so, who's faster then

[david.hill64]

On 27/12/2023 at 16:29, rogerzilla said:

The irony is that an A4 could almost certainly have gone faster than Mallard by the 1950s, when Kenneth Cook had sorted the middle big end problem and all of them had Kylchap front ends.  There was a gentlemens' agreement not to take the record away from Mallard, apparently.  The story goes that Alan Pegler told the driver of SNG to back off in 1959 when it got to 112mph and was still accelerating easily.

I remember reading about drivers' recollections of A4's in reports of the 'Great Gathering' at York.  More than one claimed that they had achieved 130mph+. Nothing verified of course.

 

In the great scheme of things it is not particularly important whether Mallard's record could be broken. Somebody could design and build a steam loco that could achieve faster speeds, but what's the point? The British, German and American locos were of their age and that age has passed. Nobody is going to be designing new build steam for commercial use.

 

 

[adb968008]

21 hours ago, Old Gringo said:

 

Have you watched the video in the opening post all the way through?

And read the book quoted in DenysW's post?

Do you accept the figure quoted by the German locomotive (05.002) under test on level track?

I do believe Germanys speed records, as they were timed tests, not ‘just hear say’ by passengers on a train.

 

Theres dozens of folk in the 1980’s claiming 100mph runs on mainline railtours, I myself have travelled at (a claimed) 60mph run on a preserved railway in the 1980’s behind a preserved diesel with a 25mph line speed, but its hushed up because it was verboten.

 

But as none of them were subject to scientific scrutiny, its just hear say and actual speeds can vary… it could have been much less.

 

Heres my top speed my ipad recorded by 4464 on 29th June 2013…

But the official records say 92.5mph..

 

Now turn the clock back 100 years your accuracy could be +/- 10-30%, which puts your percieved 140mph, so potentially high 90’s but feels like 140 to someone whos never experienced such speed before.*

 

Is the T1 powerful, yes, can it go fast, yes.

 

Would an engineer working for a vendor claim its parts are failing due to misuse, and therefore negating warranty.. yes… if thats the substance to claim 140mph, its spurious.

 

The claim to fame for fastest steam locomotive could be 60532 Blue Peter in 1994, when it lost control of the regulator, Ive heard wheel revolution speed in excess of 160mph.. and the loco destroyed part of its  gear, rods and shifted the wheel on its axle, had it happened on the viaduct it could have in worse case collapsed.

 

Its not just can the loco do it, but is the environment and the mechanics set up to support it.. Mallard itself was damaged in 1938, 60163 in 2018, at least one Bulleid met its end in 1967 to the “lunatic fringe”… this is why I dont believe statements implying “routine”… when its operating double excess of safety, design, mechanics and the environment / track its running on…

 

if it were routine, there would have been a critical event when routine failed and a mass casualty event followed, as unfortunately this is what happens when industrial equipment regularly exceeds its design parameters in an environment unsuited to handling the excess.. it eventually breaks, usually unexpectedly and at a critical point… thats when the facts usually come out too.

 

Express steam locos operated 60-80 range and could sustain periods of 90-100, but going beyond 50% beyond design regularly would be damaging to track, infrastructure as well as the locos and rolling stock… in short it would be found out, leaving just odd exceptions at 100mph+ which several are documented.

 

When looking at locos on paper my feeling is 71000 or 46256/7 could be world record contenders to beat Mallard, but not routinely. I’d say the same of 18201 in Germany… but on a test train, on a measured course, not every day on the 6pm from NYC Penn station with 800 passengers heading west with coaches as old as the wild west, rolling over wooden trestle bridges in the middle of nowhere etc.

 

* This is where I also take issue with climate scientists, when they compare a 17th century temperature with today and call it absolute.. Even in the 1980’s at high school my geography dissertation included a +/- 3 degrees variance to possibilities registered daily at the weather station.. so 50,100,200 year old instrument readings need to be treated with caution compared to the digitally sharp and mass deployment of scientific instruments today and treating them as equals.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by adb968008

[Giannis Halkis]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

not every day on the 6pm from Hoboken with 800 passengers heading west with coaches as old as the wild west, rolling over wooden trestle bridges in the middle of nowhere etc.

Oh my goodness!

You apparently have zero experience of American railways outside of “cowboy” films!

Were you to undertake some research into the lines and routes of such roads as the Pennsylvania RR or it’s main competitor, the New York Central - you would see that back in the day when steam was having it’s last hurrah, they did indeed have good quality routes that could support fast trains.

First generation passenger diesel locomotives were geared for 117 mph iirc so must have been expected to reach the ton frequently enough?

It was only through the period of the late 1960s, 1970s and beyond that track maintenance was deferred and derailments became more frequent. Even so, there are parts of the US network today that are very high quality I.e. parts of the NE corridor (140mph) and coming out of the Powder River basin for example. The latter isn’t any kind of high speed but is high quality due to the volume of traffic. These are not isolated examples either.

Also, the US axle loading is very much higher than in the UK or Europe so that needs to be taken into consideration.

[Boris]

We all know what the fastest steam engine in the world is:

[adb968008]

56 minutes ago, Giannis Halkis said:

Oh my goodness!

You apparently have zero experience of American railways outside of “cowboy” films!

Appearances are deceptive.

 

56 minutes ago, Giannis Halkis said:

Were you to undertake some research into the lines and routes of such roads as the Pennsylvania RR or it’s main competitor, the New York Central - you would see that back in the day when steam was having it’s last hurrah, they did indeed have good quality routes that could support fast trains.

First generation passenger diesel locomotives were geared for 117 mph iirc so must have been expected to reach the ton frequently enough?

100 is 40% less than 140mph.

One implies nothing about the other.

 

56 minutes ago, Giannis Halkis said:

It was only through the period of the late 1960s, 1970s and beyond that track maintenance was deferred and derailments became more frequent. Even so, there are parts of the US network today that are very high quality I.e. parts of the NE corridor (140mph) and coming out of the Powder River basin for example. The latter isn’t any kind of high speed but is high quality due to the volume of traffic. These are not isolated examples either.

Also, the US axle loading is ver much higher than in the UK or Europe so that needs to be taken into consideration.

 

NE corridor, Boston down to Washington agreed is the only decent higher speed track, even for Acela thats only 30 odd miles of 150mph track.

 

Theres no way 140mph running happened multiple times daily in the 1930’s…

i’m sorry i’m not believing it… 80-100 mph yes, but theres a huge difference between 100 and 140 on conventional rail, shared tracks, thats why the UK tried and failed 3 times.

 

i’m sorry buy it didnt happen, if it did there would be as much material to read today proving it as there is about tgv, ice, bullet train etc… you honestly think that 140mph was routine and not one railway enthusiast of note, anywhere world wide, let alone any scientific study would have reported on what would be undisputedly a world beating record for steam, happening daily, for years, if not a decade ?.. and no one noticed or cared beyond mess room talk ?..

At a time when there was a quest for speed, even the Marketing departments missed it ?

 

Lets go further, Diesel builders were keen to supplant steam, if steam was regularly running 140mph daily, why would they make a knowingly inferior product ?

 

I’m sorry this is the stuff of mermaids and moby-dick.

 

If class 91 or 390’s in UK today were running at 140mph do you think no one would notice or care ?.. yet they are/were 140mph capable too.

 

Could it have happened once, maybe twice.. under the right conditions anything was possible, dont forget even Mallard only did it once… it wasnt doing 126 daily, but i’m sure 100 happened occasionally… need to balance conspiracy theories with reality.

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by adb968008

[The Johnster]

15 hours ago, adb968008 said:

 

 

Theres dozens of folk in the 1980’s claiming 100mph runs on mainline railtours, I myself have travelled at (a claimed) 60mph run on a preserved railway in the 1980’s behind a preserved diesel with a 25mph line speed, but its hushed up because it was verboten.

 

Nonetheless an experienced railwayman used to the speeds claimed riding on the loco, or in the train, can make a fairly accurate guesstimate.  It will be less accurate the higher the speed, which is why this sort of thing is not of much use to serious record attempts.  I know what a train sounds and feels like at over 90mph, the theoretical limit on the WR when I worked on the railway in the 70s.  I have timed trains on the WR in the 80s using the quarter mile posts and a stopwatch with some 'interesting' results; a 50 with 8 mk1s on a Sunday morning Cardiff-Paddington making up time lost to per.way. checks, 114mph continually between Cholesey/Moulsford & Pangbourne, and a down HST between Brinkworth and Hullavington, i.e. uphill, at 135mph.  People with me also stopwatching confirmed these observations, which are nonetheless meaningless. 

 

I've also had a run on a certain heritage line in the 90s behind a Black 5, with 7 on and  an LMR loco inspector on the footplate at 'about' 70mph; again, meaningless.  How fast is a BR Standard 4MT tank going when the individual exhaust beats merge and cannot be distinguished clearly (same heritage railway, ecs working)?  I could make a reasonable guess; how fast is a Merchant Navy with merging exhaust beats going through Eastleigh with a down Bournemouth on a Spring Saturday avo in 1967, certainly the fastest steam-hauled train I ever witnessed?  Ah, now, that's a bit more complex, speed was high and therefore error margins are increased from an observer's pov no matter how experienced, and my railway career hadn't started yet then, and there are 6 exhaust beats for each driving wheel revolution compared to the 4MT's four with smaller driving wheels.  Again, I think I know how fast the train was going, but my opinion is meaningless.  It was fast enough for me to wonder when the brakes were going to go on for the Southampton stop...

[adb968008]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

Nonetheless an experienced railwayman used to the speeds claimed riding on the loco, or in the train, can make a fairly accurate guesstimate.  It will be less accurate the higher the speed, which is why this sort of thing is not of much use to serious record attempts.  I know what a train sounds and feels like at over 90mph, the theoretical limit on the WR when I worked on the railway in the 70s.  I have timed trains on the WR in the 80s using the quarter mile posts and a stopwatch with some 'interesting' results; a 50 with 8 mk1s on a Sunday morning Cardiff-Paddington making up time lost to per.way. checks, 114mph continually between Cholesey/Moulsford & Pangbourne, and a down HST between Brinkworth and Hullavington, i.e. uphill, at 135mph.  People with me also stopwatching confirmed these observations, which are nonetheless meaningless. 

 

I've also had a run on a certain heritage line in the 90s behind a Black 5, with 7 on and  an LMR loco inspector on the footplate at 'about' 70mph; again, meaningless.  How fast is a BR Standard 4MT tank going when the individual exhaust beats merge and cannot be distinguished clearly (same heritage railway, ecs working)?  I could make a reasonable guess; how fast is a Merchant Navy with merging exhaust beats going through Eastleigh with a down Bournemouth on a Spring Saturday avo in 1967, certainly the fastest steam-hauled train I ever witnessed?  Ah, now, that's a bit more complex, speed was high and therefore error margins are increased from an observer's pov no matter how experienced, and my railway career hadn't started yet then, and there are 6 exhaust beats for each driving wheel revolution compared to the 4MT's four with smaller driving wheels.  Again, I think I know how fast the train was going, but my opinion is meaningless.  It was fast enough for me to wonder when the brakes were going to go on for the Southampton stop...

i dont doubt any of that, and ive done enough miles to make a guess myself at what speed i’m moving.

I certainly recognise the difference between 125mph on a HST, and 186mph of a Eurostar… because these are norms.

i’m not sure I could recognise a Eurostar doing 372mph..

 

in 1930, very few people on the planet had travelled at 140mph… and they were pilots in pioneering aircraft.

 

everyone will recognise “a good run”… everyone has a tail of their “best ever run”

 

but the claim is double the norm…, and saying that double the norm, was actually the unofficial norm…it was routine.

 

The modern equivalent is US to Europe flights in Jan which are often 100+ mph over speed due to the jet stream… but of course the claim isnt a 600mph  plane doing 700 mph, its a claim of a 600mph jet doing 1200mph, routinely.. and no one notices beyond the messroom… not the passengers, the planners, signallers, station staff, maintenance crews.. no one… for 80 years until internet conspiracies, paid per click, emerge.

 

70-90 was norm, c100 a good run, c110 noteworthy and exceptional, beyond that there be dragons.

140 … it might happened once in unique circumstance, theres always a chance, but it certainly wasnt routine, I doubt anyone would accurately guess that, in 1930 without instruments or measuring devices… wheres the guard in all this, would he not be thinking its a runaway ?.. Can only imagine how the braking was affected and the springs of those coach bogies rattling along… in my best Mr T accent… “I pity the Fire man”.

 

its worth pointing out there is a UK claim in print of a Bulleid doing 140mph.

 

As I said i’m not buying it.. its in the draw next to the little green men…

Edited December 29, 2023 by adb968008

[rogerzilla]

Given the coal consumption of a Bulleid, 140mph must have taken three firemen!

[Stoke West]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

Nonetheless an experienced railwayman used to the speeds claimed riding on the loco, or in the train, can make a fairly accurate guesstimate.  It will be less accurate the higher the speed, which is why this sort of thing is not of much use to serious record attempts.  I know what a train sounds and feels like at over 90mph, the theoretical limit on the WR when I worked on the railway in the 70s.  I have timed trains on the WR in the 80s using the quarter mile posts and a stopwatch with some 'interesting' results; a 50 with 8 mk1s on a Sunday morning Cardiff-Paddington making up time lost to per.way. checks, 114mph continually between Cholesey/Moulsford & Pangbourne, and a down HST between Brinkworth and Hullavington, i.e. uphill, at 135mph.  People with me also stopwatching confirmed these observations, which are nonetheless meaningless. 

 

I've also had a run on a certain heritage line in the 90s behind a Black 5, with 7 on and  an LMR loco inspector on the footplate at 'about' 70mph; again, meaningless.  How fast is a BR Standard 4MT tank going when the individual exhaust beats merge and cannot be distinguished clearly (same heritage railway, ecs working)?  I could make a reasonable guess; how fast is a Merchant Navy with merging exhaust beats going through Eastleigh with a down Bournemouth on a Spring Saturday avo in 1967, certainly the fastest steam-hauled train I ever witnessed?  Ah, now, that's a bit more complex, speed was high and therefore error margins are increased from an observer's pov no matter how experienced, and my railway career hadn't started yet then, and there are 6 exhaust beats for each driving wheel revolution compared to the 4MT's four with smaller driving wheels.  Again, I think I know how fast the train was going, but my opinion is meaningless.  It was fast enough for me to wonder when the brakes were going to go on for the Southampton stop...

From Brinkworth theres two miles of 1in 300 down hill to one mile east of Somerford then climbing 1in 300 to Hullavington topping out one mile east of Badminton 

[Artless Bodger]

A Jubilee hauled excursion train passed our office at Overton one afternoon, one 'expert' manager said it could not have been a real steam engine because it wasn't chuffing. I did a quick approximation, assuming 60km/hr for ease of calculation I came up with about 15 exhaust beats per second. Was I wrong?

 

[The Johnster]

Indeed, but the speed we recorded was continuous over that distance.  The driver opened up coming off the junction at Wootton Bassett, and the train accellerated quite rapidly from the 70mp PROS down the hill to and through Brinkworth.  The wind resistance in the tunnels noticeably held us back a little, but it was a 'good run'.  The ride was pretty good and I doubt if any of the passengers noticed (the ones on the Class 50 114mph run would have certainl noticed.,. the noise, but, again, the ride, on 100mph B4 bogies, was not at all bad.  IIRC the 50s were allowed 110mph).  We made up our lost time, and were doing over 125mph all the way to Westerleigh, where power was cut for the Bristol Parkway stop, and there was a prominent smell from the brake linings as was common in those days!  The rest of the run was 'as usual'.

[pH]

22 minutes ago, Artless Bodger said:

A Jubilee hauled excursion train passed our office at Overton one afternoon, one 'expert' manager said it could not have been a real steam engine because it wasn't chuffing. I did a quick approximation, assuming 60km/hr for ease of calculation I came up with about 15 exhaust beats per second. Was I wrong?

 

Did it sound like this?

 

https://youtu.be/ISgXlooCXgo?feature=shared

 

There was a thing known as the “Jubilee roar”, where individual exhaust beats became merged at higher speeds.

[Titan]

On 28/12/2023 at 10:32, adb968008 said:

I myself have travelled at (a claimed) 60mph run on a preserved railway in the 1980’s behind a preserved diesel with a 25mph line speed, but its hushed up because it was verboten.

 

 

I think I may have been on the same train, at least I hope so or it happened more than once!

[Boris]

14 minutes ago, Titan said:

 

I think I may have been on the same train, at least I hope so or it happened more than once!

Happened in the late 90s too.

[adb968008]

4 hours ago, pH said:

Did it sound like this?

 

https://youtu.be/ISgXlooCXgo?feature=shared

 

There was a thing known as the “Jubilee roar”, where individual exhaust beats became merged at higher speeds.

3m42s in, sounds like a helicopter, I bet if you start watching, you wont stop until after its passed…

 

 

850 Lord Nelson has that similar effect, sounds like its going twice as fast as it is.

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by adb968008

[Artless Bodger]

Thanks for those links pH and adb968008, exciting stuff.

 

It was certainly more of a purr than a discreet chuff sound - which is what the manager seemed to expect and so thought it must actually be a diesel underneath! He was younger than me (probably born after the end of regular steam) and so probably has never seen or heard a steam loco at speed.

 

15 hours ago, adb968008 said:

850 Lord Nelson has that similar effect, sounds like its going twice as fast as it is.

I recall an article in the Tenterden Terrier many years ago regarding the journey of the Sentinel 'Gervase' up Tenterden Bank, it was said to sound like an express at speed but was doing hardly more than walking pace. 

[eldomtom2]

On 27/12/2023 at 16:36, DenysW said:

William Wiltun in "American Steam Locomotives" (Indiana University Press) has a long discussion on the 130-140 mph claims for the Pennsylvania duplexes. His view of the truth is that the speedos only went to 125 mph, and the reason the speed claims were (and are) made is that the poppet valves were an innovative design that had given many months of reliable operation at speeds up to 125 mph. But when they were put into 'normal' service they started failing in weeks. A paid-passenger was put onto the trains to see how they were actually run by timing them against mileposts (etc.). The conclusion from this was that 130-140 mph was routinely achieved downhill where the crews need to make up time having lost it uphill, and that this excessive speed was what was destroying the valves. This was good enough speed data (by averaging enough points to get rid of random errors) to be convincing for cause/effect but not enough to record-book entries.

Of course it should be noted that this is all based on Withuhn's interviews with two employees at Franklin, the poppet valve manufacturer. The actual records have been lost to time, which places the story a bit too far away from the source for me to put much stock in it, personally.

[The Johnster]

I'd say that the most damning evidence against these claims is that the Pennsy was in classic competition with the NYC on the lucrative and high-profile New York-Chicago traffic.  The NYC had their side well sewn up with the Niagaras, 1000tons at 100mph on their much less steeply graded 'water level route', and went to considerable lengths to ensure that these trains, especially the crack 20th Century Limited, ran to time, including having heroes in asbestos suits cleaning the fire-chambers at stops en route.  All this was well publicised and widely known by the punters.  It seems very unlikely indeed that if the Pennsy really were achieving speeds of the sort claimed (which are so far in advance of normal express running that their veracity is always going to be doubted), they weren't shouting about it from the rooftops and publishing data to back it up.  The regular passengers, running at 40-50% more than a normal fast express speed, wold have noticed it because of the exponentially increased noise and the ride, yet there seems to have been little comment from them.

 

I have no doubt that a T1 could theoretically run at 140mph, possibly more; so could most express steam locos with driving wheels of around the 7' diameter mark, theoretically.  I also have no doubt that very high speeds (for a steam engine, I would regard anything over 110mph as a very high speed) were occasionally achieved in service, but were generally unnoticed and unnoted.  But not with a loco that was known to be prone to slipping and had known issue with valves going out of setting.  What a loco can do on paper is not the same as what it can do in service even in the most favourable of conditions.

 

There are other very high speed claims that seem unlikely, but on examination may have some veracity. City of Truro was undoubtedly 'picking them up a bit' that day coming down Wellington bank, but doubt was cast on Rous-Marten's claim on the grounds that it was not verified by calibrated instruments, though he was backed up by the GPO inspector who was also mileposting the train and who leaked the feat to the press.  Two years later there was a 140mph claim involving a brand new 2904 Lady of Lyon, running light downhill on the Badminton cut-off and supported by signalbox passing times, which were not regarded as accurate enough for a claim and in any case there was a degree of foolhardyness in this enterprise that encouraged the GW to keep quiet about it.

 

Veracity depends on the signalbox passing times being accurate, and I have an open mind about this one.  On one hand, it was a well-known game with new engines out of Swindon works on snagging runs; the loco would be run fairly gently down to Stoke Gifford, turned on the triangle, and carefully checked over.  If all was well, it was the normal practice to turn up the wicks on the lubricators and give 'er the beans on the way back up, and this attracted the attention of the signalmen who would presumably be pretty accurate in observing passing times.  Signalbox clocks need to be accurate for obvious reasons and these were syncronised every morning by a telegraphed Greenwich time signal. 

 

On the other hand, nobody'd gone anything like that fast on the route before and the faster you go the less accurate any human observation becomes.  And betting was involved, which undermines any credibility in the data IMHO.  And I can't quite square the hammer-blow of a 2-cylinder loco at that sort of speed with being able to stay on the rails.  They had trouble braking for the Wootton Bassett PROS over the Junction, 50mph in those days, possibly because the wheels were lifting from the rails momentarily with each cylinder stroke, many times every second...

[rodent279]

20 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

this attracted the attention of the signalmen who would presumably be pretty accurate in observing passing times.  Signalbox clocks need to be accurate for obvious reasons and these were syncronised every morning by a telegraphed Greenwich time signal. 

Of all the ways of assessing the speed of a train, signal box passing times seems to me to be the most dubious. At what point did they note the times, and where exactly was the loco? Did the chap in Hullavington box watch the engine go past, send 2 beats, then note the time down in his register? At 120 mph, the loco could easily have covered ¼ mile in the time it took to send 2 beats, then walk over to the train register, look at the clock and make his entry.

Unless both signalmen agree to note the exact time the loco passes two known points an accurately measured distance apart, and unless the timepieces are exactly synchronised, there's bags of room for error.

Edited December 30, 2023 by rodent279

[The Johnster]

Quite, and I fully agree in normal circumstances.  But in this case the signalmen were 'in on the game', which had been in progress for some time, and being particularly meticulous about observing the passing times.  The bet was apparently that a brand new locomotive could do 100mph, as the signalmens' observations had been checked by drivers who were claiming that speed on these occasions, and if the signalbox passing times are to be taken as even close to accurate the engine was travelling at well over that speed between Hullavington and Little Somerford.  There were a crowd of drawing office staff on the footplate, including Collett, without Churchward's knowledge, and the experience seems to have (understandably) frightened them all badly, which may account for some of the GW attitude to speed during the 30s when records were being passed back and forth between Doncaster and Crewe.

 

Speed of this sort is dangerous and Wootton Bassett's up Badminton distant was on, but the homes and starters cleared by the time they passed them.  They got away with it but were within rather worryingly close proximity to the up Bristol train that had passed through the junction not very long before they arrived.  Heavy braking on a loco that was probably lifting slightly above the railheads about 20 times a second would be a pretty unnerving experience, and they were lucky that the loco and the rails were in the same postition relative to each other when control was belated restored. 

 

I first read about this shameful exploit in one of W.A.Tuplin's books, known to be more 'imaginatively entertaining' than strictly factual, but found out during my railway career that this actually took place, though some of Tuplin's observations are less likely to have done so; he postulates piston speed being high enough to cause a sort of vacuum behind the pistons preventing the regulator from being closed, and paints a picture of everybody struggling desperately with it, which sounds like sensationalist comic-book rubbish to me...

[tomparryharry]

If you want to destroy cylinder vacuum, open the cylinder draincocks.... Same with a stuck safety valve over pressure. Brake on, mid gear, and open the regulator. Keep an eye on the boiler gauges, and as soon as the gauges drop, put the injector on. 

 

I've got Tuplins book somewhere. Personally, a lot of it is just sensationalism, being GWR 150. Holcroft is a far better read; he was there....  

 

If a 'run' was in the notices, then there was a good chance of an inspector or 3 somewhere in the area to time it through the section. 

 

I never  think of Mallard as a speed machine. The severely knackered Bulleid Pacifics put up some top-notch work on the south Western. I'd give my eye-teeth to fire on a job like that, just to see if I'm up to the mark.... 

[Ohmisterporter]

16 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 There were a crowd of drawing office staff on the footplate, including Collett, without Churchward's knowledge, and the experience seems to have (understandably) frightened them all badly, which may account for some of the GW attitude to speed during the 30s when records were being passed back and forth between Doncaster and Crewe.

 

 

On the footplate was there a door between engine and tender? If not I think I would have been frightened too, especially if there was a crowd of us on there.

[Grovenor]

I have long understood that the fastest regular steam achedules in the US if not the world were the Milwaukee Hiawathas with those magnificent Atlantics. Scheduled running at over 100 mph for 15 years.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Grovenor

[Forward!]

Speed vs predictability. I once had the chance to travel on QE2 when she was a trans-Atlantic liner rather than a cruise ship. There was a very old hand I got talking to who had begun his career in the golden age if ocean liners in the 1930s. I remember him telling me that he was being rushed off his feet because "unfortunately" it looks like we will be arriving early. He told me there would be a number of very disgruntled passengers on his section traveling without their household staff (no longer the done thing by then) who will now need someone to change their onward journeys or book them a hotel room at the last minute to account for altered plans. For him, I got the sense that arriving early was as bad as arriving late!

Edited January 1 by Forward!

[Old Gringo]

On 24/12/2023 at 21:56, nightstar.train said:

I've heard people say this, but I think it's a load of tosh. It was the 1930s. Speed was everything. Liners competed on the transatlantic crossing to be the fastest, trains all over Europe were competing for the speed record. If the American railroads could truly do better than Mallard they'd have found some way to prove it. 

 

So, who's faster then ?

 

An interesting question that has produced a number of responses to an exciting part of the steam-powered railway's history.

However, so far, it appears that we have only two confirmed (and agreed) facts:

 

1. In May 1935 a German steam locomotive (designed by Richard Wagner's team and built by Borsig) reached 125 mph on level track with no diagnosed problems or any damage.

 

Later, the locomotive recorded a speed greater than 110 mph with another train.  On that occasion it was carrying members of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and many senior locomotive chiefs were on board, including both Nigel Gresley (1876-1941) and William Stanier (1876-1965).

 

2. In July 1938, a British steam locomotive (designed and built at Doncaster) momentarily reached over 125 mph after being pushed to its limit down a gradient and which resulted in damage caused by the over-run effect of the middle cylinder on the big end (see note.).

 

Maybe this is an appropriate day to take a look at details of other steam locomotives which have  been tested, or recorded at high speeds?  Why today?  Because, exactly 120 years ago, there was another high-speed claim, recorded by Charles Rous-Marten, whilst riding behind a famous Great Western Railway locomotive racing down Wellington Bank in Somerset.

 

Note: The over-run effect is produced by using the conjugated valve gear at its maximum.  The effect is caused as the speed rises above the gear's optimum performance level and results in the middle cylinder working harder than the outside two, adding more stress onto the middle big end.