Imaginary Locomotives

[Corbs]

It's all getting a bit too 'real' in here...

[rockershovel]

.... seems to be some confusion over bridges!

 

Thomas Telford designed the Menai Suspension Bridge, still in use today for road traffic although much altered over the years

 

Robert Stephenson designed the nearby Britannia and Conwy bridges, still in use for rail traffic

 

I K Brunel designed the Tamar Bridge, properly called the Royal Albert Bridge, still in use for rail traffic. Also the Clifton suspension bridge, still in use and entirely funded by tolls.

 

Henry Brunel collaborated on the design of Tower and Blackfriars Bridges.

 

As a tip of the hat to the previous post, IKB produced some of the most notable Engineering flights of fancy anywhere..

Edited November 22, 2017 by rockershovel

[brack]

I'm surprised Mr Brunel didn't try a Gaz engine powered loco.

 

Oh, and none of the competition get close to Robert Stephenson in terms of the breadth of his output, his success or his influence and legacy. His obituary in The Engineer described him as foremost among engineers (bear in mind Brunel had died just a few weeks earlier). Though he, Brunel and Locke were good friends, great engineers and contributed immensely to the development of the nation and the world's railways and bridges, it is clear which was regarded as preeminent in their own time.

Edited November 22, 2017 by brack

[Compound2632]

It was the Britannia Bridge I had in mind when I mentioned Menai in connection with Robert Stephenson - the name had slipped my mind.

[bimble]

I'd read that the rising sun would have shone through it on his birthday were it not for the gradient. However, having looked it up, I'm delighted by the suggestion that it was aligned for his sister's birthday three days earlier.

 

Apart from the variations which mean SunCalc suggests that it was April 5th this year... people seem to forget that it actually lines up with the rising sun TWICE a year... what if there's something significant about Sept 8th (for 2017)??

[Compound2632]

Apart from the variations which mean SunCalc suggests that it was April 5th this year... people seem to forget that it actually lines up with the rising sun TWICE a year... what if there's something significant about Sept 8th (for 2017)??

 

It was IKB's second cousin once removed's wedding anniversary.

[Northmoor]

Both wrong. Joseph Locke's the man. The West Coast route to Scotland north of Birmingham is all his, along with the London & Southampton and many other lines in Britain (in partnership with John Errington) and Europe, where he laid down the principles on which several national railway systems would be developed. No vanity projects such as tunnels aligned with sunrise on one's birthday - in fact, no tunnels.

I thought the Box Tunnel sunrise on Brunel's birthday had long ago been proven to be a happy coincidence (it's not like the railway is on the wrong alignment to achieve it)?

 

Presumably by no tunnels, you mean the WCML and not London - Southampton as there are two tunnels south of Basingstoke.

[Compound2632]

Presumably by no tunnels, you mean the WCML and not London - Southampton as there are two tunnels south of Basingstoke.

 

Locke was averse to tunnels and avoided them wherever possible. There is no tunnel between Birmingham (Curzon St) and Glasgow. When Locke took over the London & Southampton, he took steps to reduce the earthworks needed and eliminate one tunnel. None of the tunnels actually built are long - a couple of hundred yards - in contrast to Kilsby (2,432 yd) and Box (3,212 yd) which were both money-sinks and bottlenecks in the construction of their respective lines. Locke was involved with the Woodhead tunnel, being called in as consulting engineer when Vignoles resigned - it certainly wasn't his idea, more a case of rescuing a bad job. It has to be said, though, that Locke was never tasked with engineering a trans-pennine railway from scratch!

[FPH 603]

We're getting VERY off thread here. Maybe we might need to make an 'Imaginary Boardrooms' thread after all. To at least make an attempt to get the thread going the right direction:

 

How about a Mini Warship Class?

[The Johnster]

You mean a D63xx?

[FPH 603]

You mean a D63xx?

Yep, but an even smaller version of it.

[brack]

Yep, but an even smaller version of it.

If it was smaller would there be less bits to break down?

[LNWR18901910]

If it was smaller would there be less bits to break down?

As a multiple unit, then that would be possible.

[Joseph_Pestell]

We're getting VERY off thread here. Maybe we might need to make an 'Imaginary Boardrooms' thread after all. To at least make an attempt to get the thread going the right direction:

 

How about a Mini Warship Class?

Would they be named after minesweepers?

[FPH 603]

Would they be named after minesweepers?

Ok, Minesweeper names it is then! I like a good collaborative session. Although I don't think we could get much smaller than the class 22.

Maybe they could be a more departmental type, with better engines and improved equipment (not like I have experienced a Warship failure whilst driving one!).

[Hroth]

Almost as aesthetically ill-conceived as a Metrovic!

 

It looks like they were originally designed with a proper nose at each end and then some twit took a rubber to the drawing and said "Look we can shorten it by lopping the ends off and shoving the bogies back...."

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Almost as aesthetically ill-conceived as a Metrovic!

 

It looks like they were originally designed with a proper nose at each end and then some twit took a rubber to the drawing and said "Look we can shorten it by lopping the ends off and shoving the bogies back...."

 Apparently those responsible for the external appearance took considerable care to achieve an aesthetically pleasing result. I fear that no-one had the courage to say that's drab and dire and any other derogatory term you might not wish to hear applied...

[BernardTPM]

Almost as aesthetically ill-conceived as a Metrovic!

 

It looks like they were originally designed with a proper nose at each end and then some twit took a rubber to the drawing and said "Look we can shorten it by lopping the ends off and shoving the bogies back...."

Actually that's almost exactly what they did. The original design was the North British A1A-A1A Warship. To save weight the cabs were large aluminium castings, with a fabricated nose. The two smaller type 2s (Cl.22 DH & Cl.21 DE) used the same cab castings, but missed the extended nose off.

Edited November 23, 2017 by BernardTPM

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Interesting.  Imaginary Locomotives has morphed into Imaginary Boardrooms...

 And from this strange tree, grows strange fruit...

 the mercurial but flaky Bullied, ...

  ... 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...

 Apparently one of Churchward's 'overshoots' is close to getting a RTR model, that'll be the very handsome 47xx. What a handy looking mechanism, this might provide the powerplant for OVSB's superfreighter now that our 'Imaginary Boardroom' game means he's facing the LNER's war time freight challenges. The V2 is a good fast mixed traffic loco, but short on adhesion for the heaviest loads it has the power to haul; while the K3 is more than fast enough for fitted freight, and especially so in the context of the 60mph wartime speed limit, but limited on power output by its smaller firebox. If we glance across the pond at American superpower we notice the potency of the 2-8-4 Berkshires for fast freight.

 

That's right up OVSB's street, 5'8" drivers from the K3 in a 2-8-4 format, enabling a further enlarged firebox on the P2 boiler of 60 to 70 sq ft. with a power stoker, and there's our superfreighter. We'll pass over the valve gear arrangements for now, and contemplate it maintaining a steady 60mph with a 1200 ton fitted freight.

[Hroth]

They're not a group of of locos that I've ever been drawn to, so I was unaware of the ins and outs of their design language.  Generally speaking they were hit with the ugly stick until it broke!  The Metrovic design was so heroically ugly that it has always had a peverse attraction.

 

I must admit that the snub-nose of the Type 4 suits the face rather better than the lopped off appearance of the Type 2s, but they're something that only their designer could love - perhaps it was a racehorse designed by a committee job,

[Compound2632]

contemplate it maintaining a steady 60mph with a 1200 ton fitted freight.

 

I'd worry for those 4-wheeled vans. Can it stop?

[Budgie]

I'd worry for those 4-wheeled vans. Can it stop?

Note the word "fitted" in the description of the train. If it can't stop with all the brakes on all the 4-wheel vans being applied then there is something wrong.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Locke was averse to tunnels and avoided them wherever possible. There is no tunnel between Birmingham (Curzon St) and Glasgow. When Locke took over the London & Southampton, he took steps to reduce the earthworks needed and eliminate one tunnel. None of the tunnels actually built are long - a couple of hundred yards - in contrast to Kilsby (2,432 yd) and Box (3,212 yd) which were both money-sinks and bottlenecks in the construction of their respective lines. Locke was involved with the Woodhead tunnel, being called in as consulting engineer when Vignoles resigned - it certainly wasn't his idea, more a case of rescuing a bad job. It has to be said, though, that Locke was never tasked with engineering a trans-pennine railway from scratch!

 

I had never noticed that absence of tunnels on the northern part of the WCML. Before Locke chose the route over Shap, a route had been surveyed a little further west which would have involved a tunnel of about 2 miles length. Operationally, that would have been rather better - if less interesting for steam enthusiasts.

Not really imaginary, but some of you may like the new thread here titled Class 19. A very interesting proposal.

[Compound2632]

Note the word "fitted" in the description of the train. If it can't stop with all the brakes on all the 4-wheel vans being applied then there is something wrong.

 

How long would it have taken the brakes to come on, on every vehicle of a 1,200 ft-long train?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

How long would it have taken the brakes to come on, on every vehicle of a 1,200 ft-long train?

That's the right sort of question, and a 1,200 ton fitted freight composed of 4W wagons might have been significantly longer than that. (The LNER is known to have operated up to 26 coach trains during WWII, and those might be circa 1,600 feet long.) Before the war began it was the streamlined train's tendencies to go rather quickly that led to Mallard's gallops down Stoke Bank with Coronation stock and a dynamometer car. The Westinghouse company had a vacuum brake accelerator valve product, the aim of which was to more rapidly admit air to the brake pipe on each vehicle for a swifter brake response, and the gallops were designed to test its efficacy. (The speed record was no more than a fortuitous outcome; all LNER enthusiasts know they went much faster than that when no-one was looking...)