LMS2968

I think you're being a bit over simplistic here. The Claughtons dated back to 1913 and did a lot of excellent work, particularly during the First World War. After that war, traffic demands rose and certainly they were then found wanting. Moreover, they hadn't aged well and design defects, not previously apparent, began to appear, exacerbated by their being pushed beyond their designed criteria. The Hughes Dreadnoughts were designed for L&YR conditions: relatively short runs at medium speed with frequent restarts, often against severe gradients; they were never intended for the long distance, high speed, non-stop runs of the WCML. Both suffered heavy coal consumption but due to the single Schmidt valve ring, the replacement of which brought the consumption of both classes down to reasonable figures. E. Stewart Cox, no fan of anything from the L&YR, although (or possibly because) he served his time at Horwich, reported on all the Dreadnoughts' faults but admitted that the cures were both simple, quick and inexpensive, but by that time withdrawals had already begun so far too late. The Midland Compounds, good engines for the Midland, were even less suitable for the heavy ex-LNWR conditions, and if you want to talk about sluggish, look no further than the Midland 2P. I don't know why but we seem to have settled on the wrong side of the Pennines for this thread!

George Hughes, who designed the Crabs, believed that boiler pressures above 180 p.s.i. increased boiler maintenance costs, which is why he wouldn't go above that figure. He had a point. So the large cylinders and their positioning were simply part of the package. It worked, and it worked very well; the Crabs were probably the best pre-Stanier engines on the LMS. They were popular with enginemen as well as enthusiasts and the Traffic people couldn't get enough of them. Your reference to 225 p.s.i. with smaller cylinders simply describes the first of Stanier's designs from 1933.

There was nothing 'imaginary' about it, it was the strategic plan in the late 1940s and the reasoning behind the BR Standards. The labour issues were realised, hence the emphasis on ease of maintenance with two cylinders only (71000 needed three to produce the required power output), all valve gears outside, self cleaning smokeboxes, rocking grates and hopper ashpans, etc. Apart from shunters, diesels did not figure hugely despite 10000and 10001 being LMS designs. It all was swept away in the Modernisation Plan of 1955.

That, of course, was Robin Riddles strategic plan: to go directly to electrification and shun diesels. It was the reason for the BR Standards: they would power the railway to the end of the century, older steam locos being withdrawn as the electrification progressed until only the Standards were left in a few isolated pockets, then they would succumb as the final electrification schemes were implemented, by which time they had run their course and were life expired anywy.

Yes and No. I think most people realised that I was referring to the coupled wheels, and if not the mention of balance weights was a pretty strong clue. But saying that the Baby Scots used the Claughton bogie requires some explanation. The Claughton bogie was a two-axle radial truck and this was used in that form on the first ten engines only. The others used the bogie in a modified form in that it became a true bogie with a centre pivot and weight transfer by side bolsters. But yes, The Baby Scots did use the Claughton bogie in one form or another complete with the wheelsets.

The correct Class G headcode was one lamp central over the buffer beam, but more often than not it would be placed on one of the side lamp irons, especially if heading for a station to work a train. The tail lamp would then be moved to the other iron to be used - economy of movement!

Possibly what Nock wrote, but not the truth. The Claughtons, four cylinder engines all driving on the leading coupled axle, had their balance weights in the wheel centres which had a very large boss to contain them. Some Precursors, George the Fifth and even some Compounds also had these bosses, but other engines, especially from the GJR, had them conventionally at the rim. The first two Baby Scots, and only these two, inherited their very recognisable wheels from the Claughtons they replaced, but not so any of the others.

To be fair, I interpreted the original question as 'Toad' being in common use by the majority of railwaymen and / or enthusiasts rather than the rather esoteric world of the telegraph office. In my time as a guard on BR, I never heard anyone refer to any brake van as a Toad, Since this went back to 1973, I suspect those vans weren't in use, even on the Western, anyway, and certainly none turned up in Liverpool. What did western men call the BR vans? I'll bet it wasn't Toad!

Right on both counts! Toads were entirely GWR from the telegraphic code, everyone else used simple terms as brakes, brake vans, guard's vans, etc. The term Motive Power Depot was an LMS one from when they went all American with the appointment of Josiah Stamp as President of the Executive. It was adopted by BR and enforced on everyone else. Strictly speaking, the mpd was the main shed, Concentration Depot, or 'A' shed where work on the engines above boiler washouts and a simple spring change was carried out; it would have a number of Garage Sheds under its control with the the same numerical code but a B, C, D etc. suffix.

Inside Stephenson's gear for two-cylinder engines, inside Walscheart's for four cylinders?

That's true but depends on the era you're talking about. It was true in the first twenty or so years of the Twentieth Century but the lead diminished thereafter. By the 1940s the other three Railways had at least reached parity and, in some ways possibly superiority.

I thought the Grange was a Manor with a bigger boiler but I'm not that comfortable with GWR matters.

I think they did but I can't find a photo, but they did have these track layouts. This is one is at Eccles Jct on the former Liverpool & Manchester line.

Zugfahrplanenentwicklungsleiter? Probably not.

Actually, it's Bay Em Vey auf Deutsch.

On the railway it's pronounced Salop.

How short is it? It's on a curve coming out of a yard. Is that the brakevan visible in the distance?

I go through there regularly travelling to and from Bridgnorth. Several years ago, I witnessed an accident there and called the police. It all went pear shaped when the operator asked for the location.

They could also stay out on the road longer before the condition of the fire and ashpan deteriorated to the point where the steaming became unreliable, only a few hours with a 4F. After that, it was far easier working the 8F!

A wagon going a long distance might be remarshalled into different trains several times in the course of its journey. Coupling up and unhooking a normal British goods wagon was easy enough with a pole from outside the buffers; once you introduced continuous brakes, that changed and it was necessary to go underneath to bag them up, which was a far more time consuming process. Unfitted trains had certain advantages and continuous brakes in a goods yard, whatever their advantages on the road, were not an unmixed blessing.

Lovely, David. Although not stated, JVol7306 is also a Jubilee.

There was a similar set of two-way traps in the shunting neck on the approaches to Lime Street station. The shunting neck was positioned in the middle between the Up and Down lines, later the Slow and Fast after electrification. The situation wasn't that uncommon. Sidings had to be trapped and there were only so many places they could be sited.

We've become a nation of wimps! The earliest engines did not even have weatherboards; these came later but enginemen actually fought against having even a roof over their heads. When a driver was killed by a stone dropped by children from an overbridge, the Loco Superintendent had the weatherboard extended rearwards to form a roof as protection. The enginemen asked that these be removed; they preferred the stones. Full cabs were anathema.

Yes, but they then had 857 DX goods, 499 Coal Engines and 310 18 Inch Goods engines. You can have too much of a good thing!

In what way 'Worst?' Longevity? reliability? Crew amenities? Coal and water consumption? Steaming abilities? Capability on the road? I suspect that they could all do the job, but all had their strengths and weaknesses, and the latter tend to come down to history. The 4Fs were introduced in 1911 and the last of the 575 was not withdrawn until 1966; a life of 55 years does not suggest 'turkey'. The J38s came out in 1926 and survived for a mere 41 years. The 2251s came out in 1930 and survived for a short time - only 35 years due to dieselisation. The Qis had similar problems but with added electrification. They all did their job, and were the most useful types for the work they did, e.g. short range goods and trips, they were happy working into and out of goods yards (unlike some bigger engines) and many were suitable for low-speed passenger trains. Don't believe everything you read in railwaymen's reminiscences!