Fowler 4F, really a poor loco?

[w124bob]

I've just finished reading "Mendips Enginemen" by A W Smith, a former Branksome fireman and Donald Beal's regular mate. His thoughts on the 4F are scathing "There is nothing I can say in their favour" then he goes on to list the short comings. A weak boiler, rough riding, poor footplate including a slatted footboards which at anything above slow drew ash up from the pan and boiler front.

Is this just one firemans opinion or is the critism justified?

[Londontram]

If I recall correctly in "Fireing days at Saltly" Terry notes that many of the crews preferred the older unsuper heated 3F over the 4F as they were easier to fire and 0drive being more responsive to changing boiler needs so there could be some truth in it.

[LMS2968]

Generally, they were not popular, mostly because of their indifferent (rather than poor) steaming. The cabs were very short so firemen often referred to them a 'arseroasters'. The seats were poor, especially for the driver . He would be perched on a piece of timber on top of the reverser, said timber having a slot in it so that the index scale could be read. They also were weak in the axlebox department, although it was on the Austin 7s and Garratts where these really showed up badly.

 

Despite all this, they did their job for over sixty years, so there were points for as well as against. But few men willingly chose a 4F if there was anything else around.

[Butler Henderson]

Remember some very concerned passengers at Grosmont wanting to know if the on loan 4F would make it to Goathland

[The Johnster]

I'm not sure they were actually bad engines; they had bad points but so did most steam locos.  But they were a bit outdated by the 1920s, and as the LMS had failed to come up with a replacement until the Crabs, and they were cheap and easy to build and maintain, and the axleboxes were sturdy enough for most of their work, just, they continued to appear in large numbers.  That they replaced older but well liked locos in many non-Midland areas of the LMS cannot have helped their image, but it was I would say more a case that they just sort of failed to be particularly good than that they were particularly bad.  

 

They were at least broadly suitable for their work, which is more than you could say about the Compounds or 2Ps that couldn't handle the weight of trains needed; the LMS should have been building 4-6-0s in much greater numbers much earlier.

 

The GW was building tank engines for South Wales work with pathetically cramped cabs at the same time, which seem to escape criticism, not to mention 0-6-0 tender locos that steamed better than 4Fs but could not pull as much (though they were usefully light on the axles).  And a lightweight 4-6-0, the Manor, that originally didn't steam properly.  Some of what was coming out of the LNER in terms of 0-6-0s was not what you'd call inspiring either.  As has been said, the real early LMS failure was the Austin 7, an utterly pointless mess that would have been better had it been a re-order of G2s.

[coachmann]

Stanier continued to have them built until around 1941!  We used to get a Stockport engine on shed every day and it was occasionally a 'Derby Four', as the loco men called them. No one at our LNWR shed had a good word for anything Midland especially the injectors.  I had a lift on a RH drive one from Newton Heath shed and it climbed up to Oldham in fine style with a long parcels for Clegg Street.  

[60B]

Hugely unpopular on the Highland section when they were introduced there but little I've read suggested why. Initially I had conjectured it was Highland men being loyal to the old guard but this account sheds some light on it. Can't imagine they did much that the Highland's own native locomotives couldn't do more comfortably. Even Jenkinson only makes brief mentions of their unpopularity. 

[LMS2968]

Stanier did order the Drawing Offices to prepare a modern replacement for the humble 4F, and removing the tanks and bunker from his 2-6-4T looked a promising way forward. For some reason, the DO just couldn't get the weights right and time was passing. In the end, further 4Fs were built, and it was left to George Ivatt to come up with the answer, starting with a blank piece of paper, in the 3XXX2-6-0s.

[Phil Bullock]

I've just finished reading "Mendips Enginemen" by A W Smith, a former Branksome fireman and Donald Beal's regular mate. His thoughts on the 4F are scathing "There is nothing I can say in their favour" then he goes on to list the short comings. A weak boiler, rough riding, poor footplate including a slatted footboards which at anything above slow drew ash up from the pan and boiler front.

Is this just one firemans opinion or is the critism justified?

 

An excellent read. However if any railway was going to find a loco's weaknesses it would be the S&D - 4fs were used on heavy passenger trains on a steeply graded line running to fast timings - not what they were designed for! The comments about Unrebuilt Bulleids - particularly 34043 - were also pretty scathing, although Bournemouth Central probably did palm off its weakest examples to Branksome. Its amazing the 2Ps lasted there as long as they did....

 

Phil

[w124bob]

I'm getting a second opinion from an ex Trafford Park fireman, will see what he has to say. His first firing turn was on a 4F. I've just weathered a 4F renumbered to the same loco, so he owes me a beer and a good chinwag, I'll see what he has to say. I did enjoy the book, mine was a loan copy so I've now picked up a Ebay copy for couple of quid.

[Dava]

They were apparently referred to as 'Big Goods' on the Midland, all things being relative of course. A very conservative design to have been perpetuated for so long.

 

The 3F [my first Triang trainset loco] was prettier of course.

 

Dava

[John_Miles]

The LMS after Stamp was in charge collected statistics on just about everything including locomotive performance. Those that were liable to frequent breakdowns, expensive to run or spent a lot of time under repair were scrapped. Hence ex-LNWR types disappeared fairly quickly with the exception of the Super Ds. There were IIRC 772 4Fs. So not exactly a failure then and the LMS produced them over a large number of years. As stated above, on the S&D they were employed on passenger trains and expected to haul heavy loads (I think up to 9 carriages) at relatively high speeds and yet they only had the same boiler as the 2P so they just couldn't produce enough steam for high speed passenger working. The mistake made by the operating people seems to be that 4F = 4P. I remember 4Fs being used on excursions from Chesterfield to the Hope Valley on trains of 9 or 10 carriages. The climb up to Bradway tunnel was ok but by the time they reached the entrance to Totley tunnel the speed was definitely slow.

 

There has been a lot of misinformation about 4Fs which has been discussed in length elsewhere on RMWeb so I am not going to repeat it here.

[Dunsignalling]

An excellent read. However if any railway was going to find a loco's weaknesses it would be the S&D - 4fs were used on heavy passenger trains on a steeply graded line running to fast timings - not what they were designed for! The comments about Unrebuilt Bulleids - particularly 34043 - were also pretty scathing, although Bournemouth Central probably did palm off its weakest examples to Branksome. Its amazing the 2Ps lasted there as long as they did....

 

Phil

On the S&D, the usual duties of both 4Fs and 2Ps on the S&D comprised stopping services of no more than four coaches or acting as pilots to larger engines on heavy ones.

 

Heavier goods workings were the province of the 7Fs and 4Fs would only get rostered to them in pairs. The single line sections and steep gradients on the line meant that any engine unable to keep time with its allotted load would cause severe disruption.

 

That they fulfilled those tasks with sufficient reliability to last until enough BR standards became available to displace them, says much, but they were clearly not a pleasure to work. Preserved examples with everything tight, assiduously maintained and not subjected to regular thrashing, will be a very different kettle of fish.

 

In essence, though, both designs were twenty years out of date when the LMS ordered more of them. The blame is usually, and largely with justification, laid upon individuals at Derby who remained wedded to principles and components dating from Victorian times that ceased to be appropriate as traffic demands grew during the Great War and as widespread double-heading ceased to be economically viable as peace returned but many men didn't.

 

Fowler was a talented manager and administrator, but his engineering abilities were insufficient to get a real grip on locomotive policy; that having to wait until Stanier came along.   

 

John

Edited August 24, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[w124bob]

Poor footplate design has nothing to do with whether your train is a class 1 or class 9, if ash and dust is blown onto the footplate by a design flaw thats it, poor thinking. It also shows an unwillingness to to adapt, same with the injector issue. A freight still requires a loco with water in the boiler at a reasonable working pressure, if a 4F couldn't deliver when needed, it's an inferior tool for the job regardless of what that task is. As I said early I'll ask my tame ex fireman. At 700 plus built over a 17 year period that gives plenty of scope for ironing out some of the issues.

[bike2steam]

Well according to Haresnape when the LMS needed more freight locos in 1937 the operations department insisted the 4F was adequate for their requirements, so if the crews weren't happy, operations were turning a deaf'n. But on the S&DJR the crews preferred their Bulldogs to their Armstrongs.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

In concept fine, unfortunately in all areas of detail quite out of date and under specified before they were even first built.

 

In comparison Bullied's Q1 was an excellent inside cylinder 0-6-0 which the LMS could have built an early version of as outlined in E S Cox's excellent work Locomotive Panorama Vol. II., the Class 4 2-6-0's of 1947 was instead the end result.

 

E S Cox describes very well the multitude of failings of the 4F's in his two volume work and is worth a read for any one interested in locomotive design and testing.

 

Gibbo.

[DCB]

The 4F was the standard Victorian 0-6-0 mixed traffic loco concept pushed beyond its limit. The line of development could be traced way back to around the late 1850s on the Birmingham and Gloucester.  There is little doubt they could have been a lot better if they had better (bigger) injectors. Peter Smith talks of being unable to refill the boiler quickly enough after breasting a summit even with both injectors working flat out.

They had lots of power and adhesion and again Peter Smith talks of 4MT 4-6-0s being unable to start loads the 4Fs coped with easily. 

The axle box issue is harder to understand.  There was no real reason the MR coudn't have fitted decent size axle bearings but they seemed to prefer to use fancy oils and the real problems came when the LMS economised with oil quality.   None of their contemporary post grouping build 0-6-0s were any better, the Maunsel Q was not exactly going to set the earth afire, The J39 wasn't great and the GWR had to detune their 2251s with a 200 psi safety valve on a 225psi boiler to get a decent life out of the bearings.

But 700 of the things...

[The Johnster]

I am a little wary of criticism of locos which have replaced older designs, particularly when the new design is a foreigner as is the case with the 4Fs on the Highland.  As well as company loyalty and the bother of learning where things were on a new type of loco from a different design pedigree, you have to consider that many jobs had been performed by the same type of loco for many years and the crews had got used to them.  They knew the jobs, and the locos, backwards inside out and with their eyes shut, including where and how much to fire, where to alter gear or regulator settings, where and when to brake, and where to inject water into the boiler, all ideally in some location you didn't have to look out for a signal.  At the end of the day, the job had been performed with the minimum amount of work, water, or coal, and if everybody wasn't happy they at least knew they'd done the best they could.

 

Introduce a new loco, and all this goes immediately and completely to pot, the whole job needs to be re-learned from scratch, and a feeling of mistrust of the new girl is developed which is never really got over in the minds of many locomen, who hanker for the return of the old loco that they knew they could do the job standing on their heads with.  'How did you get on with that new thing on the xxx pick up, then. Jim'. 'Rubbish, couldn't get her to steam and she blew off in the station, pile of scrap.  Used nearly all the coal; fireman was exhausted

 

(

The 4F was the standard Victorian 0-6-0 mixed traffic loco concept pushed beyond its limit. The line of development could be traced way back to around the late 1850s on the Birmingham and Gloucester.  There is little doubt they could have been a lot better if they had better (bigger) injectors. Peter Smith talks of being unable to refill the boiler quickly enough after breasting a summit even with both injectors working flat out.

They had lots of power and adhesion and again Peter Smith talks of 4MT 4-6-0s being unable to start loads the 4Fs coped with easily. 

The axle box issue is harder to understand.  There was no real reason the MR coudn't have fitted decent size axle bearings but they seemed to prefer to use fancy oils and the real problems came when the LMS economised with oil quality.   None of their contemporary post grouping build 0-6-0s were any better, the Maunsel Q was not exactly going to set the earth afire, The J39 wasn't great and the GWR had to detune their 2251s with a 200 psi safety valve on a 225psi boiler to get a decent life out of the bearings.

But 700 of the things...

Lile I said, they were cheap, quick and easy to build and easy to maintain.)

 

 

'.  Every time the valves lift in the same place after trying to get it right for 4 or 5 years, the new loco is blamed and hated. 

 

If the new loco is a really first class design, it will make the men's day's work easier using the exact same technique as before, but this is rare and even then the men will find something to complain about; the cab is too big or the seat too comfortable. that sort of thing.  Of course, if anyone bothered to learn new technique with the new loco it'd perform even better, but nobody ever did.

 

 

 

Move on 20 years and they've got used to it, then some silly b*gger comes along with something completely different again!  Railwaymen are very small c conservative, and once they've nailed a job they like to repeat the job nailing performance ad infinitum even if somebody suggests an even better way; stick with what you know is the rule and you'd better not try to break it!  This is a bit of an exaggeration, but not too much of one!

 

This is not to say that company loyalty and a conviction that everything was better in the good old days (i worked on the railway in the 70s when everything really was better in the good old days) are not major factors in the formation of locomen's opinions of new, or new to them locos.  Once word gets around, railway journalists repeat it and it becomes lore.

Edited August 24, 2018 by The Johnster

[w124bob]

And on a different note, class 31's. An overweight, parafin burning two stroke......... which I have many happy memories of during my career at Manchester Victoria, now where did I put those rose tinted specs! We as train crew just got on with the job, even when it was another trip round the Oldham loop on a 142, oh my aching back, ears, buttocks.

[Sheffield]

As long as the railways operated in the Victorian manner, which they generally did until after the steam age, for ordinary every day secondary duties all that was required was asimple 0-6-0. Anything "better" was bigger, heavier and more expensive. Exactly as was found with Ivatt's 4MT for most duties. And a "modernised" 4F 0-6-0 , with better steam circuit etc would have been potentially too fast for a 0-6-0 chassis.This was the difficulty that prevented the production of a 4F replacement in Stanier's time.

I suggest the Operating dept requested more 4Fs was because they realised that for most of the work for which they wanted them they were the cheapest means of fulfilling their need.

Experience in presevation has shown that the some what poor steaming of the 4F could have been improved without too much expense, and if we want to criticise the operators for wanting more of them perhaps was should criticise Stanier for doing nothing about some of their shortcomings. Much money was spent on making his designs work properly, but very little on impoving the pregrouping classes inheritied by the LMS.

 

Also it does seem that most of the critism of the 4Fs came from other than ex Midland Railway areas. Railway men were notoriously conservative, and if Grandfather had not used a 4F they were no good for us.

[brack]

I don't think you can write all complaints off as dislike of change/foreign locos. It very much depended on whether or not the loco was an improvement. GSWR men seemed to like the 2P (from what I recall, it's been years since I read Smith), Highland crews liked the black 5 etc.

If you try to replace what they're used to with something that's no better but forces them to change their routines/habits there's be grumbling. If you took away what they were used to and gave them something inferior, there'd be lots of complaining, especially if it came from a foreign company (eg. The greybacks on the GSWR).

[Buhar]

GSWR men seemed to like the 2P (from what I recall, it's been years since I read Smith), 

 

They'd tak them tae their bed, if they could.

 

The writings of David L Smith should be re-read at least annually to maintain a sunny disposition.

[PMP99]

Remember some very concerned passengers at Grosmont wanting to know if the on loan 4F would make it to Goathland

 

And did it? 

[Gibbo675]

I was once an optical glass press operator in Chance-Pilkington and I would find it strange if people were talking authoritatively about my press on RMweb when they had never worked on one. Same with 4F's......   

 

What we have here is lineside superintendents fencing with words they have only read in publications as if it were they that had found the 4F's poor machines!  I mean like firemen and drivers were discussing inadequate bearings, injectors, Fowler or his merry men while plodding along to the next signal and putting it all in a report at the end of a shift.  It was a machine and footplate men used their experience to coax the best out of each one, just as I did on my optical press.   

Hi There,

 

I speak as I find, I also spent twenty years at Riley and Son's of Bury, twelve of which I was in charge of the works. Take it from me 4F's are not that brilliant !

 

The Crab on the other hand was a far better machine with only the need to drop the driving wheels out if a pad collapsed being a silly problem.

 

Gibbo.

[pH]

I don't think you can write all complaints off as dislike of change/foreign locos.

It very much depended on whether or not the loco was an improvement. GSWR men seemed

to like the 2P (from what I recall, it's been years since I read Smith)

  

They'd tak them tae their bed, if they could.

 

The writings of David L Smith should be re-read at least annually to maintain a sunny disposition.

 

And they liked the Compounds. The G&SWR section held on to their 2Ps and Compounds for a long time. 4 of the last 5 Scottish Region compounds were withdrawn from Stranraer. Ex-G&SWR sheds kept 2Ps in numbers into the 1960s - Hurlford especially. One of the very last 2Ps (in fact, possibly the last 2P) in service was 40670 of Dumfries.

 

If you try to replace what they're used to with something that's no better but forces them to change their routines/habits there's be grumbling. If you took away what they were used to and gave them something inferior, there'd be lots of complaining, especially if it came from a foreign company (eg. The greybacks on the GSWR).

Interestingly, D.L. Smith implies that the 'Greybacks' (Caledonian '60' class and LMS developments) were reasonably well received when they first arrived on the ex-G&SWR section. Some crews seemed to be getting performances out of them that hadn't been seen when they were on ex-Caledonian lines. However, when levels of maintenance went down after the start of WW2, the Greybacks seemed to be especially affected, leading more to 'loathing' rather than 'grumbling'.

 

As far as the 4Fs were concerned, there never seemed to be a concentration of them in any one area in Scotland. So there would be individual locomotives in amongst lots of 'native' 0-6-0s at sheds, possibly requiring different handling - not a situation designed to make them very popular. I've seen a picture of one on the Hurlford breakdown train, and 44255 was the Fort William snowplough engine for some years, which perhaps suggests they could be spared for standby duties.