BR “Britannia” Standards

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

19 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Don't think the power output of the Britannia's was anywhere near 6,000 hp!Nearer to 1,500 perhaps.

I rather assumed that contributors would have an idea of the relative power. The point being that the constraints in the UK meant that the Brit pushed beyond the limit of what was sensible with 2 cylinders. No cast steel frames and axleloads in the 30 to 40 ton range that North American designers could exploit when obtaining much larger power outputs from two cylinders.

 

In the UK Doncaster was first (as always) in understanding the effect of greater sustained power output capability relative to frame strength, thanks to the progressive wide firebox programme. The A1s and A3s suffered badly, hardly surprisingly as they were the pioneers in their power class, but the lessons were learned. With the A4 and V2 designs, the frame design had advanced, and cracking was not such a problem thereafter; if we omit the Thompson barminess in varying from the proven wide firebox frame design, quickly corrected when Peppercorn took office. (The A4's quite consistently bent their frames rather than broke them, no analysis ever properly explored this.)

[The Stationmaster]

As E.S Cox was very closely involved with the design and efficiency measurements on the BR Standards it might be useful to quote his figures.  At maximum rate of evaporation a 'Britannia' was found to develop to 2,200 ihp, at minimum rate of steam consumption it developed 1,575 ihp;  in both cases slighty less than a high superheat 'King' and considerably less than a 'Duchess'.    Cox doesn't appear to quote any figures based on a calculation made from work performed.  According to figures produced by Cox the ihp capable of being produced by a 'Britannia' was, not unusually in British designs, limited by cylinder capacity and not by frame structure or anything else.  In simple terms their indicated hp output fell a long way short of of 6,000 ihp as was the case of every steam loco operating on BR.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

(The A4's quite consistently bent their frames rather than broke them, no analysis ever properly explored this.)

Perhaps they were trying to make their frames match the shape of the streamlined boiler casing...

 

The east coast companies that made up the LNER were all pioneers in wide firebox atlantics, and there is a good reason for this; the ECML contains long fast stretches for the top expresses, ultimately leading to a non-stop KX-Edinburgh service.   No other UK railways had this need for sustained high speed and power output except the WCML north of Crewe, and the LMS eventually went to wide firebox pacifics for this, having preferred the surer-footed 4-6-0s, as did the GW because of the poisoned chalice left them by Brunel in South Devon, and the Southern until the last few years of it's existence under a CME who'd learned his trade under Gresley at Doncaster.

 

A narrow firebox 4-6-0 was adequate for most UK fast passenger work, and there were examples of 2 cylinder such locos, the GW Saint and Hawksworth County.  Both had a reputation for strong pulling up long gradients, but this was as much due to the Churchwardian long piston stroke and valve settings as to the number of cylinders.  2 cylinders are more easily supplied adequately with steam than 3 or 4 fed from a similar boiler, and you can make direct comparison with the Saints and Stars.  The Saint seems to have been fine as it was but Collett thought it was worthwhile fattening the cylinders and boiler of the Star to produce the Castle.  I'm not going to get into the whole 1924 exchange business as I don't think either 'side' learned much from it and merely irritated each other.  

 

The concept of a light pacific (which Riddles may well have picked up during his travels to India) with a big boiler but only 2 cylinders was very old hat on light passenger work in the US, but was still relatively new to the UK in 1951; the Bulleid light pacifics were only a few years in service and were so mired in teething troubles that little could be learned from them, though they proved excellent locos when they were sorted out.  The Brits were replacements for high end multi-cylinder 4-6-0s but given a mixed traffic role as well; somebody earlier in this thread pointed out that they should perhaps be considered as replacements for Saints at Canton.  The more obvious replacement for a Saint (other than a Hall) was the standard 5MT, which would have been incapable of timing the Red Dragon...

 

A 2 cylinder light pacific that could pull well, run reasonably fast, and burn any old coal made a lot of sense in 1951, with late 1940s coal shortages fresh in everyone's memories then, but mostly forgotten now.  The GW and it's adherence to Welsh coal was beginning to look as if it was going to be difficult to sustain in the future, and indeed it was, but dieselisation had swept all before it by then.  

 

I have said before, but it's worth repeating, that in 1950, when the results of the 1948 exchanges had been collated and figures were starting to come in from Rugby, and when the effects of post-war austerity were still being felt, and plans for the new locos were being compiled, that Riddles' plan to build a fleet of standard steam locos to serve until all trunk lines were electrified by the 1980s was sound enough.  By 1955 the chattering classes were clamouring (and powerfully lobbying parliament) for diesels; the Transport Commission was replaced by the BRB, and Riddles and the 'old guard' removed.  Nobody in 1951 could have foreseen that this was imminent, just as nobody from the New Order in 1955 foresaw the catastrophic collapse of general merchandise freight and all but commuter and main line passenger traffic in favour of road haulage and private cars in 1960 (also badly hit but sustainable), which is what led ultimately to the double whammy of Beeching and the motorway expansion he invested in and profited from, not that severe pruning wasn't essential by that time!  Crystal balls (that's why I walk funny) were not available in 1950, '55, or 63, though by '63 it was pretty clear which way the wind was blowing and all that money spent on standard steam and on 1955 diesels would have been appreciated for main line electrification, still an unfinished project.  

 

BR did miraculously well to recover from this in the 70s with the HST, aided by increasing motorway congestion, only to be cherrypicked for privatisation within 2 decades.  I for one was extremely proud of the HST in the late 70s.

[PenrithBeacon]

Gee whizz

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

...The east coast companies that made up the LNER were all pioneers in wide firebox atlantics...

First time I have ever seen that proposed. The NBR and NER (and also GCR, but this was an UTMFNDRRML) all built atlantics, but all of them with narrow fireboxes, completely missing the point of this format (see also Aspinall on the L&Y, and Churchward). Of UK atlantics it was only the variants on the Ivatt large atlantic on the LBSCR that shared the wide firebox.

[JeremyC]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

First time I have ever seen that proposed. The NBR and NER (and also GCR, but this was an UTMFNDRRML) all built atlantics, but all of them with narrow fireboxes, completely missing the point of this format (see also Aspinall on the L&Y, and Churchward). Of UK atlantics it was only the variants on the Ivatt large atlantic on the LBSCR that shared the wide firebox.

The usual reason given for the NBR building atlantics was because the civil engineer wouldn't accept 4-6-0s due to the severe curves on some of the routes they were intended for.

Edited July 25, 2020 by JeremyC

[jim.snowdon]

13 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

First time I have ever seen that proposed. The NBR and NER (and also GCR, but this was an UTMFNDRRML) all built atlantics, but all of them with narrow fireboxes, completely missing the point of this format (see also Aspinall on the L&Y, and Churchward). Of UK atlantics it was only the variants on the Ivatt large atlantic on the LBSCR that shared the wide firebox.

I think Churchward can be excused from the wide firebox debate because he hadn't built Atlantics as a progression from 4-4-0s but as a "derated" version of his 4-6-0 designs specifically for comparison with the three de Glehn compound Atlantics. His locomotive of choice was the 4-6-0 and when wanted to consider wide fire boxes, he built the Great Bear.

 

Apart from that, putting a wide firebox on any locomotive has a considerable influence on the design of the rear end of the frames, which have to pass under the firebox rather than either side of it. The latter is structurally simpler, and cheaper to build.

 

Jim 

[The Stationmaster]

10 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

I think Churchward can be excused from the wide firebox debate because he hadn't built Atlantics as a progression from 4-4-0s but as a "derated" version of his 4-6-0 designs specifically for comparison with the three de Glehn compound Atlantics. His locomotive of choice was the 4-6-0 and when wanted to consider wide fire boxes, he built the Great Bear.

 

Apart from that, putting a wide firebox on any locomotive has a considerable influence on the design of the rear end of the frames, which have to pass under the firebox rather than either side of it. The latter is structurally simpler, and cheaper to build.

 

Jim 

No 40 - the first Churchward 4 cylinder 4-6-0 was built as a 4-4-2 but only ran in that form for three years being converted then to 4-6-0.  It was built as a 4-4-2 to allow direct comparison of the Churchward 4 cylinder engine with the 4 cylinder  French engines.  The situation with the 2 cylinder 'Saints' was slightly different because as you say they were a 4-6-0 design but some were built and ran for a while as 4-4-2s to allow comparison with the  4-6-0 wheel arrangement.   Easy to forget that Churchward, albeit initially in the Dean period experimented with various combinations and of course he put a large diameter parallel boiler and round top firebox on one 4-4-0 to compare with the combination of a tapered boiler and Belpaire firebox. 

[DCB]

Churchward grew up with wide firebox locos, the broad gauge version.   Ivatt experimented with what he called a "Broad Gauge" firebox on his first large boiler Atlantic (251?)  and that's more or less what it was a broad gauge firebox on a standard gauge loco.  The Ivatt Atlantics didn't exactly set the earth on fire when new and I'm pretty sure Churchward was well aware of this,   Churchward had already produced locos of sufficient power to meet traffic needs for the foreseeable future by about 1907 and was still experimenting.  The Great Bear shifted 2000 tons from Patchway to Acton I believe,   Not bad for a loco rated as 5P with a 20 ton axle load.  Maybe the 5MT 4-6-2 wasn't such a bad idea after all.  

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

26 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

Churchward grew up with wide firebox locos, the broad gauge version.   Ivatt experimented with what he called a "Broad Gauge" firebox on his first large boiler Atlantic (251?)  and that's more or less what it was a broad gauge firebox on a standard gauge loco.  The Ivatt Atlantics didn't exactly set the earth on fire when new and I'm pretty sure Churchward was well aware of this,   Churchward had already produced locos of sufficient power to meet traffic needs for the foreseeable future by about 1907 and was still experimenting.  The Great Bear shifted 2000 tons from Patchway to Acton I believe,   Not bad for a loco rated as 5P with a 20 ton axle load.  Maybe the 5MT 4-6-2 wasn't such a bad idea after all.  

The point about incorporating a wide firebox on the standard gauge loco was that this had significant development potential, unlike the narrow firebox configuration which was fast reaching the end of its growth potential. It wasn't easy to accomplish: neither Swindon under Churchward or Doncaster under Ivatt got it completely right. Collett simply gave up, but Gresley's team persisted, and all successful UK maximum express power steam follows from that work. Deviations such as that of Raven and Stanier trying to stretch 4-4-2 and 4-6-0 types respectively into pacifics were sub-optimal; as also Thompson's inadvisable essays in varying the frame layout from the established pattern.

 

Riddles stand as Gresley's greatest non-LNER follower: nothing bigger than a fast class 5 in the 4-6-0 format, wide firebox for anything bigger, 30% of what he had built for BR, a very Gresley-esque ratio.

[PenrithBeacon]

I think the point about Gresley's designs is that he followed the latest design trends in the USA but adapted them to UK standards. The designs by Churchward and Raven were very conservative by the time they were built, this being particularly true of Raven.

The LYR and LMS design offices were very much better at following US trends but none of their

engines were built which might have been a good thing bearing in mind lubrication and valve gear issues. I think Stanier got it pretty much right with the Princess class and it was only his lack of experience in the details of superheating which caused the engine not to deliver right from the off.

[GeoffAlan]

On 18/07/2020 at 00:14, jools1959 said:

Not wishing to bring politics into this but the DB, DR and others 2-10-0’s were largely built during the war years and Germany’s version of a WD.

The Germans were building 2-10-0s before WWII. The KPEV G10 was pre WWI for some of the class were built in 1910, more followed right up to 1925. During the second war they built a number of 'classes' which were Utility versions of earlier classes.  

[jim.snowdon]

7 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

No 40 - the first Churchward 4 cylinder 4-6-0 was built as a 4-4-2 but only ran in that form for three years being converted then to 4-6-0.  It was built as a 4-4-2 to allow direct comparison of the Churchward 4 cylinder engine with the 4 cylinder  French engines.  The situation with the 2 cylinder 'Saints' was slightly different because as you say they were a 4-6-0 design but some were built and ran for a while as 4-4-2s to allow comparison with the  4-6-0 wheel arrangement.   Easy to forget that Churchward, albeit initially in the Dean period experimented with various combinations and of course he put a large diameter parallel boiler and round top firebox on one 4-4-0 to compare with the combination of a tapered boiler and Belpaire firebox. 

Correct as regards the 4-cylinder locomotives, but Churchward had already gone for the 4-6-0 in 2-cylinder format by then, starting with Nos. 98 and 100 and the 2900 class. To him, the 4-4-2 format was simply to maintain comparability with the French Atlantics, nothing else. 

 

Jim

[jim.snowdon]

7 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I think the point about Gresley's designs is that he followed the latest design trends in the USA but adapted them to UK standards. The designs by Churchward and Raven were very conservative by the time they were built, this being particularly true of Raven.

The LYR and LMS design offices were very much better at following US trends but none of their

engines were built which might have been a good thing bearing in mind lubrication and valve gear issues. I think Stanier got it pretty much right with the Princess class and it was only his lack of experience in the details of superheating which caused the engine not to deliver right from the off.

He might have done, but what he produced with the original A1 pacifics was very much in the pattern of the Pennsylvania K4 pacifics, adapted to British practice in terms of framing and strangled at the front end by typically British short travel valves. Certainly successful in terms of being a step up from what the C1 Atlantics could do, but even better once Gresley had grasped the virtues of the long lap/long lead valve gear that Churchward had made such feature of his locomotives. Sure, Churchward might be described as conservative in design terms, but then Chief Mechanical Engineers are not paid to introduce novelty for the sake of it. He produced locomotives that were reliable, economical in terms of running and maintenance costs.

 

Jim 

[Tankerman]

Quote "which is what led ultimately to the double whammy of Beeching and the motorway expansion he invested in and profited from," End Quote

 

Beeching, who, falsely believed that the government wanted a true and factual report on the UK transport system, has been unjustly pilloried for many years because one of his main points in his report has been buried by those responsible for his dismissal.

 

He produced figures which showed that building a three lane motorway suitable for a 28 ton HGV cost twice as much as building a two lane, 16 ton weight limit one. His conclusion was that the HGV was therefore being heavily subsidised by the taxpayer and that the road transport industry should be taxed at a level which reflected this.

 

However politics and the vested interest of the Road Transport Association and the largest trade union at the time, the TGWU, which had a large part of its membership employed in the various parts of the road transport system,  got Beeching sacked on the grounds that he was pro rail.

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Tankerman

[DCB]

Marples did far more harm than Beeching.  Most of the closures were done long before Beeching made his report.  

[PenrithBeacon]

I was under the impression that most of the closures were under Harold Wilson's government when Barbara Castle was Minister of Transport.

Almost all of the closures could, and can be, justified; as can the few re-openings that are occurring now. 

 

I see that this morning's Guardian has a proposal in it to electrify the motorway network for HGVs! Unexpected that.

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I think the point about Gresley's designs is that he followed the latest design trends in the USA but adapted them to UK standards. The designs by Churchward and Raven were very conservative by the time they were built, this being particularly true of Raven.

The LYR and LMS design offices were very much better at following US trends but none of their

engines were built which might have been a good thing bearing in mind lubrication and valve gear issues. I think Stanier got it pretty much right with the Princess class and it was only his lack of experience in the details of superheating which caused the engine not to deliver right from the off.

Rather a strange comment considering that Churchward was acknowledged by his contemporaries for some of the most radical and significant advances in British locomotive design and practice which often ended up with others, including Gresley, taking onboard some of Churchward's innovations.  Churchward of course took some features from US practice - such as bar frame extensions of plate frames -  and not that he, unlike Gresley, borrowed a complete set of drawings of a loco to copy some its features in his own design.  And equally of course many features of Churchward's original innovations ended up being followed in most of the BR Standard classes.  His approach of building specific new designs for some branch;inework was copied, using exactly the same wheel arrangement, 40 years later by Ivatt.

[PenrithBeacon]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Rather a strange comment considering that Churchward was acknowledged by his contemporaries for some of the most radical and significant advances in British locomotive design and practice which often ended up with others, including Gresley, taking onboard some of Churchward's innovations.  Churchward of course took some features from US practice - such as bar frame extensions of plate frames -  and not that he, unlike Gresley, borrowed a complete set of drawings of a loco to copy some its features in his own design.  And equally of course many features of Churchward's original innovations ended up being followed in most of the BR Standard classes.  His approach of building specific new designs for some branch;inework was copied, using exactly the same wheel arrangement, 40 years later by Ivatt.

I didn't make it clear that I was talking about Pacifics but then again I was replying  to a post about pacifics or at least wide fireboxes. In that context both Churchward and Raven were behind the times, very much behind the times.

Gresley, on the other hand was right on the ball about wide fireboxes and Pacifics although his valve events left a lot to be desired. In this, of course he was very typical of British locomotive engineers of the period, the proceedings of the Institute of Locomotive Engineers in the twenties make that much very clear. Lots of controversy there.

[The Stationmaster]

20 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

Correct as regards the 4-cylinder locomotives, but Churchward had already gone for the 4-6-0 in 2-cylinder format by then, starting with Nos. 98 and 100 and the 2900 class. To him, the 4-4-2 format was simply to maintain comparability with the French Atlantics, nothing else. 

 

Jim

Not exactly Jim of the number of 4-4-2 'Saints' was any indication.  171 was converted from a 4-6-0 to a 4-4-2 in October 1904 when it was only about 10 months old, it was converted back to a 4-6-0 in 1907.  No 40 appeared as a 4-4-2 from new in1906 to allow direct comparison of a 4 cylinder engine with the French engines and was converted back to a 4-6-0 in 1909.  Thirteen 'Saints' were built as 4-4-2s in 1905 clearly as part of an extended trial of the wheel arrangement rather than for comparison with the French engines.  Seven  of them later received superheated boilers while still running as 4-4-2s; conversion 0f the Atlantics to 4-6-0s did not start until 1912 and was completed early in 1913 thus some of them ran for 7 seven years as 4-4-2s compared with the two engines which ran as 4-4-2s for comparison with the French engines which both ran in that form for a much shorter time - less than 3 years in the case of 171 and a little over 3 years in the case of No.40.   Between 1905 and August 1907 the number of 4-4-2 'Saints' in traffic (14) was almost equal to the number of 4-6-0s (16 excluding No.100) and in fact the 4-6-0 fleet only began to reach that total in May 1906.  it wasn't until mid 1907 that the 4-6-0 'Saints'  began to seriously out number the 4-4-2s.

 

Effectively Swindon did not, on the basis of 4-6-0s built,  wholly commit to the 4-6-0 arrangement until 1907 after it had 2 years of direct comparative running between almost equal size fleets of 4-4-2 and 4-6-0 'Saints'.

 

3 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I didn't make it clear that I was talking about Pacifics but then again I was replying  to a post about pacifics or at least wide fireboxes. In that context both Churchward and Raven were behind the times, very much behind the times.

Gresley, on the other hand was right on the ball about wide fireboxes and Pacifics although his valve events left a lot to be desired. In this, of course he was very typical of British locomotive engineers of the period, the proceedings of the Institute of Locomotive Engineers in the twenties make that much very clear. Lots of controversy there.

Don't forget that the GWR's first experiment with post broad gauge wide fireboxes took place in 1896 but was quickly superseded by use of a Belpaire firebox with a combustion chamber on what amounted to the production series of that design.  Their only wide firebox after that was of course 'The Great Bear' in 1908 but various other faults masked whatever extra ability the wide grate might have offered.

 

 

[The Johnster]

I think it's time to mention that Big 4 CMEs were under immense pressure; it had always been a high pressure job of course, and failure was not an option.  Failure can be measured in different ways of course, but by the time of the economic deprivations of the 1930s it was beginning to look conspicuously like merely a lack of significant success; the demands on these pivotal figures were very high indeed.  They had to deal with the increase in loads and simultaneous decrease in timings demanded by the traffic departments, which had been going on since about 1890 and showed no sign of abating, fuel, labour, maintenance and running costs which were a percentage of overheads beyond the worst nightmares of their Victorian forebears, and the onset of the post WW1 falling off of investment as shareholders, the real customers, changed profile from individual to corporate block and demanded higher dividends, leaving even less of the company's income for capital investment.  

 

The view of all this is different from the distance of 2020 than it was when I first considered it in a serious academic way having been involved with 6th form economics and economic history in the late 60s.  At that time, the costs and lack of investment chickens were coming home to roost with a vengeance on BR, and it was not until the advent of the HST coincided with the saturation of the motorway network a decade later that the tide turned.

 

It was to an degree essential for a CME to have a conspicuous success in order for him to remain in his post, not just for him to do his job adequately,  This was best achieved though the publicity dept. and their dodgy contacts in smoky back rooms of spit and sawdust pubs with newspaper journos, and this is something that Gresley understood very well.  The obvious example is 'Mallard's' exploit on Stoke Bank, which the press were informed of and persuaded to play down the fact that the loco failed shortly afterwards with a damaged middle big end bearing, a weak point of Gresley designs.  The boiler and it's big wide firebox had done everything the crew had asked of it on the day.

 

Imagine what would have happened if this had been done with a Castle coming down Dauntsey or Corsham.  There would have been no publicity because the GW retained in it's genetic consciousness the fall out after the 1906 Salisbury accident and how lucky they were the same year with the Lady of Lyon escapade; I believe Collett was on the footplate on that occasion and that it affected his attitude to high speed running.  He promoted high average speeds, less newsworthy but safer and of better service to the travelling public, and his vehicle was the fastest train in the world, the Cheltenham Flyer.  

 

Over on the LMS, after the small engine years which were clearly going nowhere and had been abandoned by most of the other trunk line concerns 20 years earlier, Stanier had a bit of a ropey start but was soon in the right sort of headlines with the Princess Royals' non-stop 100mph Euston-Glasgow runs and the streamlined Coronation Scot, very much a head to head with the LNER, Princess versus A3 and Coronation versus A4.  He came very close to the wrong sort of headlines and possibly his obituary with the press run of the Coronation Scot on the approach to Crewe, the ghost of Lady of Lyon perhaps coming back to haunt him.  

 

On the Southern, Maunsell built some very effective big 4-6-0s expanding on Urie's work, but the publicity concentrated on the modernity of the electrification schemes and the little boy with his bucket and spade at the end of the platform going for a day out at the seaside.  The big headlines, sadly, were the wrong sort, the kneejerk reaction to the Sevenoaks accident was pounced on by the press, but their rebuilds into very useful moguls were ignored outside the industry.

 

It's fair to say that the GW was resting on it's narrow firebox laurels during this period, but it had the option; they were good laurels and the locos pulled the trains to time reasonably efficiently.  Stanier and Gresley were the boundary pushers, their pacifics coming close to the maximum that steam locos could achieve within the UK loading gauge and the limitations of being fired by human beings on the fastest non-stop work.  The wide firebox enabled this, but was, perhaps, not the most efficient use of coal; you had to specify the best, and most expensive, available and the fireman had to shovel like a coolie, the game being to get as much coal in the back corners before filling the middle, by which time the back corners had burned through, playing keep up with pressure gauge.  The Duchesses especially gained a reputation for being coal eaters, and would lose time unless everything was in good order.  In fact, timekeeping on the WCML was not good overall, and this seems to have been a long standing problem still apparent in the 1970s.

 

We are discussing the express passenger top link death or glory glamour work, here, and this, while profitable enough to excuse the heavy coal consumption of the pacifics, was a very small part of the railways' overall activity.  Collett's and Stanier's best work was really the Hall and Black 5 respectively; these were the locos built in quantity that made most money for the shareholders to squander in profit taking when they should have been ploughing capital back in.  Stanier's 8F was a notable success as well.  Maunsell had already laid the foundations for this general type of loco with the Woolwich moguls, which were a significant success.  But these locos never made the headlines in the way that the top link stuff did.  It is difficult to point to their equivalent on the LNER in Gresley's time, a mixed traffic loco built in very large numbers.  The V2 comes closest, but I contend was more a secondary express/fast freight horse than a true mixed traffic beast.  K1 or 2, but these again seem more to fit in the V2 niche; picture them thumping through the night at 70+ with a string of fish vans following in loose formation smelling of imminent hot boxes, the brake van made inhabitable by having 2 vans coupled behind it!  The LNER mixed traffic loco is Thompson's B1, which does not seem to have been able to achieve the status of a Hall or Black 5 though they were strong engines in traffic, perhaps too little too late?  The nearest thing to a good LNER pre-Thompson mixed traffic 4-6-0 is probably the NER B16, which seems to have been well liked and successful wherever it was used.

 

Perhaps Gresley's association with the wide firebox over a trailing axle reflected the speed of ECML operations (and what was needed to run fast heavy trains between Edinburgh and Aberdeen), but it was of less benefit on the rest of the railway, which could have done with a modern 5MT 4-6-0 in the 30s.  They were lucky to have good effective pre-grouping locos like the B12, D11, 04, Q6, and B16 to draw on for the day to day bread and butter work, arguably more fortunate than the LMS with the all pervading Fowler (not that he was personally to blame for them) 4F, 2P, and 4Ps. Oh, and the Austin 7s, about which least said the better!

[The Johnster]

39 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Their only wide firebox after that was of course 'The Great Bear' in 1908 but various other faults masked whatever extra ability the wide grate might have offered.

 

Not sure I'd agree that the Bear's firebox was really a full on wide one, Mike; it was constrained at the bottom by the inside bearings of the trailing wheels, which frequently overheated as a consequence.  This loco's primary recorded achievement was to haul a 2,000 ton coal train from Stoke Gifford to Acton, a record that stood for many years and suggestive of the concept that the loco was very effective so long as you could keep the temperature at the bottom of the firebox in check, which was difficult on the express passenger Paddington-Bristol trains it usually hauled.

[MidlandRed]

The Johnster, whilst not disagreeing regarding the impact of the HST on the WR and ER, I think you underestimate the WCML electrification on the LMR - the image, all new stock and traction, all in new livery, numerous new key stations, permanent way improvements and most importantly recasted and vastly accelerated timetable involving continuous full speed running gave the image and reality of what rail could actually do, and with great success. And all this from 1966/7. The completion to Scotland in 1974 provided the icing on the cake - with the class 50s providing the short term passenger service improvement after 1967 north of Crewe towards Scotland. 

 

Viewed from the lineside stations, a constant procession of high speed expresses, and block freight trains including the liveried freightliners on the slow but also travelling at high speed gave the impression and reality of a completely new service. This is underlined by the trains overtaking all of the traffic on the parallel M1.

 

This was a complete revelation compared with only 10 yrs previously. 

[TravisM]

2 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

Viewed from the lineside stations, a constant procession of high speed expresses, and block freight trains including the liveried freightliners on the slow but also travelling at high speed gave the impression and reality of a completely new service. This is underlined by the trains overtaking all of the traffic on the parallel M1.

 

This was a complete revelation compared with only 10 yrs previously. 

That reminds me of driving on the interstate in the US over 10 years ago, the big rigs were being overtaken by a very long, heavy, double stacked Union Pacific intermodal which was running on tracks parallel to the interstate.  It had two engines on the front and two on the rear in DPU mode, all controlled by two in the cab of the leading loco.  I thought at the time, rails seriously fighting back.

[The Johnster]

The Birmingham/Liverpool/Manchester electrification was indeed a serious presage of the future, and it's completion in 1966 coincided with the introduction of the new corporate image liveries and lettering. which sort of matched that used on the new motorway signs and airport directions; the feeling was of modernity and efficiency.  The trains were impressive, 100mph on B4 bogies in 'flights' with short headways between them, but the WCML traffic remained as mk1 stock, admittedly on new B4 or Commonwealth bogies, for quite a while after, well into the 70s and the Weaver Jc-Polmadie opening.