Pre-Nationalisation diesel 0-6-0 shunters

[Tony Cane]

Here is as far as I have got with a resin body SR diesel shunter.

The chassis is the Bachmann one still with spoked wheels, some details, such as handrails and the ladder, still need to be added.

[keefer]

Always nice to see something a bit out of the ordinary, rather than just another 03 or 08!

[Graham_Muz]

On 16/03/2020 at 14:17, Nearholmer said:

The Bulleid 500hp ‘Diesel Q1’, which was very definitely a trip loco, able for long pick-up goods runs, I don’t think had train brakes (can anyone say for certain?) presumably because the sort of goods trains concerned were ‘unfitted’.

 

On 16/03/2020 at 21:04, keefer said:

I'm sure I've read that this loco wasn't as successful as was hoped because it was rather high-geared for slow shunting but rather low-geared for distance trip work.

 

 

On 16/03/2020 at 21:08, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I've read the same somewhere.

 

You'd have thought that easy to solve with a two-range selector, which it was what Ruston provided on locos for Bord na Mona in Ireland when exactly the same problem arose there.

 

Maybe that would have figured in a MkII, but the there never was one.

You might have read about the Bulleid 500hp shunted and it’s limitations on my page on the SEmG site here http://www.semgonline.com/diesel/bull-500_01.html

 

I really must get on and build my Judith Edge kit... 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Graham_Muz

[Graham_Muz]

My Maunsell 350hp was built from a Golden Arrow kit on a Lima chassis well before the Bachmann chassis was  available. 
She could probably do with an upgrade.. 

[Nearholmer]

Graham

 

Did the 500hp loco have a two-range selector, or just a single range intended to cover all of its duties?

 

I ask, because I read what you've written differently from what H A V Bulleid wrote in "Bulleid of the Southern" (pp91).

 

Either way, it seems odd that those involved got the ratios wrong for the duties. Maybe the engine was changed at the last minute in the design process, after the gearing was manufactured.

 

Kevin

[Graham_Muz]

My understanding was that it was a two stage gearbox that was selectable, but the ratios in both ranges were a compromise. 

 

I think HAV has been simplistic in his brief mention of the performance of the 500hp and should perhaps have said "gear ratios were just a little too high for shunting and just too low for train duties" 

 

Considering it saw 10 years service you think it shouldn't have been too difficult to amend, but perhaps being unique maybe it was seen as not worth the expense. 

[Michael Edge]

Mechanical transmission wasn't really the way to go for this much power, Hunslet found this out later with an 0-8-0DM for Peru (tested extensively on BR before going there) and two similarly powerful 0-6-0DMs - the gearboxes were as big as the engines. Hydraulic transmission was much better for large power outputs.

The most puzzling thing about 11001 is the lack of train braking, there was plenty of room for an exhauster in the huge engine casing.

[The Johnster]

Probably not thought necessary; the loco was designed for trip work which, in those days, was usually carried out without train brakes even if some of the vehicles were vacuum fitted.  In some ways it's a proto-D95xx, another failure in BR service for similar reasons.  Not geared right for trip work, or as a 'super shunter'.  The success of the 08 and it's various Big 4 prequels led to a loco ideal for yard shunting and station pilot work, but too slow for ecs and trip work.

[Wickham Green too]

20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

..... The success of the 08 and it's various Big 4 prequels led to a loco ideal for yard shunting and station pilot work, but too slow for ecs and trip work.

..... for which the class 12 and, later, a couple of generations of 09 came about.

[Nearholmer]

Which were still too slow, partly because the gear ratio was still a compromise and partly because 350hp isn’t enough to go reasonably quick, except with a very light load.

 

I guess that the real ‘road switchers’ in Britain were the Type1 locos, but I have a feeling that they were actually too high-geared for sustained heavy shunting - the traction motors would probably overheat because they wouldn’t be spinning fast enough to ingest enough cooling air. 
 

The truth is probably that sustained really heavy switching, and inter-running a paying load with passenger trains are simply incompatible in design terms unless there is a ratio change facility, or uneconomically massive auxiliary cooling systems for the transmission, even with electric or hydraulic transmissions.
 

Can anyone think of a loco that can do both?

Edited July 5, 2020 by Nearholmer

[30368]

Its all such a long time ago now, but I think some (perhaps all?) classes of Diesel Electric loco's had traction motor cooling fans and ducting to keep the motor windings/commutator cool. I seem to remember that the 08 shunters had something similar but it is over 50 years since I got my hands dirty maintaining locos so I may well be wrong.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

PS Mr Edge, any sign of the Maunsell 350 HP shunter etches? Many thanks.

Edited July 5, 2020 by 30368

[Nearholmer]

Most DE locos have a combination of self-induced and forced air cooling of the traction motors, and I think you’re right that an 08 does have a traction motor blower (on the aux generator shaft???). But, it also has double-reduction gearing, so that the traction motor is spinning fast enough to pull enough air in when the loco is moving very slowly and working very hard. The first versions of the EE350 only had single reduction, so we’re quicker, but overheated when shunting hard.

 

It was more the ability of the cooling system on a Type 1, day a Class 20, to keep the traction motors cool if used for very sustained heavy shunting that I was wondering about.

 

 

[cheesysmith]

It is covered in the LMS diesels book, the first 08 lookalike had single reduction gearing and a higher top speed with self ventilated motors, that overheated hump shunting.

 

Later they made one with double reduction gearing and force ventilated motors, which became the class 11.

 

The american hump shunter/switcher worked because they used force ventilated motors with a very high power rating (from the use of common parts across the range). If you wanted the equivalent in the UK at the time, you could have done so by using 2 6RK engines (paired or as a v12) for 700 to 800 bhp with 4 EE 507 motors force ventilated. With a 35mph top speed, and the motors able to take 1000bhp, don`t think you would have been able to overload the motors.

 

The engines used in the thumpers were 4 cylinder, turbo, with a problem of overheating the cylinder heads in the 600bhp version, and needed more frequent overhauls. If you used the RK as used in the 08, you would have had a nice cheap shunter/transfer loco with minimal maintenance required. Think of a lower geared class 20.  Quite why they never built one, when you think of all those 16ton rot boxes limited to 25mph?

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The truth is probably that sustained really heavy switching, and inter-running a paying load with passenger trains are simply incompatible in design terms unless there is a ratio change facility, or uneconomically massive auxiliary cooling systems for the transmission, even with electric or hydraulic transmissions.

Can anyone think of a loco that can do both?

You're probably at the heavy duty American stuff. The Alco RS series and the EMD GPs were pretty happy doing either so far as I know. I've seen pictures of an MLW (Canadian Alco) pulling the CN transcontinental, with the help of a B unit of some sort.

 

Though I think for really heavy work they use slugs, which presumably helps keep the traction motors from overheating.

[Halvarras]

I've been trying to find out when 15101-6 lost their cast numberplates, and hopefully what kind of BR insignia they were carrying at the time, with no luck at all - there just aren't enough photos of these in their later years to pin it down. Can anyone help?

On this subject, worth mentioning the short-lived additional one, 15107 fitted with a Petter 4-cylinder diesel engine and two Brush traction motors. Built November 1949, withdrawn June 1958, photos of this one are even rarer - there's a Rail-Online shot of it outside Swindon Works and another at work in Bristol, credited to Brush, in the slim softback book 'BR Diesel Shunting Locos - A Pictorial Survey' (Bradford Barton, undated but around 1980, cost £1.95!) Both b&w pics show the loco in black livery with over-large early BR emblem. 

This book also has a shot of 15105 at Old Oak Common in 1955 with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' in Egyptian serif style lettering.......I bet that looked good when clean, a pity the locos are always so filthy in photos you can hardly see it!

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Can anyone think of a loco that can do both?

DB V160 centre cab?  Whether the spindizzy and jenny combo could have been encased in a UK loading gauge loco that could still traverse humps in gravity yards is another matter.  But the Germans seem to have standardised on this loco for the 'road switcher' role.  

 

I think what went wrong was that the US railroads provided themselves with large numbers of both yard and road switches going back to steam days, which we never did, using steam 6-coupled tanks in a dual role with no problems.  An American road switcher would leave it's train on the reception roads for the yard switcher to deal with, and the yard switcher would make trains up on the departure roads for a road switcher or main line loco to take forward; there were plenty of both types.  In the UK, we were used to one type of loco in both roles, so that an Ebbw Jc 8750 might be a dock shunter one day, work a return trip to Brecon with gangwayed stock the next, and then run a transfer freight between Ebbw and Cardiff Tidal.  The 1965 replacement diesels (Brecon never went to dmus) would have required an 08 for the dock shunting, a cross country dmu for Brecon, and perhaps a Hymek for the transfer job, pending the arrival of D95xx.  

 

But the culture was that a small loco could do all that work; a small steam loco with 4'7" drivers or ball park always had, but you couldn't expect any iteration of early British diesel to do it.  The Type 1s were intended to replace the numerous 6-coupled tanks but could not perform in a heavy shunting role for long periods for the reason that Nearholmer has outlined, though they were fine on trip/transfer work and ecs.  So, by the end of steam, which coincided with the withdrawal of all the Type 1s except 20s which had found a new role as MGR haulers, the only locos available for a mixed yard/road switcher role, something that by the way never existed in the US, were the 08s and few 09s.  This was tolerated because a large number of the more local trip/transfer duties had gone, so relatively few trips and transfers with 08s got in the way on the main lines, but the situation was less than ideal and lasted another 2 decades or more.  There was never an ideal UK diesel for this role, but in typical British make-do-with-what's-at-hand-rather-than-do-it-properly type compromise fashion, the 08s were used.

 

There was a good bit of this in the wake of the 1955 plan, some of it successful; i have mentioned the 20s on the MGRs.  A timing reduction on the Paddington-Plymouth route was achieved with double headed Warships, and double-headed type 2s were used in various places for short haul heavy freight drags.  The double heading of 50s on the WCML, not their original intended role, was also successful but you can't call 50s !955 plan locos, and they were clapped out when we got them to replace the 52s.   

 

 

[Owd Bob]

Think i'm right putting these here?

Edited July 7, 2020 by Owd Bob

[laurenceb]

Getting 404 not found

[Wickham Green too]

ditto .......

[dan_the_v8man]

On 05/07/2020 at 12:18, Nearholmer said:

Which were still too slow, partly because the gear ratio was still a compromise and partly because 350hp isn’t enough to go reasonably quick, except with a very light load.

 

I guess that the real ‘road switchers’ in Britain were the Type1 locos, but I have a feeling that they were actually too high-geared for sustained heavy shunting - the traction motors would probably overheat because they wouldn’t be spinning fast enough to ingest enough cooling air. 
 

The truth is probably that sustained really heavy switching, and inter-running a paying load with passenger trains are simply incompatible in design terms unless there is a ratio change facility, or uneconomically massive auxiliary cooling systems for the transmission, even with electric or hydraulic transmissions.
 

Can anyone think of a loco that can do both?

 

Certainly the Class 20 can, that's why they went into industrial use with Hope Cement and Corus at Scunthorpe 

[5050]

On 05/07/2020 at 13:53, Neil Phillips said:

I've been trying to find out when 15101-6 lost their cast numberplates, and hopefully what kind of BR insignia they were carrying at the time, with no luck at all - there just aren't enough photos of these in their later years to pin it down. Can anyone help?

On this subject, worth mentioning the short-lived additional one, 15107 fitted with a Petter 4-cylinder diesel engine and two Brush traction motors. Built November 1949, withdrawn June 1958, photos of this one are even rarer - there's a Rail-Online shot of it outside Swindon Works and another at work in Bristol, credited to Brush, in the slim softback book 'BR Diesel Shunting Locos - A Pictorial Survey' (Bradford Barton, undated but around 1980, cost £1.95!) Both b&w pics show the loco in black livery with over-large early BR emblem. 

This book also has a shot of 15105 at Old Oak Common in 1955 with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' in Egyptian serif style lettering.......I bet that looked good when clean, a pity the locos are always so filthy in photos you can hardly see it!

I've just 'discovered' the GWR versions and rather fancy one, especially with the GWR style lettering etc..  The body is rather different to the 'standard' 08 as it doesn't have all the footplate mounted boxes.  The wheels are 4' diameter, no marker lights at front or on cab back (normal GWR style lamp brackets) and they need a cast (etched) numberplate.  Has anyone built one?  I have an already built Kitmaster body that I was considering 'adapting' but I think the work involved will be a bit 'heavy'.  Also, to be OK for P4, the outside frames are to close together and need thinning and the 4' wheels need to be taken into account relative to buffer height.  The position of the cab door is to far forward leaving (I think) insufficient width for a cast number plate.  It's very tight for a standard 5-digit BR one.

 

Perhaps another Pannier might be a simpler exercise...............................

Edited May 12, 2021 by 5050

[Nearholmer]

Golden Arrow make a kit for the SR version, which is a lot closer to the GWR one than a 08/09 is, being from the same generation.

The big difference SR-GWR was the cab back, but I have never made a point-by-point comparison of the rest of the detail.

 

The GWR one did look rather splendid.

 

EDIT - have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick? I’m talking about the pre-WW2 loco ...... are you thinking of 15101, which was delivered into service post-nationalisation?

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Michael Edge]

1 hour ago, 5050 said:

I've just 'discovered' the GWR versions and rather fancy one, especially with the GWR style lettering etc..  The body is rather different to the 'standard' 08 as it doesn't have all the footplate mounted boxes.  The wheels are 4' diameter, no marker lights at front or on cab back (normal GWR style lamp brackets) and they need a cast (etched) numberplate.  Has anyone built one?  I have an already built Kitmaster body that I was considering 'adapting' but I think the work involved will be a bit 'heavy'.  Also, to be OK for P4, the outside frames are to close together and need thinning and the 4' wheels need to be taken into account relative to buffer height.  The position of the cab door is to far forward leaving (I think) insufficient width for a cast number plate.  It's very tight for a standard 5-digit BR one.

 

Perhaps another Pannier might be a simpler exercise...............................

If you mean GWR No2 (BR 15100), we do have a kit for it - and the SR version is being developed. These are the earliest twin motor EE shunters, later GW ones were similar to class 11 with 4' wheels

[5050]

1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

If you mean GWR No2 (BR 15100), we do have a kit for it - and the SR version is being developed. These are the earliest twin motor EE shunters, later GW ones were similar to class 11 with 4' wheels

I didn't know that!  But it's the later 15101 - 7 that I was considering.  A possible conversion from a commercial 08 but involving some major(ish) work.  One to contemplate for some time I reckon!

[New Haven Neil]

Watch out for subtle differences in the cab roof profile if you're modifying an 08 to an earlier version - takes a while to spot at first, then you can't unsee it!  It's flatter.