). A 9F was recorded at 86 mph working a train of 22 empty cartics between Weaver Junction and Crewe. The piston speed of a 9F at 90 mph is comparable to that of Mallard on its record breaking trip (2293 ft/min) whilst it's driving wheels would rev at 8.82 per second.... little wonder the Authorities were concerned about wear and damage.  

 

Around 220 of the class were recorded on passenger services - across all regions including Crosti boilered and Tyne Dock locos with air pumps - often on summer extras where their power enabled good time keeping - replacing previously used unsuitable power like 4Fs (from the LM), which had the effect of causing havoc with the timetables. They weren't fitted for steam heating so unsuitable for use on passenger trains in the winter. 

 

So 9Fs were definitely not just seen on the WR on passenger and high speed work. 

 

The Evening Star use on the up Red Dragon and down Capitals United in June 1960 was in place of a failed Britannia - it was rostered several times in July until the Reading incident. WR 9Fs from Bristol and Laira had been used on holiday specials previously.  

 

What was the line speed on the Somerset and Dorset?  9Fs were borrowed from South Wales sheds, including Evening Star, to work the Pines Express for the summer timetable, but worked other S & DJ trains as well of course.  The class was not fitted for steam heating and could only be used on passenger work for the duration of the summer timetable, and neither Green Park nor Bournemouth were awash with staff to spare for cleaning, so Evening Star always came back filthy.

 

Use of locos with smaller driving wheels on bank holiday relief traffic was a long standing practice on the WR, with everything that could turn a wheel joining in the fun.  28xx, 42xx, and even South Wales 56xx that could not be replaced at Bristol or Taunton made it a long way west on these trains sometimes, with deleterious effect on the already strained timetable, which broke down altogether in the very hot summer of 1959.  9Fs were ideal for this sort of work.  

 

There's a story in one of Adrian Vaughan's books about a 28xx being purloined for the down Bristolian to deputise for a failed Warship in the early 60s at Didcot.  A fitter aboard the Warship brought it back to life between Daunstey and Chippenham, and the loco then pulled it's train and pushed the 28x at speeds up to 90mph, in other words at a piston speed faster than that achieved by Mallard or 92184 by a considerable margin.  According to Vaughan, a crew of fitters met the loco at Temple Meads with oxy cutting equipment to free the seized motion if necessary, but the loco made it's own way to the Midland shed where a full examination was carried out.  Some bearings were warm, but no damage had been done and the loco worked back with a goods train to Didcot later the same day.

 

One might think that a region with such capable and well designed equipment would make a bit of a media event out of the incident, but embarrassment about the failed Warship and the fact that a big news story had been made out of Duchess of Hamilton ('Red Duchess To The Rescue' hauling an up Royal Scot from Grayrigg to Crewe after it's class 40 had failed, and making up time, had recently cast what officialdom saw as a negative light on the modernisation program prevented this.

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Johnster, I don't know too much about the S and DJR line speed but from limited knowledge I believe the highest was 70 mph in some areas. However the 9Fs may have been restricted to 60 - issues with speed and 9Fs surfaced on the LMR in the late 50s, introducing a 60 mph speed limit and then a ban on passenger working except in emergencies - they were still used on summer extras though. I thought the 9Fs were actually transferred to Green Park rather than loaned (they were used 1960-63), but some S and DJR locos did seem extremely dirty - especially their 7Fs (although certainly not uniquely so for locos generally in that era!!). 

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On 18/11/2019 at 19:24, runs as required said:

Would the wires have been stormproof along Dawlish - Teignmouth or would Exeter - Newton Abbot have been inland?

 

Just prior to WW2 the GWR had begun the process of building the inland route, so I would assume that the seawall woudn't have seen any wires.

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I think Collett is unfairly pilloried; he did improve a lot on Churchward's designs and gave us the Castle, a design so right that they were still knocking out new ones in BR days.  The King was a bit pointless and that cranked bogie is fugly but it probably did its job in terms of what the directors wanted (PR).  Collett#s late retirement denied Stanier the chance to become CME of the GWR, of course, although they weren't *that* different in age.

 

Churchward was probably having a bit of a joke when he made the comment about not superheating steam just to throw it up the chimney.  The higher pressures then used on the GWR meant a high degree of superheat wasn't needed for good performance or efficiency (at least relative to what other railways were building at the time), and it has its disadvantages.

 

Hawksworth wasn't really around long enough to show his hand; the County being basically an attempt to get 4-cylinder performance from a 2-cylinder loco, the same as Riddles' philosophy, but there were some outstanding engineers left at the end of the GWR who made more of an impact in BR days.  Samuel Ell made massive improvements to front end performance* and Kenneth Cook was the man who finally solved the problems of the Gresley conjugated gear when he was sent to the Eastern Region.

 

*apparently he managed to double the steaming rate of a Gresley V2, as well as sorting out the ex-GWR engines.

 

 

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2 hours ago, rogerzilla said:

I think Collett is unfairly pilloried; he did improve a lot on Churchward's designs and gave us the Castle, a design so right that they were still knocking out new ones in BR days.  The King was a bit pointless and that cranked bogie is fugly but it probably did its job in terms of what the directors wanted (PR).

In its fundamentals, a Castle is no different to a Star, other than by virtue of the larger boiler (which I believe Churchward had in mind anyway but was thwarted by weight restrictions). The King is only a variation on the same theme and I haven't come across anything that would suggest that much happened during Collett's time that could really be classed as an improvement over what had been designed under Churchward. It has to be admitted that Churchward left Collett a substantial foundation that didn't really warrant much doing to it, but it Collett's disinterest in the reports Stanier fed back to him about superheating after his experience with the Princess Royals and others is indicative of the situation. It wasn't until the work of Ell and others that the Castles were able to deliver the performance they were ultimately capable of.

 

Jim

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22 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

Just prior to WW2 the GWR had begun the process of building the inland route, so I would assume that the seawall woudn't have seen any wires.

 

'Building' - certainly not!

 

Yes the GWR were designing an inland route - and had acquired some of the necessary land, but when WW2 caused work to stop, absolutely nothing had been done on the ground.

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3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

'Building' - certainly not!

 

Yes the GWR were designing an inland route - and had acquired some of the necessary land, but when WW2 caused work to stop, absolutely nothing had been done on the ground.

 

Which is why I said "begun the process of building" as opposed to "was building".

 

As for on the ground, the only thing I have to go one is Wikipedia, which claims they got to the point of putting survey sticks in the ground (which admittedly even if true wasn't much, hence my qualifier).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawlish_Avoiding_Line

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Thanks for that link to the Dawlish avoiding line.  

What I find interesting (with only a very vague recollection of the broken hilly topography of the Teign Valley SE of Dartmoor) is that the GWR already had a single line west from Exeter to join with the Mortonhampstead branch. 

 

1584899618_teignvalley.jpg.96f68302f33d68de9a8bf943fdc1dab9.jpg

 

Remembering their upgrading of the Berks & Hants to shorten the Great Way Round to Taunton, could they not have explored the feasibility of opening out and easing these existing byelines to deliver their (admittedly hillier) inland electrified line to Newton Abbot ?

dh

 

Edited by runs as required
Map extract from National Library of Scotland geo-referenced maps
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On 23/11/2019 at 19:52, jim.snowdon said:

In its fundamentals, a Castle is no different to a Star, other than by virtue of the larger boiler (which I believe Churchward had in mind anyway but was thwarted by weight restrictions). The King is only a variation on the same theme and I haven't come across anything that would suggest that much happened during Collett's time that could really be classed as an improvement over what had been designed under Churchward. It has to be admitted that Churchward left Collett a sbstantial foundation that didn't really warrant much doing to it, but it Collett's disinterest in the reports Stanier fed back to him about superheating after his experience with the Princess Royals and others is indicative of the situation. It wasn't until the work of Ell and others that the Castles were able to deliver the performance they were ultimately capable of.

 

Jim

There were considerable advances in workshop practice during Collett's time which resulted in longer intervals between shopping and greatly improved mileages run between need for serious attention. Things like getting more from the same loco fleet or using fewer loco to do the same work plus reducing costs counted for a lot more than producing fancy designs in small numbers every year or two.  Tor example the mileage being achieved by boilers between lifts off the engine frames was increased to some 250,000 miles on average for teh large 4 x cylinder engines with some exceeding 400,000 miles - compared with previous practice of 120,000 miles.  Down to change in methods and various other factors.

 

And why bother with new loco designs until a need emerged for them?  and then produce something which would do the job economically.

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On 23/11/2019 at 21:29, Ohmisterporter said:

 

Why would anyone want to own shares in a company that paid no, or very little, dividends?

 

They may have been inherited or acquired in more prosperous days and later proved impossible to sell.

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1 hour ago, Bishop of Welchester said:

 

They may have been inherited or acquired in more prosperous days and later proved impossible to sell.

Shares in Boeing, anyone?

 

Not suggesting that Boeing is in that situation, but if they don't resolve the 737Max  problems satisfactory in the near future, they are going to have major trouble to get passengers to fly in them. Maybe it is already too late?

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Sorry Mike, but this time I can't agree. What was best practice in one decade is out of date and superseded in the next, so you either move on or stagnate. As to new designs, weren't they what Collett was supposed to be providing in the Castles, Kings, etc.? But without the improvements used elsewhere, and which would have made good designs excellent, as Churchward had provided in his time. And these engines which performed well might have performed magnificently, and at less cost.

 

What you're really say is that under Collett the GWR settled for second best.

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On 15/11/2019 at 23:02, jim.snowdon said:

The saga of the LMS before Stanier's arrival is really one of Midland vs LNWR, two different ways of running what we're in some respects different railways but with the whole situation dominated by the Midland's traffic department and their attitudes, including a belief that they knew better than their engineers. It's something that could have just easily happened on the Southern and the LNER, were it not for different dominating figures.

 

Jim

The Midland under Sir Guy Granet won,  leaving the L&Y and LNWR  CMEs out in the cold,  Granet also strangled  R M Deeley who packed his bags and left in a hurry frustrated by the rejection of his designs for bigger better locomotives,  the  young L&Y electrification engineer H E o 'Brien  was asked to go,  receiving a pension for life,  his ideas of mainline electrification of Crewe upset the hierachy. If the brilliant Deeley had not walked, would  the LMS have required Stanier to solve their problems?

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2 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

Sorry Mike, but this time I can't agree. What was best practice in one decade is out of date and superseded in the next, so you either move on or stagnate. As to new designs, weren't they what Collett was supposed to be providing in the Castles, Kings, etc.? But without the improvements used elsewhere, and which would have made good designs excellent, as Churchward had provided in his time. And these engines which performed well might have performed magnificently, and at less cost.

 

What you're really say is that under Collett the GWR settled for second best.

Under BR, staff  were swapped around the various works, I believe Doncaster  men were posted to Swindon to pass on their knowledge of superheating and blastpipes,  would that have been the reason for the power of new build  of BR Super-Castles?  Perhaps Swindon did not listen,  they did a poor job of  front end of 71000 which strangled the locomotive.

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3 hours ago, Pandora said:

Under BR, staff  were swapped around the various works, I believe Doncaster  men were posted to Swindon to pass on their knowledge of superheating and blastpipes,  would that have been the reason for the power of new build  of BR Super-Castles?  Perhaps Swindon did not listen,  they did a poor job of  front end of 71000 which strangled the locomotive.

 

I seem to recall, from reading about the restoration in Steam Railway, weren't the blastpipes built misaligned? So rather than than a poor job at the design stage, it was more at the erection stage. It's the rebuild after restoration that's made her the loco she is now.

 

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