LMS2968

Gloucester Street, which used to run a long way east until someone dropped a great big station on top of it!

You need to remember the rather strange, but logical in its way, Midland operating ethos: any engine of a given power class could work any train within that power class, whether it was nicely run in after overhaul or struggling along just prior to entering Derby works. This meant that for most of their operating lives, engines were working well within their capabilities and this gave rise to the theory that the Midland was also the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Small Engines! Realistically, and unless 993 was on its last legs, a 13 ton overload was neither here nor there.

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

Directions are usually given in travelling direction of the TRAIN rather than the engine, so which way it's pointing doesn't come into it. If the engine is stationary in a yard, though, you would refer to left and right when looking towards the chimney.

Offside and nearside have nothing to do with the driver's position: nearside is the left and adjacent to (most) platform faces; offside is to the right, both as viewed in the direction of running. There is sufficient room on the running plate for the driver to pass, as happened thousands of times and related on this thread by several contributors, although modern H&S people might quibble. I can't see how Einstein's Theory of Relativity works either but don't doubt that it does.

In those days the running plate was quite a bit wider than the cab and splashers and getting around them from the cab gangway would not have been difficult. I imaging he took the gauge lamp with him to see the way and the oil levels in the oil boxes. By the way, on the Midland the driver stood on the right hand side, not the left. The 'lubtricators' here would have been drip-feed through a syphon and not mechanical; these really arrived only with superheating and not at this date with these engines. The reverser and regulator would have been set to allow the best performance, in this case with the low steam pressure in mind, and would have been left at that. Injectors could be fussy things and the Midland's were poor; the shame is that they were carried on into LMS days. What driver Caudle did was common practice in those days, and not just on the Midland.

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.

I suppose someone had to!

Probably renewed by new litter.

No. Uneven steam distribution wasn't uncommon. Even if the valves were evenly set for both ends of the cylinder, which they rarely were, especially for a tender engine expected to normally work chimney first, there were other factors such as the reduced piston area of the back of the cylinder caused by the presence of the piston rod and angularity due to the slight forward position of the piston when the connecting rods and crank were at a true ninety degrees.

Yes, there was one set of instruments per cylinder. The rollers at Rugby (and Swindon) measured performance at the wheel rim, not in the cylinders, so if you wanted to know what you were getting out of those, the indicator was the only way.

The measuring process wasn't continuous and triggered only when the people inside the shelters pushed the appropriate buttons.

You aren't alone. David. I do a lot of writing for various society magazines. I proof read them four or five times and send them when I'm confident all the errors have been eliminated. Then the magazine arrives in print, and there's always at least one!

According to an F.J. Roche drawing, 7'3"+8'3"+5'9".That's all I have.

Not an answer to the question but thought this looked interesting.