LMS2968

It was still the wrong - and expensive - policy, but your contention, "Very little of that (thinking) was going on in terms of a traction strategy," is at fault. Whether or not Riddles' ideas or the Modernisation Plan were wrong,, whether or not the original plan was eventually dropped, the thoughts for an overall strategy were present.

The 'more efficient traction scheme' was the actually the long-term plan: electrification which by-passed the diesel option, rather the direction we are currently moving but seventy years late. Electrification was and is expensive and also time consuming to implement and it was anticipated that the full system would take to between 1980 to 2000 to achieve. The new steam locos were to cover the gap, replacing worn-out and obsolete types in the short term and displaced pre-Nationalisation engines as the system was electrified sector by sector. Eventually, few lines would be left to be electrified and these would have entirely BR Standard types as motive power until they too were made redundant as these last areas were electrified.

That was Robin Riddles grand scheme, unceremoniously dumped into the waste bin with the 1955 Modernisation Plan which took the country down the expensively disastrous diesel route with an untried (in this country) motive power type without the knowledge and experience needed to make it work.

Strangely, I've just been reading about that in John Thomas's book, although not for the first time. The guard was a Cameron too, which might be what you meant.

Yes, the ex-LNWR line through Tyldesley. I remember calls to reopen the line as a normal railway, Leigh being the biggest town in Britain no longer rail served (or so it was said). Then one of the idiot councillors suggested it should be a monorail, thereby demonstrating Wigan Metro's go-ahead attitude and ignoring all the disadvantages of route changes and inability to link into the main network. And in the end, they settled for this guided busway.

10 minutes ago, pH said:

I had thought that the removal of drawhooks was done immediately on withdrawal, in preparation for their use as stationary boilers. Are there any known pictures of these early, steam-powered thunderbirds” in action?

No, it came later as an act of desperation. If you think about it, it could make things rather awkward on shed: if the thing was in the way and out of steam, there was no way to shift it.

Several B1s passed into service as stationary boilers on being withdrawn, although they remained fully capable of working around the shed under their own steam. Failures on the road were so common and rescue locos so scarce that these were often sent out to worked the failed train. Instructions from on high not to do this made little difference, so in the end all the drawhooks were removed; the loco could still move around the depot but could no longer work a train.

36 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

You were lucky to make it behind a Brush Type 4  in some respects.  In their early days on the Paddington - Brimingham route  they quickly showed some very bad traits.  The worst was the habit of the automatic slack adjusters on the brake rigging to 'adjust' slack that wasn't there.   At best it simply rubbed the brake blocks down very quickly but it also led to brake block fires, scaled tyres and, in the very worst cases, to shifted tyres

A friend of mine was a driver from Warrington Arpley and one did it to him on a bitterly cold, frosty night. He was stopped at a signal and looked out sideways to see a red glow emanating from under the 47; it was the remains of the block and some of the rigging that was glowing. Having considered just carrying on, he asked the bobby to be to be put inside and a fitter called out. As the morning light arrived he noticed the landscape was all white, except for a ten foot semi-circle around this brake block.

The fitter eventually arrived and changed the necessary parts, but then announced that the engine was a failure since the tyre was loose on the wheel. Since the train was loaded petrol tankers, my mate was rather glad he stopped!

37 minutes ago, sandra said:

There is a photo of a Stanier 8F at the buffer stops in Waterloo having brought in a local from Basingstoke.

That was 8408 and it wasn't actually covering a failure. It had received an overhaul at Eastleigh (several 8Fs did) and was then used around the system for a bit. Still a bit of an oddity.

Some are born to greatness, others have it thrust upon them. 8266 complete with headboard wheels the Thames - Clyde Express into Trent following the failure of the diagrammed 5XP, 2 July 1955. Photo J Kent / Stanier 8F Locomotive Socy Archive.

This must have come as a surprise at Paddington when 8387 brought in the 7.10 Salop - Padd following the failure of the D1000 Western, 30 July 1963. Photo George Staddon / Neville Stead Colletion / 8F Socy Archive.

D1000 itself failed on the Padd - Wolverhampton and was assisted by 8179, as seen at Leamington. Date unknown, JRP Hunt / 8F Socy Archive.

Possibly the biggest disaster befell the Down Caledonian. The Class 40 failed at crewe and a Big Lizzie went on. This suffered injector troubles and was replaced at Carnforth - by an 8321 running tender first, which got the train to Carlisle. You can read all about it in the caption, but I don't think that's Bill Starvis.

It isn't just the brackets. The rocking levers were quite noticeable and can be seen in a photo Page 29 of the Irwell Photographic Supplement to the Book of the Princess Royals (2007, Irwell Press Ltd, ISBN 1-903266-75-0). It us dated 28 May 1960 and the levers are still there. As withdrawal came 18 months later. it is very unlikely they were changed in the remaining time.

44 minutes ago, pH said:

Not having read through this topic before, and since I looked it up to check it, can I make a small addition to that list? 
 

Princess Royal 46205 was modified to have only two sets of valve gear, reverting later to 4 sets. Interestingly, different sources give different dates for this, varying between e.g. 1947 to 1955, and 1938 to withdrawal in 1962.

I believe the two-gear set up was fitted in 1937. I've heard it said that it was trial for the gear for the Coronations but it was converted after 6220 entered traffic, si that can't be the case. But it carried this system to withdrawal and never regained its inside gear; photos taken just before withdrawal prove this.

33 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Although it's not just abput the number of cylinders and vakvegear position when it come sot making savings.  For example an original  Bulleid pacifuic required less Driver's Preparation time than an LMS 4F 0-6-0

Ah yes, but now ask the fitters . . .

It was George Stephenson's reply to a question about a train should it hit a cow on the line. In his broad Geordie accent he replied, "It would be very unfortunate - for the coo."

Realistically, you wanted every pair of vehicles to take up the slack in the same manner, so all long (three link or Instanter in the long position) couplings or all short (screw shackle or Instaner in the short position).

Having a big interest in marine engineering, I do find all this very interesting, but wonder how we moved from locomotive cylinders to marine water-tube boilers?

Apart from the final two, all the Caprotti Black fives had a single central drive shaft to drive the valves on both sides; 71000 had a shaft each side but one also drove the inside valves. Whether or not you could make a single shaft strong enough to drive three or four sets of valves is a debatable point. 

It took time to get this gear right and there were problems even with those same Black Fives in the late 1940s. How it might have behaved earlier is a moot point, although it seems to have worked well enough on the LNWR Claughtons in the 1930s.

I remember seeing Class 4 tanks in Liverpool Central around this time, presumably from Trafford Park?

I'm not aware of such a rule, and it wouldn't be much use for very long, given that wagons would be resorted into trains for different destinations and often reversing the direction of travel. I don't recall lifting the coupling off one wagon just to drop on the opposing coupling.

If so, I didn't find it and I've looked, admittedly for parts from 6152. This is the bearing for the expansion link and seems to have once belonged to 6136.

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

How was the valve gear arranged on the Dreadnoughts (a class of 70) and Claughtons (a class of 130)? (A total roughly equal to the number of Castles and Kings.)

Both - the rebuilt dreadnoughts at least - used rocking levers from outside to inside; the Dreadnoughts as built had the valve gear between the frames driving the outside valves. The Claughtons' rocking lever was ahead of the cylinders; the rebuilt Dreadnoughts had it behind. The way this was arranged was sufficiently robust to be used for Stanier's Big Lizzies.

41 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Yeah, I'm always getting those two places mixed up!

My problem is Glazebrook and Glazebury!

42 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

Live steam on the mainline and narrow gauge?

 

Garston 1980 by John Phillips

 

 

I think you mean Gathurst on the L&YR Wigan - Southport line. Garston was quite a few miles away in south Liverpool!

No, we all make mistakes. It's called being human.

2 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

The LNWR George the Fifth class later had 20½" outside cylinders (660 square inches). I don't know when they were enlarged from 20".

Really? When did that happen? It's news to me. Some Prince of Wales class got outside Walsheart's valve gear, but the cylinders stayed inside.

2 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

II don't know of any 2-cylinder locomotive with 21" cylinders.

Try 245 Horwich Crabs!

1 hour ago, ciderglider said:

The USA has more generous loading gauges than we have in the UK or the rest of Europe. Union Pacific's FEF class 4-8-4 was a large express loco, with just two cylinders. So it seems to me that the main reason for going beyond two cylinders was staying within the loading gauge, rather than achieving smoothness. 

C.J. Bowen Cook designed the Claughton class with four cylinders, all driving the leading coupled axle, specifically to eliminate the need for balance weights in the wheels as these would cause hammerblow. Since there wouldn't be a dynamic supplement to the static axle load, he intended to take that static axle load above what would normally be acceptable to the Chief Civil Engineer. Unfortunately, this was beyond the CCE's understanding and he rejected the design, which then had to be redrawn with lower weights, most particularly in the boiler. 

Perhaps C.J.B.C. was ahead of his time?