Masterpieces

[rogerzilla]

Maunsell basically took the 43xx design, and Holcroft, from the GWR and improved it by discarding GWR traditions like inside valve gear, resulting in the N class.  Bulleid had a half-hearted attempt at improving the N but, like the Schools, his modifications made no discernible difference as the designs were right from the start.  Bulleid had more success tweaking the Lord Nelsons, although the preserved one is still supposed to be difficult to fire.  It probably should have been a Pacific instead of a massive 4-6-0, which would have allowed a wider box.

[Compound2632]

On 27/12/2019 at 19:56, eastglosmog said:

To preempt a post from a certain quarter, I would nominate the MR Johnson/Deeley Compound as doing the job it was designed to do economically.

Also the Webb 0-8-0 did what it was meant to do, haul long trains of coal wagons at 25mph or so.

 

Apart from the one-off simple No. 2524, all Webb's 0-8-0s were compounds: 111 with three cylinders (later designated as Class A) and 170 with four cylinders (later Class B). After Webb's day they were mostly rebuilt, some to correspond to No. 2524 (Class C), others going through various permutations of Classes D, E, and F, with 279 of them eventually ending up as Class G1 - the celebrated "Super D". Collectively, they were the most numerous group of compounds in Britain, outnumbering the later Midland / LMS compounds. However, compounding really shows its benefits in efficiency in an engine that runs at a near-constant power output for a sustained period of time - as on a French long-distance express, or even Leeds-Carlisle - not on a traditional British goods or mineral train. From that point of view, Webb's decision to build these engines as compounds has to rule them out of the "masterpiece" category. 

 

On 27/12/2019 at 20:23, rogerzilla said:

The Midland Compound was probably the only successful British compound.  Other countries used them a lot more. Maybe British drivers (who weren't as highly-trained as their French equivalents) couldn't get to grips with separate cut-offs and the other foibles of compounds.  I seem to remember that the later compounds built on the Smith system had simplified controls.

 

It was the first five Midland compounds, Nos. 2631-5 (1000-4 after 1907), that were built on the Smith system - S.W. Johnson had a lifetime friendship with W.M. Smith, since the days in the 1860s when Smith had been Johnson's chief draughtsman at Cowlairs (Stroudley and Dugald Drummond were also on his staff), and Smith's son John (J.W. Smith) was on Johnson's staff at Derby when the compounds were designed - based on the 3-cylinder compound W.M. Smith had designed at Gateshead. W.M. Smith died in 1906, by which time R.M. Deeley was in charge at Derby. He redesigned the compounds, eliminating all the features covered by W.M. Smith's patents; the Deeley compounds (initially 1000 et seq., renumbered 1005 et seq. in 1907) were built new like this and the Smith-Johnson compounds subsequently modified to match. J.W. Smith left Derby (understandably), transferring to Gorton where J.G. Robinson was building 3-cylinder compound atlantics. (It seems probable that there had already been some co-operation via J.W. Smith.)

 

It was only the very first two Smith-Johnson compounds, Nos. 2631-2, that had separate reversers for the high and low pressure cylinders; Johnson introduced the simplified combined reverser on the next three engines. This, it is said, had the effect of restricting the free flow of steam at high speed; certainly the highest recorded speed with a compound was recorded by Charles Rous-Marten in 1902, with 2632 in original condition: 92 mph over 2 miles descending Ribblesdale with an up Scotch express.

 

I would count Nos. 2631 and 2632 among the masterpieces of British locomotive design, along with the 179 Class and 115 Class 4-2-2s - the first Midland engines to be built with piston valves - also W.M. Smith's influence at work - and very speedy too. No. 117 was recorded at 90 mph - the highest speed recorded by an ordinary service train in the 19th century, equalling the 90 mph attained by one of T.W. Worsdell's Class J 4-2-2s under test conditions. (Now remind me do, who was T.W. Worsdell's chief draughtsman?)

[pH]

Some Scottish examples:

 

- Dugald Drummond's 'Abbotsford' 4-4-0s for the NBR

- McIntosh's 'Dunalastair' 4-4-0s for the CR

- Jones's 'Jones Goods' 4-6-0s for the HR

 

All major advances in design, and all successful in their intended use at once, and for some time afterwards as the work became harder.

 

And if the Horwich 'Crab' is considered to be a masterpiece - it was based on a Caledonian Railway loco which had reached a fairly advanced stage of design before the Grouping.

Edited December 29, 2019 by pH

[Aire Head]

While I can't vouch for their popularity with crews arguably Fowler's 4P tank did what was needed straight out of the box and led to his successors all the way to Riddles to produce their own version of it (Ok I know that simplifies things a little but you get the gist).

 

Likewise for Fowler based off the sheer numbers produced and their longevity the humble 4F warrants a mention.

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

Likewise for Fowler based off the sheer numbers produced and their longevity the humble 4F warrants a mention.

 

Bravo! Have you got your tin hat to hand?

[Aire Head]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Bravo! Have you got your tin hat to hand?

 

Tin hat and tin underpants!

 

I do have a soft spot for the 4F admittedly 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Aire Head

[The Johnster]

On 28/12/2019 at 15:43, Harlequin said:

Dean: Dean Goods - mentioned in passing by The Johnster but fits the OP criteria very well.

 

Hmm.  It was an unremarkable (except for steaming better than a Mickey Mouse on the Mid Wales) Victorian goods engine that worked well enough, but not what I'd think of as a masterpiece.  In fact I can't think of any purely Dean design that performed exceptionally well, though there were no outright dogs bar the single, which had to be withdrawn after a nasty derailment in Box Tunnel because of dangerous loading on the front axle before being rebuilt with a leading bogie, and was then admittedly a looker. but still perhaps not the equal of Stirling's GNR single.  It's one claim to fame is a record breaking run from Bristol to Paddington with the 4 Ocean Mail vans from CoT's exploit in 1904.  Locomotives have to work to be successful, not look nice.

 

On 29/12/2019 at 10:48, Boris said:

Ivatt: 10100 needs more love

The Ivatt twins worked exactly as required straight out of the box, and were very successful locos, meriting the 'masterpiece' label IMHO.  Locos base on them would have been a much better bet for the 1955 plan.

[jessy1692]

Id go for the 08 shunter and its earlier big four derivatives which were pretty much the same, longest lived mainline diesel class still working on the railways.

Also most things that came out from EE. 20s, 37s + EE powered brush 2s all still bumbling around the network. Deltics my masterpiece from them but probably a bit too temperamental.

 

I suppose you cant really tell if one engineer was directly responsible for the products of EE though?

Cheers

James

Edited December 30, 2019 by jessy1692

[Pandora]

The Thompson B1 was the equal of the Stanier Black 5 in the 1948 trials,  the parallel boiler of the B1 saved in construction costs over the taper boiler of the Black 5,  in performing mixed-traffic duties, would the theoretical greater efficiency of a taper boiler over parallel boiler have justified the extra costs?

Edited January 4, 2020 by Pandora

[Pandora]

Please include the  Stephenson long-boiler 0-6-0 tender locos of which NER 1275 at York NRM is an example,  the abilities of long- boilers to haul coal trains economically are well known, and their extensive period of operation 1850s to 1920s  illustrates their fitness for purpose to their role

Edited January 4, 2020 by Pandora

[Compound2632]

On 30/12/2019 at 18:28, The Johnster said:

no outright dogs bar the single, which had to be withdrawn after a nasty derailment in Box Tunnel because of dangerous loading on the front axle before being rebuilt with a leading bogie, and was then admittedly a looker. but still perhaps not the equal of Stirling's GNR single.  It's one claim to fame is a record breaking run from Bristol to Paddington with the 4 Ocean Mail vans from CoT's exploit in 1904.  Locomotives have to work to be successful, not look nice.

 

 

I think that's rather harsh. In their 4-2-2 form, the Achilles class were the Great Western's front-line express passenger engines of the 1890s. They were a large class - 80 locomotives - and so took a while to be displaced by the 4-4-0s, which were in any case needed for the new routes. The Ocean Mail runs show that the class could produce exceptional performances on the easily-graded route up from Bristol: there were not many locomotives of that era, or Great Western locomotives of any era, that could maintain an average speed of 80 mph over seventy miles. I think one does have to consider them a masterpiece - and that's coming from an out-and-out S.W. Johnson worshipper. 

 

3 minutes ago, Pandora said:

Please include the  Stephenson long-boiler 0-6-0 tender locos of which NER 1275 at York NRM is an example,  the abilities of long- boilers to haul coal trains economically are well known, and their extensive peroid of operation just shows how useful  they were 

 

The long-boilered passenger engines went to an early grave - the inherent instability in the design of a long locomotive on a short wheelbase with overhanging masses at each end told against them. A poor design concept overall, even if the thinking behind the boiler design was good. The longevity of the goods engines was down to their being just good enough for the work they had to do, not to exceptional design.

 

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Pandora said:

The Thompson B1 was the equal of the Stanier Black 5 in the 1948 trials,  the parallel boiler of the B1 saved in construction costs over the taper boiler of the Black 5,  in performing mixed-traffic duties, would the theoretical greater efficiency of a taper boiler over parallel boiler have justified the extra costs?

The LMS thought it did, and thought so for freight work as well with the 8F, and continued to think so in the harsher economic environment of the post war period when construction costs became more pertinent; of course, so did running costs!  So did BR with the Standards.  We can discount the GW, which was stuck in a Churchwardian time warp and incapable of rational thought when it came to construction costs or ease of maintenance.

 

2 hours ago, Pandora said:

Please include the  Stephenson long-boiler 0-6-0 tender locos of which NER 1275 at York NRM is an example,

Good example of something that did well straight out of the box, and is probably a candidate for the longest continuously produced general design, though not class, of steam loco, over 100 years with the last examples being produced for the NCB as pannier tanks, at a time when that customer had already standardised on Hunslet 18½" 'Austerities'.  If you wanted steady fast running with a long boiler, a Crampton was yer man.

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I think that's rather harsh. In their 4-2-2 form, the Achilles class were the Great Western's front-line express passenger engines of the 1890s.

They were ok as 4-2-2s, and could run fast if lightly loaded, but they certainly didn't work well out of the box as the Wigmore Castle incident showed.  They were part of the reversion to singles that was happening at the time in consequence of the invention of steam sanding gear, designers such as Stirling, Dean, and Johnson happily going back to the days of free running singles that did not have the limitations imposed by coupling rod bearings and fireboxes sitting between large diameter driving wheels at at time when boiler, and hence firebox, sizes were increasing.  Don't forget 'Cornwall' and 'Columbine' were still in service on the LNW.  Despite being a Western man who thinks that anything that comes out of Derby is a ramshackle waste of time, I prefer the Johnson single from the appearance perspective; pure Victorian loco porn...

 

 

[The Johnster]

You can't point to any individual designer, even anyone who signed off on it, but the HST has to be the most successful British design of all time, by any parameters.  The train that saved BR.

[jim.snowdon]

8 hours ago, Pandora said:

The Thompson B1 was the equal of the Stanier Black 5 in the 1948 trials,  the parallel boiler of the B1 saved in construction costs over the taper boiler of the Black 5,  in performing mixed-traffic duties, would the theoretical greater efficiency of a taper boiler over parallel boiler have justified the extra costs?

The other, and possibly more significant, factor in the parallel vs taper boiler comparison is the cost of maintenance, particularly in regard to the firebox. 

 

Jim

[30368]

What a facinating discussion, we all have a favourites I guess.

 

What was particulaly interesting about the UK railway locomotive practices was the rich variety of design practices a reflection of the way that railways developed here, many small companies each with its own design department. This is less true of Europe, where state intevention developed the railways for stratigic purposes and the US, where large commercial companies developed and adapted a range of locomotives for sale to the railway operators.

 

In many ways British locomotive design was 10-20 years behind European and US practices. Having said that, I think that the most beautifull looking locomotives were all designed in the UK!

 

Trying to step back a bit, and focusing on the twentieth century, I think that Churchward and Gresley stand out as successful innovators not afraid to look at overseas practices and adapt them brilliantly to UK conditions. Bulleid seemed to have improved on the excellent pacific boilers of the LNER where he spent so much time so must be mentioned.  I would add that all design work was a team effort so many unsung engineers did thier bit too.

 

As to my personal favourites? I rather like the Peppercorn A1's. I also think that Urie, with his robust 4-6-0 designs look right. Ther are so many other excellent designs though!

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

[Pandora]

British locomotive design and manufacture was at least 20 to 30 years behind USA,  in manufacturing steam locomotive frames the Americans were CASTING an entire frame in nickel steel  with the cylinders and frame as a single piece   avoiding the problems  of fabricated frames   with the cylinders working loose and frame flex and racking,  this  shows  the mastery of the American foundries,  in horsepower per cylinder, the American steam locos were several times over British locos,  it is no surprise that Gresley Bulleid etc spent time in the USA looking at their achievements.  The Americans seemed to have mastered their lessons in diesel locomotive design and operation  from the early days, lessons which did not carry over to our British diesels of the 1950s

Edited January 5, 2020 by Pandora

[corneliuslundie]

Going back earlier, how about the Furness/Cambrian 2-4-0s of the 1850s/60s? I straight manufacturer's design that worked.

In the basis the J94 and its predecessors.

Jonathan

[Baby Deltic]

HS4000 Kestrel

[62613]

3 hours ago, Pandora said:

British locomotive design and manufacture was at least 20 to 30 years behind USA,  in manufacturing steam locomotive frames the Americans were CASTING an entire frame in nickel steel  with the cylinders and frame as a single piece   avoiding the problems  of fabricated frames   with the cylinders working loose and frame flex and racking,  this  shows  the mastery of the American foundries,  in horsepower per cylinder, the American steam locos were several times over British locos,  it is no surprise that Gresley Bulleid etc spent time in the USA looking at their achievements.  The Americans seemed to have mastered their lessons in diesel locomotive design and operation  from the early days, lessons which did not carry over to our British diesels of the 1950s

In fact, in the USA, the weren't called "Frames"; they were called "Engine Beds", and stuff like cylinders and so on used optical methods  for accuracy of alignment of the various parts. There was also stuff like using roller bearings throughout. Could part of that be due to the economies of scale in production making the investment in the equipment needed worthwhile. Did any locomotive builder (private as well as railway) have the throughput?

 

The other thing is that pay rates were generally much lower in the UK than in the USA, so there wasn't (some might say still isn't) the incentive to invest in the kit required in the UK.

 

[Pandora]

Poor old Britain, Britain and Germany were both hotbeds of thinking, both countries were world leaders in physics. British companies such as Metropolitan Vickers were manufacturing atom smashing cyclotrons for use in British Universities where many of the calculations  for nuclear fission were formulated,  the USA had the industrial might and muscle but lagged in inventiveness.  Warned by Einstein of the threat  of the  German nuclear weapon,  USA took those calculations and funded the vast cost of the Manhattan Project as a counter measure,  the British committee (was it Tizard)  handed over Britains best to the USA ,  the best included the revolutionary Cavity Magnetron and the Whittle Jet engine.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Pandora

[The Johnster]

20 hours ago, 30368 said:

, I think that Churchward and Gresley stand out as successful innovators not afraid to look at overseas practices and adapt them brilliantly to UK conditions.

I think it'd be only fair to nominate Sir Vincent Raven of the NER as anothe successful innovator not afraid to look at overseas practices and adapt them brilliantly to UK conditions, as well as having easily the best Goth name of any loco designer...

 

6 hours ago, Pandora said:

in horsepower per cylinder, the American steam locos were several times over British locos

Well, yes.  American cylinders were much larger than British ones as their designers were able to take advantage of the much more lenient loading gauge and the much heavier section rail used. 90lb/ft was common on British main lines, while the Americans were using nearly double that, meaning that their axle loads could be much heavier; we are talking about 40 tons plus per axle.  A comparison of cylinder horsepower would need to focus on US designs for the British loading gauge, like the S160 versus the Stanier 8F or 2-8-0 Austerity.  

 

2-8-0s and Pacifics were regarded as respectively the biggest freight and passenger locos needed in the UK, in the US they were short line or light passenger train locos!

 

1 hour ago, Pandora said:

the British committee (was it Tizard)  handed over Britains best to the USA ,  the best included the revolutionary Cavity Magnetron and the Whittle Jet engine.

The American benefitted greatly from our innovations during the war, including the Bletchley Park stuff, and the Germans' after it for rocket technology, both in terms of the physics and of the chemistry required for the fuel.  The Germans had a functioning jet fighter aircraft, and a rocket powered interceptor, before Whittle's effort, and had test flown a jet bomber.  They had radar as well, though not with the Cavity Magnetron, but used it differently; whereas ours was regarded as a defensive device for detecting incoming wave of bombers, the Germans applied theirs to rangefinding for naval guns, enabling the Bismarck to blow the Hood to bits with it's second ever shot fired in anger.  Our use of the same idea enabled the George V to sink the Scharnhorst in a North Cape storm at night.

[30368]

Had not thought of the Goth angle on loco design.....

[The Johnster]

See Hornby/Bassett Lowke...

[melmerby]

On 05/01/2020 at 16:07, Pandora said:

,  the British committee (was it Tizard)  handed over Britains best to the USA ,  the best included the revolutionary Cavity Magnetron and the Whittle Jet engine.

The Cavity Magnetron wasn't invented in the UK. In fact there had been many versions before, however in 1940 a team at Birmingham University developed a much improved version than could operate with high power at millimetric wavelengths.

This led to compact radar systems that could be used in planes or ships.

The Germans used Klystrons for their radar.

[rodent279]

On 04/01/2020 at 14:51, The Johnster said:

You can't point to any individual designer, even anyone who signed off on it, but the HST has to be the most successful British design of all time, by any parameters.  The train that saved BR.

Sticking my neck out here, but I think the unloved Pacers, and (less unloved) Sprinters arguably did for local & regional passenger services what the HST did for InterCity. Saved it from the abyss.

 

Pacers didn't work from the box, I know there were problems with excessive flange wear on bendy routes, and there were issues with train detection-but they lasted over 30 years, so can't be all bad.

Sprinters do seem to have worked from the box though.

 

Edit:-maybe both weren't "masterpieces", in the sense that say Halls or Crabs were, but they have largely done the job they were designed for, over several decades. Arguably they've also done jobs they've not been designed for as well, such as long distance work- I think that is where their bad reputation stems from.

Edited January 14, 2020 by rodent279