Were the Hawksworth coaches as big a step away from previous GWR practices as the County locos were?

[Trestrol]

Yes but this was built in wartime. I would have had to work all over the network. Probably with the LNER royal train, Eisenhowers train so it was more compatible. 

[Wickham Green too]

Unlikely - they were a three-car armour-plated self-contained unit for conveying the Royals on morale-boosting trips around the country .......... and probably kept as far away from the Military as possible !!?!

[Aire Head]

6 hours ago, Trestrol said:

Was this more to do with die hard Midland thinking wining through? 

 

The Midland gets blamed for a lot unfairly. The real reason is the LMS would be more interested in having new stock be compatible with its existing stock which was extensive.

[Wickham Green too]

50 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

... The real reason is the LMS would be more interested in having new stock be compatible with its existing stock which was extensive.

...but that would have applied to the GNR/ECJS and SECR who initiated Gould/buckeye fitting in their areas .......... and none of their stock thus equipped was incompatible with existing vehicles. ( also largely applied to British Railways, of course )

[JimC]

[The Johnster]

Don't forget that buckeye stock is perfectly compatible with screw-coupled.  You pull a pin and the buckeye drops to reveal a standard drawhook; in fact, the buckeye on the coach in the Highley Engine House picture is in this position.  You have to insert saddle-shaped cast spacers on the buffer shanks, as the buffers are retracted out of use when the buckeyes are being used (you remove the saddles and push the buffers in), but none of this is difficult or particularly time-consuming, or needs anything more than very simple training (show a bloke how to do it once, and that's all he needs to know).  So, the existence of buckeye stock on other railways would not act as any incentive for the GW or LMS to introduce it on their own railways, and the other railways of course owned large amounts of suburban and pre-grouping stock that would not have had buckeyes either.

[johnofwessex]

21 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

... and 

The Engine House, Highley : 10/7/22

 

Although it predated the MK3 by 30 years my initial though when I first saw it was that it looked very much like a MK3 and its appearance may have even inspired the design

[johnofwessex]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Don't forget that buckeye stock is perfectly compatible with screw-coupled.  You pull a pin and the buckeye drops to reveal a standard drawhook; in fact, the buckeye on the coach in the Highley Engine House picture is in this position.  You have to insert saddle-shaped cast spacers on the buffer shanks, as the buffers are retracted out of use when the buckeyes are being used (you remove the saddles and push the buffers in), but none of this is difficult or particularly time-consuming, or needs anything more than very simple training (show a bloke how to do it once, and that's all he needs to know).  So, the existence of buckeye stock on other railways would not act as any incentive for the GW or LMS to introduce it on their own railways, and the other railways of course owned large amounts of suburban and pre-grouping stock that would not have had buckeyes either.

 

Were there any patent or royalty issues with buckeyes?

There seems to have been a reluctance to use anything that involved patents or royalties in the UK.

[Wickham Green too]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

... You have to insert saddle-shaped cast spacers on the buffer shanks, as the buffers are retracted out of use when the buckeyes are being used ...

... EXCEPT for the GWR/LMS variety, shown above, where the buffers hinge downwards out of use - though I'm not sure exactly what has to be done to enable that !

[Trestrol]

3 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

 

Were there any patent or royalty issues with buckeyes?

There seems to have been a reluctance to use anything that involved patents or royalties in the UK.

Yes they would have to be bought in from the supplier. This didn't stop the LNER or SR doing it. Safety door locks are the same. Although safety door locks have different cases the inside parts are pretty much standard. Even up to the ones on MK3s. 

[Pacific231G]

8 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Don't forget that buckeye stock is perfectly compatible with screw-coupled.  You pull a pin and the buckeye drops to reveal a standard drawhook; in fact, the buckeye on the coach in the Highley Engine House picture is in this position.  You have to insert saddle-shaped cast spacers on the buffer shanks, as the buffers are retracted out of use when the buckeyes are being used (you remove the saddles and push the buffers in), but none of this is difficult or particularly time-consuming, or needs anything more than very simple training (show a bloke how to do it once, and that's all he needs to know).  So, the existence of buckeye stock on other railways would not act as any incentive for the GW or LMS to introduce it on their own railways, and the other railways of course owned large amounts of suburban and pre-grouping stock that would not have had buckeyes either.

That compatibility is true but  would you want to do all that - even if not particularly time consuming- when handling through coaches etc. where coaches were fitted with drophead buckeyes would they or the screw couplings be used when making and breaking trains en route? 

2 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

 

Were there any patent or royalty issues with buckeyes?

There seems to have been a reluctance to use anything that involved patents or royalties in the UK.

No. Eli Janney patented the coupler in 1873 with other patents towards the end of the nineteenth centure. The type D coupler, developed by Arthur James Bazeley  (who was an engineer with the GWR until he emigrated to Ohio in 1906) was adopted as the standard coupler in the US in 1915. A standard item that everyone is required to use can't be a proprietory product limited to the patent holder so there was an agreement between the American casting companies to patent share. The drophead arrangement with retractable buffers was patented by  W S Laycock of Sheffield possibly as early as 1897 so it too would be long out of patent.

[Wickham Green too]

27 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

... where coaches were fitted with drophead buckeyes would they or the screw couplings be used when making and breaking trains en route? ...

Other than with the special short emergency screw couplings that came with LNER coaches, it is not possible to screw-couple two 'buckeye' vehicles and retain gangway communication - so it's either buckeye-fitted to buckeye-fitted, screw-only to screw-only or screw-only to dropped buckeye.

[Trestrol]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

Other than with the special short emergency screw couplings that came with LNER coaches, it is not possible to screw-couple two 'buckeye' vehicles and retain gangway communication - so it's either buckeye-fitted to buckeye-fitted, screw-only to screw-only or screw-only to dropped buckeye.

I think you have this partly incorrect. LNER brake carriages come with a short red painted screw coupling. Every LNER carriage comes with an emergency link coupling on each headstock. This consists of two links plus a flat plate with a hole at either end (one holds one conventional link. This flat end fits in the buckeye and is held with a pin. The link at the other end goes over a coupling hook. So fitting a buckeye carriage to a conventional hook. 

[Artless Bodger]

On 24/09/2023 at 02:52, The Johnster said:

Don't forget that buckeye stock is perfectly compatible with screw-coupled.  You pull a pin and the buckeye drops to reveal a standard drawhook; in fact, the buckeye on the coach in the Highley Engine House picture is in this position.  You have to insert saddle-shaped cast spacers on the buffer shanks, as the buffers are retracted out of use when the buckeyes are being used (you remove the saddles and push the buffers in), but none of this is difficult or particularly time-consuming, or needs anything more than very simple training (show a bloke how to do it once, and that's all he needs to know).  So, the existence of buckeye stock on other railways would not act as any incentive for the GW or LMS to introduce it on their own railways, and the other railways of course owned large amounts of suburban and pre-grouping stock that would not have had buckeyes either.

I used to see this happen at Reading sometimes when a bagpipe 33 took over a cross country train heading south.