Imaginary Locomotives

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

On the subject of locos which defy the wildest imagination, what on Earth is THIS? 

 

 

More likely this.

[rockershovel]

4 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

More likely this.

Close, but no cigar... I think it's this, C&O Class M1 steam turbine, based on counting the axles and the distinctive firebox lower section ... the sheer size of these US steam turbines is astonishing ...

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by rockershovel

[AlfaZagato]

8 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Which according to the Web had a separate steam motor for each axle, following the then current practice for electric locomotives.  It appears that the motors are frame mounted and presumably there's a flexible drive to the wheel.  Probably one of those ideas that falls under 'worth a try'.

Buchli, maybe?   I can't quite tell where the output is on the steam motors.

[rodent279]

I don't think it has Buchli drives. 

[RedGemAlchemist]

23 hours ago, DenysW said:

This leaves aside whether Garratts and Kitson-Meyers are technically tank engines

From my point of view, they don't really classify as either tender or tank engines, but more animals entirely unto their own.

[rockershovel]

45 minutes ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

From my point of view, they don't really classify as either tender or tank engines, but more animals entirely unto their own.

.... which is how they are usually described, with Mallets and single Fairlies being the exceptions to the rule (I don't know of a Single Fairlie with a tender, and Mallets are easy to describe)

[John Besley]

11 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Close, but no cigar... I think it's this, C&O Class M1 steam turbine, based on counting the axles and the distinctive firebox lower section ... the sheer size of these US steam turbines is astonishing ...

 

 

Definitely 1950's steam punk in a more modern way 

[Flying Pig]

12 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Close, but no cigar... I think it's this, C&O Class M1 steam turbine, based on counting the axles and the distinctive firebox lower section ... the sheer size of these US steam turbines is astonishing ...

 

 

Which is what I linked above.

 

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/chesturb/chesturb.htm

[tythatguy1312]

Ah, the M-1. That mighty block of cheddar is a fun old thing to debate because of how much it and similar locos (pretty much just the French Heilmanns and Union Pacific turbines) attempted to so radically alter the very fundamentals of steam locomotion. 2 similar machines using steam-electric were built for the UK (both using turbines) but neither really worked very well.

[rockershovel]

20 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Which is what I linked above.

 

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/chesturb/chesturb.htm

I've managed to locate a (poor copy screenshot) of a GA. That's the one: the apparent "extra carrying axle" is the rear of the powered bogie

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by rockershovel

[tythatguy1312]

Something which should reasonably draw curiosity is the presence of a gap in the official designations of the LB&SCR E Class tank engines, with the E1's and E3's both carrying those designations nearly 10 years before the E2's came into the picture. Considering that this designation was created by Marsh, I will admit I'm curious as to what a theoretical Marsh E2 Class would've actually looked like and how it would've performed in service, as opposed to the overblown pile of mediocrity which was actually built. Would it simply have been the E1X?

Edited March 5, 2023 by tythatguy1312

[Nick Holliday]

9 hours ago, tythatguy1312 said:

Something which should reasonably draw curiosity is the presence of a gap in the official designations of the LB&SCR E Class tank engines, with the E1's and E3's both carrying those designations nearly 10 years before the E2's came into the picture. Considering that this designation was created by Marsh, I will admit I'm curious as to what a theoretical Marsh E2 Class would've actually looked like and how it would've performed in service, as opposed to the overblown pile of mediocrity which was actually built. Would it simply have been the E1X?

Sorry to disappoint you, but there was a real Stroudley E2 loco. In 1894 he produced No 157, Barcelona, which he called an E Special.

https://www.lbscr.org/Rolling-Stock/Locomotives/Stroudley/ES.xhtml

It was designed to haul goods trains on the Cuckoo Line, and was basically an E with a larger boiler and Gladstone cylinders. Although Marsh did allocate E2, the nomenclature never stuck, and it was called E1 before the Billinton tanks appeared. According to Bradley it came out in passenger livery, although designed for more humble duties, but was painted goods green in 1890. It was withdrawn in 1922.

[tythatguy1312]

8 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

Sorry to disappoint you, but there was a real Stroudley E2 loco. In 1894 he produced No 157, Barcelona, which he called an E Special.

https://www.lbscr.org/Rolling-Stock/Locomotives/Stroudley/ES.xhtml

It was designed to haul goods trains on the Cuckoo Line, and was basically an E with a larger boiler and Gladstone cylinders. Although Marsh did allocate E2, the nomenclature never stuck, and it was called E1 before the Billinton tanks appeared. According to Bradley it came out in passenger livery, although designed for more humble duties, but was painted goods green in 1890. It was withdrawn in 1922.

Well that does answer that question of paperwork, though it only really covers the answer of "why did the E3's exist 20 years before the E2's". That being said, the LB&SC seems to be a draw for theoretical locomotives, particularly as it's inherently well known and home to a number of designs which were flawed to degrees where improvement was possible but not done (E2's, B4X's, I4's, etc). Surely there's a lot of gaps worth filling.

[AlfaZagato]

Worth considering on some of those gaps are the LB&SCR's traffic.   They didn't handle all that much freight.   So, a lot of the usual freight loco development didn't happen.   I think there was a pretty sizeable gap between the K & their immediate predecessors.

[DenysW]

Just a note on another part of how the USA got to have such hugely bigger locomotives than the UK: from 1898 it eliminated wholely-unbraked goods trains by the Railway Safety Appliances Act of 1893. Thus (from Wikipedia):

 

Section 1

Need safety checks on locomotive and a sufficient number of cars. Starting on January 1, 1898, unlawful for a common carrier used for interstate commerce to use locomotive engine not equipped with a power driving-wheel brake and appliances for operating the train-brake system. Also need sufficient number of cars equipped with power or train brakes so engineer in the locomotive can control its speed without requiring a brakeman to use a common hand brake to do so.

Section 2

Need automatic couplers that can be uncoupled without man going between. On January 1, 1898, it will be unlawful for a common carrier used for interstate commerce to haul or permit to be hauled any car that is not equipped with couplers coupling automatically by impact and which can be uncoupled without a man going between the ends of the cars.

Section 3

Can't receive cars not equipped. When any person, firm, company, or corporation engaged in interstate commerce by railroad has equipped a sufficient number of cars to be in compliance with Section 1, he/it may refuse to receive the connecting lines of road or shippers of any cars not equipped in such a manner.

 

A 1911 case ruled that companies could not escape the requirement even for trains dedicated solely to intrastate commerce.

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Just a note on another part of how the USA got to have such hugely bigger locomotives than the UK: from 1898 it eliminated wholely-unbraked goods trains by the Railway Safety Appliances Act of 1893.

 

This was legislation much quoted in British discussions on the braking and coupling of goods trains in the 1890s; an Automatic Railway Couplings bill was introduced in 1899 but quickly withdrawn owing to opposition primarily on the grounds of impractibility; there was I think some attempt to reintroduce the idea in the Railways (Prevention of Accidents) bill the following year but this did not make it into the Act.

[DenysW]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

primarily on the grounds of impractibility

Something very difficult to dispute as it would rapidly degenerate to battles of opinion between carefully selected 'experts'.  However the US went ahead and thus it had been implemented there (5 year grace period from 1893) before any 1899 UK discussions. Down to money, as always, I suppose.

[PhilJ W]

Depends as well on how much rolling stock was privately owned.

[Compound2632]

30 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Depends as well on how much rolling stock was privately owned.

 

At that date and for another half-century, pretty much all rolling stock was privately-owned.

 

If I have understood correctly* one of the things that brought down the Automatic Railway Couplings bill was that it was proposed that the conversion of couplings would be financed by empowering the railway companies to issue debenture stock to raise additional capital. That stock would have had priority over existing debenture and ordinary stock, i.e. the legislation was against the interests of existing shareholders.

 

How the conversion of non-railway company-owned mineral wagons was to be financed, I have not discovered.

 

*My understanding is from browsing Hansard online rather from any published history - in fact I'm not aware of any good history of railway legislation, though I dare say it has been the subject of scholarly articles by authors approaching the question from the labour and social history angle.

[JimC]

A less fictional imaginary than some, this is my interpretation of the extant 1920 weight diagram showing a Star with a Std 7 boiler.  As far as I can tell it could be a straight tracing of a Star chassis and cab with the larger boiler (which is slightly different to a Std 7 as built a year later) drawn in with the front tube plate in the same place as the standard one. There's no change to the cab at all, so the enginemen have a foot less footroom (but at least a bit more than the Bear).

[scots region]

4 hours ago, JimC said:

A less fictional imaginary than some, this is my interpretation of the extant 1920 weight diagram showing a Star with a Std 7 boiler.  As far as I can tell it could be a straight tracing of a Star chassis and cab with the larger boiler (which is slightly different to a Std 7 as built a year later) drawn in with the front tube plate in the same place as the standard one. There's no change to the cab at all, so the enginemen have a foot less footroom (but at least a bit more than the Bear).

 

It looks like a Star that ate another Star. 

[JimC]

One thing I didn't think though... "What name?"  I thought. "I know, bigger than a Star, what about Galaxies", so I put Andromeda on the nameplate. It wasn't until just now it occurred to me that there are precious few galaxies anyone has heard of, and while one might get away with "Milky Way", at least in 1920, I doubt "Large Magellanic Cloud" would look well on a splasher, whilst M33 lacks a certain ring and after that it gets worse... 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Constellation. I suppose that's what The Great Bear was, but it was hardly a class.

 

I'm sure The Great Bear had a bigger gap for the driver to squeeze through to get onto the footplate.

 

 

[john new]

20 hours ago, JimC said:

A less fictional imaginary than some, this is my interpretation of the extant 1920 weight diagram showing a Star with a Std 7 boiler.  As far as I can tell it could be a straight tracing of a Star chassis and cab with the larger boiler (which is slightly different to a Std 7 as built a year later) drawn in with the front tube plate in the same place as the standard one. There's no change to the cab at all, so the enginemen have a foot less footroom (but at least a bit more than the Bear).

Does anyone know what % of the worked up drawings were done as much to satisfy the CME or his team that an idea (whether his or from another member of the design team) would or wouldn’t work compared with those for a project that was a definitive build idea? Thinking as an example perhaps two or three options for a developed Star like the one above, but getting dropped as the Castle class option evolved instead. How much drawing office team time was R&D?

[JimC]

3 hours ago, john new said:

Does anyone know what % of the worked up drawings were done as much to satisfy the CME or his team that an idea (whether his or from another member of the design team) would or wouldn’t work compared with those for a project that was a definitive build idea? Thinking as an example perhaps two or three options for a developed Star like the one above, but getting dropped as the Castle class option evolved instead. How much drawing office team time was R&D?

I think it varied enormously. Some proposals - the 4-6-0 County and the 15xx for instance judging by drawings listed at NRM - might take a few years to work up, others would be quick - the King is supposed to have taken about a year, although I do wonder if Collett had already made some studies when the board gave him a deadline. 

Its fairly clear that the drawing office had quite a lot of freedom to do a fair bit of work on ideas before taking them to the CME: one thinks of the Hawksworth/Stanier compound Castle that Collett barely considered, and the ideas for a pacific worked up by chief draughtsman Mattingley that Hawksworth stamped on equally firmly.

In the case of the Std7 Star/Saint/28xx it's a reasonable guess these were blocked out when the 47xx boiler was being designed because the boiler shown isn't quite a tracing of an eventual Std 7. With a new standard boiler being proposed it would be rather surprising if there had not been studies of how it might fit on the other large classes. So we needn't believe that it was any more than a what if. It is mildly surprising that Churchward didn't go for a slightly smaller boiler that could be fitted to a 4-6-0, but maybe he thought that by the time it was needed there would be sufficient bridges upgraded that a heavier 4-6-0 would be practical (I am convinced Churchward must have known about the 22 ton bridges, even if Collett didn't).