Why did some diesel classes have noses (37, Deltic, Peaks etc)?

[Steamport Southport]

Don't forget the corridors that many of the early diesels had.

 

The LMS Twins for example.

 

https://lms10000.co.uk/

 

 

Jason

[BernardTPM]

Also fitted to many without noses.

[EddieB]

18 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

I believe Denmark built some main line diesels in the 1930s. My vague recollection is that they were generally boxy in layout, rather like the early US designs.

Frichs were something of pioneers in the field of diesel locomotives from the mid-‘twenties, but as you say there was little smoothing of the outline or styling in the beginning.  The earliest designs were akin to box-cabs, succeeded with the mainline locos for Thailand which had small noses (as befits that country?, though similar machines were built for the home market).  Post war styling took on a new dimension with DSB MY 1201/2 - regarded as positively voluptuous!

[phil-b259]

9 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

Even a motor car or many American lorries has a bonnet in front of the driver.  So it's what people are used to.

 

Thats more to do with permitted length (at least as regards lorries).

 

As cities in Europe were not built with motor vehicles in mind there was practical limit on total length - and thus was recognised in various laws / regulations from quite early on.

 

Therefore using the US style 'engine in front' model means sacrificing precious trailer length and thus reducing payload. As a consequence the 'Eurocab' style was developed placing the cab above the engine and having it hinge backward for access thus maximising payload.

 

Obviously manufacturers with a strong North American or Australian presence will still offer 'engine forward' designs

[Artless Bodger]

I seem to recall reading that EE in particular kept noses because of the crash protection, given that they were chasing export orders, especially to places like Africa - elephants and the like. The article also stated that the type 3s had mechanical drive permanently to the radiator fan - again with export orders in mind for hot countries, but an achilles heel in a UK winter if left idling overnight (because the coolant was not treated with antifreeze (engine metallurgy?), leading to the need to leave braziers burning alongside the locos even in sheds.

 

In the US early E series styling had very raked noses, but these later became steeper like the F units. Looking at photos, many E and F A units had nose doors, as did Alco cab units and some Baldwins. Nose doors were unecessary for hood units (doors were in the cab face opening onto the running board) but returned with the advent of the wide safety cab - presumably the safety has to do with collision protection for the crew. E units were operating at speeds in excess of 100mph on some services so a degree of streamlining was appropriate, not just for style (not forgetting the GG1s).

 

GM units built for or under licence by Nohab for Europe (Denmark, Hungary?) had quite US style noses. 

 

As ever I stand ready to be corrected.

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Don't forget the corridors that many of the early diesels had.

 

The LMS Twins for example.

 

https://lms10000.co.uk/

 

 

Jason

How much use was ever made of those corridors?  What for ?

 

They don't appear ever to have been aligned with coaching stock ganways, so I don't think the driver was ever able leave his cab and wander down to the buffet car for his BR stale cheese sarnie.

[Artless Bodger]

For the fireman / secondman to attend to the steam heat boiler in the trailing loco when in multiple? As I recall it the LMS twins were intended to work as a pair in place of a pacific. 

[The Johnster]

The twins were reckoned to be equivalent to a Black 5 singly or a Duchess in multiple, which the miscalculations of the 1955 modernisation plan locos later suggested was not a bad estimate.  The power requirements of the 1955 plan diesels were based on the work done on steam locos at the Rugby Testing Plant, which led to Class 5 steam power being replaced with Type 2 diesels, and Class 8 with Type 4, a Type too low in each case.  Not sure why this happened, but it did!

[Bittern]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The power requirements of the 1955 plan diesels were based on the work done on steam locos at the Rugby Testing Plant, which led to Class 5 steam power being replaced with Type 2 diesels, and Class 8 with Type 4, a Type too low in each case.  Not sure why this happened, but it did!

The error was that the diesels were specified based on the sustained power of the steam locos they were supposed to replace (which were carefully measured at Rugby), but had much less margin above that for short-term peaks (which weren't measured so systematically). 

[The Johnster]

That makes sense, Bittern.  The result was that Type 2s were intended to do Class 5 steam work which they struggled with, and Type 4s were intended to replace Class 7 steam, which they similarly struggled with until the higher powered types appeared in the early 60s, such as the various Peaks, the Westerns, and 47s.  Only the Deltics and AL series electrics were really able to match 8P steam performance, and it was not until the advent of HSTs and Class 87s that it was exceeded significanlty, and even then the requirements of airconditioning and eth meant that the loads were restricted.

 

It seemed to me that two HSTs an hour between Cardiff Central and Paddington were actually not doing any better in terms of bums on seats than a Brit 20 years early with 16 bogies on.  Actually, they were of course because there were more seats avaialable able to convey the bums over a given period of time, say a day, because of the higher speed and much faster turnarounds, but it does suggest that a hypothetical steam locomotive with driving wheels big enough to sustain 120mph or so could have easily equalled the 1977 HST timing with the same 8 bogies, only relatively recently equalled by the Hitachi hybrids.  These do offer an increase in seats for the bums.  I'm also not taking into account that the 1957 coaches were 64 footers, and the mk3s on the HSTs were 75 footers, again more bums on seats, so perhaps we should equate 8 mk3s with 9 Hawksworths or mk1s.

 

For anyone wanting to have a go over on 'Imaginary Locomotives' at this hypothesis, a 120mph steam loco capable of hauling 9 Hawksworths or mk1s, I'd suggest a 3 cylinder 4-6- with 7' driving wheels and a Castle or Jubilee boiler.  You might get away with an Atlantic if you need a wide firebox.  It still wouldn't equal the 1977 HST timing unless the speed restrictions had been eased at the junctions, 40mph to 70mph at Severn Tunnel Jc, 40 to 70 at Patchway, and 50 to 70 at Wootton Bassett (not Royal in those days).  This, and the limiting of loads with the diesels, which precluded the need for assistance between Severn Tunnel and Badminton, had enabled the timings to be cut progressively from 3 hours under steam to 2 hours and 10 minutes by the early 70s for a 47 and 9 airconditioned eth mk2s.  The HST and current fastest run is 1 hour and 38 minutes, nearly half what the Brits did but with half the load.  The story can be repeated in many locations on trunk route main lines thoughout the nation; speeds have risen but loads have reduced.  The passengers, sorry, customers (!) benefit from a better frequency of service, but the shorter trains are prone to overcrowding and the closeness to maximum line capacity makes them prone to delays.  We have improved sideways...

[Flying Pig]

Rather than rehash everything, this thread may be of interest if you have read this far:

 

 

[Morello Cherry]

For what it is worth people might find this brief article about early Canadian diesels interesting. The early designs were very boxy.

 

http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/Various/early_diesels.htm

 

It seems that the noses emerge in North America with Union Pacifics M10000 Streamliners - but it looks to me as if this was more for technical reasons but also styling and to mimic the modern cars with which it was competing.

 

 

 

Later designs it appears to be for style rather than because there was necessary equipment.

 

There is an article about their evolution here - annoyingly for an article about loco noses there are no photos of what is inside the nose.

 

Considering the discussion about corridor connections, the inability to get out of the front of an F unit is central to the plot of 'Runaway Train' (if you like prison escape films set on trains in Alaska then I highly recommend it) obviously you have to accept that apparently there is no such thing as a deadman's pedal.

 

The discussion of number 2s in the number 2 end reminded me of this bizarre video tour of the toilet in a Dash 9

 

 

None of which tells us anything about why British locos had noses.

[rogerzilla]

The US liked noses because their railways are mostly unfenced, so hitting the occasional large animal is an occupational hazard.  Also see cow catchers on steam engines.

[The Johnster]

Not sure I buy this, not completely unquestioningly anyway.  Certainly in the Rockies and the desert regions there was origninally no fencing because nobody owned the land (the Indians were not considered in this equation, but the bulk of railroad mileage was in the mid-west, Mississippi Valley, Appalachia, and the Eastern Seaboard, where population density was much greater and land ownership more delineated; fencing was the rule rather than the exception.  Granted it wasn't, even in the most densely populated places, the same as it was in the UK, or Europe in general; even in the populous East there are significant areas of forest and wilderness.  There is a lot more room in general.  Cow catchers in general were a feature of 19th century practice, and even in the remote and empty fastnesses of the land beyond the Pecos 20th century locomotives had robust steel sheets coming down to almost rail level that would knock anything out of the way, same as they did on the Eastern Seaboard and everywhere else, which suggests that most of the Railroads in the far west and the Rockies were fenced by then.  The purpose was the same as our guard irons, to prevent stuff getting under the wheels and derailing the loco, not to protect anything that got in the way.  I don't know if they were any more or less effective in this role than guard irons, and there are few survivors to tell the tale here or there.

 

A difference is that street running of main line passenger trains in towns and cities, obviously under strict speed limits and other conditions.  All American locomotives carried bells for this purpose, and those that visited from the UK came home with the bells as keepsakes.

[Morello Cherry]

I don't buy it especially when you look at the evolution of north american diesel design. The first locos are very boxy. The first switchers follow the same basic structure as UK shunters - cab at the back and engine in front with cab looking over the bonnet (like an 03). The early  E and F series units had the nose but more for styling reasons and the GP series units were a reaction to the difficulties of shunting with a F or E unit (no view back because of the car body). The first GP units GP7s had steam heat generators in the short end hood. It was quickly discovered that running short hood forward (shf) gave better visibility than than running long hood forward (lhf). Also, as passenger traffic declined it was no longer necessary to have steam heating capacity so the short hood became a low hood.  It should be noted that some lines, significantly those in the south (southern and n&w) favoured lhf for quite a long period of time but this appears to be because there was a belief that in the event of a grade crossing accident this afforded the crews better protection. Those two lines also carried a lot of coal traffic on steeply grades lines down the Appalachians and I assume the view was that in the event of a runaway lhf afforded the crew a slight degree more protection than shf.

 

Cowl units cabs ie FP45 onwards are a development of the F9s with a new styling, that type of cab then gets adopted by CN for their freight locos (GP40-2w) which ultimately has become the dominant style. (The distinction between a spartan cab and a comfort (wide) cab). NS was still ordering spartan cabbed locos until the mid 1990s. But it is effectively a combination of a cowl body cab with a hood unit. The best of both worlds, wide cab with good visibility in all directions.

 

Still none of which tells us why UK locos had bonnets, but I can see nothing in the history of North American diesel design that makes the risk of hitting an animal on the prairies or in the rockies a reason for there to be a bonnet in front of the cab

[TheQ]

i did read somewhere that in the early days, they thought that being able to see the track immediately in front of the cab, would cause "flicker" in the eyes of the driver and reduce / interfere with the drivers vision. Hence the bulbous nose.. They were only made out of light weight materials so they in themselves were no good for crash protection.. Though of course the chassis extension would help.

[Barclay]

American trains crash a lot, so collision protection was always deemed more important over there I believe, and I think the early British diesels took their styling cues from the States, as has been said above.

[Mike_Walker]

14 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Not sure I buy this, not completely unquestioningly anyway.  Certainly in the Rockies and the desert regions there was origninally no fencing because nobody owned the land (the Indians were not considered in this equation, but the bulk of railroad mileage was in the mid-west, Mississippi Valley, Appalachia, and the Eastern Seaboard, where population density was much greater and land ownership more delineated; fencing was the rule rather than the exception.  Granted it wasn't, even in the most densely populated places, the same as it was in the UK, or Europe in general; even in the populous East there are significant areas of forest and wilderness.  There is a lot more room in general.  Cow catchers in general were a feature of 19th century practice, and even in the remote and empty fastnesses of the land beyond the Pecos 20th century locomotives had robust steel sheets coming down to almost rail level that would knock anything out of the way, same as they did on the Eastern Seaboard and everywhere else, which suggests that most of the Railroads in the far west and the Rockies were fenced by then.  The purpose was the same as our guard irons, to prevent stuff getting under the wheels and derailing the loco, not to protect anything that got in the way.  I don't know if they were any more or less effective in this role than guard irons, and there are few survivors to tell the tale here or there.

 

A difference is that street running of main line passenger trains in towns and cities, obviously under strict speed limits and other conditions.  All American locomotives carried bells for this purpose, and those that visited from the UK came home with the bells as keepsakes.

The vast majority of the North American rail network is unfenced, not just in the west or country areas.   Whilst there are collisions with wildlife and errant humans these rarely cause derailments, the trains are simply so heavy  The biggest risk across the continent is from grade (level) crossing collisions - the majority of which are still of what we call the "open" type, that is without barriers or even flashing warning lights.  The industry spends a fortune each year on its "Operation Lifesaver" programme trying to educate the public on how to behave on crossings and around railroads in general without too much success.

 

The nose styling was adopted for collision protection and when the Road Switcher style of locomotives first appeared they were almost always set up to work with the long hood leading.  Whilst most roads later adopted the short hood forward configuration, Norfolk & Western and initially Norfolk Southern remained faithful to long hood forward operation to the point that even after EMD and GE refused to continue supplying locomotives with high short hoods, the railroad would modify the cabs after delivery and before entering service - it was reasonably easy to do with the old AAR control stands just as other roads converted from long to short hood configuration.  Of course in either configuration, locos spent much of their time going backwards during which the engineer sits side-saddle.  

[eldomtom2]

4 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

The biggest risk across the continent is from grade (level) crossing collisions - the majority of which are still of what we call the "open" type, that is without barriers or even flashing warning lights.  The industry spends a fortune each year on its "Operation Lifesaver" programme trying to educate the public on how to behave on crossings and around railroads in general without too much success.

The incentive to "beat the train" is also higher due to the average American train being slower and longer.

[F-UnitMad]

6 hours ago, Barclay said:

American trains crash a lot,

Nothing like a sweeping generalisation, is there...?? 🙄🙄🙄🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤣🤣🤣

[Morello Cherry]

It's worth looking at the evolution of ALCOs road switchers which go from low hood to high hood to low front hood as the locos have to become more powerful and as I assume more equipment is added. I am happy to be corrected.

 

RS 1 (1940) - the Rock Island specifically asked for a loco that was powerful enough to haul trains on the mainline but also provided good vision when switching. The Long hood was considered the front.

 

 

RS 11 - 1956 - More HP, turbocharged and new engine to compete with the GP9. The short hood is the front.

 

 

RS27 - 1961 built to compete with the GP20. Short low hood is the front.

 

 

So in a relatively short period of time (20 years) - HP doubles from 1000HP in the RS1 to 2000HP in the RS27 and front ends and cabs evolve equally fast but largely for practical concerns about visibility when switching and running.

 

 

[Mike_Walker]

3 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

It's worth looking at the evolution of ALCOs road switchers which go from low hood to high hood to low front hood as the locos have to become more powerful and as I assume more equipment is added. I am happy to be corrected.

 

RS 1 (1940) - the Rock Island specifically asked for a loco that was powerful enough to haul trains on the mainline but also provided good vision when switching. The Long hood was considered the front.

 

 

RS 11 - 1956 - More HP, turbocharged and new engine to compete with the GP9. The short hood is the front.

 

 

RS27 - 1961 built to compete with the GP20. Short low hood is the front.

 

 

So in a relatively short period of time (20 years) - HP doubles from 1000HP in the RS1 to 2000HP in the RS27 and front ends and cabs evolve equally fast but largely for practical concerns about visibility when switching and running.

 

 

Another generalisation.  Locomotives such as the RS11 and RS27 could be supplied set up for either long or short hood forward operation depending on the specification of the customer.  The higher hoods of these locomotives compared to the RS1 is the result of the larger 251 series engines and the need to accommodate other equipment such as dynamic brakes which were not an option on the earlier locomotives.

[jim.snowdon]

8 hours ago, TheQ said:

They were only made out of light weight materials so they in themselves were no good for crash protection.

Was anything in an English Electric locomotive ever light? From what I saw, EE products were built like battleships. (Thinks, I wonder what an EE designed battleship would be like!)

 

[Morello Cherry]

 

34 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

Another generalisation.  Locomotives such as the RS11 and RS27 could be supplied set up for either long or short hood forward operation depending on the specification of the customer.  The higher hoods of these locomotives compared to the RS1 is the result of the larger 251 series engines and the need to accommodate other equipment such as dynamic brakes which were not an option on the earlier locomotives.

 

I did say that the RS11 had a new engine and this is why it had a high hood and I am well aware that they came in various optional formats, however, I think the majority of units took the forms that I referred to, which shows the evolutionary rather than revolutionary nature of changes. The key point is that the shift from the low hood of the RS1 to the high hood of the RS 11 was due to the need to accommodate equipment, while the original off centre cab and subsequent move to low short hood forward were driven by demands to improve visibility. Little to do with hitting cows etc.

 

But we're still no closer to working out why the 37s had a bonnet and the 33s didn't.

[Wickham Green too]

My diesel's got no nose.

 

How does it smell ?

 

 

Terrible !

 

( Apologies to whoever - back in the mists of time - first came up with the smelly dog joke.)