Imaginary Locomotives

[tythatguy1312]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, locomotive development would have followed the route set by Raven's electrics. The GNR probably wouldn't have ordered the A1s as the writing would have been on the wall for express passenger steam locomotive development - no Raven pacifics, either. The situation might have been more like that on the Southern, where investment was focused on electrification, largely to the detriment of steam development - but with the difference that LNER electrification would have been chiefly on the long-distance main lines, whereas on the Southern, those were the lines that retained steam.

I'm going over what types of locomotive may flourish under this and this could lead the GNR into building a light 4-6-0 for secondary traffic and heavy branch work in place of the A1's, something along the lines of the Raven B16's. There isn't exactly concept art so... idk picture Henry the green engine, he's pretty close.

[tythatguy1312]

36 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

I suppose that touches on another "what if" scenario.

If North Sea oil hadn't happened, maybe the relative costs of diesel traction using imported oil vs electrification using home grown coal would have been more favourable towards the latter?

I have no doubts that electrification would be more popular without north sea oil. Lines like the Woodhead route may have never lost their wires, and the 1973 oil crisis may have prompted earlier ECML electrification. On an industrial scale, steam & fireless types may have survived as far as the 1990's due to the increased price of oil. There's no preventing main line dieselisation (oil was only struck proper in 1964) but it would've accelerated proposals for electrification and slowed down private steam withdrawal.

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, tythatguy1312 said:

I have no doubt that the Deltics would've at least been tried had the ECML been electrified, their power was (at the time) only exceeded by Union Pacific's turbine giants. However I have my doubts when it comes to their reliability, especially when it concerns their running over the rather hilly WCML. Ultimately they may have gone the same way as the 52's.

 

I think it's impossible to say.  In the real world, the LMR trialled the Prototype Deltic but Wikipedia claims that J.F. Harrison, the CMEE of the region, was not in favour high speed diesel engines for traction use and in any case electrification was on the way.  Gerard Feinnes on the ER believed that 3000hp was necessary to deliver accelerated services that could compete with air and road and recognised that in the late 1950s the Deltic was the only single unit diesel capable of providing this.

 

So it really depends on the details of your alternative world.  It's quite possible that the LMR would have attempted to dieselise with medium speed engines.  Perhaps they would have ended up with EE or Sulzer powered locos in the 2700+hp range?  Perhaps they would have pursued other routes to high powered single unit diesels and we'd have seen a fleet of HS3500s?

 

If Deltics had been used on the WCML I don't see any reason to think they would have struggled in the hills.  They were built to deliver high power for extended periods.

[The Johnster]

And that's the problem with them on hills; what goes up must come down. Carnforth, Carlisle, and Glasgow are not far above sea level but the bits in between are lumpy, so there is no so much opportunity for high power over extended periods; it has to be shut off when you are coming down the hills.  The Deltic prime mover is firstly a marine engine for fast patrol boats, configured for running at a continuous speed under a specified load; the ECML provides more of this than the WCML.

 

If the ECML regions hadn't ordered them, I doubt the production Deltics would have ever been built, as nobody else was willing to stump up the operating costs for these prima donnas.  Not saying other places didn't have to stump up heavy operating costs for failed concepts such as the Warships and eventually the 50s, but they didn't plan to...

 

As with a lot of these discussion, the root of the problem is in the flawed data from the Rugby Testing Centre, which underrated steam power by about 25-30% and led to the 1955 Plan specifying underpowered diesels to replace it.  8P steam was equated to Type 4 diesel, the initial iteration of which were the hopelessly inadequate but at least reliable Class 40 and the almost as inadequate Warships.  Ivatt had got it right with the twins, 1,600=Black 5, 3,200=Duchess, and had BR followed up on this we might have had a successful range of high-powered second generation turbocharged type 3/4s Co-Cos of around 2khp capable of most run-of-the-mill jobs singly and anything in multiple, weighing in at about 110tons each.

 

Ivatt's diesel concept was much influenced by US practice, the only place that had much experience with diesels of this size and capacity in the late 40s, and mulitple lashups were grist to this mill.  This was why the pilot scheme diesels all had gangway connecting doors.  The Deltic was overcomplex and ahead of it's time in 1955, but a very different concept; a high powered single unit loco (actually two locos in one bodyshell, as were the WR hydraulics), and as a proof of concept it was a remarkable machine given the limitations of the loading gauge and route availability; American locos could be literally twice the physical size!  But as a practical day-to-day answer to British requirements, it was an expensive primadonna and really only suited to one route, the ECML (though the prototype did well on the heavy Liverpool-Euston trains).

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

(though the prototype did well on the heavy Liverpool-Euston trains).

 

A route pretty much comparable to the ECML in terms of gradients. 

[The Johnster]

10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A route pretty much comparable to the ECML in terms of gradients. 

Quite, and the old turbomotive’s job, another situation where continuous high power could be exploited to advantage. 

[Flying Pig]

17 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

And that's the problem with them on hills; what goes up must come down. Carnforth, Carlisle, and Glasgow are not far above sea level but the bits in between are lumpy, so there is no so much opportunity for high power over extended periods; it has to be shut off when you are coming down the hills.  The Deltic prime mover is firstly a marine engine for fast patrol boats, configured for running at a continuous speed under a specified load; the ECML provides more of this than the WCML.

 

The ECML at the time the Deltics were built demanded plenty of changes to power output - it was not the continuous 100mph+ railway it later became.  The production Deltics would have coped with the WCML (the Prototype did).  I doubt they would have been built in the first place though.

 

20 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

these prima donnas

 

Twice in one post now I see! For God's sake change the record or at least buy a Thesaurus.

 

Of course, a multiple-unit approach to dieselising the WCML would have been perfectly practical.  EE Type 4s did run in multiple in the early days as did Class 50s ten years later, but in both cases electrification was on the way and it could be sold as a stopgap.  I doubt whether replacing one steam loco with two expensive diesels would have been politically acceptable.

[rodent279]

I suppose to some extent a Deltic is just that-two expensive diesels working in multiple. They are just in the the same bodyshell.

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

I suppose to some extent a Deltic is just that-two expensive diesels working in multiple. They are just in the the same bodyshell.

 

Cunning, eh?

 

But tell me do, just what is wrong with two engines to one train?

[rodent279]

Nothing, I guess, as long as platforms & signalling can accommodate the extra length of train. There is obviously going to be an increase in maintenance costs for things like brake blocks & tyre turning if your are basing your operational model on 2 locos per train, but that's a policy decision that might be taken on the chin if it means you can have a single common fleet capable of working high speed, heavy passenger trains in multiple, and lighter duties singly.

I don't see Deltics as prima donnas, more as a one trick pony, a tool designed for a particular purpose, much like a spanner designed to fit a particular nut, and they fitted the ECML-shaped nut very well. Would pairs of 37's in multiple operating at 100mph have been up to the same job? Who knows, maybe, maybe not. 

Whether Deltics would have been as successful on the WCML, with it's more varied route and traffic demands, is an interesting debate.

Edited October 25, 2022 by rodent279

[The Johnster]

Basically, it’s twice as expensive as one engine to one train in terms of repaying the money you borrowed to buy them, maintaining them, and providing them with fuel, coolant, siding space and so on.  The power/weight ratio is not optimised either, and when there are no multiple controls, such as with steam* you have to pay for an extra crew.  

Could the GW’s auto linkage have been used in this way?  You’d still need two firemen, of course. 

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Could the GW’s auto linkage have been used in this way?  You’d still need two firemen, of course. 

 

Better the Midland / LMS vacuum-controlled regulator, though the way that was set wasn't designed with optimum steam flow to the cylinders - it was intended for slow ambling local stopping trains, not continuous high-power work. 

 

12 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Nothing, I guess,

 

I stroll off along the goal line leaving the back of the net wide open... 

[DenysW]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Now if York-Newcastle had been electrified as intended in the latter half of the 1910s, with the rest of the route following on swiftly at grouping, we'd have been spared Flying Scotsman et al.!

Although I hate to disagree with @Compound2632, the Newcastle electrification was 3rd-rail 600V DC, very close to SER/Southern's 3rd-rail 660V DC. If they'd extended to Leeds, York and towards Berwick, I think they'd have done so on the 3rd-rail DC system (which seems least intrusive against the UK loading gauge), and had the express as steam and the local&semi-fast as electric. And thus been similar to Southern (after Grouping), in keeping steam on the longest-distance routes, with slowly creeping electrification gradually resetting what got to be called 'long distance'.

 

This would have minimised annoyance for their locked-in partnership with Great Northern, and so not spared us the incomprehensible obsession with Flying Scotsman (the locomotive and the service), and the desire to get to/escape from Scotland as fast as possible.

 

I haven't thought through the implications of trying to operate water troughs alongside 3rd-rail DC, but suspect quadrupling would have been needed for those sections. Southern had no troughs so didn't care.

[Compound2632]

22 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Although I hate to disagree with @Compound2632, the Newcastle electrification was 3rd-rail 600V DC, very close to SER/Southern's 3rd-rail 660V DC. If they'd extended to Leeds, York and towards Berwick, I think they'd have done so on the 3rd-rail DC system (which seems least intrusive against the UK loading gauge), and had the express as steam and the local&semi-fast as electric. And thus been similar to Southern (after Grouping), in keeping steam on the longest-distance routes, with slowly creeping electrification gradually resetting what got to be called 'long distance'.

 

This would have minimised annoyance for their locked-in partnership with Great Northern, and so not spared us the incomprehensible obsession with Flying Scotsman (the locomotive and the service), and the desire to get to/escape from Scotland as fast as possible.

 

I haven't thought through the implications of trying to operate water troughs alongside 3rd-rail DC, but suspect quadrupling would have been needed for those sections. Southern had no troughs so didn't care.

 

 

[Embedded link to Wikimedia commons.]

 

The proposed main line electrification was to be based on the 1,500 V dc system used for the Shildon - Newport line:

 

 

[Embedded link to LNER Encyclopedia.]

 

The Tyneside passenger network used the 600 V dc third rail system.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Compound2632
Edit: spelling it out in case the photo of No. 13 didn't speak the thousand words!

[tythatguy1312]

16 minutes ago, DenysW said:

the implications of trying to operate water troughs alongside 3rd-rail DC

I do believe that this is a wonderful way to fry any poor lad who happens to make contact with the tracks

Edited October 25, 2022 by tythatguy1312

[The Johnster]

Fzzzzzzzzzt!
 

Good for steam-raising, though…

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, DenysW said:

I haven't thought through the implications of trying to operate water troughs alongside 3rd-rail DC, but suspect quadrupling would have been needed for those sections. Southern had no troughs so didn't care.

 

Yes indeed. When the LNWR electrified the suburban service to Watford, a new pair of lines was laid, separate from the main and relief lines. I've seen a photo of the splash boards installed alongside Bushey troughs, but can't just now think where.

[AlfaZagato]

Usually, the big stopping point for any electrification scheme was stringing the wires (or laying the rails, if going third or fourth rail.)  Accounts take on initial outlay and labor for what has always been large amounts of a semiprecious metal (copper) against expected savings from fuel.   I have to imagine most UK schemes also considered possible returns from supplying domestic power from company-owned plants.   That option, in the timeframes we're largely talking, has a knock-on effect on another rail-served industry, gas plants.

 

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, AlfaZagato said:

I have to imagine most UK schemes also considered possible returns from supplying domestic power from company-owned plants. 

 

In fact the NER Shildon-Newport electrification scheme drew its power from the public electricity company. 

[john new]

3 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

… snipped…..

 

I doubt whether replacing one steam loco with two expensive diesels would have been politically acceptable.

What they did on the Southern when retiring the 9Fs from the Ex-Fawley oil trains. My recollection is one 9F and about 50 tanks swapping later to 2 x 25 tank trains with a D65xx on each train.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by john new
Snipped the irrelevant bits from the replying to quote.

[Flying Pig]

15 minutes ago, john new said:

What they did on the Southern when retiring the 9Fs from the Ex-Fawley oil trains. My recollection is one 9F and about 50 tanks swapping later to 2 x 25 tank trains with a D65xx on each train.

 

 

Yes you can get away with it with a single freight flow that isn't much in the public (as opposed to enthusiast) eye.  I don't think it would have been so easy to make double heading the basis of dieselising the Premier Line, even though that route wouldn't have had quite the same spotlight shone on it if it hadn't become Britain's New Railway.

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

I don't think it would have been so easy to make double heading the basis of dieselising the Premier Line, even though that route wouldn't have had quite the same spotlight shone on it if it hadn't become Britain's New Railway.

 

I take the long view. It's not as if double-heading hadn't long been customary on the Premier Line:

 

 

[Tamworth Low Level, mid-late 1920s (certainly not August 1922 as claimed by the Our Warwickshire website, to which this is an embedded link).]

[Flying Pig]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I take the long view. It's not as if double-heading hadn't long been customary on the Premier Line:

 

 

Fair enough.  Pairs of Type 3s it is then, as envisaged by Ivatt.  The LNWR naming tradition was delightfully eclectic, so I'm imagining a train pulled by Mendel's Peas* and John D Profumo (later renamed of course). 

 

*an experiment

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

I'm imagining a train pulled by Mendel's Peas* and John D Profumo (later renamed of course). 

 

*an experiment

 

Brilliant!

[john new]

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Yes you can get away with it with a single freight flow that isn't much in the public (as opposed to enthusiast) eye.  I don't think it would have been so easy to make double heading the basis of dieselising the Premier Line, even though that route wouldn't have had quite the same spotlight shone on it if it hadn't become Britain's New Railway.

Double headed Class 50s were used up to Glasgow. Two locos and no banker, speed up the service due to no water stops, efficiency savings on crews, less filth/Clean Air Act etc.  Those seem saleable points to me for the marketing people to have used had the Ivatt model been followed.