Imaginary Locomotives

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

A E Durrant sketched designs for big tanks like that.  I'll have to dig them out.

 

I still think a Stanier 4-8-4 would be proportioned more like the SAR25NC shown, and less like a stretched Duchess - the boiler/firebox/cylinder/wheel size is all out of kilter.

 

The drawings give a good idea of what I mean...

 

 

 

Also a decent sized tender to feed that boiler.

 

In the latter days of steam, engineers realised that perfectly fast locomotives didn't need to have giant wheels, they needed moderately sized wheels and proper dynamic balancing of wheel and motion.

 

And advanced combustion/exhaust principles applied, roller bearings everywhere!

 

So what it would have looked like - in LMS red - is probably similar to this:

 

 

As an aside - the SAR locomotives seem to be around 12'10" high by 9'10" wide.... would that fit in the UK loading gauge?  Discounting bits that might knock platofr edges, the tiny turntable factor etc.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Corbs, hope you don;t mind but I tweaked your 9FT to be more like I remember the Durrant proposal...

 

 

In his memoir he is very keen on 10, 12 and 14 coupled tanks!  He even finds some working 14s in Bulgaria of all places.

[Corbs]

Hmm. Well I did enlarge the firebox by a substantial margin to go by the rough 'one third of total boiler length' rule, and the driving wheels are some 9" smaller diameter than Duchess ones at 6'0".

I think you'd struggle to fit that design in a UK loading gauge. GWR Kings were 8'11.5" in wide and 13'4.75" high. The SAR Red Devil was also 3ft6in gauge which allows for 2 huge outside cylinders, outboard of the frames, whereas the LMS design above has the same stroke but smaller bore across 4 cylinders.

Also the Red Devil was built some 45 years later than this imagined design so I think we can allow Stanier some leeway in not having Lempor exhausts and roller bearings? I was trying to fit it in with what was being built at the time to a certain extent, otherwise I kind of feel you just end up with exactly the same thing as the reference image.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Corbs

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Ah yes, I had forgotten the advantage of the narrower gauge on the cylinder size.... is this why some of the standard have the cylinders angled?  If so, why are the Brit/Clan/5MT etc not angled?

 

As for allowing Stanier some leeway, not a chance!*    To be fair, many of the principles on the 26 were known about as they were developed by Chapelon in the 40s and 50s.  Some English engineers were very  engaged with his work, Churchward and Gresley for example.   Roller bearings throughout and lightweight motion were all common features on US steam from the 40s onward, so not that exotic.  Turntables could have been enlarged or replaced by turning wyes as more efficient steam would have been concentrated into many fewer, modern servicing facilities.  The LMS made a start on this, Carnforth is a good example of a modern steam shed laid out on the garage principle.

 

I suspect it was really a case of inertia in trying to overcome a vast and out dated system - when we finally did it, it was for diesel and electric power not modern steam... but in our better, parallel universe steam still reigns supreme!

 

*I'll make an allowance for the GPS/cyclonic combustion system though

[Corbs]

Corbs, hope you don;t mind but I tweaked your 9FT to be more like I remember the Durrant proposal...

 

Durrant9FT.jpg

 

In his memoir he is very keen on 10, 12 and 14 coupled tanks!  He even finds some working 14s in Bulgaria of all places.

No problem at all! Tweak away!

 

I guess the reason I went for an inside framed bogie for the same reason as above - I like it to fit in more with what was actually made, and to use standard components where possible, so for this I re-used the Std. 4MT tank design of rear bogie, as I want it to look like something that would have come from Riddles' office. 

 

But of course taking it one step further and adding Durrant or Porta or Wardale's views etc. is just as fun!

[Corbs]

Hi Corbs,  Thank you for these renderings, they are super!  Any chance you could modify the 4-8-4 Duchess?  The rear girder frames around the firebox were subject to cracking even with the pacific 50 sq ft grate, and the Ivatt mods eliminated them and put girders right under the box.  A larger box would certainly have to be supported under the box than around it.  Also, any chance you could then move the trailing truck forward a la 242 A1?

 

john

Hi John, I did originally intend to use the Ivatt rear design, but decided to include a lengthened faulty version on purpose as this fictional loco is a Stanier pre-war design, not Ivatt so those issues would not have been addressed by the time this was built. Of course I could do an Ivatt version with a longer wheelbase trailing truck and the modified frames?

 

Ah yes, I had forgotten the advantage of the narrower gauge on the cylinder size.... is this why some of the standard have the cylinders angled?  If so, why are the Brit/Clan/5MT etc not angled?

 

 

I think the key is in 71000 - Duke of Gloucester.

All of the Standard locos were designed to be 2 cylinder for ease of maintenance. The Britannia/9F nearly maxed out this cylinder size without carving the platform edges off - I think (pure speculation) that the 9F cylinders are more steeply angled to enable them to be placed closer to the driving wheels so they can share the load as it only has 1 leading axle whereas the Britannia has 2 to carry the cylinders.

The 8P was to have more power, but the cylinder size required would not fit within the allowable width, so a 3 cylinder design was settled upon with Caprotti motion (this is why my Std. 4-8-4 is a 3 cylinder Caprotti as well).

[Corbs]

Good point Corbs re the pre-war version.  I would love to see an Ivatt with the trailing truck nestled right under the larger firebox!

I think that the Ivatt version would have roller bearings throughout as well? Possibly an excuse to have a bogie tender - but a more traditional version rather than the Vanderbilt?

[tomparryharry]

Today is your lucky day

stanier-4-8-4-vanderbilt-2.jpg

I do like those big Lizzies.  It's not too much imagination to have a 'cab forward'. Mind you. streamlined train already. You can already see the gestation of Blue Pullman on the front.

 

Ian.

[Corbs]

I edited the post above to give 'Conqueror' a bogie Stanier tender

No roller bearings yet but I am tempted to do an Ivatt one in BR livery.

[tomparryharry]

Hmm, more thoughts....

 

Lose the Cartazzis.  2 cylinders leading, 2 cylinders trailing. Oil fired. The leading connecting rods to axle n02, the trailing connecting rods to axle n03. Bogie both ends, so still a 4-8-4.

 

Problems, however, with the bogie pivotal bearings in under the firebox. Long rearwards smokebox methinks......

 

Ian.

[Zomboid]

If cylinder size is the limiting factor, would a PRR T1 style duplex have been considered? (With their front end those things are probably crazy enough that they're too much even for this thread...)

[Corbs]

If cylinder size is the limiting factor, would a PRR T1 style duplex have been considered? (With their front end those things are probably crazy enough that they're too much even for this thread...)

What do you think about the Vanderbilt tender above? A bit of a hodge podge but it was as close as I could get to a stanier/tubular hybrid.

 

I did a Bulleid duplex a while back but I don't really like the duplex design.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Corbs

[The Johnster]

HMS Compass Rose, IIRC?

 

Yes; a lovely name for a ship.  I was going to purloin it for a quayside pub on a layout I planned but never built.

[Coryton]

Corbs, hope you don;t mind but I tweaked your 9FT to be more like I remember the Durrant proposal...

 

Durrant9FT.jpg

 

In his memoir he is very keen on 10, 12 and 14 coupled tanks!  He even finds some working 14s in Bulgaria of all places.

 

They used to run 760 mm gauge 0-10-0Ts in Bulgaria.

[rockershovel]

Yes; a lovely name for a ship.  I was going to purloin it for a quayside pub on a layout I planned but never built.

I believe it was chosen because a “compass rose” is, of course, not a flower at all, so there was no chance of a real ship of that type bearing that name

[The Johnster]

No, it is the name of the traditional face pattern of a ship's magnetic compass, floating on oil in it's binnacle.  It is a lovely name for a ship.  And a pub.

[Zomboid]

What do you think about the Vanderbilt tender above? A bit of a hodge podge but it was as close as I could get to a stanier/tubular hybrid.

Looks pretty good to me - thanks

That and the longer square tank one fit with the length of the loco better than the rigid 4 axle one.

[runs as required]

Here's my attempt at a 'Chapelward' 4-8-0, No. 9900

Quite like the idea of a 'Chapelward' 4-8-0 non conformist being called 'Zion', 'Bethesda' or 'Ezekiel' and out performing ponderous Cathedrals

They presumably would run via Cardiff and Swansea to Fishguard but might their axle loading also permit them past Shrewsbury and on via Ruabom and Wrexham to Chester ?

dh

Edited January 20, 2018 by runs as required

[Corbs]

Of course I made a faux pas as it is of course not a Chapelward but a Collepelon! Silly me.

 

To make up for this here's 9902 'Ezekiel' with a 6 wheel tender.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Corbs

[rockershovel]

Surely you mean “Elijah” (2 Kings 2 v10) ?

 

Wouldn’t a Western nonconformist class be “Methodist” or “Chapel” class, or possibly “Tabernacle”?

[DavidB-AU]

If the tender isn't big enough, simply take away some of the water space for more coal and add a separate water tender.

 

 

Cheers

David

[Corbs]

If the tender isn't big enough, simply take away some of the water space for more coal and add a separate water tender.

 

LMS484WT.jpg

 

Cheers

David

 

The water tenders could have water hoses at each end so they can be uncoupled, the loco turned, and recoupled again without having to turn the tender or extend the turntables too much?

Edited January 20, 2018 by Corbs

[rockershovel]

The water tenders could have water hoses at each end so they can be uncoupled, the loco turned, and recoupled again without having to turn the tender or extend the turntables too much?

Think about that for a moment... I believe that this was done with the auxiliary water tanks used by some South African lines, dropping the tank and running round it, because the LOCO runs bidirectionally, but it wasn’t preferred to push the tender. However for a coal/water tender (1) it needs to be BEHIND the loco (2) it ALSO needs to be the right way round...

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Don't use turntables, use wyes instead.  Plenty of room in our parallel universe.

[Corbs]

Think about that for a moment... I believe that this was done with the auxiliary water tanks used by some South African lines, dropping the tank and running round it, because the LOCO runs bidirectionally, but it wasn’t preferred to push the tender. However for a coal/water tender (1) it needs to be BEHIND the loco (2) it ALSO needs to be the right way round...

That's interesting, good to know it has basis in real-life practice.

 

Don't use turntables, use wyes instead.  Plenty of room in our parallel universe.

That's the assumption I was going under with some of the photoshops! Getting rid of one limiting factor but keeping the others for a challenge (gauge, loading gauge etc). Could even go the other way and restrict length but not width or height.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Corbs