Edward Thompson: for and against

[S.A.C Martin]

The Bulleid pacifics weren't experimentation, they were production locomotives which had been designed to be easy to maintain and operate. How successfully Bulleid achieved those aims is another question but they were not an experiment.

 

I'm not sure that the early Bulleid Pacifics can't to some extent be described as "experimental" - certainly Channel Packet and the Series 1 Merchant Navy locomlotives were modifed continuously until their rebuilding by British Railways in a number of ways. Smoke deflection, some valve gear modifications, cab design was extensively changed, as was the removal of valances and modifications to the tenders. I accept they spawned production machines, however.

[coachmann]

We need a smiley for .

[jjb1970]

Certainly it is questionable what Bulleid was doing building the MN's during the war, and there is the great question of why the Southern built so many pacifics, but then when somebody considers what is needed to replace an M7 tank and come up with the Leader it may be best not to speculate too much on what is going on inside that particular mind!  That said, his pacifics were innovative designs that did display a lot of very clever (if uneven...) engineering.

[Bodmin Bob]

When you think what the Southern had in stock when Bulleid came to office - the Lord Nelsons which were ok but not performing in the way they should be (Bulleid had to improve them and there were not many of them) plus the King Arthur class which were superb engines but which had their limitations in terms of power. I think the Merchant navies were the right locos for that time and they earned their keep during the war with their mixed power status meaning they were used on heavy freights as well as passenger workings. 

 

The Leader was not really a replacement for the M7s. Bulleid identified that much of the Southern fleet was ageing with several pre grouping classes still in use and he wanted a design that would suit several purposes i.e. local passenger, branch line, freight etc. Had the Leader been oil fired and been built 5 years earlier then they would have proved their worth. Unfortunately their late conception and the restraints of the newly nationalised railway meant that they were effective dead in the water before the first one was even completed.

[jjb1970]

The Leader is worthy of a thread almost by itself, it is hard to think of a more controversial locomotive. The design mixed genius with stuff that I find inexplicable. The offset boiler was clearly always going to present issues and the idea of sleeve valves was problematic. The oil consumption was apparently horrendous just for lubrication purposes never mind fuel.

[Poggy1165]

I suppose that when discussing locomotive types, as when discussing footballers, it's all a matter of opinion. I recall reading an article by an old LNWR footplateman who described the much-lauded 'Black 5s' as a 'hopeless engineering proposition'. Moreover, he was contrasting them to the LNWR (goods) compounds, which most people today would assume were a pretty useless set of machines. But he worked on the LNWR engines and presumably on the Black 5s as well, so he should have been in a position to judge.

 

When we criticise Thompson or Gresley (or indeed any other CME) we are doing so long years after the event on the basis of relatively modest evidence, and effectively second-guessing the guys that had to do the job at the time with the resources available to them. It seems to me both of them were handicapped by the LNER's poverty, and Thompson in particular was faced with the huge problems arising from World War II. So they were not living in an ideal world, but were pretty well 'patch-mending' to keep things running. The good thing from the POV of modellers is that their policies ensured that the the LNER had an extremely varied loco stock, with an almost unbelievable total of classes and sub-classes; and that the alleged short-comings of various types does not really touch us when we build models. We can run the ones we like best, and they will all do the job!

[PenrithBeacon]

I've just been looking at this topic http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85474-lner-locomotives/ and to my eyes the Thomson A2/2 looks just right!

 

Regards

[Nimbus]

The Leader is worthy of a thread almost by itself, it is hard to think of a more controversial locomotive. The design mixed genius with stuff that I find inexplicable. 

 

I wonder what would have happened if Mr Bulleid had had a few chats with Sentinel?

 

The Nim.

[coachmann]

I wonder what would have happened if Mr Bulleid had had a few chats with Sentinel?

 

The Nim.

Or even the firemen....

[S.A.C Martin]

I've just been looking at this topic http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85474-lner-locomotives/ and to my eyes the Thomson A2/2 looks just right!

 

Regards

Very kind of you to say, many thanks. I rather like A2/2s though my favourite of Thompsons Pacifics remains 60113 Great Northern. Without deflectors and with the short cab I think she looks utterly beautiful.

 

The level cab floor was later adopted on the BR standards and the sleek bullet look of the round topped boiler and long smoke box appeals to me greatly. Utilitarian and yet still elegant in my opinion. I accept my view is not shared by many if any but I stand by it. The cylinders and short connecting rods add to her appeal for me not take it away.

 

When I first started researching Thompson, I was still in a frame of mind that Thompson equalled bad and Gresley good. He could do no right. Then I saw a photograph of Great Northern being fired up for the first time in her Prussian blue livery.

 

From the rear 3/4 view she looked astonishing, handsome and purposeful. I searched my feelings and found I liked this engine very much. It was at odds with that I'd been told, that Thompson machines were ungainly and ugly.

 

I no longer think that way at all. I love the Thompson Pacifics: they have a charm all their own. They're different but still evoking the spirit of the LNERs big engine policy.

[New Haven Neil]

Well, I've kept out of this for ages....and i think Simon started the thread as a result of a comment I mad eon Gilbert's layout thread - when I said it wasn't the start of a Gresley v Thompson argument!

 

I also used to think Thompson was the dark side, but more recently I have read more about his locos and the man himself and am more given to understand the man.  The look of the locos is unimportant - their performance and economy of fuel and maintenance was moot.  He brought design points that had a basis in good engineering, but also introduced a new set of compromises. 

 

Errors that jump out to me now (hindsight - wonderful!) are the cylinders that fell off (not literally, but often worked loose) and reduction in adhesive weight in a design that already could be light footed (Pacifics in general), and smokebox saddle/middle cylinder/frame cracking issues.  There is a photo in Townsend's 'East Coast Pacifics at Work' with a smokebox saddle bolt actually dropping out!  But they were economical, and could pull.  The look has grown on me over the years too!

 

Criticism of either man is really pointless now, they were in a different age, when engineering matters were less understood, and we now have no idea about what instruction they were given, or constraints financial or otherwise they operated under.

 

I don't think Thompson was a particularly nice man though, from what I have read.  SNG was also autocratic, but perhaps less 'difficult' than Thommo!

 

Both engineers laid the way for Peppercorn, who took the demonstrated good points of both designers and made the best locos of them all, the A1 and A2.  But still Doncaster messed about with incorrectly dimensioned kylchap ejector chimneys, or even single chimneys.....what were they thinking about when their superiority had been proven.  The V2's so equipped were rocket ships.

 

Anyway, great thread, some excellent thought on it (and some opinionated rubbish it has to be said), long may it run!

[coachmann]

If you agree it is excellent thought and if you disagree it is opinionated rubbish. Oh Right then.

[Old Gringo]

Whilst looking around for relevant information towards this topic, I began wondering if I might be one of the few on here who grew up reading books like, '2750, The Legend of a Locomotive', by Harry Webster and 'Top Link Locomotives', by Norman McKillop.  Books for boys with dreams of being engine-drivers, by authors who went from footplate to fountain pen and introduced the LNER pacifics to kids from all over the British Isles!
 
Way back in the summer of 1966, I not only watched England win the World Cup on the telly (topical, eh?), but, inspired by tales from those books I also spent a week in Scotland especially to enjoy riding behind some of last of Gresley's and Peppercorn's survivors.  The sound of a V2 attacking the gradients on the twisting road through Fife (written about by 'Toram Beg' in Trains Illustrated & Trains Annual) was magic to my teenage ears.  All these years later to find out what the loading was on that inside big-end has been quite illuminating too.
 
Enough of this lightweight banter, it's facts we're looking for, although I'm afraid there's only a couple of comments regarding Thompson in these notes.
 
In post 232 Poggy1156 mentions, "the variety of locomotives that the LNER had to deal with",
 
Two comparisons which might help to underline the financial constraints under which the LNER operated:
 
At the Grouping of 1923, "the LNER inherited 7,383 locomotives from no less than 249 classes using a multitude of different wheel arrangements" from the independent companies. (Michael Bonavia, History of the LNER Vol. 1, 1982, Allen & Unwin, p31).
 
After 25 years, the LNER passed 6,548 locomotives of 153 classes into British Railways ownership.  Still a fantastic variety and 50% greater by different designs than its nearest rival, the giant LMSR, which with 7,800 engines from just 101 classes in 1948 had benefitted from the result of being able to employ a more extreme policy of 'scrap and build' (figs: Longworth, OPC 2007).
 
Poggy1156 also says in post 232:  "When we criticise Thompson or Gresley (or indeed any other CME) we are doing so long years after the event on the basis of relatively modest evidence, and effectively second-guessing the guys that had to do the job at the time with the resources available to them. It seems to me both of them were handicapped by the LNER's poverty, and Thompson in particular was faced with the huge problems arising from World War II. So they were not living in an ideal world, but were pretty well 'patch-mending' to keep things running".
 
That appears to be the case.  However, one of the reasons that I began posting on this thread was after reading the words 'Gresleyesque  ratios' in another place on RMweb about the 'Midland Railway's Small Engine Policy' and thinking what a super new phrase that might be for all 60plus "steam-age locospotters in the 21st Century" to use in a discussion about Edward Thompson!
 
So, having being 'confined to barracks' after a foot operation and surrounded by a few railway books, I began searching for some 'Gresleyesque ratios'.  But I seem to have stumbled into a lot more facts and figures.  As I dug deeper into LNER loco-policy, I began wondering why Sir Nigel didn't build more blocks of 'standard' types? and why Edward Thompson rebuilt the P2s, rather than just transferring them onto the ECML?
 
It was the story from the writings by E.S. Cox and Harry Holcroft, that had me posting on here first (at post 133) and I seemed to end up defending Thompson's case for his first 'standard type', the B1 4-6-0, against the rising LNER maintenance costs (post 217).  Something I wasn't expecting!
 
Faced with all this data, another quirk that intrigued me was why the first LNER 'standard' type introduced in 1926 was an (almost un-Gresleyesque) inside-cylindered 0-6-0 locomotive? This is also mentioned briefly in an earlier post of this thread.  Then I went back to reading the Midland thread and found this quote, which puts a totally different light on the building of these 324 engines.
 
Post 75:  on Page 3 of 'Midland's Small Engine Policy' by 34theletterbetweenCandD:
 
"The LNER Gresley story is a fascinating one.  Early on he was over-ruled on what became the J38/39.  His plan had been for a 2-6-0, very similar in outline to what the LNER eventually obtained in the K1.  The board insisted on an 0-6-0 format for economy, and the job was handed off to Darlington to work up a yet bigger J27.  The board got their first cost economy, and paid for it ever after on the J39 which was capable in power output beyond what an 0-6-0 format was really suited; resulting in very large repair bills for the leading coupled wheel's bearings.  The operating department would allocate them to services which ran fast, because they were capable traction units.  A leading truck - even a swing link design - would have made a world of difference. Gresley had been right". (my underlinings to the quote)
 
Therefore, following the lead of Maunsell on the SECR (N class, 200psi, 1917 and later the Southern) and at exactly the same time as Hughes on the LMS (Crab, 180psi, 1926), the LNER could no doubt have had a superb 2-cylinder 2-6-0, equipped with long travel valves and the logic of accessibility built in giving much lower maintenance costs (a good uncomplicated 2-6-0 type had already been tried by Gresley in the K2 class, 180psi, engines).
 
IMO, this would have been a much better alternative, a class of modern, utility locomotives, rather than the 'Edwardian-esque' 0-6-0s.  I find it surprising that after 15 years in post as CME, he did not push harder for the better solution.  Oddly, I've also been in a similar situation to that which Sir Nigel faced outlined in Paul's quote (15 years in position and told to use/employ a retrograde method as a solution, although you know in the long run it's not the right decision).  Eventually, as predicted it shows up as an extra cost, or in the LNER's case very large repair bills!
 
Maybe more to follow on this saga, after I've read some more books for boys of all ages!

PS: Nowadays when I post anything in a technical thread like this on RMweb, I usually try to add the references where I found some of the information, as I have a job remembering where I found such and such a fact!
 
Norman McKillop (aka Toram Beg, who began his career at Haymarket in 1910) wrote at least five books: 'The Lighted Flame, A History of ASLEF', (1950) Nelson; 'How I became an Engine Driver', (1953) Nelson; 'Top Link Locomotives', (1957) Nelson; 'Enginemen Elite', (1958) Ian Allan and 'Ace Enginemen', (1963) Nelson.

[robmcg]

A very well-written and enjoyable post, thank you.

 

Rob

[bluebottle]

......

PS: Nowadays when I post anything in a technical thread like this on RMweb, I usually try to add the references where I found some of the information, as I have a job remembering where I found such and such a fact!

 

Norman McKillop (aka Toram Beg, who began his career at Haymarket in 1910) wrote at least five books: 'The Lighted Flame, A History of ASLEF', (1950) Nelson; 'How I became an Engine Driver', (1953) Nelson; 'Top Link Locomotives', (1957) Nelson; 'Enginemen Elite', (1958) Ian Allan and 'Ace Enginemen', (1963) Nelson.

 

Good to see contributors giving references. Besides showing that proper research has been done, they provide pointers to further reading on topics. This can only add to the general quality of and confidence in RMweb as a reliable resource.

[MarkC]

In response to why old classes weren't replaced 'en masse' by either Gresley or Thompson, it's fair to say that, apart from the fact that the LNER was always short of funds to do such things, many of said 'old classes' were both built to last and were masters of the duties they were designed for. Plenty of examples of this in the old NER area, where, inter alia, classes Q6 & J27 were still active at the end of steam, Classes A8 & G5 only disappeared with the introduction of DMUs etc etc. Recognising that sometimes 'not fixing what isn't broken' is also a hallmark of a competent and pragmatic engineering chief.

[Pebbles]

I would suggest that there is a problem in comparing numbers with classes. For example J67,J68 & J69 were mechanically similar and could have been categorised as subdivisions of one class, similarly J26 and J27 and F4,F5 and F6, the same could be said of V1s and V3s. In the case of J9s and J10s they appear to differ only in the type of valve gear. I think it fair to say that classes were determined by how the company wished to categorise their stock, and there could not possibly have been a common standard across the four companies. In the case of the LMS could you really consider re-built Scots in the same class as the original engines? and when it comes to commonality the Black Fives existed in a wide range of variations, Dare I say it, but there are lies, damnable lies and statistics.  

[coachmann]

I would suggest that there is a problem in comparing numbers with classes. For example J67,J68 & J69 were mechanically similar and could have been categorised as subdivisions of one class, similarly J26 and J27 and F4,F5 and F6, the same could be said of V1s and V3s. In the case of J9s and J10s they appear to differ only in the type of valve gear. I think it fair to say that classes were determined by how the company wished to categorise their stock, and there could not possibly have been a common standard across the four companies. In the case of the LMS could you really consider re-built Scots in the same class as the original engines? and when it comes to commonality the Black Fives existed in a wide range of variations, Dare I say it, but there are lies, damnable lies and statistics.  

Just for the record, there was more commonality between the original and the rebuilt Sots than there were between the GCR J10 and J11 classes. There was definitely commonality between all the various Black Fives despite their visual differences............. If the frames had been altered, the vertical and sloping throat plate boilers could be freely interchanged and this applied to non-roller bearing axleboxes,  brake blocks and sundry other fittings.

[byron]

In response to why old classes weren't replaced 'en masse' by either Gresley or Thompson, it's fair to say that, apart from the fact that the LNER was always short of funds to do such things, many of said 'old classes' were both built to last and were masters of the duties they were designed for. Plenty of examples of this in the old NER area, where, inter alia, classes Q6 & J27 were still active at the end of steam, Classes A8 & G5 only disappeared with the introduction of DMUs etc etc. Recognising that sometimes 'not fixing what isn't broken' is also a hallmark of a competent and pragmatic engineering chief.

Sad to say, but this very British idea of "if it aint broke" is perhaps the main reason why in all fields the country is in the sad state it is. Just think what could have been acheived with railway trction had innovation broken out.

Remember the West Coast electrification, virtually the whole railway was rebuilt, to the old loading gauge! What another missed chance.

 

Mike

[New Haven Neil]

If you agree it is excellent thought and if you disagree it is opinionated rubbish. Oh Right then.

 

If you're referring to me Larry, then that is odd, as one of the posts I had in mind you also took exception to.

[coachmann]

If you're referring to me Larry, then that is odd, as one of the posts I had in mind you also took exception to.

I was having a laugh. Not to be taken seriously.

[pointstaken]

Whilst looking around for relevant information towards this topic, I began wondering if I might be one of the few on here who grew up reading books like, '2750, The Legend of a Locomotive', by Harry Webster

 

I'm another of those who read that book (+ 50 years ago ) many times (Driver Eldridge etc.)

 

Dennis

[New Haven Neil]

I wonder what would have happened if Mr Bulleid had had a few chats with Sentinel?

 

The Nim.

 

A lop sided vertical boiler.......

[New Haven Neil]

One thing is for sure, I await Simon's book with bated breath.  It sounds as if it will be well researched and referenced, which TBH some tomes on the subject have been anything but. (edit - I think Simon already mentioned Rogers....)

 

Not specific to Thompson, but I do wonder sometimes why what had become established engineering knowledge was suddenly ignored - draughting arrangements etc - surely it costs no more, or little more to make it right than wrong.  We will never know now what drove many of these odd decisions I don't suppose.

 

I read somewhere (no reference sorry, can't recall which book - Cox?) the GW based all draughting upon the Dean Goods blastpipe/chimney dimensions, as it worked fine on that.  That it didn't occur it may be different on a Castle, King or whatever astonishes me especially from engineers who recognised the superiority of long travel/lap valve events so early and rubbed the NE's face in it! 

 

Did any of Thompsons non-pacific locos ever get tested on the Swindon plant?  Would have made interesting reading, the Pacifics weren't bad in efficiency when tested according to Townend.

[bluebottle]

Very kind of you to say, many thanks. I rather like A2/2s though my favourite of Thompsons Pacifics remains 60113 Great Northern. Without deflectors and with the short cab I think she looks utterly beautiful...

 

... the sleek bullet look of the round topped boiler and long smoke box appeals to me greatly.

 

Eye of the beholder and all that, Simon. I was struck by the "bullet look" simile, though. My brother, who had never shown any interest in railways in general and steam locomotives in particular - outside of John Wayne movies - surprised me by commenting that a picture of a GWR "King" class loco appealed to him. When I asked why, he replied "It reminds me of a Colt 45 "Peacemaker" ...