How many trips could a steam locomotive make per day?

[Compound2632]

Just now, Nearholmer said:

That is properly interesting. It makes rail/wheel interaction, which I counted as a small part of losses, as it would be on a ‘modern’ railway, hugely significant.

 

And making the double-single aspect of Webb's 3-cylinder compounds an intelligent choice - though the primary advantage there was the large grate area achievable with uncoupled drivers - if they'd been coupled, the rods would have been 13% longer than any in use at the time. On the other hand, Crewe was an early adopter of steel, so probably could have made reliable coupling rods if they had been called for.

[DCB]

I can't reconcile the having Webb 3 cylinder Compound and Intelligent in the same sentence,  But they did some outstanding work, well the passenger ones did.  On long runs where they didn't have to start very often, nearly as good as the preceding Precedents...   It was probably asking a bit much of contemporary coupling rods to synchronise  the surging low pressure piston with the two outside ones without having to make them longer than the usual ones.  It's probably this synchronisation between differing power pulses which led Churchward to insist on equal rod lengths and valve events on inside and outside cylinders on his 4 cylinder locos,
Firebox wise things did rather come to a head circa 1900 when the 4-4-0 with deep firebox between the coupled axles and inside valve gear was no longer seen as powerful enough.  Maybe Webb had a longer firebox as a primary design feature in his Compounds, its pretty certain Drummond did with his "4-4-0"  or 4-2-2-0 Double singles as their firebox was as large as Churchward's contemporary 4-6-0, The T9 had a much larger firebox 24sq ft than their later GWR rivals the Cities  20 sq ft, and they both used South Wales Coal.   The other options were go wide as Ivatt did on the GNR large Atlantics and Dean did with 36 on the GW (rather less spectacularly)   Or raise the firebox over the back axle.
The proper answer was maximise space between the coupled axles and put the longest deepest possible firebox between the frames.  Maximise the space on a 4-4-0 means outside valve gear and outside cylinders.  AFAIK This approach was  adopted  on only 2 X 4-4-0 locomotives in the UK, Snaigow and Durn,   and I'm not sure they maximised the firebox length.  Makes you wonder.  

[DCB]

Earlier in the thread it mentions the Duchess class.  Several sources  "Through the Links at Crewe," by p Johnson for one state Perth coal caused steaming difficulties on climb to Beattock the return trip to Crewe for Duchesses on the heavy sleeping car trains during the time it took to dig down and uncover the decent Crewe coald

To minimise it Perth were asked not to use Duchesses on fill in turns during the layover between trips from and to Crewe.  This could well have been the cause of the Duchesses demise as A4s were preferred for the Glasgow Aberdeen LMS route trains when the class NB diesels were retired and Gresleys ndidn't seem to mind Scottish coal.   

Conversely David L Smith wrote of Caley "Jumbo" locos from Perth arriving at Ayr with a fire in good shape and after coaling at Ayr having to stop to throw out clinker on the way back prompting Perth to send wagon loads of coal specifically for loco on the Ayr Perth goods turns.    That Ayr coal must have been appalling.

[LMS2968]

You need to be sure you are comparing Like with Like here: the Perth Postal was among the hardest - if not the hardest - turn given to man or machine on British Railways. The steam consumption, and therefore coal consumption, was high from the start to finish of it 286 (from memory) miles, and in those conditions the coal quality would be critical. The Perth coal might well have been adequate for a normal Class A turn, but it doesn't follow that it was ideal for the Postal, and even slightly inferior coal quality would mean extra work for a crew which, realistically, was already nearing the limit of human ability.

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, DCB said:

Earlier in the thread it mentions the Duchess class.  Several sources  "Through the Links at Crewe," by p Johnson for one state Perth coal caused steaming difficulties on climb to Beattock the return trip to Crewe for Duchesses on the heavy sleeping car trains during the time it took to dig down and uncover the decent Crewe coald

To minimise it Perth were asked not to use Duchesses on fill in turns during the layover between trips from and to Crewe.  This could well have been the cause of the Duchesses demise as A4s were preferred for the Glasgow Aberdeen LMS route trains when the class NB diesels were retired and Gresleys ndidn't seem to mind Scottish coal.   

Conversely David L Smith wrote of Caley "Jumbo" locos from Perth arriving at Ayr with a fire in good shape and after coaling at Ayr having to stop to throw out clinker on the way back prompting Perth to send wagon loads of coal specifically for loco on the Ayr Perth goods turns.    That Ayr coal must have been appalling.

 

13 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

You need to be sure you are comparing Like with Like here: 

 

@DCB you're also comparing post-war with 1920s conditions - a world of a difference.

[Nearholmer]

4 hours ago, DCB said:

The proper answer was maximise space between the coupled axles and put the longest deepest possible firebox between the frames.  Maximise the space on a 4-4-0 means outside valve gear and outside cylinders.  AFAIK This approach was  adopted  on only 2 X 4-4-0 locomotives in the UK, Snaigow and Durn,   and I'm not sure they maximised the firebox length.  Makes you wonder.  

Doesn’t the Schools fit this description so far as having three cylinders permits? Whether it does or not, they were incredibly capable locos for their size, an interesting case of cutting down a 4-6-0, rather than growing upwards from a preceding 4-4-0, although Maunsell’s less radical 4-4-0 were pretty good too.

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Doesn’t the Schools fit this description so far as having three cylinders permits? Whether it does or not, they were incredibly capable locos for their size, an interesting case of cutting down a 4-6-0, rather than growing upwards from a preceding 4-4-0, although Maunsell’s less radical 4-4-0 were pretty good too.

 

The LNER D49 3-cylinder 4-4-0s should be counted in here too. But @DCB makes the reasonable point that once you put anything on the driven axle between the frames, you're forced to take length off the grate.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Compound2632

[62613]

15 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I've looked that up and you will see that about two-thirds of the way down the first column on that page Ahrons gives an explanation, writing of Stirling's rebuilding of Sturrock's coupled engines as singles: "The causes are not far to seek. In 1858-61 both the tires and rails were of iron, and the soft material wore unevenly, so that it was not very long before the coupled wheel tires has worn down unequally. The driving wheels were trying to drag the trailing wheels round faster than their normal rolling speed with the consequent stress on the coupling rods."

 

So, not just the limitations of the manufacturing tolerances of the day but also differential wear. 

 

He does then go on to discuss the effects of imperfect balancing.

 

It's notable that Patrick Stirling apart, four-coupled engines were becoming the norm by the 1870s - indeed Patrick Stirling's brother James was at the fore-front of 4-4-0 development - indicating that materials had advanced enough for the advantages to outweigh the drawbacks. The single revival of the mid-1880s indicates that perfection had not yet been reached, though harder steels were coming into use for tyres, coupling rods, and rails. O.S. Nock's tabulation of maximum speed records in the 19th century is headed by two classes of 4-2-2; of the 13 classes listed above 80 mph, only six are four-coupled and most of them are in the second half of the table.

 

The usual reason I've seen for the single revival was the advent of power sanding, which enabled better grip, but stronger materials may have been a factor as well. Not many of them lasted for much more than 15 - 20 years, as train weights were beginning to overpower them

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, 62613 said:

The usual reason I've seen for the single revival was the advent of power sanding, which enabled better grip, but stronger materials may have been a factor as well. 

 

Yes, power sanding enabled the single revival but that revival was only worth-while because the single still don't suffer from the frictional losses of a coupled locomotive. Harder steel tyres and rails enabled the singles to go faster than their brethren of the 1860s. Even in 1904, I should think the smart money would still have been on a higher maximum speed for a single bowling along on a good level road (averaging over 80 mph for miles on end) than a coupled engine being flogged down a 1:90 gradient. Unless the smart money had taken a recent tour of the Swindon erecting shop...

 

18 minutes ago, 62613 said:

train weights were beginning to overpower them

 

As a shareholder said to the chairman, at a Midland Railway half-yearly shareholder's meeting around the turn of the century: "We neither of us like corridor carriages."

[The Stationmaster]

The use of steam sanding would definitely have given the Midland singles some advantage when working or assisting loose coupled coal trains.

[LMS2968]

18 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

The use of steam sanding would definitely have given the Midland singles some advantage when working or assisting loose coupled coal trains.

I understand that they were so used - piloting 0-6-0s on the Toton - Brent trains!

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

The use of steam sanding would definitely have given the Midland singles some advantage when working or assisting loose coupled coal trains.

 

Which of course they did during the Great War. An engine's an engine for for a' that.

 

Interestingly, in the three photos I've found, the single is the train engine:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre Item 61174.]

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Which of course they did during the Great War. An engine's an engine for for a' that.

 

Interestingly, in the three photos I've found, the single is the train engine:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre Item 61174.]

On the photo I have the single is leading.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

On the photo I have the single is leading.

 

Which just goes to show that a sample of one is mis-leading!

 

I chose that particular photo because the leading engine was not the expected 0-6-0 but a Belpaire 4-4-0. Here's another, with an H-boilered 1738 Class 4-4-0:

 

 

I only found one photo with the "typical" combination, a Big Goods (4F in LMS days) leading:

 

 

[Embedded link to Midland Railway Study Centre items 61173 and 61175].

[The Johnster]

The use of steam sanding in the late 1880 and early 1890s enabled singles to be re-introduced for the fastest work on relatively level routes, and one can almost sense the palpability of the relief of Dean, Johnson, Stirling &c., who had been struggling with having to build 4-coupled locos for express work that could haul the increasing loads but which were hobbled a little as to top speed by inefficiencies in the bearing materials and lubricants used in the motion, exascerbated by the vertical and lateral play that had to be incorporated into the designs and which caused wear that further compromised efficiency.

 

Our heroes mentioned in the preceding paragraph and their contemporary colleagues did not have crystal balls, even if some of them did stand a bit oddly (sorry, couldn't resist), and could not foresee that social changes in the Edwardian era would increase demand for express travel exponentially, increasing loads and demand for higher speeds from locomotives that therefore needed to be be bigger than 4-4-0s.  The big wheeled singles looked lovely, but provided only temporary relief from the main issue, higher speeds with heavier trains.  The answers were Atlantics or 4-6-0s, a choice influenced by coal and the specific geography of some routes, such as the GW's need for 6-coupled traction on the South Devon banks.  The 4-6-0s were ultimately a dead end for express work (but became standard for mixed traffic), because the heaviest fastest trains needed wide fireboxes feeding big boilers to keep the big multiple cylinders supplied with steam, and this, in the UK, meant pacifics, a type by then relegated to secondary branch and loca work in the US.

 

Part of this, often not mentioned or particularly well understood, was the quantum leaps forward in steel manufacture, which had a major effect on wheel rims and rails, and in lubricants, which reduced losses of power from motion and bearings, and allowed lighter motion components to be used.  Ultimately, we were talking about roller bearings to further reduce the power losses.   At the same time, hammer blow from the reciprocating masses, now being asked to do more work, ate into the reduction of power losses, and by the end of steam was probably the biggest unsolved issue.  In fact it may not be solvable on Stephonsonian locomotives.

 

Coal, and it's quality, could be a major issue in effective running of the trains with the tougher jobs, a Perth has been highlighted but it affected all sorts of depots.  Particularly during and after WW2, supply of good quality coal became problematic, and crews, especially of visiting engines from foreign depots, were at the mercy of the coaling plant staff, who were under pressure to keep the best stuff for their own men and locomotives.  Some jobs, such as the Perth Postal, 10.00 Liverpool-Euston (the Turbomotive's job), and the Cornish Riviera out to Savernake, were close to what could be reliably and consistently expected from human firemen, and coal pushers were used on LMS pacifics to ease the burden; such work needed all factors to be favourable to run to time, and if even only one wasn't you were in trouble!

 

 

 

 

[DenysW]

What I haven't seen in this thread is the timeline on the answer to the original question.

 

In an unrelated thread (Imaginary Locomotives) I put forward the suggestion that a rail-ferry (Folkestone-Boulogne) in the 1880s when Watkin was still popping up everwhere as a director, would have allowed CF du Nord locomotives to get through to London. Wromantic but Wrong.

 

It was gently and politely pointed out to me that the range of 1880s express locomotives was probably about 150 miles, set by the volume available for ash. So the later, greater distances extensively discussed here for the 1930-1960s at the end of steam must have been allowed by the wider grates that adopting 4-4-2 and 4-6-2 configurations with a big gap (for the grate and ash collection).

 

I find it difficult to wind time back further, but I suspect that the 1840s range was probably 100 miles or less, but mattered less because of the need to change locomotives as the train changed company.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The use of steam sanding in the late 1880 and early 1890s enabled singles to be re-introduced for the fastest work on relatively level routes,

 

I would hesitate to call the Midland's London main line, with it's long stretches at 1:200, a relatively level route. 

 

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

hobbled a little as to top speed by inefficiencies in the bearing materials and lubricants used in the motion, exascerbated by the vertical and lateral play that had to be incorporated into the designs and which caused wear that further compromised efficiency.

 

A combination of factors, though I don't think bearing materials and lubricants should be considered among them, since they were the same for singles.

 

1 hour ago, DenysW said:

I find it difficult to wind time back further, but I suspect that the 1840s range was probably 100 miles or less, but mattered less because of the need to change locomotives as the train changed company.

 

Were engines changed at Wolverton in early London & Birmingham days? Most of the longer early lines fall into two halves, Grand Junction at Crewe, Midland Counties at Leicester, North Midland at Normanton (certainly after it became the junction for the York & North Midland and Manchester & Leeds), Great Western at Swindon. Following the formation of the Midland and the London & North Western, the only really long run calling for several changes of company was the original route to Scotland, by continuous rail to Newcastle, with company boundaries at Rugby, Normanton, and York. 

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Were engines changed at Wolverton in early London & Birmingham days?

Yes, that is pretty much why Wolverton as it is today exists. It was an engine-changing point, with loco sheds, so became the logical site for the L&B workshops, both for that reason and because it was literally a green field site, where land was cheap. It also became a refreshment point for passengers in the same way.

 

There was actually a Wolverton village before the railway, but only a vestigial one, the preceding larger village having disappeared in C17th when the lord of the manor replaced his peasants with sheep.

 

Wolverton is almost exactly 50 miles from Camden, and a tiny bit more to Curzon Street.

 

Swindon was pretty much a carbon copy.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Nearholmer

[The Stationmaster]

As a matter of fact the GWR did not reintroduce singles to the fastest trains because of steam sanding because its principal express passenger engines had continued to be signles.   The advent of steam sanding effectively prolonged the useful life of the single on the GWR and they were still being built, in 4-2-2 form based on the rebuilt 2-2-2 engines, as late as 1898/9.  But by then effective express passenger 4-4-0s had appeared on the GWR.

 

What finally did for the GWR singles was the emergence of Churchward's 4-6-0 designs which together with the fleet of transition era 4--4-0s left no work for the singles with the last going in 1915.  But interestingly the large wheeled 4-4-0s which began to supplant the singles in the late 1890s only lasted for about 10-15 years after the singles had all gone such was the pace of the change to 4-6-0s.

[Compound2632]

45 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

As a matter of fact the GWR did not reintroduce singles to the fastest trains because of steam sanding because its principal express passenger engines had continued to be signles.  

 

The same is of course true of the Great Northern.  Really, the so-called revival of the single was a purely Midland thing. 

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The same is of course true of the Great Northern.  Really, the so-called revival of the single was a purely Midland thing. 

Don't forget that the GER briefly dabbled in a latterday single driver engine with its 10 engines of Holden's P43 Class of 1899 - they had all gone by the end of 1910.  And there were also the 1900 GCR 13 class -the last new design of single introduced by a British mainline railway - with the last not going until 1927 (<NER Class X4)

[The Johnster]

Yes, fair and accurate comments.  I suppose we can discount Caley 123 as a one-off exhibition loco porn item, but it found useful work into LMS days so wasn't completely useless. 

 

The CMEs involved had all cut their railway teeth in the days when passenger engines were singles by default, and were well aware of their advantages so long as the loads were within their capacity.  Big wheels, less resistance from motion and bearings which were still of questionable quality at the time, and slower piston speeds as well as better running from the big wheels on the indifferent track of the early days, and the chance to build new locomotives of this sort, able to take advantage of steam sanding and the better ride afforded by bogies and radial trucks was jumped on without hesitation, producing locomotives that were both beautiful and, for a while, practical and successful.  Deans', a conversion from a 2-2-2, began a line of evolution that ended with the Star, and Stirlings' via the Ivatt atlantics to the Gresley pacifics, and it is not unreasonable to say that these and developments of them were the defining express passenger engines of the 20th century in the UK. 

 

The LNW in those days was still using singles, some of which were getting pretty long in the tooth, as main line pilots, and one wonders what an 1890s premier line  4-2-2 might have looked like.  Quite handsome, I imagine!

[Compound2632]

22 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Don't forget that the GER briefly dabbled in a latterday single driver engine with its 10 engines of Holden's P43 Class of 1899 - they had all gone by the end of 1910.  And there were also the 1900 GCR 13 class -the last new design of single introduced by a British mainline railway - with the last not going until 1927 (<NER Class X4)

 

Two classes of ten and as you say, rather late in the day - the last of the Midland singles were built in 1899/1900, the first in 1887, total 95. So if one refers to the mid-1880s revival, it's pretty much just the Midland engines. They were pre-dated by the Neilson exhibition engine, built in 1886, and the pair built by Beyer, Peacock for the Great Northern (Ireland), in 1885 - did those engines have steam sanding? It seems unlikely, given that it was a Derby invention, although there were close links between the drawing offices.

[billbedford]

There was also 10 locos each in NER I & J classes all built 1888 -1890. The last withdrawn in 1921. 

Plus 12 GNR classes A4 & A5 built 1898, 1900 and 1901 all were withdrawn in 1917. 

 

I'm not sure that the MS&L Sacré 2-2-2s should not also be included. 12 built 1882/3 and all lasted until the early years of the 20th century. 

[Nearholmer]

If survival is the criterion, rather than build-date, the Stroudley G Class should be counted, in that I think the last one wasn’t withdrawn until 1914.

 

If you look at a picture of one, and cover the front wheels with your finger, the design DNA that descended to CR 123 instantly becomes clear.

 

Which brings up the thought that Bradley offers some answers to the OP’s question in respect of the LBSCR, because for a long time they diagrammed locos onto the same trains, day in, day out, for months, even years, at a time, famously retaining the ‘one driver, one engine’ policy much longer than most large railways. I need to get the book out to see what G were doing in the Edwardian period - the Midhurst branches, and Guildford to Brighton I suspect, and maybe Tunbridge Wells to Three Bridges, all being routes that had light loading a, and I think turntables at both ends.

 

Stop Press: photo here of ‘Stephenson’ hauling the Sunday Pullman in 1914, saying that this was ‘just about all the loco was used for by this time’. Amazing! 

 

Ahrons is a good source for answers to the question for the mid-late Victorian period, in that he describes that practises on some railways in fair detail (and is very funny in the process).
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Nearholmer