Fowler freight loco's

[edcayton]

If Fowler did the 7F's for the S&D (and AFAIK they were gooduns) then why did he persist with the 4F's and their stretched 7F's for the LMS ?

Any thoughts?

 

Ed

[The Stationmaster]

If Fowler did the 7F's for the S&D (and AFAIK they were gooduns) then why did he persist with the 4F's and their stretched 7F's for the LMS ?

Any thoughts?

Ed

 

I think it all depends how you, or more appositely the Midland Division of the LMS, define a good'un. I believe an S&D 2-8-0 was trialled on the Midland mainline and allegedly found wanting so Derby decided not to spend a lot of money on building any for that usage. But reaction to a different type of loco depends very much on where you start from of course. And if you had a railway populated with cheap & easy to build and maintain locos with 100% of their weight available for the extremely important business of braking a heavy coal train heading towards Brent Sidings from the Midlands something which was more complex and didn't offer the stopping power may not have been your cup of tea even if it did have better axleboxes.

 

And basically, from what I have ever read or heard, is what the situation was until Bill Stanier came along and stopped offering the choice of having more of what they had been used to for a very long time. And even then 0-6-0s persisted on the Midland mainline for a long time.

[DaveF]

There is some reference to this in "Sir Henry Fowler - A versatile Life", JE Chacksfield, Oakwood Press ISBN 0 85361 550 0

 

Page 42 has a photo of SDJR 2-8-0 No83 on an up freight near the Welsh Harp in 1919 stating it was on loan to the Midland Railway.

 

The design work on the 2-8-0 was given to James Clayton in the Derby Drawing Office, apparently he was given quite a free hand, hence the outside Walschaerts valve gear and outside admission valves. It did however employ the MR standard 4F axleboxes which were always troublesome.

 

Before they entered service Clayton left the Midland Railway to become chief locomotive draughtsman under Maunsell at Ashford, the works of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway.

 

Perhaps this helps explain it!

 

A further note in the book does state that in 1927, when the LMS had realised that the Midland's small engine policy could not be sustained that Derby promoted the SDJR design. Tets between it and the LNWR G2 though showed that the latter was the better engine (repair costs and running costs), from this the Fowler 7F 0-8-0 design resulted.

 

David

[coachmann]

I think it has mostly been said. The LNWR 0-8-0 was virtually an LMS standard design through new-build and rebuilding older variants. The Fowler 7F was designed as the new 'standard' freight engine but as usual the dead hand of the ex Midland 'die hards' decreed that standard parts be incorported. The world was in an economic depression following the callapse of Wall Street at the time these locos were being introduced, and economic saving would have been at the forefront. Nevertheless, it is highly probable the die hards would still have insisted on using 4F axleboxes.

 

These engines had a boiler that was based on the LNWR G2 boiler married to a modern 'engine' portion with walschaerts valve gear, long lap long travel valves and multi ring valve heads. The 7F 'Austin Seven' 0-8-0 should have been a surefire winner but the combination of high piston thrust combined with high axlebox loadings simply overwhelmed the grossly inadequate axle boxes. As a result, these strong engines became badly run down very quickly after shopping. 70% of the class had gone by 1951, a tragedy seeing as they were my favourites!

 

Larry G.