Indicating Shelters

[Wickham Green too]

No doubt the shelter on Lord Nelson ( above ) is the same colour as the loco ...... not easy to determine on the others - though the 'Brighton' one looks as if it might be unpainted timber.

[Nick Gough]

In answer to the query posed in the first post I have found this photo, taken by the official GWR photographer:

 

Looks like the nearest man has something behind him to protect his back from the heat from the smokebox.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

An early use of a mobile phone, I see.

[Morello Cherry]

2 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

In answer to the query posed in the first post I have found this photo, taken by the official GWR photographer:

 

Looks like the nearest man has something behind him to protect his back from the heat from the smokebox.

 

Thank you. A fascinating photo.

A weird mix of not much room, but a stool for when talking on the phone. The heat shield looks like a sheet of plywood (a step up on cyclists using newspaper as weather protection).

 

All I can say is not a gig I'd be volunteering for.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

An early use of a mobile phone, I see.

He’s ordering breakfast from the restaurant car.

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

An early use of a mobile phone, I see.

How would you hear a thing on the phone?

[rodent279]

Wonder if that's a posed photo? Can't help thinking where is the photographer? Have they posed the train, and got the loco in the background to move?

Edited April 20 by rodent279

[Morello Cherry]

16 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

How would you hear a thing on the phone?

 

It looks like it has an extended mouthpiece and earpiece. Ideal for bellowing instructions.

I can't begin to imagine what their hearing would have been like at the end of the day.

 

I also like the fact that the chap on the phone has brylcreamed his hair in place so that not even working in the indicating shelter at speed is going to ruin it.

 

It looks like the chap nearest to us must be sitting down as well which makes me wonder how that was fixed down.

 

5 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Wonder if that's a posed photo? Can't help thinking where is the photographer? Have they posed the train, and got the loco in the background to move?

 

I'd assume in the cab looking through the spectacle window?

Edited April 20 by Morello Cherry

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

In answer to the query posed in the first post I have found this photo, taken by the official GWR photographer:

 

 

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

Wonder if that's a posed photo?

I think that's a given.  Would also explain the brylcreemed hair on a job like this.

Is the gent in the foreground kneeling on the footplate so we can get them both in shot?

The other loco is definitely moving, I'm not so sure about the track it's running on though - the blurring of the rail chairs may be because the loco under test is moving, or it might just be slightly out of focus.

I think there's a slight reflection on the glass of the spectacle window.

The phone cable would presumably run though connecting to both the footplate and the dynamometer car.

[Artless Bodger]

The apparent movement of the other loco could be done by masking most of the photo in the printing frame and racking the enlarger up or down while exposing the loco. That might also effectively double expose part of the track it is on making the blur around the chairs.

[rodent279]

May also have been a composite image, with the loco under test taken with a plain background, and the other loco and track superimposed.

[Wickham Green too]

16 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

... The other loco is definitely moving, ... the blurring of the rail chairs may be because the loco under test is moving, or it might just be slightly out of focus. ...

... and/or simple over exposure as the main subject of the photo is in shadow.

[Morello Cherry]

The photo also answers my 'how were they fixed on'. It looks like it is hooked over the handrail.

 

Is Brylcream man wearing a black mac?

 

The phone makes me wonder how they communicated with the other testers in earlier times ie the LBSCR image.

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Morello Cherry said:

... The phone makes me wonder how they communicated with the other testers in earlier times ie the LBSCR image.

If there was a plan and everyone stuck to it, communication - other than STOP ! - might not have been necessary.

[LMS2968]

Actually, communication probably was necessary as the actual indication had to be made under known conditions: speed, regulator opening (or steam chest pressure), cut-off, and these as well as the cylinder performance all had to be recorded simultaneously.

[franciswilliamwebb]

On 20/04/2024 at 13:33, Jeremy Cumberland said:

An early use of a mobile phone, I see.

“Payment protection insurance? I’m not sure I understand” 😉

[rodent279]

3 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

The photo also answers my 'how were they fixed on'. It looks like it is hooked over the handrail.

 

Is Brylcream man wearing a black mac?

 

The phone makes me wonder how they communicated with the other testers in earlier times ie the LBSCR image.

Telephone technology had been around since the 1880's,  so I'm sure a simple 2 way voice system would have been viable in the early 20th century. 

[Compound2632]

On 05/04/2024 at 07:56, rodent279 said:

Do we know whether the shelters were painted, and if so, what colour? Would they match the loco colour, or would they just be a nondescript brown, grey or black?

And have any survived?

 

Apologies that the following photos are catalogue thumbnails.

 

Indicator shelters fitted to the sibling of my avatar, the first of the Midland's Smith-Johnson Compounds, No. 2631 (which in rebuilt for survives as No. 1000) at Durran Hill shed, Carlisle, sometime in Aug - Sep 1902, for tests over the Settle & Carlisle line:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre item 81620.]

 

Those look to me to have been painted and lined out to match the engine.

 

Rather similar shelters, perhaps even the same ones, were in use in 1912 for testing 990 Class No. 993:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre item 66683.]

 

There's evidently some work gone into matching the styling of the shelters to the locomotives!

 

Back in c. 1890, Derby was using something much more shed-like with bigger windows, but mounted on one side only - not taking diagrams off both cylinders?

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre item 82368.]

 

The engine is No. 25, built in 1887, the first of the Johnson singles, with slide valves rather than the later piston valves. Side view:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre item 66779.]

 

According to the catalogue caption, also fitted with a speedometer - is the shiny object on the valence below the shelter pat of that?

 

The tender has a rear-mounted tool box, no coal rails, and no MR initials on the tank side, all pointing to pre-1892 condition, so these photos could date to 1887 when the engine was new.

 

S.W. Johnson's Presidential Address to the I. Mech. E. in 1898 includes a figure showing diagrams taken with No. 26 of the same class (perhaps a misprint?) working London - Nottingham expresses. In addition to the cylinder pressure diagrams, there are also diagrams for steam chest pressure, blast pipe pressure, and smokebox vacuum pressure, at 48 mph, 60 mph, and 70 mph. (The smokebox vacuum pressure chart clearly shows the four chuffs per cycle but one wonders to what extent it has been smoothed out by the instrument response mentioned above.)

 

F.W. Webb at Crewe was taking similar measurements on his compounds in the 1880s. 

 

This all goes to show that the scientific measurement of locomotive behaviour was well-established in the latter part of the 19th century. I wonder when and where indicator diagrams were first taken?

 

Edited April 21 by Compound2632

[magmouse]

51 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

diagrams taken with No. 26 of the same class (perhaps a misprint?)

Zooming into the picture (Midland Railway Study Centre item 66779), I’m pretty sure that it shows number 26, not 25, so the error may be in the archive description, not Johnson’s.

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Zooming into the picture (Midland Railway Study Centre item 66779), I’m pretty sure that it shows number 26, not 25, so the error may be in the archive description, not Johnson’s.

 

Re-reading the catalogue caption to 66779, it does say 26, not 25 - my error. That strongly suggests that the engine in 82368 (which is a print from LGRP neg 22165), which is captioned as No. 25, is in fact No. 26.

[LMS2968]

19 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

This all goes to show that the scientific measurement of locomotive behaviour was well-established in the latter part of the 19th century. I wonder when and where indicator diagrams were first taken?

 

D.K. Clark, an eminent loco engineer of the time, writes about the action of steam in the cylinders and describes indicator diagrams and their operation. He mentions his experimental investigations from 1849 and 1850, the results being published in the Proceedings of the Mechanical Engineers in 1852. Dempsey G.D. and Clark D. Kinnear The Victorian Steam Locomotive (Reprint 2015) Pen & Sword Transport ISBN 978 1 47382 323 5

[Compound2632]

20 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

D.K. Clark, an eminent loco engineer of the time, writes about the action of steam in the cylinders and describes indicator diagrams and their operation. He mentions his experimental investigations from 1849 and 1850, the results being published in the Proceedings of the Mechanical Engineers in 1852. Dempsey G.D. and Clark D. Kinnear The Victorian Steam Locomotive (Reprint 2015) Pen & Sword Transport ISBN 978 1 47382 323 5

 

Thanks, got me digging properly. Wikipedia tells me that John Southern, working for James Watt, invented the indicator diagram apparatus in 1796 but it was kept a trade secret - being used to improve Watt's stationary engines - until leaking out in the 1820s. So the technique was already there at the birth of the locomotive engine but I can well imagine that so inquisitive an engineer as Clark would have been among the first to make use of it. He would have been in his late twenties at the time of his experiments and only 33 when his classic Railway Machinery was published in 1855. That can be read online:

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_kpgOAAAAYAAJ/mode/2up

See Chapter II, 'Of the Behaviour of Steam in the Cylinder; of the Indicator; and of the Steam-Diagram' from p. 63 onwards (p. 94 of the online document) in the quaintly-named section 'Physiology of Locomotives'.

Edited April 22 by Compound2632