Imaginary Locomotives

[JimC]

I suppose one could imagine a 4-6-0 with 45xx cylinders (17x24) and 5ft2 wheels. I don't feel especially inspired to sketch it I'm afraid. Probably need a 225psi boiler to get the tractive effort up to something useful. I'm inclined to think a 2-6-0 would be more likely for a go anywhere tender engine.

[billbedford]

So, imaginary loco, eh?

 

Here's the scenario. The GCR, GNR and GER planned to amalgamate. In 1910, the bill that would facilitate this was thrown out by Parliament, but what if it had gone ahead? In 1910, Robinson had seniority, Gresley had not yet produced his first design, the H1 2-6-0, and Stephen Holden had only been CME for two years. 

 

So what locos would Robinson have built for the whole group, either with Gresley as his assistant or not? 

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, billbedford said:

So what locos would Robinson have built for the whole group, either with Gresley as his assistant or not? 

 

Assuredly Group Standard boilers would have been of the Belpaire type.

[AlfaZagato]

Belpaire A1?

[DenysW]

3 hours ago, billbedford said:

The GCR, GNR and GER planned to amalgamate. In 1910, the bill that would facilitate this was thrown out by Parliament, but what if it had gone ahead?

What would it have been called? The Greatest? The Great Great Railway? The Railway?

 

The mind boggles.

[Compound2632]

28 minutes ago, DenysW said:

What would it have been called?

 

That this was a difficulty - a minor difficulty - is evidenced by the fact that when all three were taken over by the North Eastern Railway in 1923, they were simply lumped together as "London &". (They were lucky, the two Scottish companies didn't get a look-in at all.)

[billbedford]

46 minutes ago, AlfaZagato said:

Belpaire A1?

 

I was thinking of a Belpaire B1 by 1915

Edited January 12 by billbedford

[billbedford]

42 minutes ago, DenysW said:

What would it have been called? The Greatest? The Great Great Railway? The Railway?

 

 

Great Anglian Railway, obviously ignoring the Mercian bit on the Western edge.

[scots region]

59 minutes ago, DenysW said:

What would it have been called? The Greatest? The Great Great Railway? The Railway?

 

The mind boggles.

 

Clearly the Great North Eastern Railway 😉

[Compound2632]

Liverpool & Harwich Direct Railway?

[DenysW]

4 minutes ago, scots region said:

Clearly the Great North Eastern Railway

As the GNR was really the London, Leeds & Lincolnshire Railway, it could have gone for the Greater Manchester, Sheffield, Lincolnshire & London Railway. Needs a vowel though to make its acronym pronounceable.

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, DenysW said:

As the GNR was really the London, Leeds & Lincolnshire Railway, it could have gone for the Greater Manchester, Sheffield, Lincolnshire & London Railway. Needs a vowel though to make its acronym pronounceable.

 

Surely the Great Eastern could contribute an 'E' with ease?

 

Now, as we know:

MS&L = Money Sunk and Lost;

GC = Gone Completely.

So how about Northern, Eastern and Central Railway?

NEC = Not Even Creditworthy.

Edited January 12 by Compound2632

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Surely the Great Eastern could contribute an 'E' with ease?

 

Yup, there are two in 'swede' and two more in 'beet'.  That should be plenty.

[AlfaZagato]

CENR - Central, Eastern and Northern Railway

[scots region]

1 hour ago, AlfaZagato said:

CENR - Central, Eastern and Northern Railway

 

Bit like CERN, though not sure what particle needs to be accelerated to get to Doncaster on time. 

[Nile]

London Northern & Eastern Railway , LN&ER or LNER for short.

[62613]

On 12/01/2024 at 15:49, Compound2632 said:

 

That this was a difficulty - a minor difficulty - is evidenced by the fact that when all three were taken over by the North Eastern Railway in 1923, they were simply lumped together as "London &". (They were lucky, the two Scottish companies didn't get a look-in at all.)

They weren't, though; it was a government - forced amalgamation, as an alterative to nationalisation.

[Compound2632]

46 minutes ago, 62613 said:

They weren't, though; it was a government - forced amalgamation, as an alterative to nationalisation.

 

Yes - 'taken over' was tongue-in-cheek!

 

The North Eastern was the only really financially-sound company in the Group, so I assume its shareholders got the best deal when their stock was exchanged for LNER stock. 

Edited January 13 by Compound2632

[PhilJ W]

32 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes - 'taken over' was tongue-in-cheek!

 

The North Eastern was the only really financially-sound company in the Group, so I assume its shareholders got the best deal when their stock was exchanged for LNER stock. 

Part of the agreement on grouping was that the pay rates were amalgamated and were raised to the highest rate for each grade. For example if a top link driver on one company was paid 2/- a week less than a top link driver on another company he got a pay rise of that amount on grouping. In the case of the LNER the company with the highest wages was the GER. 

[JimC]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

I assume [the NER]  shareholders got the best deal when their stock was exchanged for LNER stock. 

If the popular wisdom about dividends is correct, did any LNER constituents shareholders get anything that could really be described as a best deal?

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, JimC said:

If the popular wisdom about dividends is correct, did any LNER constituents shareholders get anything that could really be described as a best deal?

 

Best available in the circumstances!

[BrakeCoach]

On 04/11/2023 at 08:19, BrakeCoach said:

Sorry to interrupt, but here's my pixel art example draft of some locomotives pulling some stock, in the Hankala Central Railway, in Askandia--everything mentioned here is entirely fictional!

 

The railway was nationalized as part of the greater national network, and HARTA(Hankala Area Regional Transit Authority) takes care of it as part of its regional rail sector.

 

The rolling stock are heavily inspired by British, American, and early Japanese/Korean examples.

 

I will be making some drawings of this, and (hopefully!) model the stock.

Here's an update on the Askandian 'boxcab' electric:

Here's a drawing I am doing to "preview" the look while making adjustments to the livery. I added trolley poles as these are supposed to be passing through on-street or street-adjacent lines. Warning panels separately attached at the front balcony, and both buffers and knuckle couplings, cause why not haha

Here's the diagram of the mechanism I sketched out a few months ago:

Supposed to use the roadrunner gearbox from High Level Kits, with a tube driveshaft connecting it to the motor. I will most likely have to do an entire diagram of the whole model sooner or later.

 

I had hardship of trying to source its wheels, but I am pretty sure I could just do a trick of using OO scale Class 47 wheels so that in HO they look bigger.

[AVS1998]

It's far from the clearest mock-up drawing (I'm not au fait with the 'creative' side of things on my MacBook; should've dug out my Windows for all this cut/paste!), but a prototype Nelson Baltic? I've got a Hornby Nelson which I don't particularly want, have tried selling several times and it hasn't gathered much interest, so rather than it sitting in its box forever, I decided to make a little plan and propose an imaginary locomotive at the same time.

 

 

It's not terribly neat I'm afraid and I wasn't too sure about the placement of the rear bogie due to the depth of the ashpan, but I think it makes sense as a vague illustration. The cab is from a W tank (It had a slightly larger bunker than the K; typical max. coal cap. of British tanks seems to be around 3.5T, especially compared to other large tanks, Baltics in particular) and obviously the rear bogie just a copy of the leading. For the tanks, I tried to follow Maunsell's general plan on passenger tanks of having them run to just shy of the smokebox, and maybe 3/4 the height of the boiler (this may also be wrong. At the moment, it's just an idea). I'm glad the W had a Belpaire firebox, as it made marrying the lines (reasonably) easy, even if I am a bit clumsy on the laptop trackpad.

 

Now, according to the SREmG page for the class, ''he [Maunsell] was set a tough challenge for this specification by the Chief Operating Manager because the future standard for main line express trains was to haul a load of 500 tons tare at a start-to-stop average speed of 55 m.p.h. on not only the South West section but also over the demanding to operate Eastern section. Maunsell set about this in a systematic fashion with development work and trials using modified locomotives, and evaluating and comparing the designs of other companies with the aim of producing what would be called today a "state of the art" locomotive. However first there was a pressing need for more express passenger locomotives for the expanded summer timetable of 1925 and this was met by construction of additional class N15 engines with an improved front end.''

 

My imagining is that when the locomotive was being designed, consideration was being made of the various larger express locomotives already in service on express routes which could be relieved for other duties and replaced by standardised Nelsons, either Baltic or tender form. The Baltics in particular may have been used on the premier ex-Brighton and Continental expresses on the ex-SEC, replacing the (equally fictitious) inherited, non-standard Tilbury Baltics purchased in 1912. The Baltic Nelsons probably would never have been produced, I'm thinking mostly because of fuel capacity and also the lack of need for another Baltic class on the Southern - even if it was a 'standard' design. Besides, the Brighton Ls weren't too old, only really ousted by impending electrification and poor route availability. I imagine it would be much the same for the (fictional) SECR/Tilbury Baltics., With all that water weight on top of the drivers, they'd also probably never have got off the drawing board because of the overall weight. Likely fine outside of Kent, but in the county, it'd probably be a risky move. 

 

Even so, it all fits neatly into my little 'fictional history' box for Blackstone as well as the wider remit (I hope) for an imaginary locomotive. Oh, and one final note: the name. Obviously the class were named for Royal Navy admirals. Now, who better than Lord Amelius Beauclerk, Duke of St Albans and distant cousin to the Blackstone Beauclerks? 

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 12/01/2024 at 15:17, DenysW said:

What would it have been called? The Greatest? The Great Great Railway? The Railway?

 

The mind boggles.

Great North Eastern & Central Railway? 

 

10 hours ago, AVS1998 said:

It's far from the clearest mock-up drawing (I'm not au fait with the 'creative' side of things on my MacBook; should've dug out my Windows for all this cut/paste!), but a prototype Nelson Baltic? I've got a Hornby Nelson which I don't particularly want, have tried selling several times and it hasn't gathered much interest, so rather than it sitting in its box forever, I decided to make a little plan and propose an imaginary locomotive at the same time.

 

 

It's not terribly neat I'm afraid and I wasn't too sure about the placement of the rear bogie due to the depth of the ashpan, but I think it makes sense as a vague illustration. The cab is from a W tank (It had a slightly larger bunker than the K; typical max. coal cap. of British tanks seems to be around 3.5T, especially compared to other large tanks, Baltics in particular) and obviously the rear bogie just a copy of the leading. For the tanks, I tried to follow Maunsell's general plan on passenger tanks of having them run to just shy of the smokebox, and maybe 3/4 the height of the boiler (this may also be wrong. At the moment, it's just an idea). I'm glad the W had a Belpaire firebox, as it made marrying the lines (reasonably) easy, even if I am a bit clumsy on the laptop trackpad.

 

Now, according to the SREmG page for the class, ''he [Maunsell] was set a tough challenge for this specification by the Chief Operating Manager because the future standard for main line express trains was to haul a load of 500 tons tare at a start-to-stop average speed of 55 m.p.h. on not only the South West section but also over the demanding to operate Eastern section. Maunsell set about this in a systematic fashion with development work and trials using modified locomotives, and evaluating and comparing the designs of other companies with the aim of producing what would be called today a "state of the art" locomotive. However first there was a pressing need for more express passenger locomotives for the expanded summer timetable of 1925 and this was met by construction of additional class N15 engines with an improved front end.''

 

My imagining is that when the locomotive was being designed, consideration was being made of the various larger express locomotives already in service on express routes which could be relieved for other duties and replaced by standardised Nelsons, either Baltic or tender form. The Baltics in particular may have been used on the premier ex-Brighton and Continental expresses on the ex-SEC, replacing the (equally fictitious) inherited, non-standard Tilbury Baltics purchased in 1912. The Baltic Nelsons probably would never have been produced, I'm thinking mostly because of fuel capacity and also the lack of need for another Baltic class on the Southern - even if it was a 'standard' design. Besides, the Brighton Ls weren't too old, only really ousted by impending electrification and poor route availability. I imagine it would be much the same for the (fictional) SECR/Tilbury Baltics., With all that water weight on top of the drivers, they'd also probably never have got off the drawing board because of the overall weight. Likely fine outside of Kent, but in the county, it'd probably be a risky move. 

 

Even so, it all fits neatly into my little 'fictional history' box for Blackstone as well as the wider remit (I hope) for an imaginary locomotive. Oh, and one final note: the name. Obviously the class were named for Royal Navy admirals. Now, who better than Lord Amelius Beauclerk, Duke of St Albans and distant cousin to the Blackstone Beauclerks? 

I approve wholeheartedly and look forward to seeing it Alex! 

[Compound2632]

54 minutes ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Great North Eastern & Central Railway? 

 

That would imply it served the north-east, to which the North Eastern Railway might reasonably have taken exception.