Difference in performance of class 31 & 37

[roythebus]

On 10/12/2019 at 10:54, kevinlms said:

Deltics and Class 47401-47420. What does this have to do with Class 31 vs Class 37?

 

NOTHING at all!

Not a lot, but I didn't steer the thread off course, just replying to those who steered it off course.  I don't like inaccurate facts being uncorrected or people think they're true. What "trainspotters" know about things is usually different to what those who have actually done the job on a daily basis know about things. Which is probably why I didn't make much mention about 37s, my professional knowledge and experience of working on them is limited.

[roythebus]

And a question about the 47 that blew up its engine, was there never an official inquiry as to why it "blew up"? Engines fail catastrophically for more than one reason, there's enough videos on YouTube showing deisel engines disintegrating on test. 

[stovepipe]

2 hours ago, roythebus said:

Not a lot, but I didn't steer the thread off course, just replying to those who steered it off course.  I don't like inaccurate facts being uncorrected or people think they're true. What "trainspotters" know about things is usually different to what those who have actually done the job on a daily basis know about things. Which is probably why I didn't make much mention about 37s, my professional knowledge and experience of working on them is limited.

 

Except you didn't correct any facts, you just said it was tosh, and then gave some different facts.

[Swindon 123]

On 08/12/2019 at 13:29, Pandora said:

When the mighty Deltics converted from steam boiler to electric carriage heating,  what was the effect on performance? From distant memory following conversion the Deltics gained one or two quirks such as the diesel engines would not  increase engine rpm simultaneously, one engine would lead the other by several seconds of time lapse,  they were also prone to earth circuit breaker false trips if the coaches were not  to their liking

I know from personal experience that both engines on a Deltic didn't always take power at the same time. I was working the 19.35 for Hull out of King Cross one night in  late1981, (with 55004 I think?). Started away from KX and made our way into Gasworks tunnel, with the engine farthest from the driving cab taking power. As we got to the point in Gasworks tunnel to start accelerating, I gradually opened the controller up towards full, As we got towards the end of Gasworks tunnel, the second engine took power, and frightened the life out of the driver and myself, as it shook the whole loco and tried to join us in the cab. Offending engine then shuts down, general fault light, no traction power until the engine stop light on the offending engine came up. As this was before SSF, the driver said try a restert, and the engine restarted. By now we were just about to enter Copenhagen tunnel and just about moving, so it was try for power again and slowly move the power controller towards full. Yet again, as we were getting towards the end of Copenhagen tunnel, the second engine started to take power and rev up, at which point it tried to join us in the cab again, with the resulting loss of power and the engine shut down. At this point the driver said forget it, just don't shut off anywhere, and I didn't, the power controller stayed at full from the top of Holloway Bank to between Biggleswade and Sandy, where we were booked onto the slow line.

 

Sorry to take us off track slightly, but I worked on both 31's and 37's and both had their faults, but in general both did the jobs asked of them. The refurbished heavyweight 37's had excellent haulage charicteristics, and the booked load on the steel trains between South Wales and Dee Marsh/Crewe was 1420 tons, which they would shift, although slowly, taking an hour to cover the 12 mile climb between Shrewsbury and Church Stretton. One thing that helped them shift such heavy loads was the fact that the sanders on the refurbished locos were replaced, the new ones being far far better that the unrefurbished one, and in my experience better than the 56's. The only locos with equivalent sanders were the 60's. The only thing the refurbished 37's lacked was a high top end speed. They generally struggled one they got over 50MPH due to the regearing  and resulting alteration to field diverts.

 

Paul J.

[Titan]

This was all to do with the Deltics ETH supply.  When under load, the only time the volts across the generator were sufficient to provide ETH was when the engine was running at 1,500rpm.  As originally built this meant that since the engines operated in unison, ETH would have only been available with the controller fully open. So then they were modified such that the rear power unit would provide the ETH, and would power up first so that it would be running at 1,500 rpm at half power, with the other unit still on idle. Further movement of the controller would bring in the front unit until at full power both were running at 1,500 rpm.

 

At idle to get ETH the supply was taken from both generators in series.  This doubled the voltage available at idle speed and just about got it to an acceptable level for ETH.

 

As the voltage on the main generator varied quite a bit due to traction requirements, this meant that the ETH voltage was also somewhat variable, not to mention cutting out completely when the controller was set to less than half power. This is almost certainly why it upset certain Mk2 variants.  Also, drivers were instructed to avoid using small controller settings for any length of time as the train might get too cold/hot.

 

It also meant that the ETH would only be available on full power if only one unit was in operation.

 

Now, I wonder how many sound chips have the engines revving up together for steam heat only Deltics, and one after the other for Dual heat versions...

Edited December 11, 2019 by Titan

[roythebus]

The ETH mods must have been about the time I left KX as we didn't have many Mk2e coaches. My experience was pre June 1978. All were steam heat and ETH fitted. And agree on fault conditions engine could run and cut out separately. Different facts for different periods of their lives and different personal experiences/

[stovepipe]

The modified Deltic starting characteristics were implemented as part of ETH fitting, which was completed by November 1971 - it is mentioned over a couple of paragraphs in Deltics: A Symposium, in an chapter by Roger Ford, first published in 1972 or thereabouts.

[Titan]

2 hours ago, Swindon 123 said:

I know from personal experience that both engines on a Deltic didn't always take power at the same time. I was working the 19.35 for Hull out of King Cross one night in  late1981, (with 55004 I think?). Started away from KX and made our way into Gasworks tunnel, with the engine farthest from the driving cab taking power. As we got to the point in Gasworks tunnel to start accelerating, I gradually opened the controller up towards full, As we got towards the end of Gasworks tunnel, the second engine took power, and frightened the life out of the driver and myself, as it shook the whole loco and tried to join us in the cab. Offending engine then shuts down, general fault light, no traction power until the engine stop light on the offending engine came up. As this was before SSF, the driver said try a restert, and the engine restarted. By now we were just about to enter Copenhagen tunnel and just about moving, so it was try for power again and slowly move the power controller towards full. Yet again, as we were getting towards the end of Copenhagen tunnel, the second engine started to take power and rev up, at which point it tried to join us in the cab again, with the resulting loss of power and the engine shut down. At this point the driver said forget it, just don't shut off anywhere, and I didn't, the power controller stayed at full from the top of Holloway Bank to between Biggleswade and Sandy, where we were booked onto the slow line.

 

 

That was probably the 1D08 on 27th October. The loco was restricted to one power unit only after that, Ran ECS to York after arrival in Hull, and was withdrawn the next day, but not until after working a few York-Liverpool services first!

[Titan]

16 minutes ago, roythebus said:

The ETH mods must have been about the time I left KX as we didn't have many Mk2e coaches. My experience was pre June 1978. All were steam heat and ETH fitted. And agree on fault conditions engine could run and cut out separately. Different facts for different periods of their lives and different personal experiences/

 

4 minutes ago, stovepipe said:

The modified Deltic starting characteristics were implemented as part of ETH fitting, which was completed by November 1971 - it is mentioned over a couple of paragraphs in Deltics: A Symposium, in an chapter by Roger Ford, first published in 1972 or thereabouts.

 

The only mods that were done that I can think of was the ability to supply ETH on one engine, as originally modified I think they needed both running. The other was adjustment to the Earth Fault relay. As mentioned before minor earth faults on the stock could trip it.  Firstly they just increased the settings, but then found that the generators were suffering more damage due to the reduced protection. So a compromise was made such there were two EFR settings - one when ETH was on and a lower one when ETH was off. Although not perfect it did reduce the incidence of generator damage due to earth faults.

 

However neither of these would have had the slightest effect on the engine response to the controller.

[Pandora]

The topic may have wandered, but is revealing some interesting facts and anecdotes.

 

The class 50 locos , as built, had electronic controls for the diesel engine,  those controls had a few quirks I believe,  making driving up Shap at speed  an interesting task for the  expert drivers

Edited December 12, 2019 by Pandora

[Swindon 123]

10 hours ago, Titan said:

This was all to do with the Deltics ETH supply.  When under load, the only time the volts across the generator were sufficient to provide ETH was when the engine was running at 1,500rpm.  As originally built this meant that since the engines operated in unison, ETH would have only been available with the controller fully open. So then they were modified such that the rear power unit would provide the ETH, and would power up first so that it would be running at 1,500 rpm at half power, with the other unit still on idle. Further movement of the controller would bring in the front unit until at full power both were running at 1,500 rpm.

 

At idle to get ETH the supply was taken from both generators in series.  This doubled the voltage available at idle speed and just about got it to an acceptable level for ETH.

 

As the voltage on the main generator varied quite a bit due to traction requirements, this meant that the ETH voltage was also somewhat variable, not to mention cutting out completely when the controller was set to less than half power. This is almost certainly why it upset certain Mk2 variants.  Also, drivers were instructed to avoid using small controller settings for any length of time as the train might get too cold/hot.

 

It also meant that the ETH would only be available on full power if only one unit was in operation.

 

Now, I wonder how many sound chips have the engines revving up together for steam heat only Deltics, and one after the other for Dual heat versions...

Thaks for that explination Titan. That answers a lot of questions for my memories of driving them.

 

9 hours ago, Titan said:

 

That was probably the 1D08 on 27th October. The loco was restricted to one power unit only after that, Ran ECS to York after arrival in Hull, and was withdrawn the next day, but not until after working a few York-Liverpool services first!

My diary doesn't correspond with that date. According to my diary the last trip I had on 55004 on 1D08 was on 25th September 1981, so it must have been that trip. Also the diary suggests it was a 19.40 departure from KX by then.

 

1 hour ago, Pandora said:

The topic may have wandered, but is revealing some interesting facts and anecdotes.

 

The class 50 locos , as built, had electronic controls for the diesel engine,  those controls had a few quirks I believe,  making driving up Shap at speed  an interesting task for the  expert drivers

Yes, very sophisticated locos for their time the Class 50's. By the time I trained on them they had been refurbished, so most of it had been removed to some degree, but the thing that stuck in my mind was that the field diverts occured 10MPH later when the ETH was switched on. Never did actually try switching the ETH off and on at speed to see what if anything happened when you did.

 

Paul J.

[Titan]

44 minutes ago, Swindon 123 said:

Thaks for that explination Titan. That answers a lot of questions for my memories of driving them.

 

My diary doesn't correspond with that date. According to my diary the last trip I had on 55004 on 1D08 was on 25th September 1981, so it must have been that trip. Also the diary suggests it was a 19.40 departure from KX by then.

 

Paul J.

 

Could be, The loco worked as diagrammed until the middle of the next day, (Saturday) and was then rostered to run the 19.40 to Hull again. After that she only worked one more train before spending over two weeks at York under repair.

[45125]

On 11/12/2019 at 23:36, Titan said:

This was all to do with the Deltics ETH supply.  When under load, the only time the volts across the generator were sufficient to provide ETH was when the engine was running at 1,500rpm.  As originally built this meant that since the engines operated in unison, ETH would have only been available with the controller fully open. So then they were modified such that the rear power unit would provide the ETH, and would power up first so that it would be running at 1,500 rpm at half power, with the other unit still on idle. Further movement of the controller would bring in the front unit until at full power both were running at 1,500 rpm.

 

At idle to get ETH the supply was taken from both generators in series.  This doubled the voltage available at idle speed and just about got it to an acceptable level for ETH.

 

As the voltage on the main generator varied quite a bit due to traction requirements, this meant that the ETH voltage was also somewhat variable, not to mention cutting out completely when the controller was set to less than half power. This is almost certainly why it upset certain Mk2 variants.  Also, drivers were instructed to avoid using small controller settings for any length of time as the train might get too cold/hot.

 

It also meant that the ETH would only be available on full power if only one unit was in operation.

 

Now, I wonder how many sound chips have the engines revving up together for steam heat only Deltics, and one after the other for Dual heat versions...

From what I remember from working with Deltics, is that both engines load up at the same time but the power unit furthest from the driven cab revs up first , which is different from the quote of taking power first. When the ETH on, as the voltage falls (680v ?) a relay operates and this effectively drops the ETH contractors out until the voltage rises again and closes the contractors automatically so the driver does not have press the on button, have the drawings but its late and can't be lay my hands on them now.

 

The power controller at its base has two cams each off which operates the valve to increase engine revs, these cams are set so that the nearest engine will not increase speed until the controller is about 20% open whist the other engine will have increased speed about 10-12% open .

 

 

[Pandora]

On 11/12/2019 at 21:31, Swindon 123 said:

I know from personal experience that both engines on a Deltic didn't always take power at the same time. I was working the 19.35 for Hull out of King Cross one night in  late1981, (with 55004 I think?). Started away from KX and made our way into Gasworks tunnel, with the engine farthest from the driving cab taking power. As we got to the point in Gasworks tunnel to start accelerating, I gradually opened the controller up towards full, As we got towards the end of Gasworks tunnel, the second engine took power, and frightened the life out of the driver and myself, as it shook the whole loco and tried to join us in the cab. Offending engine then shuts down, general fault light, no traction power until the engine stop light on the offending engine came up. As this was before SSF, the driver said try a restert, and the engine restarted. By now we were just about to enter Copenhagen tunnel and just about moving, so it was try for power again and slowly move the power controller towards full. Yet again, as we were getting towards the end of Copenhagen tunnel, the second engine started to take power and rev up, at which point it tried to join us in the cab again, with the resulting loss of power and the engine shut down. At this point the driver said forget it, just don't shut off anywhere, and I didn't, the power controller stayed at full from the top of Holloway Bank to between Biggleswade and Sandy, where we were booked onto the slow line.

 

 

 

Paul J.

From the description can anyone identify the fault on the rogue engine of this Deltic?   Is it a case of the crankshafts  having jumped out of synchronisation?

ps, what is SSF?

Edited December 14, 2019 by Pandora

[russ p]

Does that mean each controller has two accelerator valves? 

SSF drops the DSD if the reverse is put in engine only when the loco is moving,  for driver only working it's a compulsory fitment 

[Titan]

3 hours ago, Pandora said:

From the description can anyone identify the fault on the rogue engine of this Deltic?   Is it a case of the crankshafts  having jumped out of synchronisation?

ps, what is SSF?

 

From the description it sounds pretty serious.  However if the date quoted is correct it very shortly after spent about 2 weeks out of service at York TMD.  Crankshafts going out of phase was usually due to the quillshaft connecting the crankshaft to the phasing gears breaking, which meant the crankshaft stopped turning and the unit would be running on six cylinders. Usually it caused no other damage, but the fix required separation of the generator from the power unit so it would be a Doncaster job.  Difficult to think of a fault that would cause high vibration and unit shut down that could be fixed on Depot, even if it took two weeks, although that could simply be York TMD busy with other stuff and not having time to do anything.

[Davexoc]

Can't remember what SSF stood for, but IIRC as built if you selected engine only the Deadmans (DSD) was not operational. The power handle would be off, but in effect you could coast. I did hear stories of a driver leaving the desk for a leak, but don't know if they were true.

Originally the DSD just had to be held down, so could be wedged anyway, the fire extinguisher or something fairly heavy was used so the driver could take his foot off the pedal, but that all changed when vigilence was added, which meant the pedal had to be kept depressed until the bleeper went off, then you had to release and reapply pressure on the pedal.

An HST on the GWML at 120mph on greens could DSD bleep and AWS ring in a constant sequence between Didcot and Swindon.

[russ p]

55 minutes ago, Davexoc said:

Can't remember what SSF stood for, but IIRC as built if you selected engine only the Deadmans (DSD) was not operational. The power handle would be off, but in effect you could coast. I did hear stories of a driver leaving the desk for a leak, but don't know if they were true.

Originally the DSD just had to be held down, so could be wedged anyway, the fire extinguisher or something fairly heavy was used so the driver could take his foot off the pedal, but that all changed when vigilence was added, which meant the pedal had to be kept depressed until the bleeper went off, then you had to release and reapply pressure on the pedal.

An HST on the GWML at 120mph on greens could DSD bleep and AWS ring in a constant sequence between Didcot and Swindon.

 

I believe it stood for speed switch fitted but not a great title for what it did

[Swindon 123]

I was doing my MP12 course when SSF first appeared, in late 1983, on locos. At first no one, including our instructors, had any idea what it meant, but as it was first noted on some of the most recent ETH fitted locos, then being allocated to Stratford depot, it was interpreted as meaning "Super Stratford" (SSF). Our instructors soon found out it meant "Speed Sensor Fitted", which meant that the loco detected when the speed was above 3MPH, and any movement of the reverser into Engine Only abover that speed would cause a full brake application. At that time there was no vigilance fitted to locos in general, only a couple of experimental versions, one of which I seem to remember was fitted to one of the Deltics.

 

Paul J.

[45125]

9 hours ago, russ p said:

Does that mean each controller has two accelerator valves? 

SSF drops the DSD if the reverse is put in engine only when the loco is moving,  for driver only working it's a compulsory fitment 

Yes it does Russ.

 

[Zomboid]

So (remaining off topic), would a deltic on one engine respond differently to the power handle depending on which cab it's being driven from?

[number6]

From the Alan Harrison Collection on Youtube - which to those of us of a certain age is catnip. Jump to 4:45 a pair of peds going quite fast - one assumes no heat or air con?

 

From the caption on Youtube: A pair of Class 31s head south with yet another Mk3 Pullman rake. This is presumably 1V49, the 0840 (SO) Liverpool Lime Street to Paignton service, which was actually booked for a pair of 31/4s from Birmingham.

[Davexoc]

1 hour ago, number6 said:

From the Alan Harrison Collection on Youtube - which to those of us of a certain age is catnip. Jump to 4:45 a pair of peds going quite fast - one assumes no heat or air con?

 

From the caption on Youtube: A pair of Class 31s head south with yet another Mk3 Pullman rake. This is presumably 1V49, the 0840 (SO) Liverpool Lime Street to Paignton service, which was actually booked for a pair of 31/4s from Birmingham.

 

Well if they're heading south down Lickey, then they can have it all. Going the other way will be another matter, they might need the help of those two 37s....

[stovepipe]

31404/31467, doing about 75 mph I reckon.

[Titan]

2 hours ago, number6 said:

From the Alan Harrison Collection on Youtube - which to those of us of a certain age is catnip. Jump to 4:45 a pair of peds going quite fast - one assumes no heat or air con?

 

Well with only 10 coaches on and nearly 3,000bhp on tap they bloomin well ought to be, ETH or no ETH!