NER Bevel Drive Locomotive

[Nearholmer]

I suppose the motor could be driving a lay-shaft, bevel gear from motor to shaft, bevel gear from shaft to each axle, which would work, but almost certainly be noisy …… and would have a great deal of trouble accommodating vertical movement of the axles.

 

Very intriguing. Has anyone compared the style of the drawing with contemporary output from the DO? I’m almost wondering whether it was drawn in 1952. I’m almost wondering whether it’s a spoof.

 

The things at the end I read to be hand-brake wheels and shafts, accessed through end windows probably, although the presence of two makes me wonder about how the linkages worked.

 

Having one door each side isn’t too implausible, because electric locos didn’t always have a separate cab and “engine room”. Designers were quite happy to put the driver in the middle of a compartment full of live and exposed electrical conductors, contractors, compressors etc, with a few vestigial handrails for “protection”, and some even started with the a single driving position near the centre, with the driver having to peer along the length of the thing and out of the end windows. I think the Met camelbacks were like that initially, but were altered because the driver couldn’t see out properly.

[Michael Edge]

I still think this is mythical - all that exists is this weight diagram with no suggestion of how it might have been powered, nobody has ever turned up any photographic evidence. With shoes that close together it would have been easily gapped on pointwork - outer ends would have been more useful.

[D7666]

I am a little puzzled by the comment upthread

QUOTE

the drawing clearly shows that aside from the splashers on the tender sides, this vehicle had little to no underframe.  

UNQUOTE

as that drawing looks like it has a tender underframe, which, being converted from a tender, and the coal and water space being of no use to an electric loco, is actually all of the parts of a tender that can be repurposed.

 

Anyway. To main reason for my post.

 

There was a discussion on this vehicle eons ago on a forum that no longer exists IIRC.

 

One of the queries on that forum, like here, was about if it was single ended or not _ and _ I think _ it was said it was double ended - that diagram is of one side only - if the machine were symetric, the side not in the drawing would have a cab door in the same way. I can't remember how or why or with what evidence it was suggested it was double ended.

 

The axles loads suggest the machine is 1A1 wheel arrangement i.e. only the centre axle powered, which makes sense.

 

Use of bevel gear drive is by no means uncommon; it clouds the issue here by use of the term makes it seem a novelty.

 

 

 

 

 

[Michael Edge]

The handbrake is on the outer end because that's where it is on the tender frame the drawing is based on - a loco with the handbrake outside the cab doesn't seem very likely to me.

[D7666]

2 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

I still think this is mythical - all that exists is this weight diagram with no suggestion of how it might have been powered, nobody has ever turned up any photographic evidence. With shoes that close together it would have been easily gapped on pointwork - outer ends would have been more useful.

 

1. Why assume there must automatically be photo evidence ?

 

2. Photos could have existed but since been lost or destroyed or simple decomposed. Things were much more fragile then e.g. glass plates.

 

3. that drawing may be a final concept; it is possible the device exi

sted as a test rig never completed

 

[Michael Edge]

Why assume that a vague drawing like this represents something which actually existed?

[D7666]

2 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

The handbrake is on the outer end because that's where it is on the tender frame the drawing is based on - a loco with the handbrake outside the cab doesn't seem very likely to me.

 

 

There is no reason whatsover a hand brake can not be placed on the outside.

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

The Hoole book mentions Austrian classes 1570 & 1670 as Bevel Drive locos produced in the 1925-29 period.

 

There appears to be more info about it in "The Electric Railway that Never Was"  by R.A.S. Hennesey - whenever that was published - as Hoole quotes that as the source for the information it was trialled between Jesmond & Gosforth.

Hoole also quotes seeing an interior photo of it in the early 1950's "at the Stooperdale Offices", but that image has apparently since been lost....

Edited January 18, 2023 by Johann Marsbar

[D7666]

2 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Why assume that a vague drawing like this represents something which actually existed?

Why assume it did not ?

 

Methinks you present specious argument for the sake of it.

[Michael Edge]

No, I would be delighted to see some real evidence that this loco existed - we do kits for every other NE electric loco - I'm just not convinced by a vague drawing with an even stranger date on it and some third hand anecdotal comments.

[Johann Marsbar]

Looking elsewhere online, another Forum states that the interior photo of the loco, quoted in the book as being "lost", is actually in the Ken Hoole photo archive at Darlington, so, if that is the case, he must have been able to track it down after the Oakwood book was published.

That would appear to be the place to look for evidence of its construction.......

[Compound2632]

47 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

There appears to be more info about it in "The Electric Railway that Never Was"  by R.A.S. Hennesey - whenever that was published

 

 

Oriel Press (1970) ISBN 10: 0853620873  ISBN 13: 9780853620877

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780853620877/Electric-Railway-Never-Hennessey-0853620873/plp

[Nearholmer]

37 minutes ago, D7666 said:

Use of bevel gear drive is by no means uncommon; it clouds the issue here by use of the term makes it seem a novelty.

It’s a very niche form of drive for electric locos, because of the problems of accommodating vertical movement of the axles.

 

It, and worm drive from a longitudinal shaft, were used on some very early locos (Siemens & Halske 1878/79 for instance).
 

It is still used on some specialist beasts like mining locos, with one motor between two axles, and a bevel on each end of the shaft (model railway motor bogie type stuff!), but they have virtually no suspension, maybe some stiff rubber blocks.

 

I’ve just had a quick dip into the prime textbook of the time covering the mechanical aspects of electric locos, F W Carter “Railway Electric Traction” 1922, and he gives no example of bevel drive to more than one axle/shaft. There’s a discussion of the subject in Cassier’s Electric Railway Number of 1899, talking about experiments with bevel drive to both axles in streetcar trucks (the frame carrying two axles), and that says it was quickly abandoned because it was noisy and because the gears wore “to a knife edge” in two to four months use (that will be because of the suspension fighting the drive).

 

So, if this thing existed, it probably had drive to only one axle, which would have made it a chocolate tea pot in haulage terms, or drive by shaft and bevel to all three, which was foredoomed.

 

Could it have had some non-locomotive purpose? A test load to be dragged by the big engines, acting as a generator/regenerator? 
 

It still doesn’t quite “hang together” to me.

[Johann Marsbar]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Oriel Press (1970) ISBN 10: 0853620873  ISBN 13: 9780853620877

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780853620877/Electric-Railway-Never-Hennessey-0853620873/plp

 

Might be worth a run down to Felixstowe to have a thumb through that!

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m almost wondering whether it was drawn in 1952. I’m almost wondering whether it’s a spoof.

 

I have the impression that it was usual in BRB days to overstamp in this manner any item given away or sold to a member of the public, presumably to record its provenance - see for example Derby photos in @phil_sutters's collection:

http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/26349985.

 

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

Might be worth a run down to Felixstowe to have a thumb through that!

 

Cheaper to buy it, postage and all, at today's transport prices!

[D7666]

No more a chocolate teapot loco than a 2-2-2 kettle is.

 

That is an 1A1 is a 2-2-2 - the middle axle is powered, the leading and trailing axles are not.

 

If it were a regen test bed, every single arugment about bevel drives equally applies - axles move vertically under regen braking the same as they do in traction.

 

Bevel drives exist in many locos. The driveline in for example a class 03 has a (spiral) bevel box; this is only a variant of the same thing.

 

The key is not that it is a bevel drive, but how this bevel drive was implemented - it only needs a UJ or equivalent function somewhere in the drive line and possibly most movement is allowed for.

 

A possible use for such a locomotive is slow but heavy shunting - such as a coal staithe. Not that there were any staithes in the north east !!! 😂  Third rail on a staith is not daft, you'd not want OLE there. Shunting staff can work on the opposite side to the rail. Just an idea about a staith that came up in the now lost forum - again I can't remember what evidence if any was presented for this.

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by D7666

[Wickham Green too]

11 hours ago, Octavius1862 said:

... Due to the placement of access hatches, I'm inclined to believe that the engine could only be operated from one end, ...

I'd disagree with that as it seems to have brake handles on both ends - perhaps the far side was identical rather than mirror image ?

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

I'd disagree with that as it seems to have brake handles on both ends - perhaps the far side was identical rather than mirror image ?

A driving cab at each end would obviously be a good idea. 

It would be inconvenient to have to get out on the "wrong" side of the loco in some places, although that could be mitigated by the ability to get from one end to the other by climbing across the gubbins inside the loco.

However I would have thought it very impractical to drive it from the left hand end if there isn't at least a window you can look out of in order to see hand signals being given from behind you on that side of the track.

The grilles in that position suggest there was some sort of equipment there that needed ventilation - so the cab couldn't be full width if both sides of the loco are identical.

Providing footsteps at that end of the underframe seems pretty pointless too, though they could just be residue from the tender's previous incarnation. 

On balance therefore I think this loco (if it even existed) would have had mirror image rather than identical sides.

[Michael Edge]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I have the impression that it was usual in BRB days to overstamp in this manner any item given away or sold to a member of the public, presumably to record its provenance - see for example Derby photos in @phil_sutters's collection:

http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/26349985.

 

That explains the date stamp on it anyway.

It's hard to imagine what this would ever have been intended for, somewhat less than useless as a 1-A-1 but possibly useful as some sort of drive experiment connected with the development of No.13 which eventually had frame mounted motors and quill drive . The tender drawing seems to have been used along with steps at each end and the rear vertical handrail. The tender steps don't look like a very good way of accessing the door which is obviously taken directly from No.13.

It looks very much like the "imaginary locomotives" we see on here produced by photoshopping images, these often produce similar anomalies.

To repeat, I'm not denigrating any of this discussion, I'm just not convinced it ever existed and I would be delighted to be proved wrong in this.

[New Haven Neil]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Oriel Press (1970) ISBN 10: 0853620873  ISBN 13: 9780853620877

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780853620877/Electric-Railway-Never-Hennessey-0853620873/plp

 

OK, I have his book, and a quick scan gives that it was a WORM drive, made from a tender, weighed 31t 8cwt, was given a make-shift cab and tried between Jesmond and Gosforth 'It was not a success', and remains something of an enigma.  The diagram of it above is not in this book.

 

Well nothing's changed in that respect.

[New Haven Neil]

The reference to worm drive is presumably inaccurate, but in the Hoole book he states the chap he talked to in Darlington actually identified the loco from the interior photo Hoole had....which he had not previously been able to identify.

 

This does make me think it did exist, although I'm loathe to contradict Mike!

[Wickham Green too]

3 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

... with steps at each end and the rear vertical handrail. The tender steps don't look like a very good way of accessing the door ...

,,, but might have been useful for shunters to hang onto !!?!

[russ p]

Is it actually a loco and not a drawing of a vehicle that could have formed part of a multiple unit? 

[Michael Edge]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

,,, but might have been useful for shunters to hang onto !!?!

It looks more as if it has been copied straight from the tender drawing without much thought.