Incompetent CMEs

[melmoth]

17 minutes ago, bbishop said:

 

But was that a bad thing?  

 

 

Well, I suppose that depends on your views on insubordination, but I'd have to check exactly what Holcroft was complaining about, and I can't find the book right now. Which since I've only just read it again during lockdown is a bit annoying 

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

 

.......... the Green Tanks (the H16 class built for the cross London freight traffic) enjoyed their Summer holiday job hauling the Ascot race specials without falling off the track.  Bill

Unfortunately Maunsell's equivalent goods tanks - the 'W's - were never allowed to show what they could do on summer holiday jobs ............. but they didn't have any record for falling off the track doing what they were designed for. The Rivers, of course, WERE designed for higher speeds and were found to be perfectly acceptable on track supported on something better than beach pebbles.

[kevinlms]

7 hours ago, ikcdab said:

You can't get away with that!  They may not be responsible for detailed design work, but they are accountble for the output of their department. It's the same in any industry. The CEO may not know the details but certainly carries the can when it goes wrong. 

That seems to be an issue at Boeing!

[JimC]

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

 

But was that a bad thing?  

Well, if it means your locomotives are 20 years behind the state of the art then it might be... 

[R Marshall]

On 13/06/2020 at 18:55, Compound2632 said:

 

Exactly so - at least by the last third of the 19th century, say. An incompetent CME is one who failed to manage his department effectively - on fruit of that might be ineffective locomotive designs but not necessarily so - vide Wainwright. The older title of Locomotive Superintendent stresses the managerial rather then engineering aspect of the role. 

 

Alexander McDonnell is an example of a Locomotive Superintendent whose person management skills weren't up to the job, when faced with drivers averse to innovation.

 

Innovation may have been one cause, but his 4-4-0s were reportedly inferior in performance to Fletcher's 2-4-0s. Apparently he caused a riot at Armstrongs.

[Compound2632]

Just now, R Marshall said:

reportedly inferior in performance to Fletcher's 2-4-0s. 

Ah, but reported by whom? The enginemen, Fletcher loyalists to a man?

 

Wilson Worsdell, who had joined the Gateshead staff as McDonnell's chief draughtsman, was left to pick up the pieces by designing and excellent 2-4-0 under the auspices of a locomotive committee, then had his elder brother appointed over him.

[DCB]

2 hours ago, burgundy said:

Not completely true. After grouping, they ended up back on the Highland. But that was after hammer blow was better understood. The real sin was to have ignored the advice of the civil engineer, Newlands.

Best wishes

Eric    

Newlands may well have been a bit more canny than some give him credit for.   How often do CMEs slide designs past the Civil engineers then add everything including the kitchen sink, superheaters especially and push the weights way up.  CMEs also sneak rebalanced wheels which increase hammer blow but reduce axlebox wear in after locos have been approved.

 

Edited June 16, 2020 by DavidCBroad

[R Marshall]

Neither of the Worsdells had problems with the enginemen and they certainly innovated in terms of NER practice. The Tennant's cylinders were 18" x 24", as were the 901s and the later Worsdell Class Ds and Fs.

 

All of these had tractive effort superior to the 38s. Now I'm not an engineer and the above takes no account of the Worsdell classes in compound form, but I think it's an indication the the 38s were not up to top link jobs.

 

Maybe McDonnell was too autocratic for the free spirits of the North East?

 

 

 

[lanchester]

2 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Churchward is well noted for having impromptu meetings in the draughtsman's offices, and very often at the draughtsman's chair.  Design issues were often resolved there & then, with the relevant staff involved.  There was no can-carrying going on, as the whole process was designed to obviate these instances. 

In a different area, I believe RJ Mitchell used to do much the same thing at Supermarine. But at least if you do this in the drawing office there is a chance that changes are properly recorded. A quick redesign on the shop floor is not such a good idea.

[LMS2968]

4 minutes ago, lanchester said:

In a different area, I believe RJ Mitchell used to do much the same thing at Supermarine. But at least if you do this in the drawing office there is a chance that changes are properly recorded. A quick redesign on the shop floor is not such a good idea.

George Hughes at Horwich too, and Nigel Gresley, when he had time, would happily seat himself at a drawing board.

[62613]

2 minutes ago, lanchester said:

In a different area, I believe RJ Mitchell used to do much the same thing at Supermarine. But at least if you do this in the drawing office there is a chance that changes are properly recorded. A quick redesign on the shop floor is not such a good idea.

Fairly standard practice in any D.O. There is usually a large amount of feedback both ways between the draffies and the engineers. Even on CAD, the top of the drawing sheet usually has the exhortation "If in doubt, ask"

[jim.snowdon]

5 hours ago, burgundy said:

Not completely true. After grouping, they ended up back on the Highland. But that was after hammer blow was better understood. The real sin was to have ignored the advice of the civil engineer, Newlands.

Best wishes

Eric    

Arguably it was Newlands whose competency could be questioned for not actually being open minded and considering the arguments being put forward by Smith instead of being dogmatic.

 

Jim

[burgundy]

3 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Newlands may well have been a bit more canny than some give him credit for.   How often do CMEs slide designs past the Civil engineers then add everything including the kitchen sink, superheaters especially and push the weights way up.  CMEs also sneak rebalanced wheels which increase hammer blow but reduce axlebox wear in after locos have been approved.

 

The irony being that Newlands went from being Civil Engineer on the Highland to Chief Engineer on the LMS, so he must surely have been involved in any approval of the subsequent use of the Rivers on the Highland main line. 

Best wishes 

Eric 

[melmoth]

Neatly bringing the themes of stubborn Scotsmen and axle loadings together, I found my copy of Holcroft's Locomotive Adventure 1, which I mentioned previously.

 

At pages 123 -125, he covers the design processes on the SR from 1923 onwards, noting that "brief experience had shown that, if supervision was relaxed, 'Jock' Finlayson and his men would gravitate back to Urie if not held in with a tight rein". At some point prior to 1926, it was discovered that there were anomalies in the stated weights of certain "larger" ex-LSWR engines. Eastleigh admitted to cooking the figures slightly in order to get under the Civil Engineer's restrictions and Maunsell went ballistic. He ordered the engines to be reweighed and the diagram book altered. "This display of severity did something towards making all concerned 'toe the line' in future", as Holcroft puts it. 

 

More 'gravitating back to Urie' is mentioned unfavourably by Holcroft when discussing the Lord Nelsons a bit later in the chapter (pp 138/139).

[bbishop]

4 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Unfortunately Maunsell's equivalent goods tanks - the 'W's - were never allowed to show what they could do on summer holiday jobs ............. but they didn't have any record for falling off the track doing what they were designed for. The Rivers, of course, WERE designed for higher speeds and were found to be perfectly acceptable on track supported on something better than beach pebbles.

But the W's were.  Bradley describes the trials of May 1948,  after which they were banned from passenger traffic.  Bill, 

[brack]

6 hours ago, burgundy said:

 But that was after hammer blow was better understood.

Given they were deliberately designed for reduced hammer blow to give the same forces on the track as the castles, one might suggest that hammer blow was quite well understood at the time, at least by some.

[Wickham Green too]

24 minutes ago, bbishop said:

But the W's were.  Bradley describes the trials of May 1948,  after which they were banned from passenger traffic.  Bill, 

One trial at a speed far greater than the loco was designed for ...... and when the Fairburrns were already on the horizon : hardly conclusive  - at least the L1s never turned up !

What sort of speeds were your H16s running at on their holidays : Bradley's table of miles between shopping for the moguls and S15s makes interesting reading.

[bbishop]

WG2, Bradley doesn't say.  The S15 class with the same diameter driving wheels but with the benefit of a tender behind were comfortable at 55mph, so I suppose 40 - 45 mph but only with smokebox leading.

 

Bill

 

[bbishop]

5 hours ago, JimC said:

Well, if it means your locomotives are 20 years behind the state of the art then it might be... 

 

So in 1914 Urie introduced the two cylinder, outside Walschaert 4-6-0 to British railways, preceding the Black 5s, B1s and Standars 4s and 5s.  Bill

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, bbishop said:

 

So in 1914 Urie introduced the two cylinder, outside Walschaert 4-6-0 to British railways, preceding the Black 5s, B1s and Standars 4s and 5s.  Bill

 

Pretty good going for someone who was trained up by Dugald the Great and obliged to spend his formative years drawing inside-cylinder 4-4-0s.

[bbishop]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Pretty good going for someone who was trained up by Dugald the Great and obliged to spend his formative years drawing inside-cylinder 4-4-0s.

 

Drummond's team was Urie as works manager (and very much the no.2),  Hunter was chief draughtsman and Eve was running assistant.  When Urie became CME he moved Hunter to works manager and brought in Finlayson as chief draughtsman from North British.  Of interest were Urie's sons, both in fairly senior positions under Drummond, both left soon after their father became CME.  So Urie had built, rather than designed, the Drummond 4-6-0s. 

He didn't design his own locomotives either, but the brief to Finlayson would have been along the lines of: leading bogie, two cylinders, outside Walshaert gear and lets find out if superheating is worthwhile.  Of course (other than superheating) is what North British were building for export.  Bill

[Compound2632]

10 hours ago, bbishop said:

Drummond's team was Urie as works manager (and very much the no.2), 

 

But at St Rollox, Urie was initially Chief Draughtsman then later Works Manager, before joining Drummond at Nine Elms. Hence my remark about spending his formative years drawing inside cylinder 4-4-0s - though I was wrong, he wasn't long under Drummond's direct tutelage if at all, as Urie joined in 1890, the year Drummond embarked on his Australian venture. Urie would have drawn Lambie's 13 Class, not Drummond's 66 Class, but as both Locomotive Superintendents were from the Ayrshire coast, hardly any difference in outlook or machinery.

Edited June 17, 2020 by Compound2632

[bbishop]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But at St Rollox, Urie was initially Chief Draughtsman then later Works Manager, before joining Drummond at Nine Elms. Hence my remark about spending his formative years drawing inside cylinder 4-4-0s - though I was wrong, he wasn't long under Drummond's direct tutelage if at all, as Urie joined in 1890, the year Drummond embarked on his Australian venture. Urie would have drawn Lambie's 13 Class, not Drummond's 66 Class, but as both Locomotive Superintendents were from the Ayrshire coast, hardly any difference in outlook or machinery.

 Compound,  I've done some digging.  Campbell Highet variously identifies the chief draughtsman at St Rollox as William Weir  (in reference to no 123) and as Tom Weir.  Delving in the webby thing, I found a quote that Tom Weir was chief draughtsman at the time of Drummond through to M'Intosh.  Bill

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, bbishop said:

 Compound,  I've done some digging.  Campbell Highet variously identifies the chief draughtsman at St Rollox as William Weir  (in reference to no 123) and as Tom Weir.  Delving in the webby thing, I found a quote that Tom Weir was chief draughtsman at the time of Drummond through to M'Intosh.  Bill

 

I was going off this brief bio. I thought it was well-established that St Rollox had nothing to do with No. 123 other than Edward Snowball having access to a set of drawings for the 66 Class, Neilsons having built a batch of those. 

 

Anyway, the point is, Urie's early training as a locomotive draughtsman was in the heyday of the Drummondesque Scottish 4-4-0 but he successfully made the leap to modern outside-cylinder 4-6-0s. He was evidently devoted to Drummond but not so much as not to be fully aware of the limitations of his school of thought when it came to bigger engines.

Edited June 17, 2020 by Compound2632

[The Stationmaster]

On 13/06/2020 at 17:33, Wickham Green too said:

Mansell on the S.E.R. comes to mind ........... another political appointee.

But he was pretty clever when it came to wheels