Imaginary Locomotives

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 04/04/2022 at 16:34, The Johnster said:

The 9F is sometimes touted as the ultimate UK locomotive design, and there is a good bit of justification for this; it was simply built and scrapped a decade too early.

Personally Duke of Gloucester is more impressive but the 9F is a beast in its own right too.

[Mike 84C]

I sometimes watch a 66 pounding along at 60mph,on the GN/GE Joint,which runs past our village. With 40 or so containers on the drawbar and wonder how busy would I be with the shovel on a 9f. Bet I'd be lighter than 14st!

[JimC]

20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

..the meaning was somewhat obscure and you were rapidly losing the will to live.

Ah yes, left speak, almost a language of its own! In spirit closely related to, yet utterly opposed to management speak...

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by JimC

[JimC]

Mind you the last generation of steam damn well *should* have been the ultimate in British steam locomotive design. Arguably the Peppercorn A1 and the rebuilt Bulleids were the closest approach.  I've little knowledge of the detail design of the standards, but is there an argument that the 9F is not too much more than the same recipe drawn out a bit longer? Although I must also be fair and note how many times in history the 'same recipe drawn out a bit longer' was a comprehensive flop!

Edited April 6, 2022 by JimC

[tythatguy1312]

4 minutes ago, JimC said:

but is there an argument that the 9F is not too much more than the same recipe drawn out a bit longer?

not that I'm aware of. the 9F's were never designed with passenger work in mind, simply being an evolution of the WD 2-8-0's. The fact that they were better express passenger locos than the Britannias, A3's and Clans, particularly on straighter & shorter routes, was a happy accident.

Edited April 6, 2022 by tythatguy1312

[TerryD1471]

1 hour ago, tythatguy1312 said:

not that I'm aware of. the 9F's were never designed with passenger work in mind, simply being an evolution of the WD 2-8-0's. The fact that they were better express passenger locos than the Britannias, A3's and Clans, particularly on straighter & shorter routes, was a happy accident.

I think you're quite right that the 9Fs were to prove far more able than expected. I recall Donald Beale, the late lamented S & D driver describing them as the best engine for the S & D ever. Their exploits on the Red Dragon and on the ECML were surprising to many, including the "top brass", but I understand it might have come at some cost to the bearings.

 

You're right that the 9F was a development of the WD locos, but especially via the 2-10-0 design, where the flangeless centre drivers and the wide firebox were major common features.

 

I'm not sure about your comments about the three passenger types you mention. The Britannias never received double chimneys as a matter of design policy, supposedly because their steaming rate was never expected to exceed 30k lbs/hr. I would have expected a double chimneyed Britannia to have been a seriously better loco, which brings me on to the A3.  The double blastpipe A3s were reported to be excellent steamers, working turn and turn about with A4s and a great improvement on the single chimney versions. The Clans also were a "curate's egg." Some said they were feeble, some said they went well if you thrashed them. You pays yer money and you takes yer choice.

 

In terms of BR policy, I have never been able to understand why the 9Fs and Cl 4 4-6-0s were the major recipients of double chimneys. Why? It made no sense to me!

 

To return briefly to the main thrust of this thread, namely "imaginary locos", I do have a couple of design possibilities:-

1 A 9F LMS loco, being a 2A boiler on top of an extended 8F chassis to 2-10-0. Not sure if there was a traffic need for this, I just fancied the idea! It would anyway have been a WD 2-10-0  ahead of time.

 

2 A 7MT LMS 4-6-0 being a 2A boiler atop a beefed up Black 5 chassis (or a 2 cylinder Scot chassis with 6' wheels).

 

The 2A boiler was a proven excellent steam raiser and I was surprised it wasn't exploited more, notwithstanding it had a narrow firebox.

[TerryD1471]

On 05/04/2022 at 13:20, The Lurker said:

The LSWR G16 (4-8-0T hump shunter) and H16 tanks (4-6-2T cross London freight) were pretty heavy too, around 95 / 96 tons

I think that Drummond/Urie design policy stipulated very thick frames which probably explains the robustness, longevity & heaviness of these two tank engines and the S15/H15/N15 classes.

[tythatguy1312]

27 minutes ago, TerryD1471 said:

I have never been able to understand why the 9Fs and Cl 4 4-6-0s were the major recipients of double chimneys. Why? It made no sense to me!

the 9F's seem to have been BR's little testbed design when it came to potential improvements, with some having Franco-Crosti boilers and at least 1 having a Giesl Ejector (which if, tests with Edward Thomas were accurate, didn't work as advertised with slow locomotives or at slow speeds). I don't know why, as the 9f's were already a roaring success, but Riddles was fairly curious towards future development of steam locomotives.

[AlfaZagato]

Imagine what Chapleon could have managed with the 9F.   Supposedly, if we take his boasts about his ideas on the Big Boy.

[Mike 84C]

I cannot really see where a 9f was developed from a 8f WD 2-10-0 apart from the wheel arrangement  and wide firebox, to me as different as chalk and cheese. 9f was a far more sophisticated machine.

 9f's had very good steam passages so the engine could breath very easily, small wheels do not inhibit speed if the steam can get in and out of the cylinders quickly. Look at the N&W J1.

  The 9f was good on the S&D because the S&D has a roller coaster gradient profile, which does not encourage high speed but the loco has power enough to overcome this.

  It was "wire drawing" at the throttle which increased wear on the valves and pistons which put paid to regular 9f high speed exploits. Think of piston speeds, stopping and restarting at each end of the stroke, at speeds in the 70/80 mph mark. Its a wonder the gudgeon pins in the little ends took that kind of strain.

  Annesley 9f's on the runners were up in 60+ mark, I knew men that worked them.

[tythatguy1312]

18 minutes ago, AlfaZagato said:

 Supposedly, if we take his boasts about his ideas on the Big Boy.

looking at that thing's massive Boiler I assume the best option to modernise the Big Boy is to remove said Boiler, place it in a building to generate electricity and then use said electricity to power a 2-B-B-2 electric locomotive

[Mike 84C]

Chapelon was a genius, it was he that seems to be the first to understand about high temperature steam and smoothing of steam passages. For an understanding of his ideas I recommend "la Vapeor" mine is an English Language one.

[Corbs]

I guess this is about right for the 3 points of the triangle of doom choice - thoughts?

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Mike 84C said:

I sometimes watch a 66 pounding along at 60mph,on the GN/GE Joint,which runs past our village. With 40 or so containers on the drawbar and wonder how busy would I be with the shovel on a 9f. Bet I'd be lighter than 14st!

You might be surprised.  Modern freight wagons are fitted with roller bearings, and rolling resistance on curves is mimimal if they have bogies, and they tend to run at 'cruising speeds' for considerable distances compared to the 'traditional' railway.  A steam loco on a reasonably level track can trot along under fairly light steam and early cut-off once it is up to speed and has the train's momentum to help it, and coal and water usage will be relatively light compared to climbing banks or accellerating from rest.  A round or two per minute, 'little and often', spread evenly over the firebed would probably keep you popping along for hours.  You'd still shed some of the 14st, but it would within your capacity, I'd have thought; I'd even have a crack myself given the opportunity and plenty of tea, and a half decent driver as opposed to one of those ECML death or glory boys like Bill Hoole...

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, JimC said:

but is there an argument that the 9F is not too much more than the same recipe drawn out a bit longer?

 

I'd say that a 9F is a quantum advance over the WD 2-10-0, and arguably the only example of a British heavy freight loco with a 'pacific' big engine boiler.  8F 8-coupled locos, the pre-war go-to for heavy freight work, were much smaller in terms of boilers, cylinders, and fireboxes, sharing them with 4-6-0 mixed traffic types (28xx=Hall or Grange, Stanier 8F=Black 5, Thompson 01=B1).  9Fs were bigger in every dimenstion than any of these or the WD (the 8-coupled version of which was dimensionally based on the Stanier 8F), and the increase in driving wheel diameter made them capable of running at 70 and more. 

 

I'd argue that a freight loco with such a big boiler and wide firebox was a new concept in British practice.  Had dieselisation been delayed for whatever reason, it could easily have managed 90% of any main line work, passenger or freight, and would in fact have been more suited to the modern block trains that began to appear in the late 60s.  I used to play a game of 'what steam loco would this have been hauled by' back in the 70s, and any freight with a Type 4 diesel above Class 44 would by default be a 9F job. 

 

 

[rodent279]

1 minute ago, The Johnster said:

 

I'd say that a 9F is a quantum advance over the WD 2-10-0, and arguably the only example of a British heavy freight loco with a 'pacific' big engine boiler.  8F 8-coupled locos, the pre-war go-to for heavy freight work, were much smaller in terms of boilers, cylinders, and fireboxes, sharing them with 4-6-0 mixed traffic types (28xx=Hall or Grange, Stanier 8F=Black 5, Thompson 01=B1).  9Fs were bigger in every dimenstion than any of these or the WD (the 8-coupled version of which was dimensionally based on the Stanier 8F), and the increase in driving wheel diameter made them capable of running at 70 and more. 

 

I'd argue that a freight loco with such a big boiler and wide firebox was a new concept in British practice.  Had dieselisation been delayed for whatever reason, it could easily have managed 90% of any main line work, passenger or freight, and would in fact have been more suited to the modern block trains that began to appear in the late 60s.  I used to play a game of 'what steam loco would this have been hauled by' back in the 70s, and any freight with a Type 4 diesel above Class 44 would by default be a 9F job. 

 

 

So why not build a batch of the much vaunted 9F 2-8-2, with maybe 5'8" or 6' wheels, instead, for mainline passenger work, as well as 2-10-0's for freight work, and forget about all those Brits, & Clans?

Or are we back in "P2's were great engines, but there was no real work for them" territory?

[Michael Edge]

The WD locos were 2-10-0s in order to reduce the axle load, wide firebox to burn poorer coal, otherwise no real difference from the 2-8-0s. The BR heavy freight loco was originally intended to be a 2-8-2 with a Britannia boiler and 5'3" wheels, Riddles pointed out that his 2-10-0 had a wide firebox over the driving wheels so why not try that instead. It turned out to be a bit of a squeeze with an altered boiler and more restricted ashpan to get the biggest practicable driving wheel size but of course extremely successful. According to contemporary accounts there was a panic when management discovered that WR were running them at up to 90 mph - piston acceleration was the main concern but there is no evidence of any damage done to these locos.

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, TerryD1471 said:

In terms of BR policy, I have never been able to understand why the 9Fs and Cl 4 4-6-0s were the major recipients of double chimneys. Why? It made no sense to me!

I don't know about the Std4s but 9F got double chimneys because it made a significant difference to efficiency.  Further addition of a Giesl ejector to 92250 didn't, but that's possibly because it would have involved modifying existing locomotives instead of changing the design mid-build.

[AlfaZagato]

A very gross approximation, but the 9F was effectively a WD 2-10-0 built with less urgency.   The WD locos are austerity for a reason.   Riddles had a major hand in both designs.   He just had better resources for the 9F.

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

dimenstion

I think I might have meant dimension...

 

3 hours ago, rodent279 said:

So why not build a batch of the much vaunted 9F 2-8-2, with maybe 5'8" or 6' wheels, instead, for mainline passenger work, as well as 2-10-0's for freight work, and forget about all those Brits, & Clans?

Or are we back in "P2's were great engines, but there was no real work for them" territory?

 

Probably because there were plenty of fairly recent Big 4 fast mixed traffic engines and 5'3" is a little small for fast passenger work on a regular basis.  The Brits and Clans were mixed traffic designs and very capapble of the work they were intended for.  Of course, 9Fs proved on the ECML and with the 'Red Dragon' that fast running was possible with 5' wheels; Evening Star did not run out of steam, or coal to make it with, despite the increased number of piston strokes and steam used compared with a Brit.  But it was considered unwise to use the locos in this way on a regular basis in the interests of the hammer blow endured by the track and the longevity of bearings, piston glands, and other components.

 

9F's, including Evening Star which had already already proven capable of fast work with the 'Red Dragon', were fine on the S & DJ heavy passenger summer jobs, where 70mph was adequate.  For this reason, they'd have been just as capable on Freightliners.  The S & DJ had been looking for engines powerful and fast enough to handle the through passenger trains for years, and it always seems a little surprising to me that some of the WR's 9Fs were not fitted with steam heating to do it all year round.  Who knows, this might have even reduced operating costs sufficiently to keep the line open another decade or so, by which time the climate was less favourable towards closure of anything that didn't fit the image. 

 

The propose Riddles Mikado inevitably gets compared with the P2s, the only other comparable loco to compare them with, but they would have been quite different; 2 cylinder not 3 and much smaller driving wheels.  My personal opinion is that the P2s were of limited use because the single leading pony was less suitable than a 4 wheel bogie for the fastest work especially with a long coupled wheelbase on the curves, and not suffiient advance over the V2s to warrant continuing with; a pacific was more useful, and Thompson duly rebuilt them as pacifics in accordance with my theory, but the result failed to cover itself with glory which has coloured opinion of the rebuilds and his other pacifics

 

This begs the question of which is the better loco of the Riddles 9F and Mikado.  As the Mike was never built we'll never know, but in the event the 9F did everything it was designed for and a good bit that it wasn't, indubitably the best of the Standards.  The Mike might have worked with a Clan boiler, but the class 4MT moguls were pretty good in that sort of role and much cheaper to build and operate, with the same size driving wheels.

 

 

[JimC]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

arguably the only example of a British heavy freight loco with a 'pacific' big engine boiler. 

Yeah I guess you're right, and its certain that often enough a step up in size was less than successful. 

 

3 hours ago, rodent279 said:

So why not build a batch of the much vaunted 9F 2-8-2, with maybe 5'8" or 6' wheels, instead, for mainline passenger work,

Suggest the answer is that you normally want the cheapest - to maintain or run - locomotive that will do the work, and in both respects wouldn't a 4-6-2 be a bit cheaper than a 2-8-2 with the same boiler.

[2750Papyrus]

I would suggest that a closer comparison to the Riddles 2-8-2 existed in the Gresley P1, surely a locomotive ahead of it's time. 

 

Only 2 were built, possibly because of the availability of cheap ex ROD 2-8-0s, which were bought by the LNER in large numbers.  Had the latter not been available, it is likely that more P1s would have been built, and track improvements such as longer loops and refuges carried out on the ECML to accommodate on a routine basis the longer goods trains of which the P1 was capable.  In trials on passenger trains before the P2s were built, the P1 ran at speeds up to 65 mph successfully, so I see no reason why they should not have handled passenger trains in addition to goods trains such as the Windcutters of the GC route. 

 

Instead, as a small non-standard class embodying the conjugated valve gear, they were scrapped during WW2 by Thompson and it was the Riddles 9F that gave finally gave us a taste of what a Pacific-sized freight locomotive could accomplish.

[Northmoor]

45 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

9F's, including Evening Star which had already already proven capable of fast work with the 'Red Dragon', were fine on the S & DJ heavy passenger summer jobs, where 70mph was adequate.  For this reason, they'd have been just as capable on Freightliners.  The S & DJ had been looking for engines powerful and fast enough to handle the through passenger trains for years, and it always seems a little surprising to me that some of the WR's 9Fs were not fitted with steam heating to do it all year round.  Who knows, this might have even reduced operating costs sufficiently to keep the line open another decade or so, by which time the climate was less favourable towards closure of anything that didn't fit the image. 

Mmm, wishful thinking I think Johnster.  The only thing that might have deferred closure for a few more years would have been some attempt at a basic railway - there was none - but no DMUs were ever allocated to it and seemingly all stations remained fully staffed.  It was a very expensive route to operate.

Of course 9Fs might have helped one summer earlier if ASLEF members hadn't blacked them (because they did away with double-heading and thus lots of overtime), but everything I've read about the S&D suggests its appeal to enthusiasts is out of proportion to its importance as a route.  There is the conspiracy theory that the Western diverted all the traffic off it out of spite, but they diverted through trains onto a route that didn't require a reversal at Bath and actually served more significant settlements on the way to Southampton and Portsmouth, rather than rural Somerset and Dorset on the way to Bournemouth and Poole, which could be reached in much the same time with a change at Southampton.

 

I do wonder if one of the reasons the S&D does appeal so much to enthusiasts is that it is model railway in 12" to 1' scale.  It looks like a single track country branch line, with sharp curves, tunnels and you can run everything up to a 9F on it.

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

9F's, including Evening Star which had already already proven capable of fast work with the 'Red Dragon', were fine on the S & DJ heavy passenger summer jobs, where 70mph was adequate.  For this reason, they'd have been just as capable on Freightliners.

I can visualise a 9F thumping along at 60+ on liners. But for the need for SSC, they'd be equally at home on MGR's.

[John Besley]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

I do wonder if one of the reasons the S&D does appeal so much to enthusiasts is that it is model railway in 12" to 1' scale.  It looks like a single track country branch line, with sharp curves, tunnels and you can run everything up to a 9F on it.

 

And don't forget you can get away with pretty much most WR, SR and LMR locos including the odd ER loco on a summer Saturday