Fowlers Compound Pacific and the Lemon 4-8-0

[Niels]

Here's an interesting excerpt/precis

http://www.steamindex.com/library/stack/tester.htm

Thank You for a pleasurable link reading.I have ordered the book but I cannot order the long valve lap companion book.

Is it out of print?

The Viktoria inside compound proposal 2-10-0  might  have been a  go anywhere,do anything cheaper  75 mph locomotive.

A free dream anyway.

[JeremyC]

Here's an interesting excerpt/precis

http://www.steamindex.com/library/stack/tester.htm

Personally I find it difficult to be impressed by a defence that seems to consist of 'they were OK because there were other designs that were just as bad'.

[The Johnster]

Personally I find it difficult to be impressed by a defence that seems to consist of 'they were OK because there were other designs that were just as bad'.

 

 And worse.  I too am unimpressed, but the 'small c conservative' attitude that dominated British loco design from 1860 or so until 1904 on the GW and a decade or so later elsewhere, and even then not every elsewhere, inhibited innovation not just on the LMS.  The Cambrian 4-4-0s built in 1921 to the sort of design that might have passed muster 30 years earlier are particularly dreadful, but by no means unique.  At least the GNofSR's 'Gordon Highlander' has a decent cab!

[Sheffield]

Most if not all of the improvements to steam loco design that L D Porta and those who followed him have demonstrated could have been put in place while steam was in commercail service if designers had been willing to think things through from basic principles; the steam loco could have been much better than it was.

However i suggest it is possible to have some understanding of Anderson's decisions in respect of the Garratts. When the LMS had got over being created it put in hand trials to compare some of the locos they had taken over from the pre-grouping companies. From these trials they determined that the Midland designs were the most suitable to form the first LMS standards., not that they had much choice given the loading gauge issue. Even E S Cox, no great fan of things Derby, agreed that the LMS did the correct thing by initailly adopting Midland designs. And for a goods loco that meant the 4F

It must of seemed quite reasonable to Anderson that the locos being purchased from Beyers with LMS money, for LMS use, should conform to LMS standards, and not Beyers. And that meant the 4F.. If we wish to blame Anderson i think we should also blame Stanier ( and Ivatt)  for doing nothing about it. It may not have been easy to improve the axle boxes of a 4F, but the Garratts had no such space problems. There was not even a firebox and ash pan to get round.  

[john new]

In management sometimes the total package of circumstances mean you end up having to make decisions that are the practical solution "on the day" even if you know at the time it is not the best option for the long-term.  For example back in the 90s when we were buying computers in local government I recall occasions when purchasing outright would have been the cheapest overall solution viewed over the lifetime of a project. However, taking a leasing option meant that (a) we could get the three PCs needed immediately on lease for the year one price of one bought outright, (b) that route was initially within the available budget, (c ) was a work around Whitehall imposed financial restrictions and (d) it kept the money in the budget each year for replacements and upgrades further down the line. Taken over a three to four year period purchasing would have been the cheapest overall solution but within the applicable constraints of the accounting regime even the finance officers knew we had to use a leasing option as the only way to actually get the kit in place and get the task done that required the new IT system.

 

I am sure other readers here working in engineering operations can provide similar examples.

 

The more the LMS widened the number of spares etc., they had to carry the bigger other logistical and stores issues would become. That was as true then as it is now, was a perfectly logical basis later down the line for Riddles to build the BR standard classes and may well have been a reason for standardising on the 4F axle-boxes. Known issues when costed through worked out cheaper for the short term than funding on their capital account what was a better engineering solution. Alternatively, of course, the commissioning specifiers at the LMS simply just got the design requirement wrong!

[EddieB]

Personally I find it difficult to be impressed by a defence that seems to consist of 'they were OK because there were other designs that were just as bad'.

When you consider just how many 0-6-0 tender locomotives had been built in this country - both for our own railways and for export - there can be little excuse for failing to get it right with a rather basic inside-cylinder, parallel boiler, Belpaire firebox design.

[John_Miles]

I get fed up of explaining. LMS statistics show that 4F axleboxes performed well until the LMS changed the quality of the white metal (more lead less tin) and changed the oil for a cheaper variant. Things then went wrong for a whole swath of inside cylinder engines (for example Super Ds) and nothing was done until around 1942 when the LMS found out that the LNER had had a similar problem and found an oil which did the trick. They tried it on the Super Ds (because they were the worst) and the frequency of hot boxes went down significantly so the oil was used in other engines including the 4Fs. Under Stanier, a trial was also made with GWR type axleboxes on teh 4F with an underkeep. The performance was just the same as with the Midland boxes. Why? Because the oil in any axle box mostly leaks out within a few hundred yards of starting and you are left with what the tribologists call thin film lubrication where there is a smidgin of oil and some lubrication from the white metal. Advocating underkeeps shows a fundamental misunderstanding of lubrication.

[Sheffield]

Indeed. The 4fs were typical pregrouping locos, no better and no worse than most others.

A lot of the bad reputation they have seems to stem from the writings of E S Cox. While I have considerable respect, and gratitude, for Mr Cox's writings, he did know how to use facts to make the case he wanted to make. Had the BR Standards lasted as long as the 4Fs the story may have been a little different.

[kevinlms]

I get fed up of explaining. LMS statistics show that 4F axleboxes performed well until the LMS changed the quality of the white metal (more lead less tin) and changed the oil for a cheaper variant. Things then went wrong for a whole swath of inside cylinder engines (for example Super Ds) and nothing was done until around 1942 when the LMS found out that the LNER had had a similar problem and found an oil which did the trick. They tried it on the Super Ds (because they were the worst) and the frequency of hot boxes went down significantly so the oil was used in other engines including the 4Fs. Under Stanier, a trial was also made with GWR type axleboxes on teh 4F with an underkeep. The performance was just the same as with the Midland boxes. Why? Because the oil in any axle box mostly leaks out within a few hundred yards of starting and you are left with what the tribologists call thin film lubrication where there is a smidgin of oil and some lubrication from the white metal. Advocating underkeeps shows a fundamental misunderstanding of lubrication.

If 'most of the oil leaked out after a few hundred yards', doesn't that indicated a poor design of axle box and a waste of oil/money?

[Niels]

Have read and enjoyed the two books of Adrian Tester with immense joy.

In my youth mr Cox was my hero and mr Tester indicates that he was a normal industry rascal grinding his axes.

Having survived 30 year industry, my present view is pure Tester.

The thread started with a compound pacific and a simple 4-8-0 that came to nougth.

Let me argue that 1926 was the year where british locomotives missed the train.

 

2-10-0 s with flexible wheelbase were used in Germany and many other places.

Two cylinder compounds ran and was very big in Bulgaria 0-12-0.

Chapelon tuned compounds.

Uk knew narrow loading gauges and inside cylinders..

 

My Viktoria scheme for a two,inside cylinder compound 2-10-0 with a Krauss Helmholtz front would have bettered all later British steam  locomotives apart from going 126 mph downhill and being towed to repair.

 

Mr Tester explains that the inside axlebox problem was equal parts lack of knowledge of lubrication and trying to save money  using cheap oil and alloy.

It was mostly a low speed problem.

[John_Miles]

If 'most of the oil leaked out after a few hundred yards', doesn't that indicated a poor design of axle box and a waste of oil/money?

 

No. This applies to all steam engines. If you look at a car, oil is supplied under pressure to the bearings and it squirts out and is collected in a sump. You can't have a sump on a steam engine so the oil leaks out. You people really are desperate to prove the 4Fs were bad. As Sheffield says above, their bad reputation in terms of axle boxes comes from the writings of E.S, Cox who has been found to be wanting. For example he misreported some test results from the Rugby testing station. Unfortunately his views have been included in the work of others (Nock, Jenkinson for example) without being checked.

[The Johnster]

The 4Fs could have been much better than they were, as could a lot of locos, especially fundamentally Victorian inside cylinder 0-6-0s produced during the 20th Century, and many designers seem to have been terrified of innovation, something not improved by the dominance of the board on the Midland and early LMS (the same thing to all intents and purposes).  Cox's comments have perhaps been unduly influential, though he knew a lot more about what he was talking about than I or most of us on this forum do, but I reckon he could have justifiably been as critical of the Southern 'Q', or especially the GW 94xx.  I, admittedly with 20/20 hindsight, see no reason to build such locos after the 1914-18 war, and certainly no excuse for the 94xx, with no modern features and an extremely restricted cab, after the 1939-45 one.  At least locos such as the 16xx, or the late build J72s, are arguably justifiable in terms of requiring little or no development or design work, being updates or repeats of earlier designs!

 

In an ideal world, no steam locos need to have been built for shunting after about 1935, and local passenger/trip freight work should have been the province of small 2-6-2 tanks with outside cylinders (and ideally outside valve gear as well) after about 1910, locos which, except on the GW, were not in service until 1947 with the little Ivatts and their Riddles variants, excellent locos for such work but too late to make much of a mark.  Within a very short time DMUs had taken over that sort of passenger job and the small freight depots had gone!  The LNER and Southern could have certainly used something like them.

 

The Midland/early LMS axlebox was not a bad thing, just a bit too small for the job by the time it was fitted to 4Fs, Royal Scots, Garratts, and such.  The desire to standardise on parts is laudable, but you need a management that will be responsive to suggestions from the engineers, not one that will subjugate any such suggestions to the unchallenged scrutiny of the bean counters.  The Midland system of management returned good profits, which was the intention, and may be broadly said to have been successful; it certainly bears comparison with modern practice in many industries and could claim to have been ahead of it's time.  But it had become poisonous after the grouping, and the traffic requirements on the LMS's most important route, the WCML, were not properly met until Stanier's time; it is shameful that internal politics were allowed to develop to such a damaging extent, but once that culture is established, it is very hard to eradicate!

[John_Miles]

It would certainly seem that the Garratts could have done with larger axleboxes, I don't think the original Royal Scots had any particular problems. The reason for the small axleboxes comes from the need with an inside cylinder loco to provide space within a 4 8 gauge for frames, eccentrics, big ends and cranks. There is always going to be a compromise between the size of, for example, the big ends and the axleboxes. You want large big end bearings but this necessarily means smaller axleboxes. So as locomotives became more powerful, they suffered more from hot box problems, hence the Super Ds were worse than the 4Fs and the Austin Sevens were  even worse than the Super Ds. Under Fowler, design rather got out of hand. Basically he wasn't up to the job and so you got poor decisions like the Austin Sevens.

[Corbs]

A thought - could you have used larger axle boxes if the loco was outside framed?

[Niels]

A thought - could you have used larger axle boxes if the loco was outside framed?

Sure but then the crank will be even more flexing.

A much better solution was used in Italy since around 1900 having valve gear outside and inside cylinders as close as possible.

Of more than 200 existing WW1    25 remain today and many in running order .

 

http://www.wikiwand.com/it/Locomotiva_FS_625

 

http://smf.photorail.com/index.php?topic=11088.0

 

[kevinlms]

Sorry, this took me a little while to find this on the MR/LMS 4F 0-6-0, as it wasn't in the chapter on the 4Fs.

 

The following is an extract from 'Living with LMS Locomotives' by A.J. Powell. Chapter 7 - Pony Trucks to the Fore (a chapter devoted to the various 2-6-0s of the LMS).

 

Page 51  My bold.

 

"Perhaps I may be permitted here to digress about power classification systems. The Midland scheme, which the LMS adopted - not surprisingly with Anderson still in charge - took no account of proved performance at all, but grouped all engines according to nominal tractive effort. In addition, a freight engine, for reasons best known to those who invented the system, was allowed to take 10% more tonnage on passenger trains (timed at 'Full Load' timings) than a passenger engine of the same numerical classification. For instance, between Derby & Birmingham, a fairly level road, a Class 2P 4-4-0 was allowed 270 Tons, a Compound (Class 4P) was permitted 360 Tons, while a Class 4F 0-6-0, being a freight engine, was allowed 10% more, or 396 Tons. Now both the 2P and the Class 4F used the 'G7S' boiler interchangeably, and as every schoolboy knows, the limiting factor in power factor over about 15-20 MPH is the boiler, and nothing to do with tractive effort. If anything, the Class 4F should have taken less than the 2P, because of the additional internal engine friction arising from greater rotational speeds."

 

Discussion continues over the page, on the folly of giving the 'Crabs', a 6P5F classification in BR days, due to the LMR having a shortage of Class 6 power for excursion traffic.

 

The concluding sentence of the paragraph says. "Everyone knew that a 'Crab' was not in Class 6P and never would be."

 

 

So it appears that a major problem was the 'small engine policy' of the Midland, which it & its successors, long attempted to be put right, by claiming that certain engines were to be put on trains, that they were really not suited to.

 

[John_Miles]

IMHO it was down to ignorance. Your analysis of the haulage potential of a 4F on a passenger train is spot on. I remember travelling on excursions from Chesterfield to the Hope Valley. The train was a 4F with about 9 carriages, by the time the train got to the northern end of Bradway tunnel the engine was obviously struggling meaning the train to ages to get through Totley tunnel to Grindleford.

 

The Midland small engine policy made sense on the Midland where express trains rarely exceeded 200 tons, they had a policy of small trains at frequent intervals. The mistake was to try and apply this elsewhere on the LMS. For freight engines the Midland's double heading policy was used due to the weakness of many of the bridges, especially just north of Bedford.

[runs as required]

Sorry I've only just caught up with this interesting thread again...

It would certainly seem that the Garratts could have done with larger axleboxes, I don't think the original Royal Scots had any particular problems. The reason for the small axleboxes comes from the need with an inside cylinder loco to provide space within a 4 8 gauge for frames, eccentrics, big ends and cranks. There is always going to be a compromise between the size of, for example, the big ends and the axleboxes. You want large big end bearings but this necessarily means smaller axleboxes.

Gorton's own Garratts (unfettered by the LMS engineers' in-house specs) were so much more successful on the 3' 6" gauge railways of Southern Africa - and (the ultimate) Garratts of the 59 class on the even narrower metre gauge of East Africa  -  given steeper gradients and hostile wind blown sand and latterite penetration of lubrication - in far more taxing conditions than the Midland mainline.

dh

[Niels]

Playing autocratic CME of post WW1 unified railroads and designing  better british locomotives.

First is a six feet Pacific with one 22 inch outside HP cylinder and one 33 LP between frames.

Second is a 5 feet  three-cylinder 4-8-0.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_09_2017/post-898-0-40142800-1505684845.jpg

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/%C3%85nglok_SJ_E10_1742_2006_G%C3%A4vle.JPG

 

Both will pass Most UK loading gauges

 

The 4-8-0 shall have two 16 inch outside HP cylinders and a 32 inch inside (Webb) and will do the work of any UK pacific and use less fuel.