slilley

On 21/04/2024 at 18:38, VIA185 said:

Post-Nationalisation and with the likes of George Dow heading the PR departments there was a policy move away from naming locos after weapons of war. That's why there was a controversy over naming the new A1 Tornado - a name it would not have carried if it had been built by BR in  the 1950s. (CJL)

Not so. naming was a devolved power to the regions and when the LMR were considering names for the first ten Peaks,  the LMR Board was asked by David Blee to consider instead names of RAF aircraft such as Vampire, Mosquito, Beaufighter etc. he also asked them to consider a series "Battle" names including Alamein, Arnhem, and Monte Cassino. The mountain names were very much an after thought in his memo, but as we know was the subject the LMR Board settled upon.

Simon 

To add something to the original question, in 1956 when the BTC was considering names for diesels and electrics, an adhoc committee was set up to provide suggestions.This group comprised of D.S.M. Barrie the BTC’s Chief Public Relations Officer, E.S. Cox BTC Assistant Chief Mechanical Engineer, G. Dow London Midland Region Public Relations & Publicity Officer, and C.J. Rider Western Region Public Relations & Publicity Officer. They reported back in March 1957. For the ten Type C (Class 40) locomotives for the Eastern Region they suggested the same types of names as have proved popular with the Britannia steam locomotives used by the Eastern Region, names of famous people and indeed places associated with the region. One name suggested perhaps would not have stood the test of time very well, especially after the events of 11 November 1965, they suggested one locomotive be names Cecil Rhodes.

Naming was something develoved to the regions, and the names suggested by the adhoc committee were not binding.

Simon 

On 14/04/2024 at 14:04, Michael Hodgson said:

I don't know how much vertical play there is the bogie pivots - would it even be allowed over the hump? 

 

It is my understanding that the 08s converted to 13s were increased in weight  - would that also apply to this radio-fitted standby 08?

I assume the radio was necessary only if it was covering for a master unit, I don't see a use for one on the slave.

You might not need it to be coupled to a slave - an 08 should still be able to do the job on it own but with shorter trains.

Part of the raison d' etre of the Standard Type 4 design was the ability to traverse humps. Something that Peaks and 40s could not do given their bogies. One of several reasons why the Eastern Region rejected taking Peaks when they were offered them.

Simon 

This was used in The Peaks Class 44/45/46. Loco yet to be refurbished.

The latter half of the summer in 1975 was dry.

This is the England v Australia test match played at the end of August. See how parched the outfiled is.

On 11/03/2024 at 16:36, D9020 Nimbus said:

While the class 47 resembled "Lion" in several aspects, its arrival on the scene was a bit more haphazard. AFAIK, the first six were originally going to be class 46s (perhaps D194-9?) but Eastern Region intervention caused them to be built in the way they were. There was quite a close relationship between the ER and Brush — witness the attempts to uprate the type 2s to 1600 then 2000hp.

 

I've seen this ascribed to the fact that Sir Ronald Matthews, the last LNER chairman, became chairman of Brush.

This is all covered in the book Class 47 50 Years of Locomotive History. To summarise very briefly, The ER decided it did not want the last 20 Peaks. With the new Type 4 specification in place JF Harrison the BTC CME decided in February 61 that building Peaks no longer represented value for money. Hence it was decided that these locomotives would be built instead to the new Type 4 specification using Brush equipment ordered originally for the Peaks.

It is more detailed than that but I did promise to be brief.

Simon

Langley

On 12/02/2024 at 23:18, jim.snowdon said:

Which will always prompt the question as to why 41 was unused, or what it was intended for.

It is not clear, Robson did leave a number of gaps in the list, so it is possible they were intended potential future use.

Simon

17 hours ago, SRman said:

 

Yes. I still have trouble with those! 🤣

In those cases, turn on the lights if it has them and see which end lights up.

I can think of quite a few classes of diesel that are difficult to tell. Sometimes there is one asymmetrical feature, such as a boiler port, but I still have difficulty remembering which way is the #1 cab end (or the 'A' end on Western Region locos).

Such classes include class 41, 42 and 43 Warships, class 52 Westerns, class 53 'Falcon', and Class 55 Deltics. There may be others I have missed.

There was never a Class 41 Warship. It is a myth. The two digit class nos were prepared by the CR (T&RS) AE Robson in March 1968 after the D600 Warships had been withdrawn. I have a copy of the list and can assure everyone that those locos do not appear.

Simon

I dont know if this had been mentioned before, but has anyone based a model of 6202 the "turbomotive" on a Triang Princess? Seems a straightforward conversion to me.

Simon

Recently myself and Mrs L have been watching the excellent BBC Miss Marple series. Plenty of rail content the 4.50 from Paddington notwithstanding. Sometimes though they are a tad confused as the films are obviously set in the early 1950, but the liveries even allowing for the fact that some locos and vehicles were slow in losing their previous identities, often show GWR markings.

Several heritage railways got used I can tell.

Simon

28 minutes ago, D7063 said:

Fantastic, could one of those locomotives depicted be a stylised delitic viewed from above ? 😉 I like the nice clean lines of this advert, and the inset picture - I wonder how many of these panels are still in use?

STC had a large factory next to the ECML just north of New Southgate station.

On 24/01/2024 at 20:57, D7063 said:

Looks like a 25  - didn't they have issues with traction motors? Or was it just when certain sub classes were used in multiple?

Post 1960 as it mentions just AEI not the two main halves of the company BTH and Metrovick. In 1960 Lord Chandos the Chairman decided he was going to unify things after relatively serate operations since AEI was founded in 1928.

Simon

17 hours ago, lanchester said:

I think the July 68 special with the two Standard 4s was on 28 July and they would be somewhere between Carnforth and Skipton. The train started from BNS with a Brush 4, then Man Vic to Carnforth with Oliver Cromwell, Carnforth to Skipton with 75019/27, then Skipton to Rose Grove with 45156/45073, Rose Grove to Stockport with 48773 (a surprise as she was booked to come off at Man Vic) and then back to BNS with the same Brush - I think D1946 from memory: it was a long day out for an eleven year old!

 

(The route was rather more complex than that but I forget the details: it'll be on Six Bells somewhere).

The Brush Type 4 was D1946 now preserved as 47771.

Simon

There were instances of them running without a pantograph, often if it had needed to be removed because of damage. The locomotive would be diagrammed for work that was third rail only until a replacement was fitted.  On 13 April 1964 the pantograph on E5009 raised itself whilst the loco was working the Golden Arrow through Petts Wood striking a footbridge. An overheight device was fitted afterwards to prevent a recurrence.

Suprisingly as late as December 1973 BR boughtsix new pantographs at a cost of £11,280 with a lead time of 12 months. Quite how much use they got is a moot point.

Simon

A bit of an update.

I was at the National Archives yesterday looking at the minutes of the Railway Executive in the early 1950s, and even then they were thinking about locomotive preservation. Riddles met with the SLS and the Newcommen Society to put together a wish list if you like of locomotive types that should be preserved. It was quite short initially.They had concerns about where the locos would be kept and so thought about having models made of key examples of steam locomotives which could be used to illustrate the story.

The list was in two parts, locos already withdrawn and put to one side which included 41000 the Midland compound, and Ben Alder. Of possible locos to preserve an ex LNER K3 was listed.

Simon

The National Archives catalogue is online. See link below.

If you put into the search function "preservation" you get a list come up.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_q=preservation&_p=1950&_hb=tna&_d=AN

AN 172/262 Preservation of historical locomotives 1946 Jan 01 - 1964 Apr 30  seems to be the file most likely to provide the must fabled list

though AN 104/4 Transport Act 1962: papers on schemes for relics and records could also prove useful.

Simon

On 31/12/2023 at 13:50, johnofwessex said:

 

While its not an exact comparison what about other abroad of the same power output/duties/era after all they were the most powerful diesels ever built when introduced.

 I could add data of similar power BR locos, but as regards overseas locomotives obtaining that data could be much more difficult.

Simon

Not my area of expertise but I will have a go, having raided the library!!

I am using the LNER class designations for ease of reference.

B1 (later B18) GC green

B2 (later B19) 6 locos. First three in GC green. The other three in goods black. all six in green by Grouping.

B3 GC green

B4 GC green but black before Grouping

B5 Black

B6 Black

B7 Black

B8 Black

B9 Black

Fingers crossed I have read the Yeadon's Register correctly.

Simon

On 26/12/2023 at 17:39, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Finally allowed to open Simon's book on the Peaks yesterday; was really looking forward to it. 

Definitely worth getting, but one or two reservations that I've noted in my review on Amazon. Hope it's a fair review...

Hi Peter

Fair comments and apologies for the typos. It was checked several times, but obviously some slipped through.  I know I asked for 2 captions to be swapped and this clearly did not happen before the book went to print. As for your comment about Arkle andthe original names, I have seen this quoted but as nothing apeared in the archives it was difficult to say definitively quite what happened.

I understand your comment about critical analysis, and there is plenty in there about availability and their miles per casualty, they were not the best diesel class by any stretch. Analysis can lead to writer's voicing their own opinions and no one is going to be interested in my opinion on one class or another. My prefered option is to present the facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions. That said with hindsight I could have added some comparative data of similar classes say the Class 40s or 47s to help readers make up their minds and it is something should I write anything else in future that I will bear in mind.

Simon

9 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

This thread is proving very informative for my eventual reimagining of Newhaven as Broadhaven; I won’t be sticking to historical accuracy (I’m going to put a train ferry terminal there, for instance!) but I suppose I could ask a theoretical questions and get a considered answer -

 

1) Could the Co-Co “Booster” locos have handled the Night Ferry service (to Dover)?

 

2) Did they ever do so? (I can only find reference to Class 71 electric locos).

 

3) Being able to handle the heavy Newhaven boat trains*, would they have been able to cope with the Night Ferry formation to Newhaven?

 

If the answer is “yes” (even theoretically) then a pre-order for the new EFE model may be required!

 

Steve S

 

 

* Didn’t the Newhaven boat trains use 6 axle Pullman cars?

To answer question 2 I do not believe they ever did. Their appearences on the SE division were very rare, and dont forget that once the Class 71s took over the NIght Ferry, they were ETH fitted whereas the Co-Cos were steam heat.

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Boats, even when not sailing by the tide, often ran (if that’s the right word) a bit adrift from the timetable due to weather conditions, so I wonder whether it made good sense to dedicate some coaches to the services, rather than have EMUs either completely dedicated or at prey of getting “out of diagram”. I think that the locos were used on heavy freights when not on the boat trains, so their utilisation was better than could have been achieved with dedicated EMUs.

The trio were used mainly on freight work. Only the first diagram refered to in the WTT as Schedule 1 included passenger work which was the Newhaven boat train.

9 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

I think the work 'back' was missing from Simon's piece ........... according to whoever wrote that Booster book - now who could that have been ? - the booster would run for adequate time / distance to do more than 'simply' jump a gap and could get them back from a siding to a 3rd rail when required.

Yes the word "back" was missing from my original comment.

15 hours ago, bécasse said:

The booster function was useless to get the locos to a third rail, its purpose was to allow the locos to coast over gaps in the third rail, emus overcoming such gaps by normally always having at least one pick-up in contact because of their length. (There were exceptions to that though, it was discovered, very embarrassingly and with considerable disruption to traffic, one evening rush hour that it was possible to gap a 16-car emu at Herne Hill routed Victoria down, down loop, towards Tulse Hill. Having gapped a Holborn-Wimbledon train leaving the down loop, a Victoria-Orpington was brought up behind it to assist, which it did until the whole "train" found gaps in the third rail.)

The booster equipment could be used to move the loco and a 100 ton train when not in contact with a power supply. At its maxiumum this was just over 500 feet, reducing to less than 100 feet seven minutes after losing contact with a power supply. Please see page 16 of Southern Way Special No 11. There is a graph showing this.

The three Co-Co electric locos were built with boat train working in mind. As others have said there are customs and luggage requirements to take on board. Not all the sidings at new haven were electrified as I recall, so the booster function was used to get them to a 3rd rail.

The book Southern Way Special No 11 available from Crecy Publishing is devoted to the unique locos and includes plenty on their work on the Newhaven boat trains. 

Simon

On 02/12/2023 at 14:39, MRE2 said:

To slilley and Forward! thanks for the information. Now I have to get another A4, and possibly make a decision - I already have Woodcock in BR purple blue with red lining so do I have a duplicate loco or find out what others may have had that livery. Ohhhh..........nightmare  LOL

The four purple locomotives were as follows

60024 Kingfisher

60027 Merlin

60028 Walter K Wigham

60029 Woodcock

Hope this helps.

Simon