Imaginary Locomotives

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

If going for electric lighting though, why not fit a sealed beam headlamp at the front, as well?

Edited 1 hour ago by rodent279

 

Because no stock anywhere* had headlamps in the 70s until the arrival of the HST, which only had both headlamps lit when running at over 100mph. 

 

*Exceptions; the 'Heart of Wales' line and possibly Glasgow-Fort William and the Far North line, which had stretches of unfenced railway running across open country.  The headlamps for the Central Wales line, fitted to some class 120 powertwin dmus and 37s, were Lucas car rallying spotlights, purchased by a Landore fitter from a local Lucas stockist with money from the shed's petty cash.  I was once on one of the powertwins working the 23.05 Bristol TM-Cardiff, one of my link jobs, and the driver switched the light on in the Severn Tunnel, an illuminating experience on several levels when the normal lighting gave you a vague impression of half-a-dozen sleepers or so in front of the cab.  The Lucas was a very powerful lamp, and showed the interior of the tunnel in detail not many people have ever seen I suspect.  And the more nervous ones would not want to; the amount of water cascading in from the river was quite alarming!!!

 

That's right, trains on the ECML and WCML were running at booked speeds of 110mph at night without their drivers being able to see more than a few yards ahead.  I did it at 90mph myself on the Peterborough Parcels.  One had complete faith that the line ahead was clear, because it was fenced and because the signals told you so, backed up by the AWS.  Most of us would have argued against hi-intensity headlamps on trains on the grounds that nobody needed to see where they were going and that it was more than likely to dazzle oncoming drivers and others about the railway.  Working at night depended to a considerable extent on 'getting your night vison in', and modern generations used to urban life would be surprised at how much can be discerned on even the darkest nights so long as there is no fog or mist.

[Northmoor]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

It also completely ignores the subtleties of the coal industry: that many small communities required relatively small quantities of several different types of coal, from different seams within one coalfield and from different coalfields. Such small communities, or the coal merchants who served them, could not afford to have money tied up in large stockpiles of coal. One man could unload an 8-ton wagon in a day's work, hence avoiding demurage charges; the wagon would be back on its way to the colliery within a couple of days of arrival. It would take the same man a whole week to unload a 50 ton wagon which would be out of circulation for that length of time, tying up capital unproductively. How could that possibly be more efficient?

Only in Britain would we still have paid people to "shovel stuff from here to just over there", instead of having wagons that could be discharged by winding open a hopper door and the wagon sent back within an hour by the same loco that had delivered it.  The Southern was using hopper discharge of ballast pre-WW2, so the tech clearly existed to do the same with coal.  Having a wagon sat around idle for two days is a ridiculous waste of resources - no wonder there were thought to be a million wagons around at Nationalisation - and on this subject, Beeching's analysis was spot-on.

 

I completely agree with the argument though, that there is no reason for ever larger and more powerful/faster freight locos, when coal, which made up much more than 50% of tonne-miles, mostly travelled no more than perhaps 40 miles from pit to end customer.  A good proportion of pit to power station traffic in West Yorkshire, was less than 10 miles.

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Only in Britain would we still have paid people to "shovel stuff from here to just over there", instead of having wagons that could be discharged by winding open a hopper door and the wagon sent back within an hour by the same loco that had delivered it.

 

But that's only one step in the handling process.

 

5 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

coal, which made up much more than 50% of tonne-miles, mostly travelled no more than perhaps 40 miles from pit to end customer.  A good proportion of pit to power station traffic in West Yorkshire, was less than 10 miles.

 

I don't know about that. There was plenty of coal being transported by rail from the East Midlands and Yorkshire to London and places south thereof - a good 150 miles - and even further down to the South West. Where you got your coal from depended on what you were using your coal for.

 

What is evident is, that however crazily inefficient the system looks to us now, it was efficient enough at the time. 

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, John Besley said:

In my AU steam carried on onto the 90's due to the sky high price of diesel fuel coupled with economical coal extraction by NCB.

 

That really would be an alternative universe!  At the time of the pit closures which precipitated the 1984-85 strike, the annual subsidy to NCB from central government was eye-watering.

[rodent279]

6 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Because no stock anywhere* had headlamps in the 70s until the arrival of the HST, which only had both headlamps lit when running at over 100mph. 

That's an indisputable fact-but it's not a reason for not having them. A reason for not having headlamps on steam locos would be that they weren't considered necessary, as the progress of steam motive power tends to be more audible and visible in the form of clouds of exhaust. A headlight would not need to be a high intensity sealed beam, just something that would make a decent substitute for a full yellow end-which would not be the most practical colour for a smoke box!

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, rodent279 said:

the progress of steam motive power tends to be more audible and visible in the form of clouds of exhaust. 

 

Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night - at least with poor fuel and an inexperienced fireman.

[Mike 84C]

It would have made sense to modernise all the locos built post war and  also select classes built pre war  with laboursaving devices but not mech; stokers. Nothing worse that digging dirty fires and clinker out through a firehole door. Maybe  Nafloc water treatment. And definately 

tenders where you didnt shovel off the floor.

  None of these items and there must be more, would increase power but would increase availability and with rocking grates, SC smokeboxes, better and continious water treatment would surely mean the loco could work at peak for longer.

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

There may also be a case for using retained steam on goods sevices that run only occasionally, say weekly.  This means not having to find a loco from your diesel or electric fleet, which you should have a little difficulty with if you have the correctly efficient level of stock, and with the steam engine available at any time the customer requires on 8-hour firing-up-from-cold notice, you can provide a much more flexible service. 

Yes, these locos would be completely written-down assets, but something that has to be "started" and attended to for eight hours before you need it and probably an hour or two afterwards, is probably the complete opposite of what you would need on such a service.  Steam would have still been quite efficient on short-haul unfitted coal runs into the 1970s (of which there were still a lot) where speed was limited by the wagons and not the locomotive.  Diesels offered little advantage on such traffic.

[Mike 84C]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

at least with poor fuel and an inexperienced fireman.

I was a fireman in that gahstly period during the rundown of steam. And if the engine would not go with sensible firing there was a technique known as boxing up. Which meant you shovel as much coal into the firebox as possible shut the doors and let it burn through. Lots of smoke for a little while and hopefully the vast fire would boil water. Lots of very experienced firemen used this method, I know I did.

[PhilJ W]

On the subject of steam into the blue era the VoR was just that. The locomotives were painted overall rail blue with no additions and looked rather drab.

[The Lurker]

On 23/04/2024 at 14:29, Deeps said:

 

Anyway, the rum ration had been stopped before I joined up and on a submarine there is no room to swing a lash! Other than that, I would say we never had a ‘quiet life’.

The company I work for supplied the rum for the daily tot from 1784 until its abolition in 1970.

 

https://www.edfman.com/royal-navy-rum-contract/

[John Besley]

Think the AU through further tenders would have been converted to 8 wheel for express engines such as Brits', Clans, Class 5 - the rest in the main keeping 6 wheel tenders.

 

The WD would have been shopped to update them including a BR standard cab, 

 

All locos fitted with electric lighting in particular under the running plate to aid prep work - same as DB locos.

 

Further BR standards as proposed before would have been built phasing out older classes, all the Bullied's rebuilt 

 

The 71000 'The Dukes' became very powerful locos once the initial problems where resolved (as we know) they also following an experiment by borrowing an A4 corridor tender had 8 wheel corridor tenders allowing non stop running with crew changes.

 

All the 8 wheel tenders had buckeye couplings fitted with the drop link as on BR MK1 coaches

 

 

Edited April 28 by John Besley
Additional text

[rockershovel]

13 hours ago, melmoth said:

 

Frankly, I think that if steam had lasted until 1980ish, the livery would have been reduced to unlined black with double arrows on tender/tank side. Why tart up something you intend to run down?

That, or plain blue like the AC electric locos with black or silver smokeboxes 

[rockershovel]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But that's only one step in the handling process.

 

 

I don't know about that. There was plenty of coal being transported by rail from the East Midlands and Yorkshire to London and places south thereof - a good 150 miles - and even further down to the South West. Where you got your coal from depended on what you were using your coal for.

 

What is evident is, that however crazily inefficient the system looks to us now, it was efficient enough at the time. 

Don't forget that the local coal merchants operated a distribution system based on 1cwt sacks delivered house-to-house 

 

The secondary school I attended, built new in 1964 still used hand-fired central heating and hot water 

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

Don't forget that the local coal merchants operated a distribution system based on 1cwt sacks delivered house-to-house 

 

The secondary school I attended, built new in 1964 still used hand-fired central heating and hot water 

Towards the end of household coal deliveries the larger coal merchants used hopper lorries with a weighing and bagging machine at the rear. A few years later coal came pre-packed in plastic sacks delivered to local hardware stores or garden centres. Only recently has delivery and sale of household coal ceased due to clean air legislation.

[PhilJ W]

Further to the above the hopper lorries operated from the larger depots and the smaller depots were closed. The pre bagged coal was often sorted and bagged at or near the pit head and delivered on wooden pallets (and often by road).

[Compound2632]

In other words, US-style rail transport of coal in 50-ton gondolas with continuous brakes, hauled by Mountains or similar, is only feasible with the widespread closure of smaller goods stations and a switch to large-scale domestic distribution by road. In one's AU, is that really a price worth paying just for the sake of justifying bigger engines?

[rodent279]

We're back to the aforementioned seismic change in a whole raft of areas not directly railway.

Edited April 28 by rodent279

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

Towards the end of household coal deliveries the larger coal merchants used hopper lorries with a weighing and bagging machine at the rear. A few years later coal came pre-packed in plastic sacks delivered to local hardware stores or garden centres. Only recently has delivery and sale of household coal ceased due to clean air legislation.

But the quantity distributed in pre-packed plastic sacks was trivial. My mother's house had two coal bunkers holding about 1/4 ton each, and that was nothing unusual. My present house still has the remains of a bunker of about 1/2 ton 

 

When we lived in Hackney the coalmsn would deliver a ton at a time through a manhole in the pavement into a dark, damp room under the pavement 

[Murican]

20 hours ago, John Besley said:

In my AU steam carried on onto the 90's due to the sky high price of diesel fuel coupled with economical coal extraction by NCB.

 

Indeed the AU I had for my BR Standard 4-8-2 was that the USSR failed to prop up Kim-Jong Un and Mao only managed to get the northern half of China. As a result, Mossadegh appeals to the Soviets to help fortify his poistion in Iran, with the Middle East and parts of Northeast Africa becoming communist.

 

The result is that not only do railroads here in the states end up having to use steam until more reliable oil sources are established in the mid-1960s, but British steam also lasts until the early 1970s. Furthermore, my idea would be that the demands of WWII would mean that intermodal transport was innovated a lot earlier than OTL and embraced by Britain.

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

We're back to the aforementioned seismic change in a whole raft of areas not directly railway.

I have previously commented that this thread tends to be both circular in discussion and less interesting than the less active "Imaginary Railways" thread.  If you're going to imagine locomotives that never were, you need to imagine the railway that would have needed them first.  Locomotives that never were, didn't exist because in the real life scenario, they weren't justified.  If they were, the Big Four or BR would have built them.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

But the quantity distributed in pre-packed plastic sacks was trivial. My mother's house had two coal bunkers holding about 1/4 ton each, and that was nothing unusual. My present house still has the remains of a bunker of about 1/2 ton 

 

When we lived in Hackney the coalmsn would deliver a ton at a time through a manhole in the pavement into a dark, damp room under the pavement 

Members of my family lived in Victorian/Edwardian houses during the 50's and 60's and they all had coal cellars as you describe. My house was built in 1959/60 and has a coal storage shed attached (since re-purposed). It was only towards the end of the 60's that most new houses were built without an open grate. By then coal was being replaced by electric and gas heating which was not as labour intensive as an open coal fire. Coal as a fuel had been in decline since before the war except for the generation of electricity and one of the nails in the coffin was the advent of North Sea gas. The bulk transport of household coal by rail ceased to be viable well before that traffic ceased.

Edited April 28 by PhilJ W

[TheQ]

14 hours ago, The Lurker said:

The company I work for supplied the rum for the daily tot from 1784 until its abolition in 1970.

 

https://www.edfman.com/royal-navy-rum-contract/

But the RAF only issued rum on special occasions,  such as after snow clearance duties. I was twice issued a tot of rum from the container in a basket kept in the safe. That was around 1982..

[TheQ]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Towards the end of household coal deliveries the larger coal merchants used hopper lorries with a weighing and bagging machine at the rear. A few years later coal came pre-packed in plastic sacks delivered to local hardware stores or garden centres. Only recently has delivery and sale of household coal ceased due to clean air legislation.

Err not quite, it's manufactured coal now, which has some coal in it, but has a high percentage of " renewables" in it . I note one version uses Olive stones !! https://www.wickes.co.uk/Homefire-Ecoal-Smokeless-Coal---10-Kg/p/151160?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw57exBhAsEiwAaIxaZqBM-_Ehi_5N_vX5BtZWQTsVmqC3mmGOrl95CLHUfQF-k6Mxs87eLRoCr98QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

We had a ton delivered a few days ago as it was on sale, which means we have about 2.5 tons out there.

All delivered in plastic of course, they will open the bags and dump them in the bunkers, but I just bring a bag in when we need it.

[Michael Edge]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

But the quantity distributed in pre-packed plastic sacks was trivial. My mother's house had two coal bunkers holding about 1/4 ton each, and that was nothing unusual. My present house still has the remains of a bunker of about 1/2 ton 

 

When we lived in Hackney the coalmsn would deliver a ton at a time through a manhole in the pavement into a dark, damp room under the pavement 

In the Yorkshire coalfield we had a ton of coal at a time dumped on the pavement outside our gate, this had to be shovelled/barrowed round to our coal bunker - gave me something of an idea how hard a loco fireman had to work.