Wright writes.....

[Dunsignalling]

When an individual at the top of the tree acquires a reputation for being "difficult" among most of his colleagues and subordinates, it is a very short step to his/her professional ability being brought into question.

 

Whilst it is not necessary to like ones boss in order to have respect for him/her, dreading what one is likely to encounter upon entering the office will, even in the least judgmental of us, eat away at whatever did exist.  

 

Whatever his talents, Thompson was clearly such a man (possibly for reasons that were not understood in his time) and, with a background of "Gresley worship" amongst the target audience of authors in earlier times, it is easy to see how he would not have been given the benefit of any doubt. 

 

As for the merits (or shortcomings) of the P2 class, there were very few of them and they were easily kept away from the route that mattered most to their owners. Had there been fifty built, one suspects that any problems would have received more urgent and thorough attention. They clearly suffered from their treatment through WW2 and were not the engines they had been by the time they entered Thompson's "in-tray". We shall hopefully not have too long to wait before we can see for ourselves what a new one can do when well-looked-after.  

 

Anything LNER tends to be well down my list of interests (I had no real exposure to such things in my formative years) but the final CME of my primary area of interest had much (possibly more than HNG) to do with the hands-on development of the P2s. When Bulleid moved to the Southern and was formulating his ideas for the Merchant Navy Class, his preference was for a 2-8-2 over a Pacific and it is reasonable to assume he would have started from what he knew. Clearly, if he considered there was anything of concern in the P2 design, he had solutions in mind....

 

John  

Edited July 2, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

We shall hopefully not have too long to wait before we can see for ourselves what a new one can do when well-looked-after.  

 

I doubt that one can infer a great deal about the performance of locomotives over eighty years ago from the performance of a replica built to modern engineering standards and techniques, that will have no opportunity to do the sort of work, under the sort of conditions, that the original engines did. 

[micklner]

Hopefully the P2 copy  wont be breaking its Crank Axle like the prototype, a very serious and dangerous flaw.

There is simply no comparison with nearly 90 year old designs and the then  building capabilties, and modern manfacturing , the new P2 replica  is no than a lovely external shape at best.

 

As to the Thompson sage which has rear its head yet again why ?,  Tony had already said move on. It is a repeat again of what has already been said?  . All reports are done by Humans all have their own opinions , figures can altered , written down incorrectly, peopel simpy lie,  etc etc .

Anyone after Gresley would have to be a magician or a new God  etc etc to have never been criticised on taking the role on .

 

90 years on we are never going to know, and no books will ever change that fact .

[t-b-g]

7 hours ago, Simon A.C. Martin said:

Tony, with respect, the availability statistics do tell us the day to day work of  these engines. The board minutes and reports on the engines do also give us that.

 

Hell, we even have diagrams for these engines, photographic evidence and even FILM of these engines doing the work they were diagrammed as P2s.
 

Ignoring - just as an example - that Thane of Fife literally doubled its annual mileage and improved its availability by 20% in its first year as an A2/2 is the proverbial sticking one’s head in the sand. 
 

It didn’t achieve its high mileages throughout WW2 as an A2/2 without being used more frequently on the same kind of work the P2s were doing. By the end of the war, the A2/2s were physically doing the same work they had been doing before, except with 20-30% better availability and a doubling in annual mileage.

 

This is not in dispute - it is a matter of officially recorded LNER fact.

 

Whether you or anyone else likes it or not - the Thompson A2/2s were in fact doing the same job as the P2s and were doing it well.

 

That doesn’t mean the P2s didn’t have the potential to be better. I’m a founder member of the P2 Trust - I clearly believe (and still do) that there is a gem in there once the design issues are worked out.

 

But there have been multiple red flags throughout the building and redesign of no.2007, not least in the crank axle type, or the bearings, and the pony truck, and so on and so forth…

 

We can have our favourite locomotives and designers and personal views. That’s fine. But if we are serious about railway history, primary evidence has to take precedence over secondary. That’s the point. We have enough primary evidence that shows the P2s performed poorly and the A2/2s performed well from rebuilding.
 

Accepting that doesn’t denigrate Gresley or tarnish his memory. It does however recognise that we should be giving Thompson and his design team, and those working at Doncaster, a hell of a lot more credit. They took one locomotive performing badly and DOUBLED its annual mileage and improved its availability by a roughly a third. 
 

That is a success story in the middle of a war, and it is frankly shameful that so much criticism exists in secondary sources that ignores or is ignorant of that feat.

 

I was very careful not to include anything critical of Thompson or his locos in my post.

 

All I was doing was suggesting that statistics can be misleading on their own. When I had a real job, I played with numbers all day long and if I wanted to find a way to make a point using numbers, I could always find a way to use statistics that was entirely accurate and true but also favourable to the case I was making. Just the difference between using an average or a median can make a huge difference.

 

There is a danger that a statistic like availability may be skewed by various factors. It is still an accurate and true figure but say it varies greatly from year to year, or from loco to loco. That would indicate that the locos were capable of better availability but didn't reach that figure often. I would then be asking why that was. In a small class, one or two locos being out of use for an extended period will have a much bigger impact than the same number being out of use in a larger class.

 

So just taking an average figure, over a period that includes approx. 3 years of peacetime conditions and around 5 years or wartime conditions and comparing it with locos that ran most of their lives in peacetime conditions is possibly going to skew the figures in favour of the latter.

 

I don't know if the figures would be much different if they were presented in other ways but I would be interested to see what the best availability of a P2 was in any particular year. Then I would be asking why that couldn't be achieved more often on more of the class. That is what I did at work. I didn't work on averages. I looked at best practice and tried to apply it everywhere. I looked at how the highest numbers were achieved, looked into why it worked well and passed that information on.

 

So it is nothing to do with criticism of Thompson at all, just the way such numbers can be misleading.

 

I think it was a brave move, setting out to prove that you are right and nearly everybody else is wrong about Thompson. It is a shame that people like Malcolm Crawley are not still around. He had some great tales about the anti Thompson subversion going on in Doncaster drawing office. The simple fact is that he never got the people working for him truly on board with his plans and he was mainly working against them, not with them. They were delighted when he left and was replaced by Peppercorn, who showed a bit of respect for his predecessors and did get the drawing office on his side very early, even before Thompson had left. They were designing the Peppercorn pacifics in secret, keeping it hidden from Thompson, while he was still in office. What does that tell you about him and about what the people at the sharp end thought of him and his designs?

 

When the time came to start withdrawing the pacifics, the newer Thompson locos were the first to go, with the older Gresley designs being kept in preference. That tells me far more about how his pacifics were regarded by the people running the railways at the time, 20 years after Gresley died. Or were the people organising that wrong, or biased, too?

 

Thompson and his pacifics were not well regarded then or now and I am not sure that your one man crusade will ever change that but fair play to you for trying.

 

Now his B1 was another matter! A good engine produced under very difficult conditions, making great use of existing components to save time and costs. They looked good too, much better than the pacifics which looked to me to have been cobbled together from parts left lying around the works yard that didn't quite belong together. I sometimes wonder if he had put the outside cylinders between the bogie wheels, coming up with something like the Peppercorn locos, his reputation may never have suffered the way that it did.

[landscapes]

1 hour ago, davidw said:

Peter C for some reason I can't quote but that job you've do on 60500is excellent. Though personally I'd tone down the lining a little with powders.

 

This thread really fuels the imagination at times.

Hi David

 

I do think Peter has got it spot on for and Ex Works paint look.

 

Having said that I did exactly what you have said in toning down the model as I wanted an Ex works but having been used by applying light weathering.

 

This I achieved by spraying the locomotive from distance just a dusting using a Rail Match Roof Dirt spray can.

 

Photo enclosed, hope Tony does not mind me posting.

 

Regards

 

David

[Guest Simon A.C. Martin]

Hi Tony. It’s not a “one man crusade”, with respect.

 

Esteemed historian Tim Hillier-Graves book actually goes further than mine in terms of the Thompson story, mine focuses on the engineering policy and locomotives during WW2 whereas his looks at the personal side.

 

I remember Malcolm fondly and he treated me with my questions with far more respect than some others have done over the last ten years of research. I feel strongly he might have still disliked Thompson but he would have been open to an evidence based approach. 

 

Your last post includes the usual anti-Thompson tropes such as withdrawal dates etc which have been debunked time and time again.

 

I didn’t write my book for those whose minds are already closed: I wrote it so that those with a serious interest in railway history could look at the very real evidence that is still with us and make their minds up after that. 
 

I’ll leave it at that but I feel very strongly that it’s typical of railway enthusiasts to prefer myths to facts.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, micklner said:

90 years on we are never going to know, and no books will ever change that fact .

 

But (re)analysis of the primary evidence does move us on. It is important not to wallow in half-truths, folklore, and nostalgia for what never was. Harmless enough for toy trains, I suppose, but it's a mind-set that leads to poor decisions.

[Jesse Sim]

1 hour ago, micklner said:

.

 

As to the Thompson sage which has rear its head yet again why ?,  Tony had already said move on. It is a repeat again of what has already been said?  .

 

 

Same with the gearbox conversation…

 

 

Hat, coat, gone. 

[Guest Simon A.C. Martin]

20 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But (re)analysis of the primary evidence does move us on. It is important not to wallow in half-truths, folklore, and nostalgia for what never was. Harmless enough for toy trains, I suppose, but it's a mind-set that leads to poor decisions.

The problem is pretty straightforward.

Are we discussing railway history as historians or railway modellers?

 

If the latter, believe what you want but don’t expect to be taken seriously by the former if you don’t take an academic approach.
 

If we all approached the subject as historians then there’d be largely more agreement on basic academic factors such as what primary evidence is, why it is important, and what better overall analysis results from analysing it.

[Not Jeremy]

Simon

 

I think you make good and interesting points, but you do come across as something of a zealot, which I think does not help your cause.

 

And having rather rammed the value of facts over everything else to us all, you write:

 

Esteemed historian Tim Hillier-Graves (my italics)

 

I'm sure he's a fine fellow, but your addition of a "value judgment" rather puts me off him I'm afraid.

 

Thompson was clearly quite a tricky fellow, as many of us are.

 

But look on the bright side, at least he wasn't accused of any financial irregularity, which was the fate of Douglas Earle Marsh.

 

Another interesting locomotive engineer from the past, who retired around this part of the World.

 

His grandson is quite a character too....

 

An interesting discussion nonetheless, a bit like the debate between proponents of the original versus rebuilt Bulleid Pacifics...

 

Another Simon

 

[Guest Simon A.C. Martin]

Hi Simon, 

 

Tim has personally helped me with some portions of my research and I have a great respect for him. 
 

Historians who put a lot of effort into their work and research should be recognised accordingly.

 

Zealot? No, academic. 
 

How else can I get the point across?

 

We are not even talking about intricacies of research. We’re talking about a basic recognition that we should be following an evidence based line of approach.

 

That’s hardly zealotry: it’s basic academia.

 

Best wishes

 

Simon

[queensquare]

48 minutes ago, Simon A.C. Martin said:

The problem is pretty straightforward.

Are we discussing railway history as historians or railway modellers?

 

If the latter, believe what you want but don’t expect to be taken seriously by the former if you don’t take an academic approach.
 

If we all approached the subject as historians then there’d be largely more agreement on basic academic factors such as what primary evidence is, why it is important, and what better overall analysis results from analysing it.

 

As a trained, professional historian (long retired from academia) it should be remembered that primary evidence needs to be treated with the same degree of scepticism as any other evidence. Who it was written for and why it was written are major factors. Just because evidence is primary doesnt make it any more reliable.

 

Jerry

[60027Merlin]

With regard to official records, whilst a lot of information is recorded, it does not, in many cases, tell the full story. All part of human nature of course.

 

For example, Peppercorn did visit Edinburgh (no doubt on a few occasions) and on one such visit he was there to insist that the instructions from Thompson, which Haymarket ignored, that their P2s were not to be used on workings south to Newcastle.

 

A neighbour of my parents worked in management in the B. R.  H. Q. in Waterloo Place and told my father and I this back in the 50s when he was still working there. He was not the type who made things up. In addition, the late Harry Knox whose knowledge of Haymarket was extensive and in addition knew well a great many B. R. management and railwaymen at “the sharp end” confirmed that this visit did take place. Once again Harry was not inclined to make things up either.

 

Railways are no different from other Organisations, written records only cover so much.

 

t-b-g is spot on! The B1s were excellent and did all that was asked of them. Better to ignore the A2/1s though!

[jwealleans]

 

Is my memory misleading me, or does Peter Townend not explain in Top Shed in some detail and with examples, how depots used to falsify mileage (and therefore availability) records in order to get a dud loco into shops when it was in such a state as to be of little or no use to them?

[micklner]

16 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

 

Is my memory misleading me, or does Peter Townend not explain in Top Shed in some detail and with examples, how depots used to falsify mileage (and therefore availability) records in order to get a dud loco into shops when it was in such a state as to be of little or no use to them?

Exactly my point !!.

 

  No one alive now, knows what existing records of anything that has been hand recorded are 100% true.

 

I suggest a seperate thread on here for Mr Thompson, it would be a very simple idea to follow for everybody who has the interest, or simply click the ignore button at their leisure !!.

[drmditch]

Well, at least this current resurgence of 'the Thompson Question' hasn't yet reached the levels of unpleasantness of some earlier iterations!

I think I may have to buy a copy of the books being referred to!

 

I've just tried and failed to locate a statement written by R H N Hardy in his preface to one of the works in my collection. If I may summarise, it was to effect of 'letting Mr Thompson's memory rest quietly, because he did his job!'

 

May I suggest that in terms of engineering policy, corporate politics, and workshop practice, there are other subjects we might explore.

Gateshead and Mr McDonnell is one of them. Perhaps the importing of swing-link bogies from Inchicore might prove interesting in relation to several British railways?

Then there are developments at Stratford.

 

Fortunately Mr Wright's thread seems to be predominantly based on the LNER and it's antecedents, other wise we could get trapped into a discussion of Mr Webb's tenure at Crewe, especially in his later years.

 

Then, of course there is the whole issue of design, workshop and running shed practice in the earlier years of the LMS........

Why would anyone have screwed down (ie shut off) the top feed on a Stanier boiler? (Sorry, can't find the reference at the moment!)

 

Failing all of those we could revive the whole 'who invented the blastpipe' controversy of the 1860s!

(I've just been  re-reading a good book by Anthony Dawson 'Before Rocket - The steam locomotive before 1829', which I highly recommend.) 

 

Now - having cut the lawn between showers, there are capping stones to fit on the retaining walls on the incline to my coaling stage, and I really must start construction of a very challenging and  interesting engine indeed!

Edited July 2, 2022 by drmditch

[t-b-g]

8 hours ago, Simon A.C. Martin said:

Hi Tony. It’s not a “one man crusade”, with respect.

 

Esteemed historian Tim Hillier-Graves book actually goes further than mine in terms of the Thompson story, mine focuses on the engineering policy and locomotives during WW2 whereas his looks at the personal side.

 

I remember Malcolm fondly and he treated me with my questions with far more respect than some others have done over the last ten years of research. I feel strongly he might have still disliked Thompson but he would have been open to an evidence based approach. 

 

Your last post includes the usual anti-Thompson tropes such as withdrawal dates etc which have been debunked time and time again.

 

I didn’t write my book for those whose minds are already closed: I wrote it so that those with a serious interest in railway history could look at the very real evidence that is still with us and make their minds up after that. 
 

I’ll leave it at that but I feel very strongly that it’s typical of railway enthusiasts to prefer myths to facts.

 

Malcolm was not one for changing his mind or for being wrong. On anything. Ever!

 

I remember him soldering a dome onto a loco that ended up not quite square and straight.

 

His response? "I don't know what's up with this xxxxxx solder but it has moved after it set. I soldered it on straight but it isn't straight now."

 

If you think he was open to being persuaded to change his mind, then you didn't know him well enough. I tried for upwards of 30 years on and off and eventually gave up. I developed techniques of suggesting things to him in such a way that he could claim them as his own ideas. It was a wonderful game of cat and mouse that we both played with great enjoyment. 

 

 

 

 

[t-b-g]

To get us away from things that may or may not have been said or done 80 years ago and back to some modelling, a few of us got together this afternoon with Sandra in the Retford railway room. It was a super day, which included a visit from a chap who trainspotted on the famous wall in the 1940s.

 

I took along some of the locos and stock that are to appear on my new layout and I am posting a couple of snaps, along with one of Malcolm Crawley's P1 and his model of the Grantham Breakdown Train as it looked in, from memory, 1937. The P1 and the Breakdown Train were photographed a couple of weeks ago. The MR 800 Class was built by Malcolm from a Jidenco kit and the carriages are some of the ones from Sid Stubbs. On a first try the loco struggled to pull the train but I then remembered that the carriages don't have pinpoint bearings and have been standing unlubricated for many a year. I quick drop of oil (thanks Sandra) and it sailed round, even with the tiny flanges on the carriage wheels.

 

I am still learning how to use the new camera but hopefully I am beginning to get the hang of it.

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by t-b-g
typo

[Barry Ten]

3 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

 

 

His response? "I don't know what's up with this xxxxxx solder but it has moved after it set. I soldered it on straight but it isn't straight now."

 

 

 

 

I've come across that same solder in my own kit construction.

[Guest Simon A.C. Martin]

11 hours ago, jwealleans said:

 

Is my memory misleading me, or does Peter Townend not explain in Top Shed in some detail and with examples, how depots used to falsify mileage (and therefore availability) records in order to get a dud loco into shops when it was in such a state as to be of little or no use to them?

If that’s the case, please feel free to cite that.

 

If we are suggesting that the internal document on mileages and availability falsified the A2/2s doing well and the P2s badly, then that claim should be backed up with some concrete evidence that this practice was both widespread and can be evidenced as such.

 

However, I already know the answer to this: it wasn’t widespread, it certainly wasn’t the case in WW2, and if it was only true of the Thompson Pacifics and not everything else, that reflects terribly on the LNER as a railway company.

[jrg1]

16 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I doubt that one can infer a great deal about the performance of locomotives over eighty years ago from the performance of a replica built to modern engineering standards and techniques, that will have no opportunity to do the sort of work, under the sort of conditions, that the original engines did. 

How true.  I see that the chassis for the P2 and also the B17 will have Cannon axleboxes fitted-miles ahead of the original arrangement.

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, t-b-g said:

Malcolm was not one for changing his mind or for being wrong. On anything. Ever!

Having known and worked with Malcolm, I would say that he epitomised the old saying "You can always tell a Yorkshireman - but you can't tell him much".

[Iain.d]

It seems an age since I last showed any progress on an LMS D1966 Articulated TO+TO, that I started in early May; I’m not sure really why, although at times I have struggled to find the enthusiasm after a long day at work. And of course, like everyone else, there’s ‘normal’ life to do also.

 

The first photo is from the other day showing the main chassis and interior parts, it’ll be a slow plod painting the tables!

 

 

And then the main body and roof parts. On this build, although there’s nothing any more complex on this set than other LMS coaches, the alarm gear and filler pipes shown here are the best of multiple goes at bending wire, drilling flattened pin heads and creating securing tags. At times it seemed like my fingers wouldn’t work and the amount of stuff I dropped on the carpet, only to be found by the vacuum, is nobody’s business!

 

 

But all together it seems to look okay.  I have to work out a method of coupling the two carriages together. I was going to simply solder a bolt from the top of the upper coupling tab, down. But the tab hits the whitemetal casting of the adjacent carriage, before the bolt can enter the hole in the lower tab and then through hole in the bogie. Maybe something from the bogie, coming up, will work.

 

 

I never cease to be amazed at the number of little bits and pieces I make as sub-assemblies, particularly on the ends.  I will attach the electrical cables next…I forgot until seeing the photo…and clean the roof and add roof ribs from thin tape.  I will try and get at least the primer on this week.

 

 

Not much else will done until August as I’m away with work for three weeks, from next weekend, driving up to the very north east of Western Australia (flying back), about as far away from modelling trains as is possible!

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain

Edited July 3, 2022 by Iain.d

[MarkC]

 

Oh, that 800 is a thing of beauty! Thanks for posting the photos.

 

Mark

Edited July 3, 2022 by MarkC
Added pic

[31A]

7 hours ago, Iain.d said:

It seems an age since I last showed any progress on an LMS D1966 Articulated TO+TO, that I started in early May; I’m not sure really why, although at times I have struggled to find the enthusiasm after a long day at work. And of course, like everyone else, there’s ‘normal’ life to do also.

 

The first photo is from the other day showing the main chassis and interior parts, it’ll be a slow plod painting the tables!

 

 

 

And then the main body and roof parts. On this build, although there’s nothing any more complex on this set than other LMS coaches, the alarm gear and filler pipes shown here are the best of multiple goes at bending wire, drilling flattened pin heads and creating securing tags. At times it seemed like my fingers wouldn’t work and the amount of stuff I dropped on the carpet, only to be found by the vacuum, is nobody’s business!

 

 

 

But all together it seems to look okay.  I have to work out a method of coupling the two carriages together. I was going to simply solder a bolt from the top of the upper coupling tab, down. But the tab hits the whitemetal casting of the adjacent carriage, before the bolt can enter the hole in the lower tab and then through hole in the bogie. Maybe something from the bogie, coming up, will work.

 

 

 

I never cease to be amazed at the number of little bits and pieces I make as sub-assemblies, particularly on the ends.  I will attach the electrical cables next…I forgot until seeing the photo…and clean the roof and add roof ribs from thin tape.  I will try and get at least the primer on this week.

 

 

 

Not much else will done until August as I’m away with work for three weeks, from next weekend, driving up to the very north east of Western Australia (flying back), about as far away from modelling trains as is possible!

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain

 

Looking good, Ian!  You might be interested to see how I arranged the middle coupling for an LNER articulated pair.  The two brackets are attached by bolts under the coach floor (in case they needed to be adjusted for length); the lower one has a spacer of the same material above it, and a hole tapped 8BA.  The other one just has a plain hole, 8BA clearance.  The pivot bolt is an 8BA bolt with a spacer made from two thicknesses of tube and a washer passed over it; it screws into the lower bracket on one coach so the bogie is attached to that coach, and the bracket on the other coach just sits on the top of the bolt.  The bolt was later shortened a bit so that it clears the gangway.