Imaginary Locomotives

[Murican]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

A Riddles Atlantic might be justified as a horse for light loads at high speeds, difficult to imagine on a railway whose blanket 75mph wartime speed limit was not lifted until 1953.  Based on the 5MT, a 4P with 7’ plus driving wheels, perhaps non-stop Paddinton-Oxford or KX/Liverpool St-Cambridge in an hour or so, 5-coach all-first or Pullman trains for university professors and others of that sort, but it was not until after the 1955 plan that the speeds would have been able to have been exploited, and the die was cast by then.  Maybe Glasgow-Edinburgh ‘Inter City’, non stop in half an hour. 

Possibly as far as Aberdeen?

 

Admittedly in addition to filling the 74XXX numbering, I also had the idea that Riddles would make them 3 cylinder engines as a test bed for ideas that evolve into my ideas for a Standard 9MT Mountain, which happens in part due to Gresley, Peppercorn, and Bulleid managing to built Mountains.

[DenysW]

Wash your mouth out!!!

 

It appears to have been a sin beyond redemption to mention "BR Standard" and "Inside cylinders" within the same paragraph. They'd quit on bigger/faster/better and were totally focused on easier/cheaper/more maintainable.

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, DenysW said:

Wash your mouth out!!!

 

It appears to have been a sin beyond redemption to mention "BR Standard" and "Inside cylinders" within the same paragraph. They'd quit on bigger/faster/better and were totally focused on easier/cheaper/more maintainable.

 

They built the Duke with three cylinders, so a small run of three-cylinder Atlantics with Caprotti valve gear doesn't seem quite beyond the bounds.

 

I think there was a Bulleid Atlantic up thread but I'm not sure if the pictures survived.

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

They built the Duke with three cylinders,

 

A non-standard standard.

[pete_mcfarlane]

A  Bulleid Atlantic would look very much like this SNCB type 12 that somebody has built in Minecraft.....

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/steam-train---type-12-belgium/

[Murican]

40 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

They built the Duke with three cylinders, so a small run of three-cylinder Atlantics with Caprotti valve gear doesn't seem quite beyond the bounds.

 

To be fair, I did have the idea of giving these fictional Atlantics Walscherts instead.

[rodent279]

4 hours ago, Murican said:

Possibly as far as Aberdeen?

 

Admittedly in addition to filling the 74XXX numbering, I also had the idea that Riddles would make them 3 cylinder engines as a test bed for ideas that evolve into my ideas for a Standard 9MT Mountain, which happens in part due to Gresley, Peppercorn, and Bulleid managing to built Mountains.

Hmm....a 3cyl 9F as a 2-8-2, perhaps with 5'8" wheels?  Could be quite the beast.

[Flying Pig]

10 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

I think there was a Bulleid Atlantic up thread but I'm not sure if the pictures survived.

 

They did:

 

 

[PhilJ W]

30 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

They did:

 

 

There's no photo.

[DenysW]

10 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

They built the Duke with three cylinders,

Yes, but in the time of BR Standards the only reason to have 3 cylinders was to supply more power than was possible within the loading gauge using two external cylinders. Same engineering logic as Gresley in the 1920s, different emphasis. So a non-standard Standard to get a 8P or 9P out of 6 driving wheels- maybe. The same for 4 driving wheels - not needed, back to washing your mouth out time.

[Flying Pig]

2 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Yes, but in the time of BR Standards the only reason to have 3 cylinders was to supply more power than was possible within the loading gauge using two external cylinders. Same engineering logic as Gresley in the 1920s, different emphasis. So a non-standard Standard to get a 8P or 9P out of 6 driving wheels- maybe. The same for 4 driving wheels - not needed, back to washing your mouth out time.

 

But we're already waving our hands quite vigorously about to get an Atlantic built in the 1950s at all.  It shouldn't be difficult to extend the arguments to require more or smoother power from the loco than two outside cylinders can provide.  I'm already wondering about german-style streamlining, perhaps using parts of the Skylon.

[JimC]

In Churchward's day a big part of the four cylinder locomotives was smoother running (passenger comfort) and longer intervals between overhauls, whilst four driving wheels against six meant smoother freer running at the cost of adhesion. So if you can construct scenarios in which those concerns are still valid with the technology changes in the meantime then you have some sort of case.

Edited July 23, 2022 by JimC

[whart57]

Surely the whole point of the BR standard classes was to produce robust locomotives to do a job in the immediate post war conditions until electrification could be achieved. Thoughts of galloping Atlantics for high speed expresses during the mid 1950s can't even have been pipe dreams.

[sncf231e]

12 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

A  Bulleid Atlantic would look very much like this SNCB type 12 that somebody has built in Minecraft.....

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/steam-train---type-12-belgium/

Regards

Fred

[tythatguy1312]

7 hours ago, whart57 said:

Surely the whole point of the BR standard classes was to produce robust locomotives to do a job in the immediate post war conditions until electrification could be achieved. Thoughts of galloping Atlantics for high speed expresses during the mid 1950s can't even have been pipe dreams.

my idea for the Riddles Atlantic wasn't to supplement older 4-6-2's on high speed work, but to displace them to more important freight working whilst a more economical locomotive with similar power handled the work, as well as allowing for widespread replacement of 4-4-0's on what little work was left for them.

[whart57]

1 minute ago, tythatguy1312 said:

my idea for the Riddles Atlantic wasn't to supplement older 4-6-2's on high speed work, but to displace them to more important freight working whilst a more economical locomotive with similar power handled the work, as well as allowing for widespread replacement of 4-4-0's on what little work was left for them.

 

Surely the 9F and the mixed traffic classes fitted those requirements.

[Ben Alder]

On 22/07/2022 at 10:46, tythatguy1312 said:

Luckily all 4 flavours of 6 coupled mainline locos in the UK were built in the UK, though the only notable tender 2-6-2's were LNER built. A 2-6-2 BR Standard could've been good, but I'm not really surprised by the faith in 4-6-0's that BR went with.

 

There you go....

 

 

[JimC]

3 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

Surely the 9F and the mixed traffic classes fitted those requirements.

Well for sure, but this is the imaginary topic. Nothing we speculate about was built, and mostly for good reasons. But we construct what ifs for our own amusement. 
The Atlantic type suits light and fast trains, whereas the traffic went the other way onto heavier moderate speed trains and the mixed traffic classes for most passenger work.  But if the railways had succeeded in moving goods traffic away from 25mph unfitted trains towards fast fitted trains - something the 9F would have been pretty good for and the mixed traffic 4-6-0s and 8 coupled classes even better at - then frequent light fast passenger trains might have fitted in the network better. And a move to fast fiitted freight was certainly desired, it just couldn't be implemented.

[pete_mcfarlane]

10 hours ago, sncf231e said:

Regards

Fred

Now that is a very nice model. 

[Flying Pig]

In 1951 the Eastern Region of British Railways introduced a fast limited-load boat train from Liverpool Street to Harwich.  Whilst B17 4-6-0s initially worked the service, it soon became clear that something else was needed to keep the exceptionally tight timing and this led to the building of the Standard Atlantics.  Named after coastal towns on both sides of the North Sea, the Atlantics put in sparkling performances until displaced by the rapidly expanding 1500V network in 1957.

 

Their final years were spent hauling the equally tightly timed Cambridge Buffet Express, a service well suited to their capabilities.  Withdrawal was planned for 1962, but was delayed by the troubled introduction of the Baby Deltic diesels, with the last steam hauled train not leaving Kings Cross until July 1964.  One of the locomotives Den Helder has been preserved, though not in running order.

 

The Baby Deltics of course later also became synonymous with the "Cambridge Buffet" and worked until full electric services to Cambridge started in 1979, being the last diesel locomotives to work regularly out of Kings Cross.

[The Johnster]

At the same time or very shortly afterwards, the WR expressed an interest in a fast non-stop limited load service to Oxford, later extending this diagram to include a daily non-stop rush hour Newbury all-first class commuter train for season ticket holders only, including free morning coffee and newspapers, and service to all seats.  A further batch of the 74xx atlantics were ordered for this, and a similar Bristol executive planned for which a 79xx semi-streamined 4-4-4 based on the Clans was drawn up.  
 

The WR atlantic order was cancelled in 1955, and the 4-4-4 never got as far as being ordered; the trains were eventually built in 1958 as all-first airconditioned 4-car unpainted aluminium bodied & powered on all cars, articulated between vehicles with close coupling and wide gangways, and geared for 90mph running.  Built at Swindon, stylistically they resembled the Swindon Class 120 and 126 sets but with 57’ vehicles. Only 5 sets were built and were not fitted with multiple unit though control so could only be used as stand-alone 4-car trains.  The 4-4-4 would have used the Clan boiler with the streamlined cowl providing smoke lifting, and British Caprotti valve gear. 
 

The all-first non-stop services were never profitable and withdrawn when Gerard Fiennes became regional GM, the dmu sets lingering for some time at Reading for charter work, and became associated with racetrack charters to Newbury, Ascot, Epsom, etc, and Henley Regatta.  From 1966 they were given the reversed grey/blue corporate Pullman livery, but were withdrawn in the early 70s having attracted complaints from charter customers about fumes and vibration.  The blue Bristol Pullman had in any case done that job from 1960.  

 

I reckon imaginary locomotives can have imaginary histories.  

[JimC]

57 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 Built at Swindon, stylistically they resembled the Swindon Class 120 and 126 sets but with 57’ vehicles.

Why 57' do you think? And for that sort of service might there have been a temptation to make them wider, perhaps with (some of) the Super Saloons fitted with through control so they could be used to strengthen the sets in the same way as was done with GW railcars? Mind you the extra width would have prohibited excursions to Epsom...

[The Johnster]

57' chosen because there were surplus brand new underframes available and to save weight.  The mk1 profile had been specified so width was already determined, and there was a story that the new unit trains (can't call them multiple unit) were rebuilt or altered as diesel sets after having been started as loco-hauled stock for the atlantics and 4-4-4s.  This suggests that the steam locos, on the WR at least, could have been hauling lightweight articulated airconditioned stock with wide gangways as early as 1957!

 

It raises the question of the bogies.  The only suitable candidate for articulated stock at the time was, I believe, the Gresley heavy duty, hardly a weight saver but lighter than two B1s or dmu bogies in articulation, and proven at high speed, and as a powered bogie on electric stock.  The steam locos would have easily been capable of 100mph+, but the overall line speed on the WR was 90mph until the HSTs came into service, not that all drivers observed this absolutely completely at all times.  The Warships, Westerns, and Hymeks were limited to 90mph, as were the Blue Pullmans, but all capable of a good bit more.  There was a post-steam culture of hammering diesels as fast as they'd go with whatever was on the drawhook to keep time irrespective of the line speed or the notice in the cab.

 

Reading, where there was a large dmu depot, seems like a viable home for them in charter service as well as the proposed Oxford and Newbury commuter trains, close to racecourse territory and London but not inconvenient for bookings further afield.  Ascot and Epsom are on Southern Region territory, but Waterloo is easily accessed from Reading.  Wimbledon and Rugby at Twickers might have generated some bookings for them as well; places the rich folks go to show off!  They might even have taken over a few 'Cunarder' duties from the Pullmans out of Waterloo for the QE2.

[DavidB-AU]

For that sort of service, personally I would have gone for a 4-6-4T. Think of the DR class 61 and the 4-coach Henschel-Wegmann train of 1935. In theory such a train should have been able to do Paddington to Oxford in under an hour and Bristol in about 1h45m.

[rockershovel]

On 23/07/2022 at 17:58, Ben Alder said:

 

There you go....

 

 

 

Interesting model and nice execution but it doesn't quite work aesthetically for me - I think a 2-6-2 needs to be longer in the boiler so the pony truck is squarely under the firebox 

Edited July 25, 2022 by rockershovel