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Much is often made of how the Pacers could've been better if they had A, B or C or if X, Y, and Z had been done instead.

However Pacers are what they are because that is what was specified, given the extremely restricted budget for their construction.

In short, there was no money for anything else - the alternative to Pacers was nothing!

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None of that's enough to make Pacers masterpieces though, in the same way as beans on toast is good if the alternative is starving but hardly a top-notch meal. But it's fair to say that Pacers saved many lines and don't get the acknowledgement they deserve for that.

 

IMO to be a masterpiece it has to be brilliant functionally but there's more to it than that, hard to put a finger on what exactly though. Something that makes it gain affection too I suppose.

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For pure Victorian grace you cant beat the Broad Gauge Rovers. As a development of the Iron Dukes they look the part. Clean lines and the look of an express loco. Reported to reach speeds in the mid to high 70's they must have been a sight to behold!

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Can I put in a joint nomination for Rocket and Planet.  These locos were phenomenally successful in the terms of the day, and advanced the technology to the point of making main line routes as opposed to colliery tramroads not just possible but eminently practical and efficient.  Even the names are right; you need a Rocket to get to a Planet...  

 

Proper firebox, tubed boiler, direct quartered reciprocal drive, exhaust used to draw fire (Rocket) followed by between frames mounting of cylinders and proper smokebox with smokebox door (Planet).  Locomotives based closely on this principle were still being built by the same company 120 years later and a decade after that by Hunslet.  Not sure that they meet the requirments, being outside contractor locos not designed in-house by the L & M, but they both worked, brilliantly, straight out of the box.  Everything else looked like a museum piece overnight, in less than 2 years!

 

Patentee is worth mentioning as establishing the 2-2-2 outside framed format which was standard for passenger work for many years and allowed bigger and more efficient fireboxes, only 4 years later than Planet.  With this a sort of standard range of locos could be designed using similar cylinders and boiler, 2-2-2 for passenger work, 2-4-0 for 'goods' (what we think of as mixed traffic) and 0-6-0 for everything else.

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22 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Can I put in a joint nomination for Rocket and Planet.  These locos were phenomenally successful in the terms of the day, and advanced the technology to the point of making main line routes as opposed to colliery tramroads not just possible but eminently practical and efficient.  Even the names are right; you need a Rocket to get to a Planet...  

 

Proper firebox, tubed boiler, direct quartered reciprocal drive, exhaust used to draw fire (Rocket) followed by between frames mounting of cylinders and proper smokebox with smokebox door (Planet).  Locomotives based closely on this principle were still being built by the same company 120 years later and a decade after that by Hunslet.  Not sure that they meet the requirments, being outside contractor locos not designed in-house by the L & M, but they both worked, brilliantly, straight out of the box.  Everything else looked like a museum piece overnight, in less than 2 years!

 

Patentee is worth mentioning as establishing the 2-2-2 outside framed format which was standard for passenger work for many years and allowed bigger and more efficient fireboxes, only 4 years later than Planet.  With this a sort of standard range of locos could be designed using similar cylinders and boiler, 2-2-2 for passenger work, 2-4-0 for 'goods' (what we think of as mixed traffic) and 0-6-0 for everything else.

While Rocket and Planet should rank as masterpieces, surely Patentee is probably the most important locomotive ever constructed. There are still some examples of the six-coupled version of it knocking around the rail network, albeit using a diesel engine. The most important thing about it was that the three-axle design made it more stable at speed than any two-axle type. Those pretty soon disappeared after it's debut.

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