Standard 4MTs as Shap bankers?

[1165Valour]

From the 1920s until the end of steam, the various iterations of LMS and BR 2-6-4Ts were frequently used as bankers up Shap summit. The BR Standard 4MT 4-6-0s would also be allocated to Shap - was there any particular reason they were used for this work?

[Wickham Green too]

Maybe the use of tender locos went hand in hand with a run down in coaling & watering facilities ??

[mac1960]

Maybe the tanks were getting tired and with the spread of diesel traction and indeed Beeching closures the 4MT became available. Also better cab for the winters up there or indeed summer to a degree .

[adb968008]

By summer 1967 tank engines were a very endangered species north of the southern…

 

Specifically, 15 LMS 2-6-4ts started 1967, 2 made it past June.

 

Theres a choice of Ivatt 2-6-0 or Std 4-6-0 really… otherwise its black 5’s/8f/9f/wd…

The Midland concentrated its 4MTs on Carnforth and Tebay.. so they were all in proximity, with the 76xxxs in Wigan, the Ivatts on the coast.

Brdatabase snapshot shows the Midland only had 4 tank engines left in June 1967… 3 jintys and a j94.

 

Edited March 25 by adb968008

[Wickham Green too]

Yes, endangered because they weren't necessary .......... if there'd been a need for tank engines on Shap they'd have scrapped something else instead.

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

Yes, endangered because they weren't necessary .......... if there'd been a need for tank engines on Shap they'd have scrapped something else instead.

Yes class 17’s came,

flickr url/ not mine

looks like this 17 is about to burst, and I bet truth was it was struggling to keep up with the 50, rather than helping it.

 

fortunately so did class 40/47/50’s so there was nothing needing a push..

 

steam was being replaced wholesale, the 4mts only lasted 6 months at Tebay… of these 8, 5 were withdrawn from Tebay by Jan 1968, the other 3 went to Carnforth .. of those one lasted til Feb 1968, and 75019/27 went (with others)  until August 3rd 1968 (last day of regular uk steam) , including 75027 which went on to preservation at the Bluebell railway.

 

evidence suggests 2-6-4Ts were most successful on Shap banking.. they had 28 of them over the years, the 4mts look like a just in case, certainly the internet has a lot of pictures of the 4mts on shed, if they were on shed they werent busy.

Edited March 25 by adb968008

[Alcanman]

75041 on banking duties at Tebay on 3rd July 1967. 

[Innerhome]

16 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Yes class 17’s came,

flickr url/ not mine

looks like this 17 is about to burst, and I bet truth was it was struggling to keep up with the 50, rather than helping it.

 

fortunately so did class 40/47/50’s so there was nothing needing a push..

 

steam was being replaced wholesale, the 4mts only lasted 6 months at Tebay… of these 8, 5 were withdrawn from Tebay by Jan 1968, the other 3 went to Carnforth .. of those one lasted til Feb 1968, and 75019/27 went (with others)  until August 3rd 1968 (last day of regular uk steam) , including 75027 which went on to preservation at the Bluebell railway.

 

evidence suggests 2-6-4Ts were most successful on Shap banking.. they had 28 of them over the years, the 4mts look like a just in case, certainly the internet has a lot of pictures of the 4mts on shed, if they were on shed they werent busy.

That's the first picture I've seen of a class 17 actually banking. Thanks for finding that. I've seen pictures of them on the shed at Tebay and doing the odd bit of quarry trip working. I assume they were tried out literally a handful of times and given up on quickly - and with the end of steam over Shap in December 67 and the decline in wagonload Tebay rapidly became surplus to requirements. I hadn't realised the 4mts had such a short life at Tebay - perceptions are affected by the large amount of photography as steam came to an end.   

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Innerhome said:

That's the first picture I've seen of a class 17 actually banking. Thanks for finding that. I've seen pictures of them on the shed at Tebay and doing the odd bit of quarry trip working. I assume they were tried out literally a handful of times and given up on quickly - and with the end of steam over Shap in December 67 and the decline in wagonload Tebay rapidly became surplus to requirements. I hadn't realised the 4mts had such a short life at Tebay - perceptions are affected by the large amount of photography as steam came to an end.   

A tender engine is a bit of a waste on this really, your trading dragging tons of extra coal/water in a tender designed to extend range, for lumping it up a hill of a short distance.

it may have made more economic sense to withdraw the 4MTs and keep the 2-6-4Ts to the end, or get rid of both and take the Southerns 800xx’s after July 67.

 

i suspect no one wanted to waste film of a 17 climbing shap, but given the state of it with exhaust like that, and what looks like white smoke coming from the bonnet it must have been putting in a noteworthy performance !

 

 

Edited March 26 by adb968008

[Steamport Southport]

3 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

A tender engine is a bit of a waste on this really, your trading dragging tons of extra coal in a tender designed to extend range, for lumping it up a hill of a short distance.

it may have made more economic sense to withdraw the 4MTs and keep the 2-6-4Ts to the end.

 

i suspect no one wanted to waste film of a 17 climbing shap, but given the state of it with exhaust like that, and what looks like white smoke coming from the bonnet it must have been putting in a noteworthy performance !

 

 

 

Explain the use of the Lickey Banker, LNER 2-8-0s, GWR 28XXs and the 9Fs* then!

 

I'm afraid most bankers were tender engines. It took four Panniers or Jinties to replace Big Emma (needing four crews) and it's reckoned they only got the job as their normal use had virtually disappeared due to dieselisation.

 

*Used both on Lickey and for the Consett iron ore trains

 

 

Jason

[adb968008]

46 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Explain the use of the Lickey Banker, LNER 2-8-0s, GWR 28XXs and the 9Fs* then!

 

I'm afraid most bankers were tender engines. It took four Panniers or Jinties to replace Big Emma (needing four crews) and it's reckoned they only got the job as their normal use had virtually disappeared due to dieselisation.

 

*Used both on Lickey and for the Consett iron ore trains

 

 

Jason

Explain to me what a 9f tender can provide that a Pannier cannot ?

 

I suspect the reason a 9f was used on lickey was more to do with its 10 driving wheels than its 6 tender wheels ?

Maybe the question why werent 9fs used as Bankers on Shap ?

The answer could lie in purpose…

 

Lickey 1 in 37 for 2 miles

Shap 1 in 75 for 5 miles

it goes without saying you need more grunt up lickey, but at only 2 miles it could do a lot more grunting… 2.5x more than Shap and around 60’ less height to climb… but having a tank means more coal and water stops, so its non productive time wasted. So logically a 9f with a lot of water could go a lot longer, and push harder up a steeper hill without breaks.

 

Where as Shap with a lesser, longer gradient means longer treks and more height to climb, so you need more locos because of the distance to be covered, but not as much grunt as its a lighter hill… if youve more locos, you've more time to coal / water them between turns.

 

3 panniers must have been very resource wasteful.. needing plenty of pit stops, Panniers on Shap would need a water stop after every turn.

 

8 x 9fs on Shap would have been hugely wasteful.

 

Having 2-6-4ts on lickey would have been less useful as half the locos weight is on wheels not providing traction, on a hill thats all about traction, not distance.

 

What doesnt make sense, looking at BR database is 4x 4MTs arrived in April 67, and 4 more in May 67, giving 8 locos…. But transferred away / withdrawn after Apr 67 was 5x 2-6-4tanks.., 3 of which were withdrawn within a month… maybe the 8 came without parts as 1 was withdrawn every two months after arrival until 1968…

 

The 17’s didnt do much better, of the 35 allocated to Preston division in June 1968, all but 3 of them were out of service by December 1968.

Edited March 26 by adb968008

[Steamport Southport]

9 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Explain to me what a 9f tender can provide that a Pannier cannot ?

 

I suspect the reason a 9f was used on lickey was more to do with its 10 driving wheels than its 6 tender wheels ?

Maybe the question why werent 9fs used as Bankers on Shap ?

The answer could lie in purpose…

 

Lickey 1 in 37 for 2 miles

Shap 1 in 75 for 5 miles

it goes without saying you need more grunt up lickey, but at only 2 miles it could do a lot more grunting… 2.5x more than Shap… but having a tank means more coal and water stops, so its non productive time wasted. So logically a 9f with a lot of water could go a lot longer, and push harder up a steeper hill without breaks.

 

Where as Shap with a lesser, longer gradient means longer treks, so you need more locos because of the distance to be covered, but not as much grunt as its a lighter hill… if youve more locos, you've more time to coal / water them between turns.

 

3 panniers must have been very resource wasteful.. needing plenty of pit stops.

 

What doesnt make sense, looking at BR database is 4x 4MTs arrived in April 67, and 4 more in May 67, giving 8 locos…. But transferred away / withdrawn after Apr 67 was 5x 2-6-4tanks.., 3 of which were withdrawn within a month… maybe the 8 came without parts as 1 was withdrawn every two months after arrival until 1968.

 

 

What can a 9F provide that a Pannier can't?

 

Only 40,000LBS of tractive effort....

 

Next!

 

 

[adb968008]

31 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

What can a 9F provide that a Pannier can't?

 

Only 40,000LBS of tractive effort....

 

Next!

 

 

But none of that is in the tender is it ?

 

or was 92079 a Tender drive version ?

 

😀
 

i’m sure a 2-10-2T would have been better… but theres not much demand for monster tanks, so you get the tender for free.

The Southern figured it out though at Exeter, and Beattock used 2-6-4Ts too dispelling your “all banking engines are tender engines” myth.

Edited March 26 by adb968008

[kevinlms]

37 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

But none of that is in the tender is it ?

 

or was 92079 a Tender drive version ?

 

😀
 

i’m sure a 2-10-2T would have been better… but theres not much demand for monster tanks, so you get the tender for free.

The Southern figured it out though at Exeter, and Beattock used 2-6-4Ts too dispelling your “all banking engines are tender engines” myth.

But no one was ever going to build a 2-10-2T.

If a 10 coupled loco was the answer to banking on Lickey, then the Midland Railway would have built at least one more 'Big Bertha', perhaps a pair, making a trio.

[Wheatley]

I suspect the economics of building one large engine paid for out of the capital budget, as opposed to multiple smaller (and more flexible) ones with the extra crews paid out of the revenue budget had as much to do with it as the actual practicalities. 

 

See 'rebuilding' Claughtons into Patriots etc. 

 

And I'm curious as to "Why 4MTs ?" as well. 

[Compound2632]

On 26/03/2024 at 13:00, adb968008 said:

Explain to me what a 9f tender can provide that a Pannier cannot ?

 

More time on the job before having to return to shed for coaling?

 

Though at Bromsgrove, engines could be coaled at the bank engine siding. 

 

Bromsgrove was provided with 0-6-0Ts for banking for most of its history in steam days; the Lickey Banker was something of an anomaly and generally equal to two, not four, 0-6-0Ts - there are photographs of it being assisted by a 0-6-0T. 

 

But in the other direction, from Saltley up to Kings Heath, a much longer stretch than the Lickey incline, tender engines were used for banking goods trains - latterly 3F 0-6-0s - these had to run back tender first. Why not use tank engines for that job? 

[Wickham Green too]

... or, at least, provide them with tender cabs like 'Big Emma' !

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

... or, at least, provide them with tender cabs like 'Big Emma' !

 

In practice that would mean fitting Saltley's entire allocation of three dozen 3Fs (at 1945), since, according to Terry Essery, they were used for banking in rotation as an effective way of getting them some TLC.

[Fredo]

 I know 75026 was the only double chimney 4MT to be allocated to Tebay before the shed closed.