Imaginary Locomotives

[Zomboid]

a twin engined 20? That's a bit unambitious. The EMD had 6600hp. And EE built already a 16 wheel, 2000hp loco.

 

It'd have to have a pair of 12CSVTs at least, for 3500hp+ to be worth bothering with...

[john new]

For those interested in early electric loco might have been's there are a couple in the new book we (SLS) are launching at Warley; Stand D44 - Eclectic Electrics £9.50 The book is one of two new titles, the other (Vol 1) covers Narrow Gauge & Miniature steam.

 

Edited November 19, 2017 by john new

[DavidB-AU]

We know the proposed 4600 hp Super Deltic was to be a Co-Co, but imagine the same beast as a 132 t Do-Do. I'll let somebody work out what the tractive effort might have been.

 

 

Cheers

David

[Budgie]

For those interested in early electric loco might have been's there are a couple in the new book we (SLS) are launching at Warley; Stand D44 - Eclectic Electrics £9.50 The book is one of two new titles, the other (Vol 1) covers Narrow Gauge & Miniature steam.

 

That's a Milwaukee Road bipolar, which is 1Bo-Do+Do-Bo1. I have a model of that in HO somewhere, complete with DCC and sound.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Budgie

[runs as required]

For those interested in early electric loco might have been's there are a couple in the new book we (SLS) are launching at Warley; Stand D44 - Eclectic Electrics £9.50 The book is one of two new titles, the other (Vol 1) covers Narrow Gauge & Miniature steam.

 

That indeed looks very promising with its 'look again' title!

 

I'm a little disappointed that nothing has been trawled up about the Midland's mainline ambitions at the time of their 1908 Lancaster-Morecambe-Heysham 6600V 11Hz overhead electrification

(yes... I'm looking expectantly at you Johnster  & Compound2632  :-)

 

All I can find is that

Richard Mountford Deeley (1855-1944) after being articled to Johnson from 1875 , became chief of the testing department at Derby In March 1890, then progressed to the position of Inspector of Boilers, Engines and Machinery (March 1893), and Derby Works Manager in January 1902,

a year later he added the post of Electrical Engineer .

 

A schplarly man he took his electrical responsibilities very seriously and after research, elected for the German Siemens 6,600V AC overhead. He collaborated with both Siemens and Westinghouse on the 1908 Heysham electrification - utilising two 60 ft motor coaches with Siemens equipment and one with Westinghouse electrical components. The MR OHL was generally slung between telephone poles (except where it had to run above Premier Line trackwork!)

 

But Siemens and the 6,600V 11HZ system had other potentials for hill climbing, utilised in south Germany and in the tyrol, and Deeley projected a scheme for the Belper, Matlock, Peak Forest, Chinley,  Disley electrification using the Siemens system.

this is my lash up of the image I recall seeing (don't look too closely)

 

Deeley is of course more famous for the 4-4-0 Compound, for which he looked to Smith of the the North Eastern for its variable control.. It is worth noting how he seems also to have been looking at the NER Shildon - Teeside (BTH) electrification although seeking hill climbing capability.

 

It is also well known Deeley was projecting a 4-6-0 version of the Compound, however."a less-than-holy alliance between the Midland's general superintendent, Paget (the MR Chairman's son) and Deeley's chief draughtsman, Anderson, resulted in the 4-6-0 being indefinitely postponed in favour of the unorthodox and unsuccessful locomotive known as the 'Paget Locomotive'.

Deeley's resignation in 1909 was probably connected with this situation:"

 

Does anyone have anymore than the evening or two's surfing I've just enjoyed posting this up.?

It seems the early miseries of the LMS have its roots in this resignation.

 

dh

Edited November 20, 2017 by runs as required

[scots region]

We know the proposed 4600 hp Super Deltic was to be a Co-Co, but imagine the same beast as a 132 t Do-Do. I'll let somebody work out what the tractive effort might have been.

 

DoDoDeltic.jpg

 

Cheers

David

I’ve no idea, though I’d be more concerned about the small planetoids drawn into the gravitational field of such a machine. Would give the booking office no end of trouble.

[john new]

Therehat's a Milwaukee Road bipolar, which is 1Bo-Do+Do-Bo1. I have a model of that in HO somewhere, complete with DCC and sound.

There's a chapter including the bipolars hence cover image choice.

[FPH 603]

Sorry to destroy your diesel wheel configuration discussion, but I thought I'd bring up this design again. Some may remember I made posts about this around 20 pages back in this thread, when I first joined RMweb. I've decided to develop this even further, and I have screenshots of the design as it is currently.

 

 

EDIT: What if I made this into a train set? Who'd buy it? I know I would! 

 

Edited November 20, 2017 by DoubleDeckInterurban

[FPH 603]

We know the proposed 4600 hp Super Deltic was to be a Co-Co, but imagine the same beast as a 132 t Do-Do. I'll let somebody work out what the tractive effort might have been.

 

DoDoDeltic.jpg

 

Cheers

David

Imagine the passengers...

[Hroth]

Not after it shunted all the boxcars into a creek bed...

 

Doh!

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...Deeley's resignation in 1909 ... It seems the early miseries of the LMS have its roots in this resignation.

 While the loss of the clearly talented and scholarly inclined Deeley may be lamented, that event is not the cause of no other with the necessary capability coming to the fore from somewhere else within the companies that would become the LMS, in the more than thirteen years intervening before the grouping. 

 

On Deeley himself, one might argue that the famed compound wasn't that marvellous either, and a 4-6-0 development unlikely to be an improvement: all the parallel evidence suggests that compounding struggled to justify itself against a well designed superheated simple, within the constraints of the UK loading gauge and operating conditions.

 

However there is endless 'might have been' potential here, of the 'had Deeley succeeded and stayed, what shape might the MR and thus the new LMS have been in regarding its traction? I do the same with the late LNER, in my version of its history Sir Ronald Matthews  tells 'Unsteady Eddie' to get stuffed....

[The Johnster]

Interesting.  Imaginary Locomotives has morphed into Imaginary Boardrooms.

 

Ok, what if Hawksworth had looked like a steadier hand on the tiller for the Southern than the mercurial but flaky Bullied, and Sam Ell had got the top job on the GW...

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...what if Hawksworth had looked like a steadier hand on the tiller for the Southern ...

 He too introduces a pacific design: which doesn't work as well as it should, but for completely different reasons.

 

 

... Sam Ell had got the top job on the GW...

 Every Swindon loco gets an exhaust based on the Dean goods arrangements.

 

 

(Remainder)... the mercurial but flaky Bulleid...

 ... is available and accepts the CME position on the LNER after ET has disqualified himself, and now no imagined locomotive is too improbable. Although tempering of the greatest excesses by the likes of Bert Spencer who had form in containing/managing one or two of SNG's overshoots, might suggest a less wayward set of outcomes...

 

 

...Imaginary boardrooms...

That's a wonderful game. What if there had been one person of wisdom and deep insight on the first GWR board, to halt 'I's am Know B-all' in his tracks (ho ho) by insisting on the adoption of Mr Stephenson's most excellent and established choice of gauge; "which in the fulness of time as a national railway network comes into being, will facilitate the free interchange of traffic, to the advantage of our business and that of the nation as a whole".

[john new]

That's a wonderful game. What if there had been one person of wisdom and deep insight on the first GWR board, to halt 'I's am Know B-all' in his tracks (ho ho) by insisting on the adoption of Mr Stephenson's most excellent and established choice of gauge; "which in the fulness of time as a national railway network comes into being, will facilitate the free interchange of traffic, to the advantage of our business and that of the nation as a whole".

They sort of did embrace Stephensonian idealogy. IIRC from past reading it took a N East trained man (Daniel Gooch) to get their locomotives working properly.

 

Brunel projects - oversize, over budget and late

Edited November 20, 2017 by john new

[Hroth]

Imagine the passengers...

There you go. Tractive effort?   It probably pulled like stink, but couldn't get above a sedate trot and so Nemesis caught up on it.....

[LNWR18901910]

I've just posted two new threads in the 'Build a Loco' section.

[Pacific231G]

 He too introduces a pacific design: which doesn't work as well as it should, but for completely different reasons.

 

 

 Every Swindon loco gets an exhaust based on the Dean goods arrangements.

 

 

 ... is available and accepts the CME position on the LNER after ET has disqualified himself, and now no imagined locomotive is too improbable. Although tempering of the greatest excesses by the likes of Bert Spencer who had form in containing/managing one or two of SNG's overshoots, might suggest a less wayward set of outcomes...

 

 

That's a wonderful game. What if there had been one person of wisdom and deep insight on the first GWR board, to halt 'I's am Know B-all' in his tracks (ho ho) by insisting on the adoption of Mr Stephenson's most excellent and established choice of gauge; "which in the fulness of time as a national railway network comes into being, will facilitate the free interchange of traffic, to the advantage of our business and that of the nation as a whole".

I've often wondered whether IKB's reputation as "Britain's Greatest Ever Engineer" rested more on the grandiloquence of his projects than on their success. I don't think he met the classic definition of an engineer as somebody "who can do for fifty cents what any fool can do for a dollar" though arguably the scale of his projects did raise the ambitions of the engineering profession. Interesting though that for his new line Samuel Cunard basically built four ships of similar though slightly smaller design to Brunel's successful SS Great Western while the GW Steamship Company was spending all its money on Brunel's far more ambitious Great Britain. Perhaps predictably that came in late and over budget and was the only other ship the GWSS co. ever owned before it went bust.

 

Of course, had your person of wisdom and deep insight been on the GWR board the London to Bristol railway might have ended up as a winding steeply graded line built down to a price that certainly would never have seen the first 125 MPH high speed trains. 

[EddieB]

For those interested in early electric loco might have been's there are a couple in the new book we (SLS) are launching at Warley; Stand D44 - Eclectic Electrics £9.50 The book is one of two new titles, the other (Vol 1) covers Narrow Gauge & Miniature steam.

 

Is it a just compilation of articles previously published in the SLS Journal, or does it contain new material?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I've often wondered whether IKB's reputation as "Britain's Greatest Ever Engineer" rested more on the grandiloquence of his projects than on their success. I don't think he met the classic definition of an engineer as somebody "who can do for fifty cents what any fool can do for a dollar" ...

 IKB was a great engineer, no mistake, for the pioneering shield tunnelling and large ship achievements.

 

When it comes to railways though, totally eclipsed by the Stephensons. Not just the UK, but all over Europe there are memorials to the Stephensons for their pioneering railway work. One route to Bristol and the West devoid of systems thinking, and a continuing legacy of problems on sections he engineered due to poor decisions. Second rate at railway to be frank: the problem he had was that he had to be a 'pioneer' and in railway he was definitely the 'johnny come lately'. So the only way to be a  pioneer in railway was to do significantly differently from established practise. He won a great reputation in the South West, because it was all new there. Had he done the same work on territory where the Stephensons were established it would have supported no great claim to reputation: all been done already.

 

'Britain's Greatest Engineer'? As a self-publicist, almost certainly. It's Watt who has the recognition of an SI unit. And the work of Parsons on the steam turbine and all that followed as a result is of incomparably greater contemporary and continuing import than any of  IKB's work,

[runs as required]

They sort of did embrace Stephensonian idealogy. IIRC from past reading it took a N East trained man (Daniel Gooch) to get their locomotives working properly.

 

Significantly the GWR also took to the Armstrong brothers (via standard Stephenson gauge Wolverhampton works). Joseph  named the locomotive superintendent's house adjacent to Swindon works "Newburn" after the village just opposite us at the lowest fording point of the tidal Tyne alongside  the line of Hedley's Wylam Puffing Billy.and Geordie Stephenson's bithplace

 

Newburn's Saxon tower is famous for the Scots placing a cannon on its roof to rout the Royalists at the ford during the Civil WarI...and around the time of Scottish referendum the tower roof got given a spire!.

[runs as required]

 IKB was a great engineer, no mistake, for the pioneering shield tunnelling and large ship achievements.

 

When it comes to railways though, totally eclipsed by the Stephensons. Not just the UK, but all over Europe there are memorials to the Stephensons for their pioneering railway work. One route to Bristol and the West devoid of systems thinking, and a continuing legacy of problems on sections he engineered due to poor decisions. Second rate at railway to be frank: the problem he had was that he had to be a 'pioneer' and in railway he was definitely the 'johnny come lately'. So the only way to be a  pioneer in railway was to do significantly differently from established practise. He won a great reputation in the South West, because it was all new there. Had he done the same work on territory where the Stephensons were established it would have supported no great claim to reputation: all been done already.

 

'Britain's Greatest Engineer'? As a self-publicist, almost certainly. It's Watt who has the recognition of an SI unit. And the work of Parsons on the steam turbine and all that followed as a result is of incomparably greater contemporary and continuing import than any of  IKB's work,

I learnt during the lectures given for the bicentenary of Puffing Billy that IKB did carry out a rival bid for the Newcastle and Berwick to the Stephensons.

He was commissioned by Lord Grey (of the Reform Act, PM and Earl Grey tea) to project a rival line passing through Newcastle in tunnel without reversal over a lower bridge and inland up Northumberland thereby avoiding Earl Grey's Howick estates (and perhaps serving Alnwick via an Alnwick Road). I think it was even projected as of Brunellian gauge.

 

We need a loco design for this project - consuming its own smoke via a lowerable chimney like the NE colliers that served Battersea Power station.

dh

[Zomboid]

As with all these major achievements you do have to wonder how much of it was actually designed by the guy whose name is on it, and how much of the good work was really their subordinates.

If IKB had really been busy personally designing the overall roof at Paddington, I'd find it hard to believe that he had time to worry about some silly overbridge many miles west of there. Never mind the boats as well...

[rockershovel]

The function of the Engineer is to define the scope and nature of the project, establish the principles and surround himself with the necessary team and staff to implement them.

 

In the same way that you should never let an accountant write a specification, you should never let an engineer define the actual goal. Like many professionals they are good servants, but bad masters.

 

IKB was a genuine innovator, as was his father. From mechanised production of rigging blocks to tunnelling shields, design of a ship which would lay the first transatlantic Cable (Great Eastern) and the Great Britain, which had a career of thirty years carrying migrants to Australia; doing the “heavy lifting” for the Cunard designs; designing and constructing railway landmarks like the Tamar Bridge, Clifton Bridge and Box Tunnel....

 

He was willing to undertake projects which stretched the bounds of the possible. His over-runs were no greater than other such projects; look at the construction of the American and Canadian transcontinental lines...

[The Johnster]

But, from a purely railway perspective, he was not that great (I must point out at this juncture that he was a lot better than I'd have been!).  His reasons for choosing an odd gauge for the GW were ultimately flawed, though in all fairness it probably looked right in 1835, and he built the Taff Vale to standard gauge less than 2 years later; his insistence on straight track and easy gradients was not necessary until over a century after his time, which is taking foresightedness a bit far, and it gave the GW a very significant disadvantage in distance to the far west until the cut-off's were built.  The atmospheric was an unmitigated failure whose consequences we are still suffering, and has always demanded locomotive design on the GW and WR that is necessarily out of step with usual practice elsewhere., even down to the hydraulics.

 

The GW's success was largely due to having a monopoly in most of the territory it ran through, and the ravings of enthusiast support for it are really only concerned with two brief periods, the 1850s when the Broad Gauge enabled high speeds that could be sustained for miles by Iron Dukes with what were for the time massive boilers, and the Churchward developments half a century later.  Half a century later still they were still building fundamentally Churchwardian locomotives, and were well behind the times.

 

I still love the GW, though.

[john new]

Is it a just compilation of articles previously published in the SLS Journal, or does it contain new material?

Reissues with revisions by Roger Hennessey where points made have needed updating. Mostly available for the first time to non-members. The second of the two releases covering Narrow Gauge & Miniature (all steam) in particular has material long out of print.

 

I also add as Production Editor for the two volumes that the format is now A4, our Journal where they first appeared is A5, and they are printed on a better quality paper than when first issued. Come and see us over the weekend, Stand D44 at Warley. They will be going on sale by post later but I still have to get the final P&P price resolved.

 

Hope this helps. The Vol 1 cover is below -

 

Edited November 21, 2017 by john new