Standard 2 Tanks at 72A summer 1961

[chris45lsw]

I was in the West Country in Aug & Sep 1961 with a S. Region Rail Rover - £6 10s (or £6.50 in today's money) for 7 days!  

 

My notes tell me that I saw 84021 on Exmouth Junction shed (on Wed 31/8/61);  84020 in Crediton goods yard (on Thurs 31/8/61);  and 84022 at Tipton St Johns working the Sidmouth branch with 2-set 108 (on Sat 2/9/61).  I missed 84023!

 

I see that according to Longworth they all went to the LM Region during September 1961.

 

Chris KT

[Mallard60022]

7 hours ago, chris45lsw said:

I was in the West Country in Aug & Sep 1961 with a S. Region Rail Rover - £6 10s (or £6.50 in today's money) for 7 days!  

 

My notes tell me that I saw 84021 on Exmouth Junction shed (on Wed 31/8/61);  84020 in Crediton goods yard (on Thurs 31/8/61);  and 84022 at Tipton St Johns working the Sidmouth branch with 2-set 108 (on Sat 2/9/61).  I missed 84023!

 

I see that according to Longworth they all went to the LM Region during September 1961.

 

Chris KT

Yea, LLandudno got all 4, on paper it was 16/09/61. Now thank you Christhingymejig, that Sidmouth Branch working with Set 108 rings a big bonger for me re a photo I have seen somewhere.

£6.50 for 7 Days....I remember having to save up for ages for that sort of thing, but what value eh!

[JohnR]

So, would we prefer Hornby did a tank version of their Standard 2 2-6-0, or Bachman did a standard version of their Ivatt 2-6-2T ?

[RFS]

On 02/03/2020 at 13:35, Mallard60022 said:

By any chance does anyone know why 4 of these little beauties had about 3.5 months at Exmouth Junction in the summer if 61? Some ex staff from 72A on a Forum elsewhere  have denied ever seeing them! Iv'r checked on the BR dataset site but it may have been a paper transfer of course.

 I'm sure I saw them whilst spotting as far as I can remember without digging out my books.

Thanks

 

I think the answer for their short-lived existence at 72A may simply be due to rationalization. The SR already had around 30 of the Ivatts from new, and in 1957 acquired 84020-9 from new also, which went to Ashford and Ramsgate, but were soon displaced by the Kent Coast electrification.  Although 4 went to 72A in the summer of 1961, all 10 were transferred away from the SR on 16th September 1961 and it looks like they were replaced by more Ivatts, with 41238/70/72/94 and 41320 going to 72A as replacements.

 

A similar exchange happened at the end of 1959 when the LMR and SR, each having fleets of Fairburn and Standard 4MT tanks, did a swap with all the LMR's Standards going to the SR in exchange for Fairburns.

 

As ever http://www.brdatabase.info/index.php is the source for all of this. 

Edited March 4, 2020 by RFS

[Oldddudders]

So do we think this was about rationalisation of spares holdings and consolidation of expertise among fitting staff? All sounds very plausible - if a bit modern! 

[bécasse]

2 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

So do we think this was about rationalisation of spares holdings and consolidation of expertise among fitting staff? All sounds very plausible - if a bit modern! 

No, the Southern footplate staff unquestionably much preferred the Ivatts to the similar standard version (although I have no idea why) and ASLEF's views, most of which were actually quite sensible, were always taken seriously by the Southern management. It may be that the arrival of a block allocation of standards in East Kent where the men had little or no experience of the Ivatts proved acceptable (because they were compared with what they replaced - although H class 0-4-4TS were very well thought of, M7s and ex-Brighton locos less so), but once they were moved somewhere where the men did know the Ivatts well the comparison became obvious and words were said.

There was always an incentive for BR corporately to keep the same locos within the Southern Region (and Western Region for that matter) because of the non-standard lamp iron arrangements.

[RFS]

23 minutes ago, bécasse said:

No, the Southern footplate staff unquestionably much preferred the Ivatts to the similar standard version (although I have no idea why) and ASLEF's views, most of which were actually quite sensible, were always taken seriously by the Southern management. It may be that the arrival of a block allocation of standards in East Kent where the men had little or no experience of the Ivatts proved acceptable (because they were compared with what they replaced - although H class 0-4-4TS were very well thought of, M7s and ex-Brighton locos less so), but once they were moved somewhere where the men did know the Ivatts well the comparison became obvious and words were said.

There was always an incentive for BR corporately to keep the same locos within the Southern Region (and Western Region for that matter) because of the non-standard lamp iron arrangements.

 

The simple fact is that all 10 Standard 2MT tanks were transferred away from the SR on the same day, 16th September 1961 - 4 from Exmouth Junction, 4 from Brighton and 2 from Eastleigh. The clear implication is that this must have been done for rationalization reasons. No doubt by this time BR were awash with locos of this type given the rapid dieselization of branch lines. 

[Nearholmer]

It might we worth trawling the excellent Sussex Motive Power Depots family of websites for clues as to why crews liked the Ivatts better.

 

It certainly contains first-hand feedback about crews perceiving no useful difference in capability between BR Standard 3MT and Ivatt 2MT.

 

Some of these things are very hard to pin-down: I replaced my 15yo car with a new, and theoretically better, one 18 months ago, and I'm mildly disappointed, because the old one 'drove better'!

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Rivercider]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

It might we worth trawling the excellent Sussex Motive Power Depots family of websites for clues as to why crews liked the Ivatts better.

 

It certainly contains first-hand feedback about crews perceiving no useful difference in capability between BR Standard 3MT and Ivatt 2MT.

 

Some of these things are very hard to pin-down: I replaced my 15yo car with a new, and theoretically better, one 18 months ago, and I'm mildly disappointed, because the old one 'drove better'!

 

In 'The Exeter and Exmouth Railway' Colin Maggs reports that in 1952 Ivatt 41314 was trialed on the branch with 7 coaches, the maximum load for M7s. Time keeping was exemplary, but no better than the older M7s. Standard 3 82011 produced a much superior performance accelerating away up from Topsham to Exeter.  Ivatt tanks, along with O2s, (and by inference Standard 2 tanks),  were the only locos permitted on the Exmouth Docks branch, so the Exmouth sub-allocation always include either an O2 or Ivatt.

 

cheers

[chris45lsw]

When I toured the SR Western Section for a week in 1961 (£6.50 Rail Rover for the week) as a schoolboy I got a holiday job at Joe Lyons Corner House in Tooting to finance the trip.  I started at £4.75 per week rising to £5.25 by the time I finished.

 

Our first night's B&B in Weymouth was 16/6 (82.5p) which was more than I had budgeted for and I feared we wouldn't last the week!  However succeeding nights (Exeter, Wadebridge, Torrington and Tavistock) were somewhat less - I think Wadebridge was the cheapest at 11/6 (57.5p).

 

Chris KT

 

,  

[jazzer]

On 04/03/2020 at 10:40, RFS said:

 

The simple fact is that all 10 Standard 2MT tanks were transferred away from the SR on the same day, 16th September 1961 - 4 from Exmouth Junction, 4 from Brighton and 2 from Eastleigh. The clear implication is that this must have been done for rationalization reasons. No doubt by this time BR were awash with locos of this type given the rapid dieselization of branch lines. 

 

I think that very likely is the reason. One has to be careful about everything we read in magazines, often based on limited information from engine men who were often fiercely loyal to the designs of their old companies.

 

The standard 2 tanks were to all intents and purposes the same as the Ivatts as far  as the essentials are concerned I.e boiler, but with standard design fittings. There is no obvious reason for the standards to be poor steamers unless it was something to do with the chimney design but I have seen no evidence of this, although I believe it was a bit of a problem with steaming of the tender version of the class 2’s, in certain areas.

 

The Standard class 3 tanks had a definite reputation as poor steamers and there are records of them stopping for a “blow up” with two on. This is strange because they were fitted with the tried and tested Swindon No2 boiler as fitted to the 51xx and 56xx classes, although it was shortened by 5 inches, which I wouldn’t imagine made a difference to steaming.

 

I wonder whether part of the problem was mismanagement by the crews. For example ,  the Stratford men got on very well with the  Britannia’s from the start, whereas the Old Oak Common men hated them because they weren’t “Western “ engines . The thing was though the Brits worked well with the existing “little and often “ firing techniques the Great Eastern men were familiar with, but firing a King or Castle was totally different.  Stuart  Cox, who basically co- ordinated the design it was was critical of driving techniques of an old LNWR man when the Brits were on test, in particular, according to Cox , was not getting on full regulator early enough, but as Cox says in his book, when a driver is approaching retirement having driven certain locos a certain way all his life it’s very difficult to persuade him to change his habits. So I think very often the loco was blamed for the driver or fireman’s shortcomings.

[Wickham Green]

Was it something to do with the 'standard' cab layout rather than Ivatt's interpretation/redesign of whatever the LMS layout would have been ? ........ I don't think any of our preserved railways has both Ivatt and Standard twos so we probably can't ask current day crews of their opinions.

[Mallard60022]

Fascinating. Definitely a combination of;

regional crews' 'stubborness' and muscle memory firing driving techniques. They knew 'their' local engines and were suspicious of things 'new'. They were also pi##ed off with the uncertain future looming over the horizon and the transfer to the enemy in 1963 killed almost all the SR mens' enthusiasm. 

This, along with the over production, due to 'management policy changes reference the use of Steam, of certain Standard loco's up until the late 50s and 1960, without a lot of time for 'testing' and improvement. Many were redundant even before they were run in in certain cases and others could have been retained for many more years running alongside diesels (e.g 9Fs and perhaps Brits).

 

My memory tells me that the 72A Standard 3s on the Exmouth were up to the task and quick off the mark with the 5 'Sets'.

Slightly off topic, the 72A men loved the Teddy Bear Standard 4Ts as they were comfortable in both directions, up to the tasks and steamed well. I loved them too; back to front Pacifics.

P  

[jazzer]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green said:

Was it something to do with the 'standard' cab layout rather than Ivatt's interpretation/redesign of whatever the LMS layout would have been ? ........ I don't think any of our preserved railways has both Ivatt and Standard twos so we probably can't ask current day crews of their opinions.

 

A wooden mock up of the Ivatt cab was made in the design stage to get crews opinions and it was apparently a very well received design.  When they built the standards the Ivatt cab was cut down in size slightly to comply to a smaller loading gauge and thus give wider route availability. Whether this was a cause for complaint by the crews , I do not know ,although    I wouldn’t have thought so, especially as it was far advanced compared to , say, the class H tanks. 

 

Fascinating discussion , although off topic. Why didn’t we all think of these things when the drivers where there to ask.

[Wickham Green]

1 minute ago, jazzer said:

 

............ it was far advanced compared to , say, the class H tanks. ........

.... but at least the 'H' class had power reversers !

[TheSignalEngineer]

A few brief reports appeared in Trains Illustrated that summer. 

It reported that 84020-3 had gone to Exmouth Junction, 84021 working on the Exmouth branch from 15th June.

The following month it reported that the SR was anxious to replace its ageing 0-4-4 tanks with more modern locos and had received 8 redundant Ivatts from the LMR. However the 84xxx locos were to be moved to the LMR  as the SR didn't consider it had enough of them to justify the expense of boiler spares.

A direct swap of 10 Ivatts (41320-29) for the ten 84xxx took place in September. 41320-23 replaced 84020-23 at 72A. 41324-27 went to Brighton for 84024-27 and 41328-29 replaced 84028-29 at Eastleigh.

[Oldddudders]

On 04/03/2020 at 10:59, Oldddudders said:

So do we think this was about rationalisation of spares holdings and consolidation of expertise among fitting staff? All sounds very plausible - if a bit modern! 

 

On 04/03/2020 at 11:12, bécasse said:

No,

 

8 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

However the 84xxx locos were to be moved to the LMR  as the SR didn't consider it had enough of them to justify the expense of boiler spares.

 

My case rests.

[TheSignalEngineer]

By the time of the transfer of the West of England  lines to the WR, the Southern had a peak allocation of 54 Ivatts if I'm counting correctly. That was half of the locos still in service.

[bécasse]

12 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

 

 

My case rests.

But at the same time it was (seriously) considering the use of the standards on the Isle of Wight where their marginally smaller envelope would have needed less modification to fit the loading gauge than would have been needed with the Ivatts. I still think that the cost of spares (and especially boiler spares) was a red herring, a paper reason to get rid of a class of loco that the men didn't, for some reason, like. Post Beeching and the rise of the bean counters, the more enlightened members of senior management became very adept at finding financial justification for doing things.

[Rivercider]

Reviving an old thread.

While searching for something else I found another photo of a Class 2 tank in Devon.

 

'The North Devon Line' by John Nicholas contains an undated photo by Lens of Sutton

BR Class 2 2-6-2T No. 84020 arrives at Copplestone with the 3.17pm goods from Eggesford to Crediton.

 

cheers