Edward Thompson: for and against

[billbedford]

Thompson's positions were:

• 1912-1920 C&W Superintendent GNR, Doncaster
• 1920-1923 C&W Manager NER, York
• 1923-1927 C&W Engineer LNER, NEA
• 1927-1930 Assistant Mechanical Engineer, Stratford
• 1930-1933 Mechanical Engineer, Stratford
• 1933-1938 Mechanical Engineer, Darlington
• 1938-1941 Mechanical Engineer, Doncaster
• 1941-1946 Chief Mechanical Engineer

[S.A.C Martin]

It's an interesting one as there's nothing actually wrong with conjugated valve gear itself. It works well when maintained properly and is capable (as we have seen with Bittern most recently) high performance. Whatever you may think of Thompson's decision to abandon it for all new designs, he only removed it on seven locomotives total of the Pacific arrangement (The A2/1s must be excepted because they were new designs incorporating standard V2 components - there was no rebuilding, they were new builds). 

 

Other engineers - Churchward, followed by Collett, followed by Hawksworth on the GWR, and Stanier on the LMS following Fowler, recognised that for small and medium sized locomotives required for fixed traffic, two cylinders was all that was required. The Black Five and Hall probably stand up as the best examples of these ideals, though I would argue (because I am biased!) that Thompson's standardisation attempts were better than Stanier's in one respect, and that was a combination of, or choices of the same boiler, cylinders and valve gear were used for B1, O1, O4/8, B2 and B17, and he utilised standard components from already existing classes to supplement the existing fleets when building new.

 

The success of the B12/3 and the rebuilt D16s are down to Thompson's efforts at Stratford, and I consider that the GER influence in his work, along with that of Stanier and the GWR, is most obvious when you look at the whole of his standardisation scheme and the change in details which occurred over the course of his life as CME. Certainly, his choice of Prussian blue and red lining for Great Northern stands out as the ultimate mark of respect to Stratford and everything that he learned whilst he was there.

 

In James Holden's own engineering policies we find a significant echo in Thompson's work, and that for me comes across best in the B1 and O1 locomotives.

[Catkins]

. . . his choice of Prussian blue and red lining for Great Northern stands out as the ultimate mark of respect to Stratford . . .

 

And - possibly being devils advocate here - Thompson might have chosen 'Great Northern' for rebuilding, not to spite the old guard but, to carry a historic name proudly into a new era.

[S.A.C Martin]

And - possibly being devils advocate here - Thompson might have chosen 'Great Northern' for rebuilding, not to spite the old guard but, to carry a historic name proudly into a new era.

 

Exactly what I feel and that I wrote in my current draft of my book on Thompson. He worked for two of the major pre-grouping companies before the LNER was formed, the NER and latterly GNR and was also immersed in the locomotives and coaching stock of the GER at Stratford. How could he not feel some affinity to the name in the same way that other railwaymen did?

 

Peter Grafton states in his book on Thompson that "it is the considered opinion of one member of the team which worked on 4470 that Thompson selected it, not so much because in his mind it personified Gresley and that therefore by rebuilding it he was symbolically destroying him, but because he - Thompson - felt that if his ideas and designs were successful, then it was fitting that 4470 should be the first locomotive to embody the improvements that were envisaged".

[Poggy1165]

It is perhaps worth remembering also how railways have changed. For example, there was a long standing requirement for pick-up (or pilot) goods that chugged along at 25 mph between stations, calling at practically every one and shunting the yard. Frankly, a Robinson J11 or similar would still be capable of doing that today if the requirement existed. And the old-fashioned railway workshops were well equipped to maintain such simple, rugged designs indefinitely, or at least until it became more economic to replace the engine altogether. You would have been pretty far-sighted during World War II if you had predicted that such trains, and the traffic they worked, would simply cease to exist by about 1970.

[coachmann]

Having worked on both the railway and on the buses, I saw locos and buses as simply machines after a very short time and the enthusiast in me was sometimes dulled by bad experiences at work. To me the Gresley K4 was an over-engineered tool when a Thompson K1 would suffice, but as an enthusiast my admiration goes with the K4's 100% on all fronts. There are lots of engines I like the look of but my own limited experiences also feed in other information about what it must have been like for the men who had to work them and keep them going. As for buses, give me a simple stick in the floor Leyland any time.

[62613]

The issue of maintenance is a perennial one in engineering. A standard part of promotional literature for industrial equipment is to claim it has been designed for easy maintenance regardless of how impossible it may be to do even simple and routine jobs. I have seen large diesel engines designed for ease of maintenance according to manufacturers claims where I've been left wondering if the designers even knew what maintenance was. A lot of it is the packaging, an engine itself may be pretty well designed for servicing then installed in an engine room in a way that makes maintenance a pig of a job.

Oh, yes! V12 Paxman gensets virtually on the tank tops, so that the Dutch docky doing big end and maintenance checks was in the bilges!

[jamie92208]

The main source for my comments about Thompson's interest in maintainability were from comments in "Bulleid Last Giant of Steam"  Sean Day Lewis.

 

Jamie

[S.A.C Martin]

I have enjoyed reading this thread. Thoughtful stuff from S A C Martin.

 

Thank you. i think it's good to have an honest, healthy, constructive debate and to perhaps question the long lived line of thinking on Edward Thompson whilst also recognising that - like any human being - he wasn't perfect.

 

Personally speaking, he has become one of my favourite - if not, the favourite - locomotive engineers purely because his life and experiences are fascinating. The controversy is also worth a debate in itself. Personally speaking I feel there are areas to criticise and perhaps man management by Thompson could have been better on a number of levels, but he did have a human side and these are recounted by a number of different contributors if you sift through the hearsay of the timekeepers somewhat.

[HerbertHopkins]

 

 

Peter Grafton states in his book on Thompson that "it is the considered opinion of one member of the team which worked on 4470 that Thompson selected it, not so much because in his mind it personified Gresley and that therefore by rebuilding it he was symbolically destroying him, but because he - Thompson - felt that if his ideas and designs were successful, then it was fitting that 4470 should be the first locomotive to embody the improvements that were envisaged".

 

I think that this is a very good point. I don't suppose for one minute that Thompson deliberately set out to design a loco that would be vilified as much at the A1/1.

 

It has also been argued that the choice of 4470 for the rebuild was not down to Thompson anyway. The next original, low pressure, A1 due for a 'general' was earmarked for this, it just so happend that 'Great Northern' was the next one into the shops. Although the A1/1 was not the most handsome locomotive ever built, it looked most peculiar in its original form with short cab sheets, I doubt the same hue and cry would have resulted if another A1 had been selected instead.  

[jjb1970]

Hopefully we are now able to review Thompson's work free of the emotions that seem to have dominated the subject. I think a re-appraisal is fully merited.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Hardly required in my view, the evidence has long been in and reported. The B1, K1, O1, fit for purpose and very successful, the entire wide firebox developments and L1 deeply flawed, and the remaining rebuilds essentially unnecessary.

 

He had the misfortune to follow in office after a man with a towering record of achievement obtained over thirty years. A stream of designs which still attract contemporary interest (the A4 was used in GNER advertising not five years ago) tells you all you need to know about this predecessor's legacy and impact. Permit me to offer a direct contemporary parallel from the world of football, which I am not remotely interested in. But I have heard of MUFC, and their long term manager Sir Alec Ferguson. Apparently he has a successor, but I couldn't name him...

[micklner]

Peppercorn ?? 

[Fenman]

... a man with a towering record of achievement obtained over thirty years. A stream of designs which still attract contemporary interest (the A4 was used in GNER advertising not five years ago) tells you all you need to know about this predecessor's legacy and impact.  ...

 

In fairness, the design of the A4 (or, at least, the external styling bits, which is what is important for the advertising image) was by Bugatti, not Gresley.

 

Paul

[coachmann]

Hardly required in my view, the evidence has long been in and reported. The B1, K1, O1, fit for purpose and very successful, the entire wide firebox developments and L1 deeply flawed, and the remaining rebuilds essentially unnecessary.

 

He had the misfortune to follow in office after a man with a towering record of achievement obtained over thirty years. A stream of designs which still attract contemporary interest (the A4 was used in GNER advertising not five years ago) tells you all you need to know about this predecessor's legacy and impact. Permit me to offer a direct contemporary parallel from the world of football, which I am not remotely interested in. But I have heard of MUFC, and their long term manager Sir Alec Ferguson. Apparently he has a successor, but I couldn't name him...

And this my friends is the other side of the coin, which shows that talking to a Gresley fanatic is like talking to a Man United fan..... 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Success always has its detractors.

 

I have travelled the world fairly widely. Foreigners various often want to engage the English speaking man of the subject of football. Well, actually that is football as played by Manchester United. Their opponents / cannon fodder get about 5% airtime...

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Often when you follow a "great", such as Moyes after Ferguson, things can fall apart. So with Thompson following Gresley (died in office, a Knight, designer of the fastest steam loco in the world) he was on a hiding to nothing.

 

Yet he produced a Really Useful Engine (B1), whilst the K1 was good too. The O1 was to form the backbone of that wonderful freight flow (Annesley - Woodford) before the 9Fs appeared.

 

So yes, he gets my vote.

[bluebottle]

Not sure that comparisons between LNER/Gresley/Thompson and ManU/Ferguson/Moyes are particularly edifying ...

Was the LNER the equivalent in wealth of ManU? Did Gresley kick boots at his subordinates and give them the hair drier treatment? Did the LNER under Thompson let the British down during WWII?

I hate Thompson's "pacifics" on aesthetic grounds - if they were indifferent performers, then there were other locos whose failings matter naught if they look good in model form on the posing plank. That includes his L1, an elegant design visually, and of course his B1, which both did the job and looked good high-stepping through Woodhouse station on the afternoon boat train.

[S.A.C Martin]

Hardly required in my view, the evidence has long been in and reported. The B1, K1, O1, fit for purpose and very successful, the entire wide firebox developments and L1 deeply flawed, and the remaining rebuilds essentially unnecessary.

 

The rebuilds were not unnecessary. They are a fair part of the creative process and led Thompson to conclude that he didn't need a 4-4-0, for instance, that a 2-cylinder K3 was not worthwhile, and that with large numbers of B1s, O1s and future K1s he had the backbone of a fleet to supplement the locomotives he wanted to retain. There is nothing wrong with prototypes and Thompson did nothing wrong in wanting to experiment (and he did this well with limited money and components available to him).

 

The L1 was not deeply flawed as such in terms of its ability to do a job, but the build quality was suspect. It is noticeable that the prototype did good work and is well thought of but the production batches less so. That said, if they were totally incapable of doing their jobs they would probably have been replaced earlier than they were. Lord knows, the Fairburn and Standard 4MT designs bailed out the Southern Region in this respect so it would not be unreasonable to suggest if the L1s were totally incapable further batches of these locomotives might have been drafted in to the Eastern Region in some numbers to help or replace altogether.

[coachmann]

Hardly required in my view, the evidence has long been in and reported. The B1, K1, O1, fit for purpose and very successful, the entire wide firebox developments and L1 deeply flawed, and the remaining rebuilds essentially unnecessary.

If Thompson had not done the prototype rebuilds, Peppercorn would have had to start with a blank sheet of paper.  As it was, Thompson did the footwork for a  6' 2" A2 Pacific, a K1 2-6-0 and the 04/8 rebuild that was still being rebuilt in the mid 1950s. Gresley provided his company with a PR machine in the form of the A4, but in reality a few premium expresses trotting up and down the East coast mainline behind locos that required extra attention to inside big ends etc did not bring in the bread 'n butter. Thompson must have been acutely aware of this for years and no doubt some of the directors of the company as well. So he attempted to lay the foundations for a new set of Standard locomotives and, in the shape of the B1, he probably gave the LNER the simple straightforward black five that they always wanted.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Sorry, but that is a wholesale distortion of Gresley's record.

The freight and mixed traffic machines to his design way outnumber the pacifics, and the pacifics proved fully up to operating the fastest ever UK steam worked freight.

He wanted to build a two cylinder 2-6-0 for the medium freight role, but the LNER could only afford an 0-6-0, which were the J38 and J39 classes.

The K3 and V2 designs for heavy mixed traffic provided the backbone of faster freight operation.

And finally, the pacifics. Despite their known problems, somehow or other they operated the UK's fastest and longest through run passenger services.

The designs were not perfect, but then as far as I am aware no one ever designed a perfect steam loco, and one could cite problems from every renowned designer.

 

There is no point trying to denigrate Gresley to boost perceptions of his successor. Thompson had some undoubted achievements, but also a parcel of very significant failures; and they were failures of his principles which he claimed would lead to better and more reliable locos than the earlier designs. They did not, and that's the consistent verdict of operating engineers who had to work with them. Just sample Bill Harvey's 'Sixty Years in Steam' for as clear an example of the evidence if you want some objectivity.

[S.A.C Martin]

If Thompson had not done the prototype rebuilds, Peppercorn would have had to start with a blank sheet of paper.  

 

This - this sentence right here. Thompson had to do the groundwork for the 6ft 2in Pacific and other mixed traffic types.

 

There is no doubt his Pacifics were not perfect and perhaps the changes to the LNER outline were too drastic for railwaymen of that time to accept - they were using locomotives which had developed followed specifically GNR practice, for effectively 30 years under Gresley under the GNR and LNER banners.

 

Case in point, the new Pacific locomotives kept significant components the same which Thompson believed were essential. The high pressure, round topped boilers (of which he looked to introduce the A4 boiler as a standard for 6ft 8in machines and his own type for 6ft 2in machines), cartazzi, double kylchap chimney (of which he is the only engineer on the LNER to standardise on this fitting with all of his Pacific classes), and even the valve gear with short connecting rods (which was Gresley's V2 type, used also on the P2s and reused in their new form as the A2 prototypes, later A2/2s). 

 

The Thompson layout of Pacific locomotive is not a million miles away from Stanier's Princess class or Chapelon's Pacifics and it's extraordinary (for me anyway) to look at Great Northern as rebuilt and compare it to those Pacific locomotives of contemporary engineers. Thompson was following the trends of the time and doing so in his own way through careful use of standard components used where possible.

 

As it was, Thompson did the footwork for a  6' 2" A2 Pacific, a K1 2-6-0 and the 04/8 rebuild that was still being rebuilt in the mid 1950s. Gresley provided his company with a PR machine in the form of the A4, but in reality a few premium expresses trotting up and down the East coast mainline behind locos that required extra attention to inside big ends etc did not bring in the bread 'n butter. Thompson must have been acutely aware of this for years and no doubt some of the directors of the company as well. So he attempted to lay the foundations for a new set of Standard locomotives and, in the shape of the B1, he probably gave the LNER the simple straightforward black five that they always wanted.

 

The B1 for me is the unsung hero of the LNER and BR. If it remains Thompson's only design memorial, it should be remembered as the locomotive which in many ways saved the LNER in its latter years, replacing vast swathes of pre-grouping locomotives which were no longer suitable for the changes in traffic and maintenance levels the railway faced. 

[S.A.C Martin]

Sorry, but that is a wholesale distortion of Gresley's record.

 

I'm scratching my head at this comment - could you elaborate on this please?

 

There is no point trying to denigrate Gresley to boost perceptions of his successor. Thompson had some undoubted achievements, but also a parcel of very significant failures; and they were failures of his principles which he claimed would lead to better and more reliable locos than the earlier designs. They did not, and that's the consistent verdict of operating engineers who had to work with them. Just sample Bill Harvey's 'Sixty Years in Steam' for as clear an example of the evidence if you want some objectivity.

 

Please elaborate on "significant failures" - what were these? I have that volume to hand and it's formed part of my objective for and against in my own work on Thompson. I would be interested to read some examples you would care to pick out?

 

As far as I can see, the locomotive "failures" by Thompson all worked well into BR days - only the lone D class The Morpeth did not make it to the late 1950s and that was due to an accident rendering it unsuitable for repair. None of his locomotive designs were incapable of doing their jobs and whilst not perhaps liked nor perfect they did do their job - so that's hardly "failures" which I reserve strictly for the description of locomotives such as Fowler's Ghost, or the Paget machine.

[coachmann]

I don't need to denigrate Gresley, his own work for the LNER does that on its own. He no doubt received a commission on every set of conjugated gear fitted and he made damn sure as many of his designs got fitted with it as possible. He produced lots of small classes at a time when Stanier was providing the LMS with 700+ mixed traffic Black Fives. Lots of small classes goes against standardisation and required lots of spare parts to be held at assorted depots. Unnecessary valvegear complication provided lots of extra unnecessary work for the fitters. At speed the middle valve events over-ran and put a strain on that part of the loco.

 

The East Coast was miles behind the West Coast as far as building a standardised fleet was concerned and had made no headway by the time war broke out. That it fell to Thompson to change all that and play catch-up was self-evident when his locos had replaced so many pre-group locos by 1950. Thompsons rebuilt Pacifics were small classes that used elderly main components and could not be expected to last when so many new locos were built by BR, and yet the A2/2 lasted until 1960. Of course they had faults like cracking frames. No railway, not even the GWR, was without this problem, hence the Hawksworth upgrades with stronger front ends. But lets be honest here, many of Thompson detractors happen to like the Bullied Pacifics with all their untried foibles and required rebuilding of a whole class! Now work that one out!

[jwealleans]

 

He no doubt received a commission on every set of conjugated gear fitted

Untrue.  It was clearly stated in his contract with the GNR that he would receive no payment for use of any patented design by the company.  I find it hard to believe that the perennially cash-strapped LNER would be more generous.  His only privilege as CME was the right to take pupils who paid (I believe) £50 to be under his supervision.

 

I also think you'll find that if you look at the number of locos and classes in 1923 and 1941 you'll find a significant reduction in both.  Financial constraint was ever present with the LNER and they couldn't just scrap everything and build 700 K3s or V2s.