How many trips could a steam locomotive make per day?

[DK123GWR]

This is one of those topics which has surely been discussed before, but I'm struggling to find where. How much work could an express passenger locomotive reasonably do in a day? The route I'm interested in is Paddington-Barnstaple via Westbury (the line from Taunton to Barnstaple being a main line in this universe) with probably another 60-100 miles (the range accounts for there being two possible destinations, as well as difficulties measuring wiggly lines) into the sea. The longer of these routes would involve tough gradients. The closest locomotives to mine would be whatever the largest 4-6-0 GWR had during that era was. To show the sort of information I'm after, I picked a random departure from Paddington this morning and tracked that unit for the rest of the day. It happened to be 800319.

As the photo shows, it worked ECS from North Pole IEP depot, two return journeys to Swansea, and then a one-way journey to Hereford, followed by an  ECS working. I assume a steam loco would do a lot less than this in a day. Could it do a single return journey on a route like mine, or is even that too much to ask? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

Edited December 2, 2021 by DK123GWR

[TravisM]

I’m sure a lot of the more “senior” members on here that worked with steam will agree with this. When I was on the railways in the early 80’s, a discussion between ex steam men and us “wet behind the ears sprogs” over them merits of steam v diesel was brought up.

 

The steam men said that a good engine that was steaming well could usually out pull a early diesel from a standing start and give certainly give it a run for it’s money, but, and it’s a big but, with the steam run down, there was less and less free steaming loco’s and could be regarded as just average.

 

But in answer to your question, a steam loco doing a Paddington to Swansea service would probably be expected to do just the one trip before needing a clean out, possibly the fire dropped and a new one lit.  If it was needed back urgently, it possibly could have been taken off at Cardiff and work the next return service.

 

This is one of the many reasons that diesels, including the poor performing one’s trumped over steam with higher availability, less down time and possibly better economy.

[Miss Prism]

You won't get very far up the Barnstaple line with a 4-6-0. Try changing locos at Taunton:

 

 

 

[DK123GWR]

6 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

You won't get very far up the Barnstaple line with a 4-6-0. Try changing locos at Taunton:

 

 

 

When I said it's a main line in this universe, I meant it - it's double track and well built, with any severe curves smoothed out - that's only a relatively small application of rule 1 given the amount of extra land I've created (along with the people and industries to fill it).

[The Johnster]

Couple of factors in play that determine the 'operating range' of main line express steam locomotives.  Obviously, the distancce is the main one, but a locomotive running, as in your suggestion, non-stop from Paddington to Barnstaple takes less time than a stopper, so the fire is not burning for as long, and the stopper will burn more coal per distances as well as it has to accellerate away from the stops.  Once the speed is lowered, as one would expect it to be on your proposed Taunton-Barnstaple double track main line because even if the existing route is improved to double track main line standards, there is a limit to what can be done to alleviate the gradients and the effects of the winding valleys that this route follows, the time factor comes into play again and more coal is burned per mile than on the fast stretches of the West of England Main.

 

But it is a comparable run to, say, Paddington-Plymouth, which a King was expected to manage, or Plymouth-Pontypool Road, where the North to West route trains changed locomotives.  Coal and crew hours are the other determining factors, and if the crew is to return to their home depot in a working day, a run of about 3, maybe 3 and a half, hours is reasonable; even if the loco is prepped and disposed by shed men, they must examine it, run to the terminus, couple on to the train, complete the journey, then turn and service the loco to repeat the performance in the opposite direction.  Return workings were usually stoppers to give the fireman some respite.  The men had to book off duty in time to get at least 12 hours rest before booking on for their next turn. 

 

Or it could be a double home job, with the crew working a longer distance, booking off duty at the destination shed, and lodging or using a railway hostel while off duty, then booking on at the destination shed for the following job, which is the return working; the 12 hour rule still applied.

 

The capacity of the tender is designed with this in mind, so a big GW 4-6-0 has a 4 and a half ton tender bunker which is sufficient coal for the job at hand.  Britannias, doing the same work but with bigger boilers, required tenders that could carry an extra ton, and the fireman had to shovel it...  Water is consumed at a prodigious rate by a large steam loco working hard, but is avaialble on the run from troughs, so is not a limiting factor.

 

There is no doubt that the diesels could accomplish much higher mileages in a working day than a steam loco, especially once the HSTs were introduced, cutting journy and turnaround times, and enabling diagrams like the one you use as an example possible.  This is largely down to the ability of a diesel to remain in service and it's not requiring turning and coaling after every journey, but another factor is the increase of speeds and lowering of journey times in the diesel era even before the HSTs. brought about by a combination of relaying junctions (e,g. Wootton Bassett SWML speed restriction up from 40 to 70mph), and limiting loads, so that the fastest Cardiff-Paddington service in 1962, King hauled 14 bogies 3 hours 10 minutes, was down to 47 hauled 9 airconditioned coaches at 2 hours 10 minutes by 1974.  The effect of the HST was to reduce this to 1 hour 40 minutes in 1977, only recently restored by the Hitachi 800s.

 

Do not be fooled by the times often quoted to prepare a steam engine for service from cold; they were only let go cold for the fortnightly boiler washout, being kept in 'light steam' continuously between washouts.  Washouts took 48 hours, most of which was letting the engine cool and bringing her back up to temperature and pressure slowly, important because the major limitation on the service life of the boiler between overhauls is the number of cooling and heating/contraction and expansion cycles on the welded joints between the tubes and the boiler plates, and this is the reason that locos were kept in steam and hot the rest of the time.  It actually took about an hour to prepare a loco in light steam for service, a point carefully ignored by the diesel salesmen of the 50s and early 60s.

 

Diesel availability in the early 1960s was considered on the WR to be 3 times better than steam, and any shed allocated a new diesel was required to withdraw 3 equivalent steam locos from it's allocation to 'pay' for it.  This was a miscalculation in practice, and 2 steam for 1 diesel would have been more like it; by 1962 and into early 63 the timetable was close to collapse for lack of locomotives, and the region was saved only be the immedieate availability of English Electric type 3s to replace 56xx and 42xx in South Wales and Brush Type 4s to replace Castles.

[DK123GWR]

From the above posts, I have been left with the impression that once the loco finishes its run:

1) The ashpan must be emptied (I assume this one of the main tasks involve in what @jools1959 meant by 'needing a clean out' - is there anything else?)

2) Coal and water must be filled up

3) The locomotive must be turned

4) About one hour further is needed to raise steam

5) The locomotive is now ready to return, crew permitting

Have I understood this correctly? If so, how long would the previous steps be likely to take?

[Steamport Southport]

How far would they have worked?

 

How far is London to Scotland and back? That's what a WCML or ECML express passenger locomotive was expected to be able to do daily.  Although many trains would have changed locos at somewhere like Carlisle or Newcastle. That's still 500 miles a day.

 

Up to Scotland (or most of the way). Refuelled and back down on a later train. The crew would have either stayed over in accommodation or rode back "on the cushions". But the loco had to get back to it's shed and do the same thing the next day. 

 

The GWR and SR locomotives travelling to the west were similar.

 

Don't forget many of these locomotives did something like 2 million miles in their lifetime which was about thirty to forty years.

 

Yes. Don't believe the "they took eight hours to get ready every morning" they always mentioned on TV programmes like Blue Peter, they were hardly ever out of steam. 

 

 

 

Jason

Edited December 2, 2021 by Steamport Southport

[Steamport Southport]

7 minutes ago, DK123GWR said:

From the above posts, I have been left with the impression that once the loco finishes its run:

1) The ashpan must be emptied (I assume this one of the main tasks involve in what @jools1959 meant by 'needing a clean out' - is there anything else?)

2) Coal and water must be filled up

3) The locomotive must be turned

4) About one hour further is needed to raise steam

5) The locomotive is now ready to return, crew permitting

Have I understood this correctly? If so, how long would the previous steps be likely to take?

 

Pretty much. Sometimes needed the smokebox clearing.

 

Oiling was probably the vital part. Most of the other duties would be done by the shed staff. The crew did the lubrication and made sure it was fit to run. Once they took it over it was their responsiblity.

 

One thing you read in the autobiographies is about how they hated getting locomotives after certain crews as they always left them with a locomotive that had "a poorly made fire that wouldn't steam". Unfortunately you can't pick your workmates.

 

 

 

Jason

[NorthEndCab]

For what it’s worth, I believe the longest diagram for a unit in the UK is currently 1300+ miles daily for one one of the Pendolinos. 
 

What was the longest steam loco diagram? I’d guess the A4’s etc up to Scotland?

[Bucoops]

30 minutes ago, NorthEndCab said:

For what it’s worth, I believe the longest diagram for a unit in the UK is currently 1300+ miles daily for one one of the Pendolinos. 
 

What was the longest steam loco diagram? I’d guess the A4’s etc up to Scotland?

 

The Flying Scotsman was non-stop at a little over 390 miles I think. Coal capacity was ok but it needed water troughs and a crew change to make it.

 

The longest ever non-stop run for a steam locomotive was set in Australia. 422 miles.

 

The loco? Our very own Flying Scotsman.

[Compound2632]

44 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

How far is London to Scotland and back? That's what a WCML or ECML express passenger locomotive was expected to be able to do daily.  Although many trains would have changed locos at somewhere like Carlisle or Newcastle. That's still 500 miles a day.

 

Up to Scotland (or most of the way). Refuelled and back down on a later train. The crew would have either stayed over in accommodation or rode back "on the cushions". But the loco had to get back to it's shed and do the same thing the next day. 

 

London-Glasgow or Edinburgh Via the West Coast or Midland routes, or London-Edinburgh via the East Coast are all around 400 miles, so an 800 mile round-trip; 6 hours each way by the East Coast and 6½ hours by the West Coast were the very best non-stop timings of the late 1930s. Euston-Carlisle and Kings Cross-Newcastle are both around 300 miles; a 600 mile round trip. I don't know what the working arrangements actually were but it seems to me unlikely that any 1930s Pacific worked out-and-back over such distances on the same day.

 

The LNER built four "silver" A4s in 1935 to work the Silver Jubilee train between Kings Cross and Newcastle; the LMS built four "blue" streamlined Princess Coronations in 1937 to work the Coronation Scot. That says to me that the utilisation was nowhere near as intensive as you suggest. 

 

It would be interesting to know what the working actually was.

[Steamport Southport]

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

London-Glasgow or Edinburgh Via the West Coast or Midland routes, or London-Edinburgh via the East Coast are all around 400 miles, so an 800 mile round-trip; 6 hours each way by the East Coast and 6½ hours by the West Coast were the very best non-stop timings of the late 1930s. Euston-Carlisle and Kings Cross-Newcastle are both around 300 miles; a 600 mile round trip. I don't know what the working arrangements actually were but it seems to me unlikely that any 1930s Pacific worked out-and-back over such distances on the same day.

 

The LNER built four "silver" A4s in 1935 to work the Silver Jubilee train between Kings Cross and Newcastle; the LMS built four "blue" streamlined Princess Coronations in 1937 to work the Coronation Scot. That says to me that the utilisation was nowhere near as intensive as you suggest. 

 

It would be interesting to know what the working actually was.

 

I said nothing about working the same train back. It would have just been another train. Sometimes even a fitted goods. But they had to get back to their home shed as quickly as possible.

 

So a train leaving Euston at 9 AM. It's in Scotland by about 4 PM. Loco would be travelling back on one of the evening trains. Why wouldn't it?

 

 

Jason

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

I said nothing about working the same train back. It would have just been another train. Sometimes even a fitted goods. 

 

Fair enough.

 

12 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

But they had to get back to their home shed as quickly as possible.

 

But why? A Coronation Pacific could be serviced at Polmadie just as well as at Camden.

 

13 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

So a train leaving Euston at 9 AM. It's in Scotland by about 4 PM. Loco would be travelling back on one of the evening trains. Why wouldn't it?

 

That's the question on which I hope we can get an authoritative answer.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

I said nothing about working the same train back. It would have just been another train. Sometimes even a fitted goods. But they had to get back to their home shed as quickly as possible.

 

So a train leaving Euston at 9 AM. It's in Scotland by about 4 PM. Loco would be travelling back on one of the evening trains. Why wouldn't it?

 

 

Jason

So it arrives in Glasgow - sits on the blocks until the stock is pulled off after the passengers have all alighted and the van traffic has been cleared - minimum for a long distance service c.20+ minutes.  It then runs light to shed and takes its turn in the disposal queue  - water, coal, ashpan to be emptied, fire to be cleaned, smokebox to be cleaned out, anything more than an hour to get through all that and at busy times it would sit in the queue for longer.  Then on shed for the fitter and boilersmith to check any booked defects and carry out their exam.  Assuming it is actually available for traffic straight away with no defects and no work needed you can probably reckon on the best part of an hour for that lot.  Next job if it is going back into traffic is to build the fire and for the engine to be prepared by either a shed ferry set of men or by the men who will be working uit to wherever so you're looking at over an hour to get the fire back together (assuming that the engine is still hot - longer if it isn't and the best part of an hour to prep it.

 

If it arrived at 4pm I suppose there's a faint possibility that it might be able to work back with a train very late that night but I seriously wonder just how many engines which worked really long distances were turned round that quickly/. Then comes the other problem - if the crew have worked through with it their day will be up and they can't work it back and normal practice was for put crews who lodged back with their own depot's engine - which they might have brought or which came in on another balance.  The engine might be pinched for a bit of local work but I seriously doubt if any engines working of really long distances were turned round in not much more than the time it took to turn them round - experience suggested that was not aclever policy because the instance there was any work arising on the engine it would almost inevitably miss its balance with such a short turnround.

 

Tthose western engines which did work through from London to Plymouth almost invariably went back the next day with  London men who had lodged overnight and I doubt it was any different on longer distance workings on the ECML and WCML.  I know from an old friend who fired at Top Shed that their normal limit of working was Newcastle and lodge and then back with their own engine (unless Gateshead had pinched it).  In some cases, such as the Western's very hard lodge turns between Newton Abbot and Salop the engines from both sheds worked out on the first day and back on the next.

 

On shotrter ditances steam did run out and back and it was common between London and Bristol/Cardiff and the same happened on teh ECML where there were numerous 'short' turns with engones being canged at places like Peterborough and Grantham and then returning within an hour or two back whence they had come

[The Johnster]

Looking at South Wales freight loco diagrams, where the work could be just as hard on man and locos but was less unrelenting, there seems to be a gereral principle that the loco, once off shed, works for around 12 to 14 hours, having a crew relief half way through the day, leaving 10 to 12 hours out of traffic for disposal, any jobs needing doing, then rebuilding the fire and preparation for traffic.  As Mike points out, a loco could spend an hour or more waiting on the reception road in the disposal queue, and at busy times (mid evening when the colliery trips come home to roost) there may be queues for the ashpit and coaling stage as well before she is stabled ready for prepping for the next duty. 

 

This is a general principle and there were exceptions, and even at places like Tondu, some engines ended up at other depots at the ends of their diagrams and there would be an alternate day balance working.  On double home jobs (Tondu had one to Llanelli, which means that Llanelli must have had a balancing diagram to Tondu), the men book of and go to their lodgings before the loco's time is up, so a loco capable of work on short haul jobs where it would be back on shed within a few hours becomes available for traffic, and the shedmasters were never backward in coming forward in taking advantage of this; it is best use of assets.  So long, of course, as it is ready for traffic when the double homers book back on...

 

Mike mentions Kings Cross-Newcastle as the distance limit on the ECML for the men, and most Edinburgh trains stopped at Newcastle and changed locos, but the non-stoppers were given corridor tenders which allowed crew relief on the fly.  This took place between Thirsk and Darlington, about half way in terms of time, and involved balancing double home crews.  The Haymarket men, having stayed overnight in London and travelling in a reserved first class compartment in the leading coach, would make their way through the tender corridor to relieve the Top Shed crew, who, following a brief convesation about the state of the fire and how she was running, would leave the footplate and take up their cushions in the reserved compartment; a balancing crew would be doing the same on the up working.  The relieved Top Shed men are now off duty and a beer was provided for them by a steward from the restaurant car.  On arrival at Waverley, they make their way to their lodgings.

 

The WCML Euston-Glasgow 'non-stoppers' actually had a crew relief by pulling up briefly at Upperby, Carlisle.

 

Mike mentions the Newton Abbott-Salop double home workings, which were known to be particularly brutal on crews and locos, probably the roughest on the WR, Cornish Riviera not excepted (though that job was particularly unrelenting and, in the down direction, had a sting in the tail in the form of the South Devon banks)/.  Castles were used though the route became available for Kings shortly before those engines were withdrawn.  The appearance of Warships on these trains must have been welcomed...

[number6]

I recommend Clive Groome's DVDs on driving and firing. [Driving And Firing the Big Four With Clive Groome]. In one he gives examples of riding with crews to Penzance, Glasgow and Edinburgh. On the GWR they work back to London next day on a Castle after running west with a King. On the WCML the Coronation comes off at Crewe and a Princess and new crew takes the train to Glasgow. Total time on footplate 9 hours. He explains the disposal of engines and the time that takes the fireman. I find it hard to believe there were any quick turnarounds on those routes if engines had worked through. Changing locos enroute was a more 'efficient' use of motive power than rushing the job after arrival.  Ranelagh Bridge at Paddington would turn and service engines that didn't then need to go to Old Oak but I believe they were often for the slightly shorter routes - Worcester? Another pointer to how quickly you could prepare arriving engines... Groome also describes preparing a loco at Nine Elms, running light to Waterloo, working to Basingstoke and return, ECS to Clapham then back to Nine Elms as a days work for both engine and crew. The use that the modern railway gets out of its stock is extraordinary compared to the steam railway. 

[Aire Head]

19 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

But they had to get back to their home shed as quickly as possible.

 

As quickly as possible is a very subjective term and quite often means "as soon as is convenient".

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, number6 said:

Ranelagh Bridge at Paddington would turn and service engines that didn't then need to go to Old Oak but I believe they were often for the slightly shorter routes - Worcester?

 

Canton and Bath Road locos diagrams were serviced and turned around at Ranelagh as well.  Kings Cross had a similar facility separate from 'Top Shed', as did St Pancras but I can't remember what it was called.

 

59 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

 

As quickly as possible is a very subjective term and quite often means "as soon as is convenient".

 

Or even 'sometime or other, sooner or later',  Stories of working freight trains during the war, especially late '43 and '44, the buildup to D-Day and the massive logistical operation supporting the Allies in France while ports were liberated and supply depots established, often involve being relieved in time to have 12 hours rest before booking back on duty, but with the off-duty time being spent in railway hostels, or even brake vans, the train not moving or at most, from one end of a yard to the other, in the meantime.  You might be away from home and unable to get back for nearly a week, and if you'd been tasked with bringing the loco home...

 

There was a lot of deprivation and suffering among guards and loco crews at this period that has never been officially recognised.  Conditions in the hostels at places like Severn Tunnel Jc, Westbury, Banbury and the like were grim, 'hot bedding', something associated with Dickensian lodging houses, being resorted to and hygiene inevitably suffering.  A driver I knew at Canton was firing at Westbury at the time, living in the hostel, not by choice, he was ordered and sent, and reckons several of his contemporaries went down with TB and pneumonia because of the cold damp conditions and poor food. and one or two did not recover.  Bullied by the local lads (bit of a surprise this, he was stockily built and looked the type that could handle himself, with a good bit of the attitude as well), and in severe depression, he admitted to me that he'd considered walking over to the cutoff and letting an up express scratch his back and end it all; he had a pretty miserable time of it.

 

Luckily for him, his regular driver was looking for a lodger and took him in, with the result that he was kept clean, warm, dry and properly fed, and having learned some dirty fighting tricks from an Italian pow working as a cleaner at the shed, dealt with the bullies, and improved his firing technique (the pow had been a fireman on the Naples-Rome expresses).  He ended up marrying the driver's daughter and living over there for some time before a vacancy allowed him to come back to Canton in the 50s.  Likes a happy ending, I does, but the story revealed a world of unpleasantness I would never have been aware of otherwise.  I'm sure similar stories could be told in other industries.

[Forward!]

Bit of a tangent, but I remember my father (a driver in the 60s-90s) telling me that even in the 70s he had to take his diesel loco out of Paddington to have it "turned", and the rest of the train was removed as an empty carriage stock working because it would mess up the steam era working timetable if they just turned around and left again. No idea if that was true, but it's a fun thought!

[The Stationmaster]

5 minutes ago, Forward! said:

Bit of a tangent, but I remember my father (a driver in the 60s-90s) telling me that even in the 70s he had to take his diesel loco out of Paddington to have it "turned", and the rest of the train was removed as an empty carriage stock working because it would mess up the steam era working timetable if they just turned around and left again. No idea if that was true, but it's a fun thought!

Not entirely true  By the 1970 the overwhelming majority of off-peak arrivals at paddington worked back out as passenger trains, turning round in teh station.  Plenty of morning peak arrivals were worked out as ECS as were a few longer distance trains for which there was no immediate balance to return on,  Even by the late 1960s, following the 1967 resignalling, the working at Paddington had changed considerably with far more intensive use of coaching stock sets.

 

And yes locos (and in the case of HSTs occasionally complete trains)  were sometimes worked out of the station to be turned - the most common reason being defective windscreen wipers.  But by 1970 the loco diagrams bore virtually no resemblance at all to steam age working with locos off long distance going no further than ranelagh bridge to stable waiting their next turn or for fuelling.  Almost the only engines going down to Old Oak were those off loco hauled commuter trains and locos with defects being swopped out of their booked working.

[The Johnster]

Well, it might be true; also in the 70s, when I was a guard at Canton, the daily fish train would arrive at Canton Sidings from Milford Haven at about 7 in the evening, hauled by a Western or 47, and the loco would cut off and go on shed, to be replaced by a fresh Western or 47 off shed with a different crew.  This proceeded to shunt the fish traffic in the big Canton goods shed, now the site of the South Wales Signalling Centre, and proceed to Paddington at about 19.45, can't recall the exact times.  This had been going on in exactly the same way since Broad Gauge days, because the loco coming up from Milford Haven, which had worked the empty vans down earlier in the day, was now reckoned to have used up it's tender full of coal and had to go on shed.  Or so I was told when I asked why the loco that brought the train up from Milford didn't work through...

[Pandora]

It depends on th era, the increase in  mileage a steam locomotive could be diagrammed for was one of the steady improvements in design,  is it correct that the GNR express train north out of Kings Cross would change locos at Peterborough? By the 1930s the mileage was close to the peak  at around 400 miles. The 1920s GNR A1 with the 180 psi boiler hurt the young  Mr Gresley, he received reports of empty tenders at the end of their diagrams, Bert Spencer saved the day with improvements to reduce coal consumptions by the class (the A3).  In the 1930s we had the A4s working 400 miles with high reliabilty and in the 1960s Peter Townend of Top Shed faced with under-performing diesels drove modifications  the permit A3s to work diesel schedules and diagrams.

From Townend, the A4s which achieved such high reliabilty , were cared for  by the  elite of the shed fitters who endured very poor working conditions to maintain them, especially firebox repairs.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Pandora

[Compound2632]

46 minutes ago, Pandora said:

It depends on th era, the increase in  mileage a steam locomotive could be diagrammed for was one of the steady improvements in design,  is it correct that the GNR express train north out of Kings Cross would change locos at Peterborough?

 

I understood that Grantham was the usual changing-point, at least for the Scottish trains, with the next change at York. It was also the engine-changing point for the Manchester expresses, MS&L engines working the trains north thereof.

 

Possibly the most intensive workings in the latter 19th century were on the LNWR. The 2pm Scotch Express - the Corridor - a very heavy train for the day - was from 1893 to 1899 in the hands of the Teutonic class 3-cylinder compound Jeanie Deans (except when she was in for overhaul): a 304-mile round trip from Euston to Crewe and back six days a week, three hours down to Crewe, a couple of hours to prepare for the return journey, and back at Euston around 10pm. With an hour for getting off and on Camden shed, that would be a 10-hour day for her crew (which was then standard). However, the engine was double-manned, with two crews working the train on alternate days and lighter duties with another engine on their "off" days. But like the A4s later, the engine was given the best attention of the most experienced fitters. Then there's the two million miles clocked up by Precedent Charles Dickens, a Longsight engine that had a daily turn from Manchester up to Euston and back - 322 miles. I don't know what the manning arrangements were and it has to be admitted that the engine was rebuilt as an Improved Precedent sometime after the first million miles. 

 

Both these workings were publicity stunts to some extent and I have read scurrilous rumours that at Longsight the name and number plates of Charles Dickens were put on whichever happened to be the best Precedent in the shed's allocation at the time.

[asmay2002]

Statistics still exist for the mileage run by locomotives on a daily basis in BR days.  I haven't got WR types to hand but for ex LMS Pacifics in the 1950-7 period the LMR Duchess were averaging 331 miles per weekday available whilst the ScR ones were only doing 263 miles with the whole class average being 316 miles (so a lot depended on the diagrams that the engines worked) and the older Princesses were doing 292 miles.   On this basis, one long trip (e.g Euston-Glasgow) or perhaps London-Crewe and back would seem about right. (Numbers from "Stanier Pacifics at work", A  J Powell). The reality may well have been Multi-day diagrams with different mileages each day.

 

[Pandora]

The Duchess, 331 miles per day, 300+ tons at 75 mph, and mainly  by a man and a shovel !

If only Crewe had built it properly, what would a fleet of locos based on 71000 have achieved in sustained speed and daily mileage?