Manchester Piccadilly OHLE question.

[GoingUnderground]

10 minutes ago, russ p said:

 

I take it this conversion didn't actually take place? I wouldn't have thought there was enough room inside an EM1 for a rectifier and transformer 

I have no idea as Hooper adds "The conversion/trial was obviously not a success and we hear no more of the aforementioned.", but he does seem sure of his facts as he even gives a date for the move to Birmingham, 3rd August 1967. If it had taken place and the trials gone ahead then I would imagine that there would have been reports and photos of an EM1 under the WCML wires under its own "steam" as it were. 

 

But it would be a great excuse to run an EM1 with AC electrics.

Edited July 5, 2021 by GoingUnderground

[woodenhead]

8 minutes ago, russ p said:

 

I take it this conversion didn't actually take place? I wouldn't have thought there was enough room inside an EM1 for a rectifier and transformer 

They took the body off and had a good look around as to where to place the equipment, thought about utilising one cab as they could be worked double headed with the unused cabs outside, but the killer was a lack of soldering tabs on the motor to affix the Zero one chip and Hornby wouldn't offer a decent warranty.

[PenrithBeacon]

2 hours ago, russ p said:

 

I take it this conversion didn't actually take place? I wouldn't have thought there was enough room inside an EM1 for a rectifier and transformer 

It's a fantasy. No professional engineer would attempt to create such a project without first looking at the drawings. He wouldn't need to have the locomotive physically present to see the impracticable nature of the idea.

This entire thread is wild speculation which isn't founded on evidence.

[jim.snowdon]

3 hours ago, GoingUnderground said:

Incidentally, John Hooper in "EM1 & EM2 An illustrated Historical Review..." states that in 1967 one EM1, 26014, was taken from Reddish to Soho Depot in Birmingham for conversion to AC/DC working by GEC Witton for trials hauling freight on the WCML in place of AL6/Class 86 locos which were giving trouble at the time.

Given the technology of the time, such a conversion would have been completely impracticable. The inside of an EM1 (or EM2) was filled by the contactor type control gear and the resistances, with whatever was left filled by the various auxiliaries.  Conversion to a pure AC locomotive might have been more feasible, but only because almost all of the DC control gear would be stripped out. I'm not sure why the AL6s should have been giving problems either, as their control equipment was already proven - the only real departure from the AL1-5 prototypes was the adoption of nose-suspended traction motors (about which the track engineers were not exactly happy, but that's another story).

[woodenhead]

8 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It's a fantasy. No professional engineer would attempt to create such a project without first looking at the drawings. He wouldn't need to have the locomotive physically present to see the impracticable nature of the idea.

This entire thread is wild speculation which isn't founded on evidence.

And at Soho of all places, surely a trip to Crewe to undertake such work and then testing over the tracks at Crewe Electric, not down at a running depot in Birmingham

[Supaned]

On 03/07/2021 at 17:42, The Stationmaster said:

There were definitely main aspect routes, in both directions, between the two sides at London Road/Piccadilly.  All the GPLs which had routes to either side had stencil route indicators which showed 'E' for any route towards the dc side of things.

 

You still get an "E" indication at Ardwick Junction for crossing onto the Down Eastern from the Down Fast.

[GoingUnderground]

9 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It's a fantasy. No professional engineer would attempt to create such a project without first looking at the drawings. He wouldn't need to have the locomotive physically present to see the impracticable nature of the idea.

This entire thread is wild speculation which isn't founded on evidence.

 

9 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

Given the technology of the time, such a conversion would have been completely impracticable. The inside of an EM1 (or EM2) was filled by the contactor type control gear and the resistances, with whatever was left filled by the various auxiliaries.  Conversion to a pure AC locomotive might have been more feasible, but only because almost all of the DC control gear would be stripped out. I'm not sure why the AL6s should have been giving problems either, as their control equipment was already proven - the only real departure from the AL1-5 prototypes was the adoption of nose-suspended traction motors (about which the track engineers were not exactly happy, but that's another story).

 

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

And at Soho of all places, surely a trip to Crewe to undertake such work and then testing over the tracks at Crewe Electric, not down at a running depot in Birmingham

Here is the complete reference verbatim to the event, as set out on Page 11 of "EM1 & EM2 An Illustrated Historical Review of the Manchester, Sheffield, Wath Electric Locomotives - 76s & 77s" by John Hooper, published by Book Law Publications , 382 Carlton Hill Nottingham NG4 1JA, ISBN 978-1-909625-19-8

 

 

"1967:

January: Withdrawal of the MSW passenger services announced!

3rd August: EM1 No.26014 was towed from Reddish depot to Soho electric depot, Birmingham for conversion to AC/DC by G.E.C. Witton. It went to General Electric Co.'s Soho works. The converted EM1 was to have trials hauling freight on the WCML in place of the AL6 a.c. locomotives which were giving trouble at that time. The conversion/trial was obviously not a success and we hear no more of the aforementioned."

 

I too was surprised as I would have thought that there was already a wealth of experience on the abilities of EM1 to haul freight. As pointed out above, a considerable amount of advance design work would have been needed before any physical conversion could have taken place. I am not a mechanical or electrical engineer, but I would have thought that in addition to the lack of space, the additional weight would have caused problems with axle loadings.

 

This has been in the public domain since the book was published in 2014, so I am not trying to create an urban myth. I accept that I have inadvertently been taken in by a leg-pull, but if I have then so may other people. Nor is this an attempt to publicise the book as I have no connection with the author nor the publishers, and I think it might be out of print.

 

If you want further details of where John Hooper came across this information in his research for the book then please take it up with him through his publishers, Book Law, who, I am sure many of you will be familiar with through their stand at shows. 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by GoingUnderground

[PenrithBeacon]

It is clear that Hooper has hasn't provided any references so it's extremely dubious to say the least.

 

[DY444]

40 minutes ago, GoingUnderground said:

 

 

Here is the complete reference verbatim to the event, as set out on Page 11 of "EM1 & EM2 An Illustrated Historical Review of the Manchester, Sheffield, Wath Electric Locomotives - 76s & 77s" by John Hooper, published by Book Law Publications , 382 Carlton Hill Nottingham NG4 1JA, ISBN 978-1-909625-19-8

 

 

"1967:

January: Withdrawal of the MSW passenger services announced!

3rd August: EM1 No.26014 was towed from Reddish depot to Soho electric depot, Birmingham for conversion to AC/DC by G.E.C. Witton. It went to General Electric Co.'s Soho works. The converted EM1 was to have trials hauling freight on the WCML in place of the AL6 a.c. locomotives which were giving trouble at that time. The conversion/trial was obviously not a success and we hear no more of the aforementioned."

 

I too was surprised as I would have thought that there was already a wealth of experience on the abilities of EM1 to haul freight. As pointed out above, a considerable amount of advance design work would have been needed before any physical conversion could have taken place. I am not a mechanical or electrical engineer, but I would have thought that in addition to the lack of space, the additional weight would have caused problems with axle loadings.

 

This has been in the public domain since the book was published in 2014, so I am not trying to create an urban myth. I accept that I have inadvertently been taken in by a leg-pull, but if I have then so may other people. Nor is this an attempt to publicise the book as I have no connection with the author nor the publishers, and I think it might be out of print.

 

If you want further details of where John Hooper came across this information in his research for the book then please take it up with him through his publishers, Book Law, who, I am sure many of you will be familiar with through their stand at shows. 

 

 

Plenty of stuff which is wrong gets put in books.  Rumours and urban myths which end up being taken as fact by one author and then taken as an authoritative source by subsequent authors.

 

Obviously some authors are worse for this than others but there are numerous examples.

[russ p]

As there were quite a few stored AC locomotives at this time it would have made more sense and probably easier to add DC capability to these

The woodhead line is like the S and D to the generation above both stayed in classic form until their demise . Had the S and D been dieselised and the woodhead converted to AC or de electrified I don't think either would command the interest the both do today 

Sorry to go off topic

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It is clear that Hooper has hasn't provided any references so it's extremely dubious to say the least.

 

While I am not going to go back through them all I  recollect something was mentioned in 'Modern Railways' about changes for the Woodhead route.  There were various things being talked about at the time of which the main one was the probable conversion of the Woodhead route to ac electrification.  That proposal might well have given rise to some people getting the idea that the proposal  also included converting the dc locos to ac?

[jamie92208]

22 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

While I am not going to go back through them all I  recollect something was mentioned in 'Modern Railways' about changes for the Woodhead route.  There were various things being talked about at the time of which the main one was the probable conversion of the Woodhead route to ac electrification.  That proposal might well have given rise to some people getting the idea that the proposal  also included converting the dc locos to ac?

From what I remember about the EM1's, the bogies were linked together so any heavy transformer would have had to mounted rather high in the bodywork. This wouldn't have bern good for the Centre of Gravity.

 

Jamie

Edited July 6, 2021 by jamie92208

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, russ p said:

As there were quite a few stored AC locomotives at this time it would have made more sense and probably easier to add DC capability to these

 

 

So how about a class 76 taken south with a view to donating its DC equipment to make an AC loco dual voltage? Would that make more sense and provide a source of the rumour quoted in the book?

 

(I mean the Southern Railway / Southern Region had form for re-using traction gear on 'new' stock so its not as though the concept was unknown by BR)

 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by phil-b259

[dave75]

1 hour ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It is clear that Hooper has hasn't provided any references so it's extremely dubious to say the least.

 

That not the first time it's been on this forum and there is a reference to an article in a railway magazine of the time so thats not a fair comment. 

I wasnt around at the time but will see if I can put the details on here so someone can check it. 

 

As l recall it was discussed as a straight AC conversion to haul low speed freight. 

 

[MidlandRed]

On 05/07/2021 at 20:53, GoingUnderground said:

I have no idea as Hooper adds "The conversion/trial was obviously not a success and we hear no more of the aforementioned.", but he does seem sure of his facts as he even gives a date for the move to Birmingham, 3rd August 1967. If it had taken place and the trials gone ahead then I would imagine that there would have been reports and photos of an EM1 under the WCML wires under its own "steam" as it were. 

 

But it would be a great excuse to run an EM1 with AC electrics.

I can confirm it was definitely at Soho Electric Depot on 9/8/67 as evidenced by the coffee stained record in my spotting book of the time (the B means it was in blue livery - Y = fye and by inference a B without a Y meant Syp - N = ‘new’ logo - I.e double arrow symbol). It says Winson Green because I didn’t know it was called Soho depot at the time and most of the spotting was from the Birmingham - Wolverhampton line near to Winson Green Road!! It was such an unusual occurrence I actually remember it. Please don’t ask how D3952 had a headcode!! I suspect it was meant to be from another loco but I was only 13 - it’s a long time ago!!! 

 

 

However the GEC works was not at Soho but at Witton IIRC, and NOT rail connected afaik - and indeed there was previous with that because most, if not all of class AL4 was parked in Witton coal yard (claimed to be capable of holding 120 wagons), in circa 1963, whilst mods were carried out by technicians from the factory around the corner (although opposite as far as the railway line was concerned). 
 

I had thought E26014 was in use as a load bank although that may have been from Railway Magazine or similar (I certainly wouldn’t have been capable of deducing that at that time!!. The depot was almost new at the time. 
 

The other interesting thing here is that class AL4 was giving such problems that the locos were stored around this time at Longsight - followed by class AL3. The result of the cut back in need for the DC electrics resulted not only in withdrawal of the EM2s but some EM1s also, some of which were grounded bodies at Reddish by 1969 (examples were 26042 and 26005 I think (note no E)! 

Edited July 15, 2021 by MidlandRed
Extra info

[woodenhead]

@GoingUndergroundApols I originally read it as being sent to Soho for conversion, without knowing it was headed to GEC which would make sense.

 

 

[APOLLO]

 

3 Jan 1970 - just a couple of days to go.

 

Loco E26053 Perseus  backing onto train at Piccadilly, no end door  !!!!

 

Brit15

[woodenhead]

2 hours ago, russ p said:

As there were quite a few stored AC locomotives at this time it would have made more sense and probably easier to add DC capability to these

The woodhead line is like the S and D to the generation above both stayed in classic form until their demise . Had the S and D been dieselised and the woodhead converted to AC or de electrified I don't think either would command the interest the both do today 

Sorry to go off topic

An interesting thought about Woodghead - it would have been 304s to Hadfield, probably the earlier AC electrics transferred to Woodhead with more 87s ordered for the West coast.  But come 1981 it's demise may still have come because it's traffic had reduced enough that Standedge could take it.  Only a rolling electrification programme on the Midland could have saved it and even then perhaps only via Barnsley to allow trains to access Midland without reversal.

 

A diesel Woodhead was a non starter due to the fumes and locos required to bank Worsborough.

[keefer]

The 83s & 84s were stored as BR wanted the manufacturers to be responsible for the repairs/modifications required and they were also surplus to requirements due to downturn in traffic for them to haul.

However, with the full WCML electrification, more locos were required again but the provision of new locos was limited to the 35 cl.87s. Hence BR had to get the stored locos back into service ( given dual braking as well as the necessary electrical repairs/modifications)

[GoingUnderground]

34 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

@GoingUndergroundApols I originally read it as being sent to Soho for conversion, without knowing it was headed to GEC which would make sense.

 

 

Apology accepted. I probably wasn't clear enough in my original post, so the fault is partly mine.

[jim.snowdon]

Purely hypothetically, but based on the experience of having been a traction equipment engineer earlier in my career, I would think that conversion of an EM1 to 25kV AC operation would have been doable. All of the DC equipment would have been stripped out, which would have left a fairly empty bodyshell. The major components of an AC equipment are, essentially, the transformer/tapchanger unit, the rectifier(s) and the reversers (which the EM1 would have had anyway). It would all have had to be above floor level anyway, as the bogies occupy all the space underneath.

 

What you could not have done at the time would have been to convert one of the ALx AC locos to dual voltage capability, basically as the more compact equipments available with solid state control had yet to be invented. I don't think there is anywhere near sufficient room inside any of the ALx locos for a complete DC traction equipment.

 

What is possible, but by no means certain, is that the loco in question could have been despatched to GEC's works at Witton for use as a load bank - the EM1s (like most DC locomotives) would have carried a quite highly rated resistor bank. It was, after all, for this reason that four of the ex-Metropolitan electric locomotives ended up at Rugby, even if they never got used for that purpose. We shouldn't forget that the LMS test train incorporate three cars whose purpose was to act as rheostatic brakes, dissipating the test locomotive's power into on board resistors.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

4 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

Please don’t ask how D3952 had a headcode!! I suspect it was meant to be from another loco but I was only 13 - it’s a long time ago!!! 

All of the Birmingham shunt trips had an xTxx number in the trip working book. It was probably the Soho Depot shunt and may have had the number chalked on or a small board on a lamp bracket. Just before Soho opened T40 was unused in the Tyseley and Bescot turns.

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

An interesting thought about Woodghead - it would have been 304s to Hadfield, probably the earlier AC electrics transferred to Woodhead with more 87s ordered for the West coast.  But come 1981 it's demise may still have come because it's traffic had reduced enough that Standedge could take it.  Only a rolling electrification programme on the Midland could have saved it and even then perhaps only via Barnsley to allow trains to access Midland without reversal.

 

A diesel Woodhead was a non starter due to the fumes and locos required to bank Worsborough.

The Woodhead route had two major disadvantages in the era of BR route rationalisation -

1. It had never been owned by the Midland Railway (and there are more serious thoughts in there beyond the joke)

and far more importantly but also a consequence of the first point -

2. Its raisond d'etre as a passenger railway was severely hampered by where it was in Sheffield and lack of head-on access to the Midland route.  Once the passenger route advantages at the Sheffield end began to disappear as the GC was run s down and Sheffield Midland was developed as a focus of passenger train routes the Woodjhead route became solely dependent on freight for its survival as a through route (in spite of the Hope Valley line being a very much a second rate route between south Yorkshire and Manchester).

[DY444]

32 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

Purely hypothetically, but based on the experience of having been a traction equipment engineer earlier in my career, I would think that conversion of an EM1 to 25kV AC operation would have been doable. All of the DC equipment would have been stripped out, which would have left a fairly empty bodyshell. The major components of an AC equipment are, essentially, the transformer/tapchanger unit, the rectifier(s) and the reversers (which the EM1 would have had anyway). It would all have had to be above floor level anyway, as the bogies occupy all the space underneath.

 

Don't disagree with any of that but it seems to me replacing the rectifiers and fitting air brakes to the 83s and 84s (as was eventually done) would have been far cheaper and easier if the aim was simply more AC locomotives.  The 84s did have mechanical problems later in their lives, and this was ultimately their undoing, but at the time of storage the only major headache on both classes was the rectifiers.

 

Thinking aloud it seems to me the only bit of a 76 that could be dumped without affecting the DC kit was the boiler and its tanks.  Maybe there were thoughts of using the boiler space for a transformer/rectifier fixed to deliver 1500V to the DC equipment as was done for the GE DC units?  Although the widely varying operating conditions of a locomotive compared to an emu probably means a sufficiently meaty transformer wouldn't fit and even if it did the the weight distribution would probably be a mess. 

[woodenhead]

17 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

The Woodhead route had two major disadvantages in the era of BR route rationalisation -

1. It had never been owned by the Midland Railway (and there are more serious thoughts in there beyond the joke)

and far more importantly but also a consequence of the first point -

2. Its raisond d'etre as a passenger railway was severely hampered by where it was in Sheffield and lack of head-on access to the Midland route.  Once the passenger route advantages at the Sheffield end began to disappear as the GC was run s down and Sheffield Midland was developed as a focus of passenger train routes the Woodjhead route became solely dependent on freight for its survival as a through route (in spite of the Hope Valley line being a very much a second rate route between south Yorkshire and Manchester).

It would have taken quite a significant electrification programme around Sheffield at 25Kv to have any impact on Woodhead, also the only route in direct was via Barnsley which itself would be a problem and slow down trains which would then be pointing west when they arrive meaning down to Chesterfield was the only route out without changing ends i.e. going east via Woodhead /Penistone/Barnsley you end up pointing the wrong way.  Or you go via Victoria and have to reverse there, so all routes difficult whereas the natural Midland route via Hope points you in the right direction.

 

Without Victoria and the GC (not Gemma Collins), you're clutching at straws to find a reason to keep Woodhead open without freight.