Left hand drive?

[The Johnster]

This would be true of most GW tank engines as well, of course, but tank engines do not in general work their fireman as hard for long periods as a Brit on a South Wales express might.  And a Brit on such a train burned a ton more coal than a Castle on the same job, so nearly 20% more shovelling for the fireman; it is a testimony to the Brits that Canton crews regarded them as 'nearly as good' as a Castle!

[Gibbo675]

On 14/03/2019 at 13:59, Steamport Southport said:

 

We've had this before.

 

You are firing from the back to a hole in front of you, not the left or right hand sides. Unless it's a small tank locomotive with bunkers in the side sheets where firing would be sporadic.

 

What side the fireman stands has no bearing whatsoever on firing the locomotive as he's in the middle when firing. Look where the shovel plate is and where the firehole door is. They are in the middle.

 

 

Jason

Hi Jason,

 

I used to fire 76079 left handed while sat on the fireman's seat, BR Stds are good like that !

 

Gibbo.

[kevinlms]

On 15/03/2019 at 10:26, JeremyC said:

In one of his books Norman McKillop (Toram Beg) suggests the following: The reason for the driver originally being on the RH side was so, before full signalling, a driver could easily warn the driver of a train travelling in the opposite direction of any problems ahead of him 

You sure this description doesn't refer to knights jousting?

 

[Pacific231G]

On 14/03/2019 at 13:16, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

As a tank loco, they would be left hand drive a lot of the time.

True, but when travelling bunker first the driver doesn't have the boiler in the way. The GWR persisted with a right hand driving position but presumably their  sighting committees would have taken that into account when positioning signals. In practice I'm not sure it would have made that much difference. Apart from on a very straight track the boiler is going to get in the way much of the time in any case.

After the First World War, France's railways were allocated large numbers of German  locomotives  as reparations as well as 1800 ex US Army "Pershing" Consolidations. AFAIK all of those would have had right hand driving positions and it was never thought necessary to alter them. Left  hand drive was generally more common though  (Apart from Alsace-Lorraine, French mainline railways run on the left as in many other European countries including Britain)  

 

Most preserved lines are single track (many with a lot of tender first running)  but does anyone here actually have personal experience of driving tender locos at speed on double track lines?

 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Guest]

Interesting that the other night there was a program on about the Flying Scotsman,from a few years ago with Robson green,and it is still RH drive,I thought they had changed it to LH drive years ago , especially as it spends most of its time at speed on the mainline. But there is always a cab full of people so plenty of eyes to look out for signals I spose. 

[LMS2968]

As far as I know, it was converted in the mid-1950s. It's definitely left hand drive now and always has been in preservation.

Edited March 18, 2019 by LMS2968

[JeremyC]

According to the BRDatabase it was converted in 1954

[Gibbo675]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

True, but when travelling bunker first the driver doesn't have the boiler in the way. The GWR persisted with a right hand driving position but presumably their  sighting committees would have taken that into account when positioning signals. In practice I'm not sure it would have made that much difference. Apart from on a very straight track the boiler is going to get in the way much of the time in any case.

After the First World War, France's railways were allocated large numbers of German  locomotives  as reparations as well as 1800 ex US Army "Pershing" Consolidations. AFAIK all of those would have had right hand driving positions and it was never thought necessary to alter them. Left  hand drive was generally more common though  (Apart from Alsace-Lorraine, French mainline railways run on the left as in many other European countries including Britain)  

 

Most preserved lines are single track (many with a lot of tender first running)  but does anyone here actually have personal experience of driving tender locos at speed on double track lines?

 

Hi David,

 

Tender first on network rail is 45 mph irrespective of whether the tender type is a high sided Stanier or Gresley type to the full width of the cab or a BR standard with inset raves or a low sided GWR or Southern type. This is more to do with the instability of a lightly loaded tenders than for sighting purposes. 

 

My experience of working 45407 on the main line at speed is that should you know where the signals are you might cross the cab to look out for them or not, much in the same way that you might do running chimney first. That said crossing the cab is usually done by the driver asking for who ever is sitting on the fireman's seat to look out for the signal at the appropriate moment.

 

The greatest impediment to sighting signals is fog and that counts for what ever form of traction you may wish to mention, think trying to look through a bathroom window glass. The fitting of AWS and latterly TPWS is quite helpful in this respect although not so much back in the days of steam.

 

Gibbo.

[Guest]

I stand corrected. But the regulator deff looked like it was on the RH.

[LMS2968]

Ahh, don't the a3s have two regulator handles, one on each side?