Imaginary Locomotives

[Compound2632]

The difference is in load/unload speed. The 4-VEP is legendary for that though...

 

My few years as a season ticket holder on the Reading line ran from the start of the SWT franchise to just before the arrival of the Juniper units. The trains were usually formed of a pair of 4-VEPs; occasionally a 4-CIG (or similar) would be substituted for one of the 4-VEPs - when that happened I knew I stood a good chance of missing my connection at Twickenham.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Compound2632

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

That design for a Heathrow service would have been a disaster. No space for luggage!

Integrated baggage check in at whatever station the passenger boarded the airport service train. Some chance it might be in baggage reclaim when you landed.

[Bloodnok]

My few years as a season ticket holder on the Reading line ran from the start of the SWT franchise to just before the arrival of the Juniper units. The trains were usually formed of a pair of 4-VEPs; occasionally a 4-CIG (or similar) would be substituted for one of the 4-VEPs - when that happened I knew I stood a good chance of missing my connection at Twickenham.

I used to commute on pairs of 4-VEPs too. They set the benchmark for how fast people can get off a train. On arrival into the terminus in London, I'd estimate more than 50 people were on the platform before the train had even stopped, and most of the train would empty onto the platform within the next 10 seconds...

 

[Compound2632]

Not only that but they've bitten the "aircraft inspired" bug rather too much. The seating plan is straight out of an aircraft, quite possibly literally. And all the seats face the same way. Did they imagine turning all the coaches at the end of the run, or possibly even turning the seats within the coach?

 

Once clear of the tunnels, wings sprout out from either side and you're airborne. The inability to land with sufficient accuracy was the downfall of the idea. (Among other problems such as getting passengers into the right coach for their destination, uncoupling on take-off - think slip carriages? - and incompatibility of gauge for some destinations.)

[runs as required]

Acting on the axiom that a double decker is a train designed by a committee ( ) I’ve put this together from what was posted earlier in this thread.

As you can see the prototype XPDD is to be built in the land of the Prince Bishops by Hitachi using Talgo patents as part of the forthcoming trans-Pennine electrification project.

 

It also borrows the Swiss principle of having the compliant disabled access (power) cars top and tailing the non powered Talgo units.

Just to recap: Talgo offers a greater overall cross section for double deck seating including full access between short articulated units with access at mezzanine vestibules every pair of double deckers in the XPDD prototype.

Livery is my grandson's favourite dating from GNER journeys up from Kings+ way back in his primary school days.

 

dh

[brack]

You could make the wheels flangeless on the middle bogie. (It works for Hornby with their 4-6-2s.)

On the Yugoslavian narrow gauge there was a class of 2-4-2 (JZ 178) with both sets of driving wheels flangeless.

 

Once again, you couldn't make it up. I love the more esoteric narrow gauge systems around the world.

 

(A weird looking beast with double klose articulation - I think the leading/trailing wheels might've helped steer the driving axles, and I suspect the tread might be rather wider than usual - they were pretty successful and lasted 50 odd years, apparently they were fast smooth runners)

[Compound2632]

On the Yugoslavian narrow gauge there was a class of 2-4-2 (JZ 178) with both sets of driving wheels flangeless.

 

Once again, you couldn't make it up. I love the more esoteric narrow gauge systems around the world.

 

(A weird looking beast with double klose articulation - I think the leading/trailing wheels might've helped steer the driving axles, and I suspect the tread might be rather wider than usual - they were pretty successful and lasted 50 odd years, apparently they were fast smooth runners)

 

Evidently taking a leaf out of the Bristol and Exeter's book - except in the matter of gauge.

[LNWR18901910]

My profile just reached over 100 views and this is my 55th post. Here is the LNWR Mogul as it looks so far.

In case you are wondering about the red ochre undercoat, I have decided to give it the LMS crimson lake livery. Please let me know what you guys (and gals) think of the Mogul.

[Compound2632]

It's a sort of a cross between some sort of mixed-traffic version of a 'Greater Britain' 2-2-2-2 - though not a compound, evidently - and an 'Experiment' 4-6-0 with a leading radial axle in lieu of a bogie, in line with Webb's preferences. (In fact I think the B12 driving wheelbase and driving wheel diameter is pretty close to an 'Experiment'.) The tender looks more Whale than Webb.

 

I think that, in line with the 'Greater Britain' class boiler, the dome would be better in line with the leading coupled axle - it just looks a bit far back, notwithstanding the photo of the 'prototype'...

 

LNWR fully lined livery suits almost any engine but naturally I'm not likely to object to Midland red!

Edited September 25, 2017 by Compound2632

[Coryton]

Maybe you moved the seat backs like you do with some old-style trams.

 

Or indeed on Australian double decker EMUs....

[LNWR18901910]

It's a sort of a cross between some sort of mixed-traffic version of a 'Greater Britain' 2-2-2-2 - though not a compound, evidently - and an 'Experiment' 4-6-0 with a leading radial axle in lieu of a bogie, in line with Webb's preferences. (In fact I think the B12 driving wheelbase and driving wheel diameter is pretty close to an 'Experiment'.) The tender looks more Whale than Webb.

 

I think that, in line with the 'Greater Britain' class boiler, the dome would be better in line with the leading coupled axle - it just looks a bit far back, notwithstanding the photo of the 'prototype'...

 

LNWR fully lined livery suits almost any engine but naturally I'm not likely to object to Midland red!

Thanks! Actually, the Mogul is given the 'Big Four' treatment along with the running Number 1991 which is the year I was born.

[844fan]

It does look rather wonderful though I'm reliably informed that many of the French locos  actually had Gooch valve gear like this ex CF de l'Ouest 0-6-0 (SNCF class 3-030C)

3_-_SNCF_030_C_815 cc Alf van Beem.JPG

For some reason the Gooch development of Stephenson was far more popular with French railways than with ours.

 

If you saw the Burt Lancaster movie "The Train" it was one of these that was deliberately derailed to start the crash sequence at "Rive-Reine" (really Acquigny) This class of originally over 300 locos  had a remarkably long life with the first batch built in 1867 and the last of them still in service in the mid 1960s.

Whoa whoa whoa! That apparatus on that loco's Smokebox what is it?! I have seen something very similar on a Henry Huges Industrial and by the looks of this it could be the same kind of machine. Unless and I'm betting my assumption is right that it is a brake pump then it can't be the same as the engine I mentioned had nor fitted Brakes only it's hand brake and a van for it's trains.

[rockershovel]

Or indeed on Australian double decker EMUs....

Ok, now I'm trying to picture a double decker emu...

[rockershovel]

Whoa whoa whoa! That apparatus on that loco's Smokebox what is it?! I have seen something very similar on a Henry Huges Industrial and by the looks of this it could be the same kind of machine. Unless and I'm betting my assumption is right that it is a brake pump then it can't be the same as the engine I mentioned had nor fitted Brakes only it's hand brake and a van for it's trains.

Does look wonderfully Gallic though, doesn't it?

[Satan's Goldfish]

Ok, now I'm trying to picture a double decker emu...

 

 

[rockershovel]

Indeed, if it hadn't existed, can you imagine what many people would say about it's plausibility when you announce you're building a 2'6" gauge 3 cylinder compound tank for you several hundred mile long international railway.

Seems it may not have been wholly unique.

 

Found this http://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/compounds.html which, reading the description of the final "goods tank" locomotive, appears to suggest a 2-2-4-0T or 2-2-4-2T rather than the 4-2-2-2T or 2-2-2-2T wheel arrangements of the others. The first 4-2-2-2T type appears to have retained its original bogie, having been converted from a Beyer Peacock 4-4-0T, but I assume the leading bogie on the narrow-gauge design was due to axle loading requirements?

Edited September 26, 2017 by rockershovel

[DavidB-AU]

Or indeed on Australian double decker EMUs....

These are the flipover seats on the double deck intercity and Warratah suburban sets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSW_TrainLink_V_Set_upper_deck.JPG

 

Cheers

David

[Compound2632]

Seems it may not have been wholly unique.

 

Found this http://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/compounds.html which, reading the description of the final "goods tank" locomotive, appears to suggest a 2-2-4-0T or 2-2-4-2T rather than the 4-2-2-2T or 2-2-2-2T wheel arrangements of the others. The first 4-2-2-2T type appears to have retained its original bogie, having been converted from a Beyer Peacock 4-4-0T, but I assume the leading bogie on the narrow-gauge design was due to axle loading requirements?

 

The LNWR compound tanks have a chapter to themselves in Talbot's An Illustrated History of LNWR Engines (OPC, 1985).

 

The first one, No. 2063, was, as you say, converted in 1884 from one of a batch of Beyer Peacock Metropolitan-type 4-4-0Ts, becoming a 4-2-2-0T with Webb's usual arrangement of the outside HP cylinders driving the rear axle and the single large inside LP cylinder driving the leading axle - so the outside cylinders were further to the rear than the original outside cylinders. Otherwise it retained much of its Beyer Peacock look and kept its condensing gear. (Some of the other engines of this class were given extended bunkers and standard Crewe cabs, becoming 4-4-2Ts - a regular hippogriff, head of a Beyer Peacock, body of a Watford tank. I think they have the distinction of being the LNWR's only 19th century ten-wheelers.)

 

Following this experiment, in 1885 Webb produced a 2-2-2-2T No. 687 that was essentially a compound version of the contemporary Mansion House tanks. He followed this up in 1887 with a larger-wheeled 2-2-2-2T, No. 600 - in some ways a prototype for the Watford tanks but not as big - this was the 3,000 engine built at Crewe (and hence photographed with that number). The 2-2-4-0T, No. 777, was built about the same time - the rear pair of axles being coupled and driven by the HP cylinders, giving one a chance of getting away with a goods train, I suppose. As far as I can work out, by the 1890s these three compound tanks were all shedded at Buxton and used on the Manchester passenger trains. There's a topic on a build of a 4 mm scale model No. 777 - effectively a test build for what is now, I believe, a LRM kit (though not yet on their website).

 

If ever there was a group of engines that ought to have remained imaginary, these were they!

[Hroth]

These are the flipover seats on the double deck intercity and Warratah suburban sets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSW_TrainLink_V_Set_upper_deck.JPG

 

Cheers

David

Damn narrow seats! Who are they supposed to seat?  Stick insects?

[runs as required]

Interesting pic of the Ozzt double decker seats. I was wondering about seat width in my Talgo XPDD prototype above (especially running on standard as opposed to Iberian gauge).

The choice of Talgo format was to maximise body width* by not being limited by the  'throw over' of say a Mark 3 coach against a curved platform.face I was wondering whether there was some restriction to distance between platform wall face and lower coach side to offer a last chance protection to people who may fall or be pushed from the platform into the path of the train.

 

The sill of the lower window being close to platform height could be disconcerting for modest boarding passengers.

But overall, the DD offers a maximum of seating spaces (which as I understand it) the railway has never ever offered unless an extra payment has been made..

dh

 

*as well as overall coach height from rail level.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Interesting pic of the Ozzt double decker seats. I was wondering about seat width in my Talgo XPDD prototype above (especially running on standard as opposed to Iberian gauge).

The choice of Talgo format was to maximise body width* by not being limited by the  'throw over' of say a Mark 3 coach against a curved platform.face I was wondering whether there was some restriction to distance between platform wall face and lower coach side to offer a last chance protection to people who may fall or be pushed from the platform into the path of the train.

 

The sill of the lower window being close to platform height could be disconcerting for modest boarding passengers.

But overall, the DD offers a maximum of seating spaces (which as I understand it) the railway has never ever offered unless an extra payment has been made..

dh

 

*as well as overall coach height from rail level.

 

How does the XPDD prototype achieve the unloading times of a 4VEP?

[Corbs]

(Some of the other engines of this class were given extended bunkers and standard Crewe cabs, becoming 4-4-2Ts - a regular hippogriff, head of a Beyer Peacock, body of a Watford tank. I think they have the distinction of being the LNWR's only 19th century ten-wheelers.)

I rather like that Hippogriff!

[LNWR18901910]

The LNWR compound tanks have a chapter to themselves in Talbot's An Illustrated History of LNWR Engines (OPC, 1985).

 

The first one, No. 2063, was, as you say, converted in 1884 from one of a batch of Beyer Peacock Metropolitan-type 4-4-0Ts, becoming a 4-2-2-0T with Webb's usual arrangement of the outside HP cylinders driving the rear axle and the single large inside LP cylinder driving the leading axle - so the outside cylinders were further to the rear than the original outside cylinders. Otherwise it retained much of its Beyer Peacock look and kept its condensing gear. (Some of the other engines of this class were given extended bunkers and standard Crewe cabs, becoming 4-4-2Ts - a regular hippogriff, head of a Beyer Peacock, body of a Watford tank. I think they have the distinction of being the LNWR's only 19th century ten-wheelers.)

 

Following this experiment, in 1885 Webb produced a 2-2-2-2T No. 687 that was essentially a compound version of the contemporary Mansion House tanks. He followed this up in 1887 with a larger-wheeled 2-2-2-2T, No. 600 - in some ways a prototype for the Watford tanks but not as big - this was the 3,000 engine built at Crewe (and hence photographed with that number). The 2-2-4-0T, No. 777, was built about the same time - the rear pair of axles being coupled and driven by the HP cylinders, giving one a chance of getting away with a goods train, I suppose. As far as I can work out, by the 1890s these three compound tanks were all shedded at Buxton and used on the Manchester passenger trains. There's a topic on a build of a 4 mm scale model No. 777 - effectively a test build for what is now, I believe, a LRM kit (though not yet on their website).

 

If ever there was a group of engines that ought to have remained imaginary, these were they!

I like the 4-4-2T. It'd be perfect for subruban branch lines.

[runs as required]

How does the XPDD prototype achieve the unloading times of a 4VEP?

Thanks for your interest. As a one time crushed sardine commuter on 4 VEPS I've been thinking about loading/unloading times  too. Can you point to any data on this compared to post slam door figures?

I started from contemporary Desiros - and found  this set of DD commuter train images.  Comments appreciated

dh

[844fan]

Does look wonderfully Gallic though, doesn't it?

It does look interesting but is it a vac pump or what? That is the big question here.