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In steam days, for express passenger locos, consider a figure of 50,000 miles a year. That's 1,000,000 miles in 20 years, which is 'ball park' for the figures Tony quotes, which I wouldn't disagree with.

 

But also go the other way. 50,000 miles a year is 1000 miles a week (give or take) or 5 days at 200 miles a day. 200 miles a day doesn't sound like very much but, having studied loco diagrams of Grantham locos (for obvious reasons), it's actually a logical figure. Grantham is 105 miles from London so Grantham-London and return is indeed a 200 mile trip (and also for a Kings Cross based loco doing the equivalent working).

 

More importantly, a working like that is an ideal fit for the then standard eight hour engineman's working day. Despite their high speed reputation, there were in fact only a handful of 60mph timings; more typically, Grantham-London timings were 2hrs 20mins to 2hrs 30mins. Double that, and that's best part of five hours concentration on the road ahead (driver) and five hours physical labour (fireman) within the eight hours - a reasonable day's work and one that attracted mileage payment, being in excess of 150.

 

Some of the Grantham workings were double-manned, ie a second Grantham crew took over and typically took the loco to York and back (84 miles x 2), another 8 hour day. That would be yer lot - by that stage, loco would be low on coal (possible top up at York?) and would be at risk of fire grate clinkering and ash pan full.

 

I do have life mileage figures for LMS Duchesses and they're pretty similar to A4s - I think the best was about 1.6 million for 27 years. So slightly in excess of 50k a year but not much.

 

Much as we love 'em, there are good reasons why steam locos didn't turn in particularly impressive lifetime figures compared to their modern counterparts!

Edited by LNER4479
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It is a bit difficult to give accurate figures as only a handful of HST power cars have spent their working life on the ECML, but according to an article in Rail Magazine:-

"Virgin Trains East Coast 43238 and 43239 are calculated to be the highest-mileage power cars of the entire UK HST fleet, at 9.725 million miles each by mid-2018.

Both were built in the first batch of HSTs and delivered to the Western Region in early 1977. They transferred to the ECML (where annual mileages have always been higher) in 1982, and have remained there ever since.

The average UK power car mileage is 8.48 million miles.

Within the VTEC fleet, 43305-43319 have been on the East Coast Main Line continuously since their delivery, and are calculated to have run 9.385 million miles each."

 

Nigel L

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4 hours ago, Lemmy282 said:

Yes there are some that are being overhauled, but some are being withdrawn and having component removal undertaken.

Interestingly 91132 was taken from service the other week, loaded onto a low loader, and taken to a scrapyard in Nottingham, without any components being removed. I wonder if it was because this was the loco involved in both the Hatfield and Great Heck disasters.

 

Nigel L

Wasn't it also involved in the Sandy derailment? (wheelset problem on a coach?)

 

Stewart

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Some impressive mileage figures of late.................................

 

At the other end of the scale we have the likes of this.

 

1285648194_HeljanClayton02.jpg.b182fb7b3b278cf7f68e2f03611b2df8.jpg

 

They were unreliable, caught fire and the jobs they were built for were disappearing faster than the individual units were being delivered.

 

Still, it makes an impressive model; Heljan's latest O Gauge offering.

 

A full review will be appearing in BRM. 

 

 

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I have my William Adams book beside me, so looked up the Adams O2 tanks.  They typically ran 1,500,000 miles, whether mainland or Isle of Wight.   Then some of Drummond's T9 Greyhounds ran over 2 million miles.  Bill

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On the HST mileage debate, worth noting that they were introduced from the mid/late 70s.  So a unit released to traffic could have been up to c45 years in traffic.  In context, that’s the equivalent of 2509 being withdrawn in 1980.  Remarkable bits of kit. (the hst.  The A4 obviously is - not sure you can print on this thread if you state otherwise!)

 

I’m not sure total mileage is a useful metric.  I’d have though mean distance between failures, km in passenger service would be more useful.  Revenue/seat would be interesting as well.

 

David

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36 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Over how many years? (Purely out of interest!)

 

Let's say 60 years.  Number 120 was not withdrawn when she was painted in LSWR livery as a prelude to preservation, so she was the last 4-4-0 in service on British Railways.  Finally retired in August 1963.  Bill

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Thanks. That's about what I would have guessed.

 

So 2million miles in 60 years ....

1 million miles in 30 years ...

33,000 miles a year ...

Compared to 55-60k per year for the 1930s big pacifics

 

So, although significantly less than modern traction, by the standards of the day, the usage of the A4s and others would have been impressive at the time.

Edited by LNER4479
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2 hours ago, stewartingram said:

Wasn't it also involved in the Sandy derailment? (wheelset problem on a coach?)

 

Stewart

Not been able to fund a report of the Sandy derailment, but the newspaper reports of the Great Heck accident state this was the 2nd accident for 91132 and various websites quote only two major accidents involving the class.

Of the 10 set that will remain in service until 2023/2024, 91110 has been selected for the national collection as it holds the speed record of 161.7mph which achieved just south of........   Little Bytham.

 

Nigel L

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Tony talks about the Claytons being unreliable and catching fire, unfortunately only one of those was true. Yes they were unreliable but they did not catch fire ( that was the North British Type 2s). The problem with the Claytons was that they were proposed by Claytons with the Rolls Royce V8 engines ( Claytons were owned by Rolls Royce) but the BR board insisted on a different engine ( from Paxman) which had never been used ( except for a single 2 car unit that never entered revenue service) in rail service. The result was failure after failure. I have an official Clayton document which shows that there were crank shaft failures on locos before delivery! This was a classic case where the British Railways board were pressurised  by Paxman to give them a share of the  Pilot scheme diesels, the result finished any chance of Claytons building more main line locomotives and resulted in the premature withdrawal of the Claytons.

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1 hour ago, Clearwater said:

On the HST mileage debate, worth noting that they were introduced from the mid/late 70s.  So a unit released to traffic could have been up to c45 years in traffic.  In context, that’s the equivalent of 2509 being withdrawn in 1980.  Remarkable bits of kit. (the hst.  The A4 obviously is - not sure you can print on this thread if you state otherwise!)

 

I’m not sure total mileage is a useful metric.  I’d have though mean distance between failures, km in passenger service would be more useful.  Revenue/seat would be interesting as well.

 

David

When I watched the last HSTs leaving Paddington two years ago, it occurred to me that had the GWR Castles lasted as long I would have grown up watching them too.

 

It's been pointed out by many engineers that miles per casualty is not really meaningful for trains; they are really industrial equipment rather than vehicles so operation should be measured in hours (as diesel locomotive engines always used to be).  So faster diesels can cover more miles in a day than those they replaced while actually operating for fewer hours, yet still be considered more reliable.

 

The Golden Spanner awards tend to show SWR's 158/159 DMUs as the best and until last year, Pacers as the worst.  However this takes no account of the stop-start nature of much Pacer operation, while Waterloo to Salisbury/Exeter services don't normally stop before Woking and usually Basingstoke, so the engines are running at steady, moderate load for long periods.  If they were judged by hours per casualty, they would still come out as much more reliable than the Pacer fleet but the margin would be somewhat smaller.

 

Rob

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One of the things that struck me reading Yeadon's Register was the amount of maintenance steam engines needed, and the number of sub-depots around the system that could perform repairs-such as Gateshead, Peterborough and Haymarket,  Even places like Lincoln had wheel drops.  Whereas modern diesels can be maintained by module replacement, steam engines spent far more time out of traffic for even mundane attention. 

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4 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Some impressive mileage figures of late.................................

 

At the other end of the scale we have the likes of this.

 

1285648194_HeljanClayton02.jpg.b182fb7b3b278cf7f68e2f03611b2df8.jpg

 

They were unreliable, caught fire and the jobs they were built for were disappearing faster than the individual units were being delivered.

 

Still, it makes an impressive model; Heljan's latest O Gauge offering.

 

A full review will be appearing in BRM. 

 

 

Hello Tony

 

Just like their 00 offering you cannot get your hand around the hand rail along the engine rooms. In 7mm separate handrails, surely, are a must.

 

I managed it on my plastic card efforts many moons ago.

 

100_5128a.jpg.30a944ae536a6a46dd905973b5490f8c.jpg

The one at the back has a broken one.

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6 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

More importantly, a working like that is an ideal fit for the then standard eight hour engineman's working day. Despite their high speed reputation, there were in fact only a handful of 60mph timings; more typically, Grantham-London timings were 2hrs 20mins to 2hrs 30mins. Double that, and that's best part of five hours concentration on the road ahead (driver) and five hours physical labour (fireman) within the eight hours - a reasonable day's work and one that attracted mileage payment, being in excess of 150.

 

Much as we love 'em, there are good reasons why steam locos didn't turn in particularly impressive lifetime figures compared to their modern counterparts!

And everybody thinks that increased speed is all about getting business people who think that they are very important from A to B faster. 

 

It isn't at all, it is about reducing the number of trains that you need to buy and the number of people to run them. No, do not get me started on 5 car Class 800s coupled together that need 2 lots of catering staff and equipment.

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10 hours ago, Norton961 said:

Tony talks about the Claytons being unreliable and catching fire, unfortunately only one of those was true. Yes they were unreliable but they did not catch fire ( that was the North British Type 2s). The problem with the Claytons was that they were proposed by Claytons with the Rolls Royce V8 engines ( Claytons were owned by Rolls Royce) but the BR board insisted on a different engine ( from Paxman) which had never been used ( except for a single 2 car unit that never entered revenue service) in rail service. The result was failure after failure. I have an official Clayton document which shows that there were crank shaft failures on locos before delivery! This was a classic case where the British Railways board were pressurised  by Paxman to give them a share of the  Pilot scheme diesels, the result finished any chance of Claytons building more main line locomotives and resulted in the premature withdrawal of the Claytons.

I can't recall in which magazine I saw it at the time, but there was a shot of a Clayton with one end completely gutted.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

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9 hours ago, jrg1 said:

One of the things that struck me reading Yeadon's Register was the amount of maintenance steam engines needed, and the number of sub-depots around the system that could perform repairs-such as Gateshead, Peterborough and Haymarket,  Even places like Lincoln had wheel drops.  Whereas modern diesels can be maintained by module replacement, steam engines spent far more time out of traffic for even mundane attention. 

I think it's accepted that steam locos needed (need) more time out of service for maintenance, but what's not always remembered is that they would keep going in such a bad state of repair, whereas alternative (more modern) motive power would fail totally if left to get in such a condition.

 

Was it Adrian Vaughan (a WR signalman) who wrote that a 'Hymek' failed by his 'box one day because the driver had knocked a cup of sweet tea over on the console, and the subsequent sticky residue had insulated some of the contacts?

 

Expanding on the subject, I think the 'pinnacle' of post-War A4 running was non-stop  'Elizabethan' where the standard of reliability was incredibly high. Granted, the individual locos only worked for six and a half hours in 24, but it was continuous. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

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10 hours ago, Lemmy282 said:

Not been able to fund a report of the Sandy derailment, but the newspaper reports of the Great Heck accident state this was the 2nd accident for 91132 and various websites quote only two major accidents involving the class.

Of the 10 set that will remain in service until 2023/2024, 91110 has been selected for the national collection as it holds the speed record of 161.7mph which achieved just south of........   Little Bytham.

 

Nigel L

Good morning Nigel,

 

Whenever one looks at the logs of record-breaking runs in this country (by any form of motive power), the name 'Little Bytham' appears far more than any other. Of course, it has the benefit of being two thirds of the way down Stoke Bank (with gravity assistance), but there are far more authenticated 'tons' recorded in the vicinity than anywhere else in the realm. That's why I was slightly puzzled when TORNADO broke the magic hundred between Darlington and York, rather than be given the assistance of gravity further south. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

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7 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

I think it's accepted that steam locos needed (need) more time out of service for maintenance, but what's not always remembered is that they would keep going in such a bad state of repair, whereas alternative (more modern) motive power would fail totally if left to get in such a condition.

 

That sounds a bit like cars. My MGB will limp home on three cylinders and belching black smoke if I’m really desperate. If something goes wrong with my Jag XF the LCD display tells me to seek assistance or similar. Meanwhile it has a sit down sulk and I’m stuck.

 

That might be better for the environment but it can be very annoying!

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On 26/03/2021 at 10:08, St Enodoc said:

If you ask nicely and bring some cake. I should have the New Model Railways issue that Graham mentioned as well.

I think I’ll have some birthday cake left over, homemade red velvet. 

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39 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

That's why I was slightly puzzled when TORNADO broke the magic hundred between Darlington and York, rather than be given the assistance of gravity further south. 

 

Highly meritorious, though!

 

It led me to wonder afterwards how many UK steam 100mph maxima were actually achieved on the flat? For info, on that night, there was a 50mph slack through Thirsk so it was a true acceleration from that speed up to 100mph with no assistance from gravity to speak of (I think 1-in-600-ish is about as steep as it gets in the Thirsk area). Nine coaches - and no diesel (just in case anyone asks!)

 

I'm pretty certain all ECML 100mph maxima were with the assistance of gravity. However, I'm not well acquainted enough with the WoEML to comment on whether 1967 Bulleid maxima had the assistance of gravity (nor Kings on the Western) so happy to be put right on that.

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11 minutes ago, rowanj said:

I'm sorry you (and everybody) thought I was self-important when I used to drag myself out of bed at Newcastle at 5-30 to go to London and get back home usually about 11.00 at night. I assure you that the folk I travelled with didnt think we were lucky, other than that faster speeds meant meetings lasted 1 day rather than meaning an overnight stay.

 

Sorry for the confusion and the apparent slight. I was not referring to those doing the travelling feeling self-important, I was referring to those who think that increased speed is merely to get people from A to B more quickly, and therefore assume that the traveller feels self-important. I used to work in an office at Euston, and travelling from and to Ross-on-Wye just made me feel tired.

 

Please accept my apology if I offended you, I can assure you that it was unintended.

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