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Was the GWR really so conservative?


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20 minutes ago, Pandora said:

It has been said that it is the Drawing Office staff  for the real  design work of a locomotive  is undertaken,  not the CME,  was it George Fowler CME of Derby Works who denied all knowledge  of every designing a steam locomotive?

 

When I started as a draughtsman, I was told my job was to interpret the engineer's requirements, so that the thing being designed could be manufactured and assembled. There is, to me, no doubt that the engineer will say to the draughtsman at the start of a design "I want this, this and that, using, if possible, these parts; oh, and copy the system from this or that drawing", and then you got on with it.

 

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1 hour ago, Pandora said:

It has been said that it is the Drawing Office staff  for the real  design work of a locomotive  is undertaken,  not the CME

Its not the CMEs job.  The CME is supposed to be a senior executive, responsible for a department of thousands of people. If he's going to spend much time at a drawing board he'd better have some very able deputies to delegate to. 

 

For example, about the genesis of the 4300 class 2-6-0 Holcroft wrote that after some thought Churchward came into the drawing office and ‘on reaching my board he said: “Very well then; get me out a 2-6-0 with 5ft 8in wheels, outside cylinders, the No. 4 boiler and bring in all the standard features you can.” With that he departed, and it was the end of the matter as far as he was concerned.’

It wasn't quite as simple as that, because Holcroft had been working for some time on designs for the same duties which weren't working out, so there was a lot of background.

Edited by JimC
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Part of the fallacy is that the CME's job was to design new engines. Mostly, as JimC says, his was an administrative role which, depending on the railway involved, would also encompass rolling stock and outdoor machinery: turntables, coaling plant, water columns, and so on. He might even have a hand in signals and telegraph, as did F.W. Webb. But whatever his range of subjects, the most fundamental  part was maintenance of the existing stock, far more than new provision.

 

He had men to overhaul the locos when they came in for repair, and other men to do the design work. But the CME laid down the standards of repair and the desired design criteria.

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2 hours ago, 62613 said:

When I started as a draughtsman, I was told my job was to interpret the engineer's requirements, so that the thing being designed could be manufactured and assembled. There is, to me, no doubt that the engineer will say to the draughtsman at the start of a design "I want this, this and that, using, if possible, these parts; oh, and copy the system from this or that drawing", and then you got on with it.

I  call that a sound briefing for an interesting draughting task.

The other point made above by JimC is a good one:

Quote

 It wasn't quite as simple as that, because Holcroft had been working for some time on designs for the same duties which weren't working out, so there was a lot of background.

I can imagine a confab like that taking place in the vicinity of the pretty young tracer's board.

dh

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On 26/11/2019 at 11:35, Pandora said:

The driver of the Scotch Goods,  Bill Hoole?

I remember him from his Festiniog (correct period spelling) Railway days, driving 'Prince' which must have been a bit of a culture shock for him; quite a character.  Speed merchants are often rather ebullient and extrovert types in my experience.  He was regarded in awe almost to the extent of god-like worship by many of my fellow volunteers as his exploits had made him something of a media star in magazine articles.  To be honest I was less impressed than that; I view speeding as dangerous and unacceptable, a poor way to drive, and fireman/guard abuse.

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On 26/11/2019 at 12:24, LMS2968 said:

Just like the GWR (and all other railways), it was conservative in some (many?) ways but progressive in others. Its early introduction of Control for traffic management was an example.

As was the use of what we would now call market research in setting out it's passenger timetables, resulting in regular but shorter trains.

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18 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 @jf2682, what you are really disliking there is the fact that a lot of the company's lines had been built rather economically in the 1840s and 50s, so there were many underbridges with weight restrictions. from the 1890s, the Midland and LMS had a steady programme of bridge reinforcement or replacement, for which we can blame the replacement of Vignoles' elegant wrought iron arches over the Trent by the current hideous truss girder bridges.

Their policy of short trains at frequent intervals was also suitable for the small engine policy, at least for passenger work.  

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13 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I remember him from his Festiniog (correct period spelling) Railway days, driving 'Prince' which must have been a bit of a culture shock for him; quite a character.  Speed merchants are often rather ebullient and extrovert types in my experience.  He was regarded in awe almost to the extent of god-like worship by many of my fellow volunteers as his exploits had made him something of a media star in magazine articles.  To be honest I was less impressed than that; I view speeding as dangerous and unacceptable, a poor way to drive, and fireman/guard abuse.

Peter Townend Shedmaster at Top Shed,  wrote that Bil Hoole had an excessively thick charge sheet and was too close to being taken off the footplate,   Hoole's driving style   was hard work for his fireman

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2 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

Part of the fallacy is that the CME's job was to design new engines. Mostly, as JimC says, his was an administrative role which, depending on the railway involved, would also encompass rolling stock and outdoor machinery: turntables, coaling plant, water columns, and so on. He might even have a hand in signals and telegraph, as did F.W. Webb. But whatever his range of subjects, the most fundamental  part was maintenance of the existing stock, far more than new provision.

 

He had men to overhaul the locos when they came in for repair, and other men to do the design work. But the CME laid down the standards of repair and the desired design criteria.

That's a good point. As enthusisasts we tend to see the steam age railway as a stage on which the locomotives were the stars of the show but I suspect that, in terms of the efficient running of the railway, more mundane seeming things are of greater importance. Was it, for instance, more important to get a bit of extra power out of a crack express loco than to design a faster reversing gear for a heavy shunting loco or a coal wagon with a lower tare weight able to carry more coal? I don't know the answer to such question but I do wonder how much of a typical steam era CME's "bandwidth"  was devoted to locomotives compared with everything else they were responsible for.

 

We remember Bulleid for his light Pacifics  but, had they succeeded, his double deck commuter carriages would have been far more signifcant to the Southern (Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for London's commuting "sardines" they didn't)  Similarly, in ordering the design of new locomotives, what would be the balance in the CME's mind between absolute performance and costs of maintenance? (OTOH it was for their locomotives that they were going to be remembered so perhaps their decisions weren't entirely based on the railway's bottom line)   

 

Where Britain's railways seem to have all been unduly conservative was in going their own way on things they didn't need to because they weren't in competiton on them. For example BR introduced its Mk 1 carriages in 1951 but, long before their nationalisation, four of France's six main railways had set up a joint bureau (OCEM) that, along with other vehicles, designed all steel coaches, roughly equivalent in construction to BR Mk1s, that came into service in the 1920s. By 1950, when BR was introducing the Mk 1, SNCF were onto the DEV with a semi-monocoque structure perhaps more equivalent to a BR Mk 2. In North America over the same period, though the major railroads had their own distinctive locomotive designs, there also seems to have been far more commonality of rolling stock 

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10 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

OTOH it was for their locomotives that they were going to be remembered so perhaps their decisions weren't entirely based on the railway's bottom line  

 

 

But it was to the Board that he was answerable. Harry Wainwright got eased out for incompetent management - I doubt he'd seen the livery of his locomotives as a provision for his retirement.

 

12 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

In North America over the same period, though the major railroads had their own distinctive locomotive designs, there also seems to have been far more commonality of rolling stock 

 

I suspect that may be due to a lack of familiarity - as a rule, the closer one looks the more interesting it becomes.

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On 25/11/2019 at 15:56, 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.

Not really.  The GWR did not like k high temperature superheat for some very good reasons - witness what had happened on the LNWR pre-Great war and in fact continued to happen in some respects on the LMS until, really, the Stanier era.  the real problem with high temperature superheat was lubrication and getting the piston rings right then keeping them in one piece.

 

GWR locos increased in power - partly due to increases in size of course in a manner sufficient to handle the Railway's traffic in an economic manner and that was what it was all about.  Post WWII conditions were very different and as part of its movement to change under Hawksworth and his team there were advances in various areas to both increase steam production and through adoption of higher superheat do so with poorer quality, and less reliable supplies of coal.

 

Hawksworth of course produce significant changes in design with through plate frames replacing the Churchward front end bar frames on large engines/engines with leading carrying wheels and the introduction to the GWR of high temperature superheat  (which quickly led to a need for improved lubrication and a move away from hydrostatic lubrication for engines with that higher superheat.  All in GWR days, just.   The often maligned Hawksworth 'County' was an interesting idea and very much of its time as an express passenger engine with two cylinders instead of four and driving wheels very much to size which suited it also for fast mixed traffic work - just like the Bulleid's pacifics, the Thompson/Peppercorn A2s, and the BR Britannias (all of which had slightly smaller driving wheels than the 'Counties').  But the big problem with 1000 was the draughting with the original double chimney because whilst the engine could easily do the work of a 'Castle' it came with the cost of a draught fierce enough to produce the steam that pulled the fire apart leading to needlessly heavy coal consumption.  With Sam Ell's redraughting and the later design of double chimney the engines were transformed and even on the most heavily graded routes could time the same loads as 'Castles' and 'Brits' but with cylinders with the same bore and stroke the smaller 'Halls' and 'Granges' (and with exactly the same 2 cylinder 'punch' back into the trains as those classes albeit exacerbated by some rather poor setting of drawbar tension.

 

But going back to Collett what mattered was that engine mileages between repairs were increased, boiler miles in traffic were increased and this overhaul costs per train mile were reduced.  and all with engines which could do everything demanded of them and then some more.   So why produce something else when the job was being done with a gradually growing and widening 4-6-0 fleet taht could do all demanded of it.  And which was normally brought to a halt if the Driver didn't respond to a distant signal at caution.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Pandora said:

Peter Townend Shedmaster at Top Shed,  wrote that Bil Hoole had an excessively thick charge sheet and was too close to being taken off the footplate,   Hoole's driving style   was hard work for his fireman

Bill Hoole was definitely not flavour of the month among Firemen at Top Shed and when his regular mate was off for whatever reason many of themn dreaded being booked out with him.  He drove hard making unnecessary demands on the Fireman and very often not only on them but also on his engine and the vehicles it was pulling.

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1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

 In North America over the same period, though the major railroads had their own distinctive locomotive designs, there also seems to have been far more commonality of rolling stock 

Though the road-specific details were often different, won't that be mostly because they used third party suppliers much more than the UK railways, and they would have had the same catalogue to offer the New York Central as the Rock Island?

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1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

That's a good point. As enthusisasts we tend to see the steam age railway as a stage on which the locomotives were the stars of the show but I suspect that, in terms of the efficient running of the railway, more mundane seeming things are of greater importance. Was it, for instance, more important to get a bit of extra power out of a crack express loco than to design a faster reversing gear for a heavy shunting loco or a coal wagon with a lower tare weight able to carry more coal? I don't know the answer to such question but I do wonder how much of a typical steam era CME's "bandwidth"  was devoted to locomotives compared with everything else they were responsible for.

 

We remember Bulleid for his light Pacifics  but, had they succeeded, his double deck commuter carriages would have been far more signifcant to the Southern (Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for London's commuting "sardines" they didn't)  Similarly, in ordering the design of new locomotives, what would be the balance in the CME's mind between absolute performance and costs of maintenance? (OTOH it was for their locomotives that they were going to be remembered so perhaps their decisions weren't entirely based on the railway's bottom line)   

 

Where Britain's railways seem to have all been unduly conservative was in going their own way on things they didn't need to because they weren't in competiton on them. For example BR introduced its Mk 1 carriages in 1951 but, long before their nationalisation, four of France's six main railways had set up a joint bureau (OCEM) that, along with other vehicles, designed all steel coaches, roughly equivalent in construction to BR Mk1s, that came into service in the 1920s. By 1950, when BR was introducing the Mk 1, SNCF were onto the DEV with a semi-monocoque structure perhaps more equivalent to a BR Mk 2. In North America over the same period, though the major railroads had their own distinctive locomotive designs, there also seems to have been far more commonality of rolling stock 

I believe that a joint committee was set up by the big 4, prior to nationalisation, to look at a range of go anywhere coaches, with a high degree of commonality of parts.

I could imagine that what emerged as the BR MK1 isn't that far removed from what would have been produced had nationalisation not happened. Maybe the big difference between each companies vehicles would have been in interior layouts and styles.

It doesn't take too much of a leap of faith to imagine similar things happening with diesel procurement-a basic concept agreed on by all 4, with details varying between each company.

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2 hours ago, rogerzilla said:

Didn't the LNER use buckeye couplers when the others were still using screw couplings?  That would have made things tricky.

Not really. Mk1's have drophead Buckeyes, the knuckle can be dropped, revealing a normal drawhook that can be used with screw link coupling stock.

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5 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Not really. Mk1's have drophead Buckeyes, the knuckle can be dropped, revealing a normal drawing that can be used with screw link coupling stock.

So did the Southern Railway. The exception was the Metropolitan Railway, but the (half size) buckeye coupler used on their electric stock was mounted below the normal drawhook position, and for emergencies, a drawbar and shackle was provided in a hole in the centre buffer. 

 

Jim

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On 27/11/2019 at 19:54, rogerzilla said:

Didn't the LNER use buckeye couplers when the others were still using screw couplings?  That would have made things tricky.

The only problem was with the gangways because screw coupled LMS and GWR coaches needed a gangway adapter when coupled to buckeye SR and LNER vehicles (and when coupled to BR Mk1s of course). 

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Worth noting, perhaps, that there was an evaluation of buckeye couplings in, I surmise, 1945, by the GWR and LMS, prompted by the Minister of Transport, and the GWR came out against them (probably the LMS too reading between the lines of the document I've seen).  The GWR trial went as far as fitting 45 vehicles with the couplings, I don't know about LMS. 

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I suspect buckeye couplings and the expense of fitting and maintaining them makes more sense in a rake of 40' - 50' bogie fitted vehicles than in 10' wheelbase loose coupled stock (they have to cost more and require more maintenance than what is essentially just a bit of chain and a hook, but if you remove the buffers and reduce the risk to shunters having to go into the 4' the cost calculations might be different).

 

Ironically Arthur Bazeley, who developed many of the improvements incorporated into the standard MCB/AAR coupler in the US, was english and had worked for the GWR before emigrating.

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3 hours ago, JimC said:

Worth noting, perhaps, that there was an evaluation of buckeye couplings in, I surmise, 1945, by the GWR and LMS, prompted by the Minister of Transport, and the GWR came out against them (probably the LMS too reading between the lines of the document I've seen).  The GWR trial went as far as fitting 45 vehicles with the couplings, I don't know about LMS. 

I always understood that one of the great virtues of the Janney/MCB/AAR coupler (known as the Buckeye in Britain) was that in accidents it tended to keep the coaches in a train upright and coupled together, with a corresponding improvement in the level of deaths and injuries. It may also have made coupling and uncoupling under gangway connections easier which one might suppose would have been particularly useful to the GWR with sectional trains like the Cornish Riviera (except of course that when a section was detached the coupler would have had to be swung down and the buffers extended before it could be coupled to any loco or train taking it forward)

 

There were various moves to adopt an automatic coupler by the UIC from the 1920s (right up to now) but though the Scharfenberg has become pretty standard for passenger sets it proved unsuitable for heavy goods trains (where arguably there was greater need for more efficient coupling and uncoupling) The preferred designs were instead based on the coupler patented by John Willison of Derby in 1916  but apparently almost unheard of in Britain. Willison couplers were used on some suburban trains in Paris and, though the UIC have never got international agreement to adopt them universally, a version was  adopted in 1932 as the SA-3 coupler (Советская автосцепка, 3-й вариант, Soviet Automatic-Coupler 3rd Variant)   by the Soviet Union and its satellites for their broad gauge railways and is still in common use. 

 

Apart from the transition period needed, I think one reason why such couplers weren't adopted was the Anglo-European addiction to small four wheel goods wagons that made the higher cost of automatic couplers relatively higher per tonnage capacity. The design of most four wheel wagons was also based on the forces transmitted by the buffers being mainly absorbed by side solebars whereas North American bogie freight cars were based on a far stronger central sill (beam) with side sills and even in the days of the link and pin the coupler handled both drawing and buffing forces.  To use central buffing couplers would have meant adapting wagons with far stronger, and therefore heavier, headstocks.  

 

I don't think a link and pin coupler could be handled with a shunting pole so personnel had to go between the cars to couple and uncouple which was always dangerous. The introduction of Eli Janney's coupler cut coupler related accidents in the US by four fifths though, lest it be thought that American railroad magnates were particularly concerned with the welfare of their employees, a greater incentive seems to have been that the separate link and pins were rather too easy to steal and sell for scrap.

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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I don't gain the impression from the paper I have that freight stock was on the agenda, but I could be wrong.
On claimed advantages it states that:

 shunters still have to go between to connect vacuum and steam pipes,
improved drawgear adopted by GW and LMS, reduces possibility of breaking loose to a minimum
shock absorbing buffers, steel underframes and body and roof panels are claimed by GW and LMS to achieve the same results in reducing telescoping

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