0-4-0CD

[MarkSG]

Apropos nothing in particular, but does anyone else find that certain wheel arrangements are more aesthetically pleasing than others? Nothing to do with how effective they are in real life, just about how they look on a loco (and especially a model loco).

 

For example, I really like the 2-4-2T arrangement. It seems perfectly balanced, and more interesting than a plain 4 or 6 coupled tank. But, at the other extreme, 0-4-4T just seems plain weird.  I can't really put my finger on why, but it looks odd, to me.

 

Some wheel arrangements seem to work better with or without a tender, too. For example, the classic 4-4-0 is perfect with a tender, but a 4-4-0T looks wrong, for some reason.  But symmetrical arrangements tend to look wrong with a tender. The exception is a plain 0-x-0, for any value of x, which, for some reason, seems boring on a tank loco but classical simplicity with a tender.

 

Am I the only one who has these thoughts? If not, what are your favourite wheel arrangements, and why?

[Barclay]

I agree with you in the theory - but as to what looks good, there we differ - I mean what could be better than:

 

An 0-4-0T

 

An 0-6-0T

 

Or even an 0-8-0T

 

Who needs tenders anyway?

 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

2 hours ago, MarkSG said:

The exception is a plain 0-x-0, for any value of x, which, for some reason, seems boring on a tank loco but classical simplicity with a tender.

Most 0-6-0 (and 0-8-0 for that matter) tender locomotives have inside cylinders, and I suspect that it is the balance that this provides that makes them appear attractive. Surely no one can really like the Raven Q6, and the Q7 with its inclined cylinders driving the second axle looks even more unbalanced.

 

Wheel arrangements are arrived at as a function of many things, such as driving wheel diameter, cylinder and valve arrangements, the size and shape of the firebox and the coal and/or water capacity required. I agree that many British 2-4-2T designs are pleasing to the eye; the trailing wheels are usually because of an extended coal bunker, which continues the lines of the side tanks, but there is nothing inherent in the wheel arrangement itself. Just look at this monstrosity from Baldwin that Wikipedia use to illustrate their 2-4-2 page:

Edited January 21, 2021 by Jeremy C

[MarkSG]

I mostly agree about inside cylinders, although a big, heavy freight locomotive has a certain appeal of its own. I don't find the Q7 particularly ugly, although it's not as easy on the eye as it could be.  But that Baldwin 2-4-2, yeah, that's awful!

[Tim Hall]

Missing the point completely, I'd got it in my head that 0-4-0CD meant a small diesel shunter with a crane attached.......

[Flying Pig]

38 minutes ago, Jeremy C said:

Surely no one can really like

 

Are you new here?

 

39 minutes ago, Jeremy C said:

< North Eastern Railway types />

 

Hmm... Tin hats, chaps.

 

Actually I have always thought the Q6 a handsome engine, though not the Q7. 

[Foden]

When I was a young lad, and I'd seen photos and models of any loco without outside cylinders, I used to think it was some sort of witchcraft!

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Jeremy C said:

 Just look at this monstrosity from Baldwin that Wikipedia use to illustrate their 2-4-2 page:

I don't think that wheel arrangement is totally wrong (drivers should be further apart IMO) but it could have been a lot better if they had just stuck a bunker and a trailing truck on the iconic 4-4-0 which looks totally right.

[Zomboid]

It's probably more to do with the styling of the era when they were popular, but a lot of 4-4-0s and 4-4-2s have the really nice proportions to my eyes.

 

I like rather symmetrical arrangements too, especially 2-6-2s and 4-8-4s.

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, Barclay said:

Or even an 0-8-0T

 

 

Very nice. At the risk of going off topic, can you tell us more about this loco?

[The Johnster]

It's not, IMHO, just the wheel arrangement or even whether the cylinders are inside or outside, it is I think a matter of the overall proportions of the loco.  For instance, I find Q6s a bit awkward looking, too much overhang at the front, but Q7s are much worse. the boiler looks too big.  But both are much better proportioned than the Hull and Barnsley 0-8-0s, which are all wrong when it comes to the vestigial cab.  The best looking 0-8-0s to my mind  are the LNWR G2/G2a class, particularly with tender cabs. 

 

Some locos that I like defy definition when it comes to why I like them.  I greatly prefer the Ivatt rebuilt Royal Scots and Patriots to the original form.  I generally like outside cylinder 4-6-0s but find the LNWR Claughtons and LSWR Paddleboxes hideous in their original forms.  Taste is a funny  thing, or would  be if I had any.  Part of it is to do with my prejudices; I cannot be doing with Stroudley or Adams 0-4-2 tender locos as I am conditioned to thinking that a loco for fast work needs leading wheels, but find 0-4-2 tank locos delightful, and 0-4-4Ts as well.  I am going to be unashamedly contentious here, as I feel my opinion is no less valid than  anyone elses', but all streamlined or semi streamlined steam locomotives are unequivocably hideous, but the worst are the bathtub Coronations; pass the sick bucket!  Yes, I'm including the Dreyfuss and Lowey locos in that.  But Lowey's PRR GG1 is one of the most beautiful objects ever devised by a human being; even Amtrak livery couldn't hide their sheer gorgeousness,

 

Some locos are so hideous you have to love them for it, Q1s and WDs for instance.  Some are difficult to define the attraction of; I find GW large prairies handsome and elegantly proportioned, but their small prairie cousins gawky and misshapen lumps, but I like them anyway.  Stars, Castles, and Kings should not look good at all with the outside cylinders set back like that, but do, whereas Thompson's attempt at the same trick looks (and, many who know more about it than me say, is) just wrong.  The GWR 56xx overhangs horribly at the front, accebtuated by the low set heavily tapered boiler and high cab, and shouldn't work at all, visually, but anyone who remembers them plugging steadily up gradients at about 20mph with long trains of empty minerals, for all thte world like little terriers straining at the leash with their noses purposefully to the ground, swaying from side to side as the pistons thrust, will get it; they are a near perfect example of the beauty of form following function.

 

Any UK style inside cylinder 0-6-0 (except Stephenson long boilered), 2-4-0, or 4-4-0 is a shoe-in, but put outside cylidners on them and the illusion is shattered (Churchward County, Hunt, Schools).  The Southern once built a wooden mock up streamlined Schools, in sunshine livery,  not nice.  But I like smoke deflectors on a big loco, and disagree with conventional wisdom on the subject of de Wittes on A3s.

 

Even The Squeeze thinks my WR Peckett is cute.  4 coupled saddle tanks with small wheels are always attractive, but at the opposite end of the saddle tank scale I loved the sheer thuggishness of the big NCB Andrew Barclays at Talywaun, and the Maerdy Monster.

 

These are of course my personal tastes and opinions, other personal tastes and opinions may be available.

Edited January 21, 2021 by The Johnster

[Neil]

7 hours ago, MarkSG said:

....  But symmetrical arrangements tend to look wrong with a tender. ...

 

Oh I don't know ....

 

[MarkSG]

22 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I am going to be unashamedly contentious here

 

That's partly the point of this thread, of course

 

29 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Some locos are so hideous you have to love them for it, Q1s and WDs for instance.  Some are difficult to define the attraction of; I find GW large prairies handsome and elegantly proportioned, but their small prairie cousins gawky and misshapen lumps, but I like them anyway.

 

I actually like the Q1. I know it looks weird, but it's sufficiently distinctively weird that it falls into a different category altogether. I do agree that the small praries look gawky, though. I ought to like them, as they have a symmetrical wheel arrangement. But they don't really do it for me.

 

30 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Even The Squeeze thinks my WR Peckett is cute.  4 coupled saddle tanks with small wheels are always attractive, but at the opposite end of the saddle tank scale I loved the sheer thuggishness of the big NCB Andrew Barclays at Talywaun, and the Maerdy Monster.

 

But this is where we once again part company. I, too, like small locos, and quirky little 0-4-0Ts are a thing of beauty. But I don't like big saddle tanks. They just look bloated and top-heavy, to me. I can't imagine I'd ever want a model of the Mardy Monster on my layout. Far too crude and inelegant. It's the sort of loco that I can imagine Donald Trump liking, if Donald Trump was into railways.

[melmerby]

[The Johnster]

Yes, that’s wrong on all sorts of levels.  

5 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

That's partly the point of this thread, of course

 

 

I actually like the Q1. I know it looks weird, but it's sufficiently distinctively weird that it falls into a different category altogether. I do agree that the small praries look gawky, though. I ought to like them, as they have a symmetrical wheel arrangement. But they don't really do it for me.

 

 

But this is where we once again part company. I, too, like small locos, and quirky little 0-4-0Ts are a thing of beauty. But I don't like big saddle tanks. They just look bloated and top-heavy, to me. I can't imagine I'd ever want a model of the Mardy Monster on my layout. Far too crude and inelegant. It's the sort of loco that I can imagine Donald Trump liking, if Donald Trump was into railways.

I am in no position to take any sort of moral high ground when it comes to ‘crude and inelegant’.  But I reckon the Ginger Tw*tweasel to be the sort who’d the sort of bulbous hideosity of a Deltic in rail blue with lyp and no white cab surrounds.  
 

Contraversial, moi???

[Sophia NSE]

I'm a big fan of the 0-4-4T

 

[Barclay]

16 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

Very nice. At the risk of going off topic, can you tell us more about this loco?

2 of these were built by Nasmyth Wilson of Patricroft for Gin Pit, Lancashire. Neither survived, sadly !

[Gordon A]

Excuse my ignorance but what does CD stand for as in 0-4-0CD in the title of this post?

 

[Michael Hodgson]

19 hours ago, Zomboid said:

It's probably more to do with the styling of the era when they were popular, but a lot of 4-4-0s and 4-4-2s have the really nice proportions to my eyes.

 

I like rather symmetrical arrangements too, especially 2-6-2s and 4-8-4s.

 

A double Fairlie or a Bulleid Leader is about the nearest you can get to symmetrical in a steam loco.

Or maybe the Listowel and Ballybunion locos?

[MarkC]

22 hours ago, Jeremy C said:

 Surely no one can really like the Raven Q6

Them's fighting words where I comes from... 

 

 

Mark

[Zomboid]

17 hours ago, Neil said:

 

Oh I don't know ....

 

This is more what I had in mind

https://images.app.goo.gl/aFFe51pS1ky1sP6p6

[Zomboid]

2 hours ago, Gordon A said:

Excuse my ignorance but what does CD stand for as in 0-4-0CD in the title of this post?

 

It's a portmanteau of 0-4-0 and OCD. I think.

[MJI]

I like

4-6-0

2-8-0

2-10-0

Co-Co

[MarkSG]

10 hours ago, Gordon A said:

Excuse my ignorance but what does CD stand for as in 0-4-0CD in the title of this post?

 

 

It's just my little joke. Say it out loud, and it's "Oh for OCD".

[tomparryharry]

Symmetrical?  I offer any Garret locomotive from South Africa  for the prize.  For the complete picture, I'd enter a rebuilt MN on full chat, with 12 on the hook. Those Bullied diesels are still worthy of interest.