BR “Britannia” Standards

[TravisM]

1 hour ago, pH said:

What shed had he worked from? I don’t think Polmadie, in general, liked the Clans. They ended up using them on daily pickup goods on the Gourock line. (To be fair, they had used their Jubilees on that duty in previous years.) As people have commented above, other areas got on well with them. There is a story that Kingmoor said they would take the Polmadie Clans rather than them being scrapped - how true that is, I don’t know. I got the impression Polmadie liked their Duchesses and anything else suffered by comparison. All their Brits had been transferred away before the first Duchess was withdrawn from the shed. And they certainly did not like the ex-LNER Pacifics I they got in the early 1960s.

I know it was a Glasgow shed but I don’t know which one though Polmadie is probably top of the list.

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, keefer said:

What was the reason for the Clans' existence anyway?

The rationale was for a loco with a better route availability than the Britannia but using Britannia parts except the boiler, though it is a moot point whether it was worth it...

[PatB]

29 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

The rationale was for a loco with a better route availability than the Britannia but using Britannia parts except the boiler, though it is a moot point whether it was worth it...

Which brings us, as is so often the case, to the usual question of whether, in hindsight, the Standards as a whole, we're worth it. It's hard to deny that, after WW2, much locomotive renewal was necessary. However, there were probably sufficient proven designs in existence to fill the need without the immense effort of designing and setting up to build a whole fleet of brand new ones. 

 

But then, when the Standards were instigated, noone knew the whole (railway) World would change in 1955.

[pH]

8 hours ago, The Border Reiver said:

3) Original Full Handrail Deflectors - 17 locomotives in total
70000
70004
70014
70021
70031-70033
70042-70043
70045-70052

 

70000 had the "2 handhold" modification when in BR service:

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p24203037/ebf71f631

Edited July 17, 2020 by pH
To correct the link

[pH]

10 hours ago, keefer said:

What was the reason for the Clans' existence anyway? - was there a genuine need for a 6P 'little Britannia' or was it just a paper exercise in filling the gap between 5P/MT and 7P i.e. a solution looking for a problem?

(EDIT: I don't have much knowledge of the intricacies of steam locos, so this is a genuine enquiry)

 

C.J. Allen in “British Pacific Locomotives” quoted E.J.Cox saying that the Clans were designed as a powerful engine for routes with an axle-load limit of under 19 tons. They would run on almost every route that the existing 'Regional' 4-6-0s did, and could be used on duties such as those covered by 5Xs on the London Midland region, the GC mainline, and various routes in Scotland. Allen questioned why there was felt to be a need to replace or supplement existing engines on those duties, and they never did appear on routes like the GC or the Midland mainline.

 

There is a 10-page article on the Clans in Backtrack for December 2001, which goes into more (and somewhat different) detail on the origins of the design. According to this article, the original proposal for the Standard Class 5 was a 4-6-2. One of the merits of a Pacific design is the possibility of a wide firebox over the trailing truck, allowing the use of poorer quality coal, which was a concern in postwar conditions. However, it was felt that the higher initial cost and expected higher maintenance costs of a 4-6-2 was not justified for a Class 5. Also, since a Pacific would have a larger boiler, and presumably a higher steam-raising capability as a result, it was felt that a Class 5 would be used on Class 6 duties on a fairly regular basis. Given that, it was proposed that the Class 5 design should be 'beefed up' and built as a genuine Class 6. Another suggested result of the building a Class 6 Pacific was to allow the end of the reboilering program of the ex-LMS Patriots with Stanier 2A boilers. With this, and the appearance of the new Pacifics, the remaining parallel-boilered Patriots could be scrapped.

 

In summing up the Clans' service, the article makes a couple of interesting points. Comparing them with the Bulleid light Pacifics – their nearest equivalents dimensionally – it says that the Clans rarely if ever equalled the Bulleids in performance, but were far better in terms of reliability and economy. And, among Standard classes meant for primarily passenger service (despite mixed traffic designations) they ran the highest average mileages between General repairs.

 

(The 'Backtrack' article contains some interesting photographs of Clans, showing them at Liverpool Street, Inverness, and on the West Highland at Ardlui.)

[The Border Reiver]

6 hours ago, pH said:

 

70000 had the "2 handhold" modification when in BR service:

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p24203037/ebf71f631

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I have updated my records

[LMS2968]

The reboilering of the Baby Scots was begun as an LMS initiative. Apparently, the need for 91 Class 6P (7P from 1951) engines post-war was identified. The 6P Scots numbered 71, including the oddball 6170, whether with parallel or taper boiler, and there were the two rebuilt 5XPs, 5735/36, so 18 Baby Scots had to be rebuilt to make the number up. Although a few Scots had already been rebuilt, that programme was put on hold and the Baby Scots were done instead; the Scots were already 6P and the rebuild raised the Baby Scots from 5XP to that power class. Once these 18 had received their new boilers, work reverted to the original Scots, which lasted to 1955.

[PenrithBeacon]

There was a later BR plan to rebuild more Patriots with taper boilers but it wasn't proceeded with

[Wheatley]

16 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The Clans were a bit of an oddball case.  Nobody could see the point of a Brit with a smaller boiler, but they rapidly made a name for themselves on the difficult Port Road out of Carlisle, and gained respect quickly as a result. 

 

2 hours ago, pH said:

 

C.J. Allen in “British Pacific Locomotives” quoted E.J.Cox saying that the Clans were designed as a powerful engine for routes with an axle-load limit of under 19 tons. They would run on almost every route that the existing 'Regional' 4-6-0s did, and could be used on duties such as those covered by 5Xs on the London Midland region, the GC mainline, and various routes in Scotland.

 

Kingmoor seems to have got the best out of them by rostering them on former Jubilee turns i.e. by treating them as what they were - a Class 6 with a wider firebox rather than just another big pacific. They were certainly capable of taking eight and sometimes ten coaches over the Port Road unassisted including a couple of long climbs at up to 1 in 80. Admittedly the overnight boat trains (14 vehicles) required a pilot but that was previously a Jubilee + pilot or 2x Black Fives turn. 

[TravisM]

I believe that the Kingmoor’s Clan’s were used occasionally over the S&C and performed quite well.

[The Border Reiver]

The powers to be at Kingmoor tried to get the 5 Polmadie Clans when there were withdrawn but their request was refused.

[The Evil Bus Driver]

On 15/07/2020 at 23:05, newbryford said:

GWR/WR never really liked anything other than a copper cap.

 

Also, the Brits are left hand drive and the GWR was right hand drive - hence the dislike of cab controls and issues with the deflector handrails - cited as a factor in the Didcot derailment and later modification with cut out hand holds instead of handrails.

I've also read somewhere that the crews didn't like firing the wide fireboxes.

 

Brits - with the trailing rear axle were more prone to slipping than a 4-6-0 which would "sit" on the rear driving axle and less likely to slip.

All it needed was a gentler touch on the big lever. As the ScR and LMR were more used to handling Pacifics, they found favour there.

 

Part of the reason for Brits being displaced from the WR and GE lines was the onslaught of dieselisation/modernisation and the policy of removing steam area by area.

 

But for some reason, the WR apparently loved the 9Fs - and there's always the tale of one on the Red Dragon reaching speeds way beyond the normal realms of a freight loco.

Didn't the Great Central drivers find that they made pretty good express passenger engines? Until it was officially frowned upon by the management (I do believe the GCR was under the Midland Region when the real rundown started) and speed was restricted.

[SD85]

TBH BR should just have built 500 9Fs, as they could be used on passenger trains quite comfortably and were the oustanding Standard design.

 

If we keep to roughly 1000 locos...

 

500 9F

170 5MT

70 4MT 4-6-0

110 4MT 2-6-0

150 4MT tank

 

That pretty much covers most things I'd say.

Edited July 17, 2020 by SD85

[SD85]

21 hours ago, The Johnster said:

A classic case is provided by the attempt to replace the S & DJ 2-8-0s with more powerful Austerities, which on the face of it were ideal for the coal traffic.  Given time to practice, the Green Park men might have made a go of the Austerities, but they were unfamiliar with them and did not fully grasp the technique needed to get the best out of them; no criticism is intended here, BR's view was that any steam locomotive driver understood enough about these relatively simple machines to step aboard one and drive it. 

 

Do you mean the 8Fs? I seem to recall that the problem with a WD when it was tried over the S&D was that it had no braking power at all and ran away down the Mendips.

[The Johnster]

Yet lack of braking power was not noticed anywhere else with WDs, which worked in other hilly areas successfully on all regions.  The WD was fundamentally a Stanier 8F designed for ease of wartime production, and you wouldn't say the 8Fs were a failure, though they were not used much on the S & DJ.  The point is that the men had got used to the Derby 2-8-0s over the previous 30 years and could get very good performances out of them.

 

Locomen everywhere are reluctant to accept change, and I am not for a moment suggesting that they deliberately scuppered the tests, but it would have I think had a different outcome if drivers from the Midland shed or Bath Road, used to the capabilities of these locos, had been borrowed for the trials and route piloted by S & DJ men.

 

I see no real reason why the braking performance of a WD should not have been ball-park equal with the Derby 2-8-0s, or any other 2-8-0 available at the time.  We should be glad that the tests failed, though, as the survival of Derby 2-8-0s into preservation would have been much less likely; had they been replaced with WDs the 2 preserved would probably never had got to Barry...

[The Johnster]

51 minutes ago, SD85 said:

TBH BR should just have built 500 9Fs, as they could be used on passenger trains quite comfortably and were the oustanding Standard design.

 

If we keep to roughly 1000 locos...

 

500 9F

170 5MT

70 4MT 4-6-0

110 4MT 2-6-0

150 4MT tank

 

That pretty much covers most things I'd say.

This is old ground well covered, and despite the success of the 9Fs on the S & DJ and passenger work elsewhere they were not ideal locos for that sort of work.  Regular use at high speeds, say 70mph+, would have increased cylinder, piston, and bearing wear to an unacceptable level, and hammer blow damage to track as well; just because a loco can do a job if necessary doesn't mean it necessarily should if there are better alternatives. 

 

Some of the BR standards were niche successes, we've already discussed the Clans but I'd include the 3MT 77xxx moguls' work on the Stainmore route into this category as well.  The Caprotti 5MTs were reckoned to be a coach better than the rest of the class, and 5MTs in general said to have the edge for speed over Black 5s, which you'd expect with bigger driving wheels.

 

The standards made sense when they were drawn up in the early 50s, but railway politics and the 1955 plan scuppered them.  Nobody foresaw the massive drop in traffic of the early 60s; the world had changed dramatically in favour of road transport by 1965, so there were surpluses of steam and diesel locos that could not be justified, and far too many classes of both.  The wiping out of loco hauled non-gangwayed compartment stock between '58 and 63', along with the bulk of gangwayed stock other than mk1s, some of which had been built less than 10 years previously, is a largely unremarked matter because enthusiasts in those days were loco-centric, but it enabled huge areas previously necessary for carriage storage sidings to be sold profitably off for development; many goods marshalling yards were similarly disposed of.

 

It was this drop in traffic, unforeseen even as late as '57, the road haulage industry and the private car's challenge to a railway supremacy 100 years old that looked as if it had things in hand and would continue, that enabled the elimination designed to last until 1980 by 1968.  Motorways were 'the future', at least until the HST appeared just at the time they were becoming congested and self-defeating.  It also paved the way for the Beeching era which is what the current railway is based on; trunk inter-city, bulk and intermodal freight, and commuter networks.

[SD85]

I agree with all that - things moved faster than anyone anticipated.

 

I didn't know that about the 9Fs, I was going on the basis that DB constructed zillions of class 50s and 52s which seemed to be rather similar in concept and worked mixed traffic across the system.

 

 

[SD85]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Yet lack of braking power was not noticed anywhere else with WDs, which worked in other hilly areas successfully on all regions.  The WD was fundamentally a Stanier 8F designed for ease of wartime production, and you wouldn't say the 8Fs were a failure, though they were not used much on the S & DJ.  The point is that the men had got used to the Derby 2-8-0s over the previous 30 years and could get very good performances out of them.

 

Locomen everywhere are reluctant to accept change, and I am not for a moment suggesting that they deliberately scuppered the tests, but it would have I think had a different outcome if drivers from the Midland shed or Bath Road, used to the capabilities of these locos, had been borrowed for the trials and route piloted by S & DJ men.

 

I see no real reason why the braking performance of a WD should not have been ball-park equal with the Derby 2-8-0s, or any other 2-8-0 available at the time.  We should be glad that the tests failed, though, as the survival of Derby 2-8-0s into preservation would have been much less likely; had they been replaced with WDs the 2 preserved would probably never had got to Barry...

 

Good points, but I'm pretty sure the SDJR 7Fs were definitely superior in braking ability to other freight locos tried on the line, as they were fitted with Ferodo brake blocks.

 

The one I can't understand, though - and this is probably attributable to your theory - is that a GWR 56xx class was tried out on the Midsomer Norton coal trains but ran away down the hill towards Radstock. This seems curious, given that the entire class were designed to work in the South Wales valleys hauling heavy coal traffic up and down gradients.

[LMS2968]

36 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Yet lack of braking power was not noticed anywhere else with WDs, which worked in other hilly areas successfully on all regions.  The WD was fundamentally a Stanier 8F designed for ease of wartime production, and you wouldn't say the 8Fs were a failure, though they were not used much on the S & DJ.  The point is that the men had got used to the Derby 2-8-0s over the previous 30 years and could get very good performances out of them.

It should be realised that S&D 2-8-0s had an exceptionally good brake and few other engines could equal it, and this was the reason that several classes, very successful elsewhere, not acceptable to Bath enginemen. This included, when first tried, the 8Fs, and these did have a good brake. The 9Fs worked well on S&D passenger turns but were not used on goods; their brakes were inferior to the 8Fs' which by that time were common on S&D goods. Presumably the men had got the hang of them.

[LMS2968]

1 minute ago, SD85 said:

 

Good points, but I'm pretty sure the SDJR 7Fs were definitely superior in braking ability to other freight locos tried on the line, as they were fitted with Ferodo brake blocks.

 

The one I can't understand, though - and this is probably attributable to your theory - is that a GWR 56xx class was tried out on the Midsomer Norton coal trains but ran away down the hill towards Radstock. This seems curious, given that the entire class were designed to work in the South Wales valleys hauling heavy coal traffic up and down gradients.

The Ferodo blocks varied some to the leading coupled wheels only to all the way through, but the reason was to reduce iron brakedust on the slide bars and consequent wear. If and by how much they increased the brake force, I have no idea.

 

As I recall, the 56XXs were not renowned for their brake force in the South Wales valleys, but tank engines, without the extra braking from the tender, rarely were good.

[SD85]

I was going on the info from Peter Smith's book, I'm pretty sure he cites the Ferodo brake blocks as a plus point in the 7F's favour.

 

Interesting. If the 56xxs were not renowned for braking abilities, how and why did so many of them end up on colliery traffic? Tank engines definitely aren't as good as tender ones when it comes to braking, though, for the reason you state.

[LMS2968]

I think Johnster would better answer that one, but I do know that 0-6-2Ts were very popular with the South Wales railways pre-Grouping.

[PenrithBeacon]

1 hour ago, LMS2968 said:

It should be realised that S&D 2-8-0s had an exceptionally good brake and few other engines could equal it, and this was the reason that several classes, very successful elsewhere, not acceptable to Bath enginemen. This included, when first tried, the 8Fs, and these did have a good brake. The 9Fs worked well on S&D passenger turns but were not used on goods; their brakes were inferior to the 8Fs' which by that time were common on S&D goods. Presumably the men had got the hang of them.

I think that when the 8F was finally introduced on the S&DJR the freight traffic had fallen away so stopping the much reduced trains was no problem. I've never been able to see why the LMS didn't use Ferodo on 8Fs when they were trialled in the thirties as the Midland (?) did for the 7F

[The Stationmaster]

As ever some people - one in partioculart - have posted some misleading and inaccurate information about the WR attitude to 'Britannias'.

1, The story about OldOoak losing 70014 to the SR  is nonsense.  70014 was never allocated to the WR - it was originally the end of the GE batch but went new on loan to the SR.   It transferred back to the GE (Norwich) but was real,located fairly soon after to the LMR so possibly never saw the GEML.

 

2, The initial WR allocation went to Old Oak and Laira with one going to Newton Abbot and the final few going to Canton from new; they were never allocated to Bath Road.  At Old Oak they were disliked for two main reasons - the very dusty cab and draughty cab (as partly mentioned above by LMS 2968) and the fact that they were left hand drive which, as importantly also meant they had to be fired left handed (see below for more detail).    The reaction at Laira was far stronger  based on the same original reasons but then becoming extremely partisan and yes, a highly critical  letter from one Laira Driver was published in a national newspaper - causing considerable uproar.

 

3. There is no indication from aa very reliable source (Kenneth Cook) that Swindon sought authority to build more 'Castles' instead of taking 'Britannias'.  But I would not regard it as in the least unlikely that Paddington - in the person of Keith Grand  - did have the cheek to say that to the RE and Derby because that was consistently his attitude in respect of anything that wasn't GWR in origin or what he was told to do by the RE (apart from whisky).

 

4.  The entire WR allocation eventually went to Canton for one very simple reason - nobody else wanted them and the DMPS at Newport (name of Reed)  volunteered at a Motive Power Supts conference to take them off other people's hands  (partly it has been alleged, by a former member of hos staff, because he knew he'd stand a good chance of getting them than asking for any additional 'Castles').   There were already signs that Enginement at Canton were no happier with the class than other Western men but Reed is reported to have said (when asked about that by one of his opposite numbers)  that they would have to put up with them, or else ...

 

The WR complaints about the class centred around various things - at Old Oak they were definitely not liked because they were dirty in the cabs due to dust swirling about as well as the draughts plus there was the problem with them being left hand drive.  In the West of England the main genuine complaints seem to have been because they were left hand drive and because they weren't as sure footed as a 4-6-0.  The left hand drive complaint. centred around two main issues - the first was that Western Drivers had learnt the road from the right hand side and knew their landmarks from that side plus many signals were sighted for right hand drive.  I heard it said of several Old Oak senior drivers that basically they had to relearn their roads because they were on the opposite side of the footplate and no doubt that probably held true elsewhere.

 

The other big problem was firing.  Western Firemen were used to firing right handed and some found it difficult if not impossible to adapt to firing left handed.  Some definitely continued to fire right handed and they did so from behind and round the Driver's seat.  While some Drivers probably didn't like that one bit on top of the other problems they suffered with these engines a big - and common problem - was that the Fireman's overalls could easily catch on the blower valve handle and inadvertently turn on the blower.   So for Western men the engines did present something new, and in some ways problematic, which meant the need to relearn roads and get used to very different handling methods when starting away (otherwise a Brit could slip in a way they were most unused to) on top of the dust and draughts.  The Western wasn't of course the only Region to complain about the draughts and the dust problem in the cabs and draught screens were added to try to mitigate the draught problem.

 

Finally a comment regarding the Milton derailment.  It was I suspect a case of chicken and egg when it came to views being alle gedly obscured by the handrails on the smoke deflectors and no doubt complaints about them soared in the aftermath of the derailment - however many or few there had been before that incident.

 

Finally the Driver of the excursion which went down the bank at Milton was a Canton man who had been at the depot since 1939 - a fact which could be very quickly checked if someone could be bothered to properly research what they write.

[The Johnster]

The method of working in the South Wales Valleys was different, and locos did not require particularly strong brakes.  In what was called 'incline working', wagon brakes were pinned down by the guard, sometimes assisted by brakesmen such as at Penrhos Jc, where I became familiar with it in the summers of '64 and 5.  Technique was everything; the loco brought the train to a stand and eased forward on to the gradient, and wagon brakes were pinned down as the train moved slowly forward.  The driver 'felt' the drag of the pinned down brakes and signalled with the whistle when he thought he had enough pinned to control the train by pulling it down the gradient under light steam.  The train retarded the loco rather than the other way about.  

 

This was a very highly skilled method of working that had developed since the earliest days of railways in the area.  It had to be done 'on the fly' and you only got one chance, so occasionally caution overruled and locos stalled pulling trains down banks.  Then, the whole rather fraught enterprise started again, this time picking brakes up until the loco could move the train.  You couldn't specify how many wagons needed brakes pinning down, as the effectiveness of the wagon brakes varied considerably, as the the extent to which the brake levers were pinned down.  It was no good pinning them as hard as you could because the chance was then that the wheels would skid, causing flats and not contributing to brake force at all.

 

Sometimes it didn't work, as shown by the piles of shattered wagonry at the ends of sand drags at the bottoms of such gradients.  The Brecon and Merthyr preserved the Welsh language description, taith gwyllt, in English, 'wild run', a feature of the 5 mile bank down to Talybont from Torpantau summit.  Even when MGR wagons with air disc brakes were introduced, it could sometimes be a bit 'interesting' coming down from Cwmbargoed or Penrhos.

 

Ferodo lined blocks were presumably not used universally despite their proven superiorty because of cost and service life issues; it is sort of inevitable that the better a brake block's performance, the quicker it will wear.

 

The 56s were criticised for poor, and noisy (grinding) brake performance when they were introduced in the 20s; they had been touted as replacements for the very effective and powerful, and quiet braking, Rhymney (period spelling) R class and were a disappointment to men on the Rhymney section and neighbouring areas that the R class had migrated to following the grouping.  Another criticism was the openness of the GW style cab to sidewinds (if you've ever been up Cwmbargoed or Cae Harris you'll appreciate the point), and this was the root of the introduction of sliding shutters on GW tank engines.  

 

Nothing to do with the braking, and modifications were carried out to improve and quieten this, but I do not know the details of what was actually done; I believe it was something to do with the rodding runs.  But, with incline working being the general rule, South Wales locos on mineral work did not especially need particularly good brakes, which is not to excuse them having bad brakes.  The loaded downhill runs were usually much slower than the empty uphill drags that were the ruling loads, and 56s could manage 40 or more empties up the gradients, which was sufficient for the traffic.  Loads downhill were less restricted, 900 tons not unusual, because the loco was pulling most of the time against the brakes.  This made water a critical element and in the Rhondda valley, only one water column was available between Treherbert and Porth, so some skill was needed to 'spot stop' the heavy train at it or there was nothing until you'd got past Pontypridd.  Of course, you needed water just when the adhesive weight was least, aren't tank engines fun?