Imaginary Locomotives

[DavidB-AU]

I think it's a fair bet that but for WW2 we'd have had DMU stuff in traffic in the 40s.

LNER looked at the Fliegender Hamburger (in service since 1933) for the Silver Jublilee but Gresley believed that steam could do better.

 

Cheers

David

[MikeOxon]

While most people agree that the GWR attempts at streamlining were a mess, what if they had tried a little harder? 

 

I was doodling with Photoshop and thought that a much simpler treatment could have produced a modern and purposeful-looking locomotive from Manorbier Castle.  I think there are some French and Canadian influences in my sketch and I also thought that the centre of the smokebox was a good place for a 'shirt button' logo.  A return to Indian Red wheels and black and white lining provides a merger between old GWR tradition with thirties 'nouveau' style.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps the GWS could play with some sheet metal at Didcot 

 

Mike

 

[Etched Pixels]

Thats rather nice - echoes some of the foreign locos a little

 

I do think you need to streamline the tender to match ?

 

Ah yes found the one I was thiking of..

 

NSW 3801...

Edited January 18, 2014 by Etched Pixels

[MikeOxon]

Ah yes found the one I was thiking of..

 

NSW 3801...

Yes, I've seen photos of that loco so I guess it was in my sub-conscious somewhere but, explicitly, I was thinking of the Nord pacifics and the streamlined Canadian national locos.  After all, the GWR had experience with French locomotives.

[69843]

Ah, 3801. Australia's Scotsman....in more ways than one at the moment as well!

 

I know a while back I did a NSW 38 streamlining job on a Duchess on paint. I'll try and dig it out tomorrow

[scots region]

Hmm, one idea I have had of late is around Staniers proposed 4-6-4, basically take one BR 7MT 4-6-2, lose the trailing pony, add a four wheel bogie, plus two extra cylinders, increase the ash pan size, kylchap it. Then bake. I've been discussing with Dave Bar Elias, of the possibilities for an earlier British Rail.

 

Yours... oh flash of inspiration: Take the above and give it to Chapelon, then watch closely.

 

ScR.   

[Guest]

 

 

Take the above and give it to Chapelon, then watch closely.

 

 

 

Indeed.

[John M Upton]

Reading books about the efforts of O V S Bulleid is dangerous for the imagination.  There were a number of possible variations of the Q1 proposed and even drawn up including a couple of tank versions and even an austerity Q1 boilered Pacific!! 

 

I am so tempted to pick up a cheap Hornby Q1, a few sheets of plasticard and a scalpel....

Edited January 19, 2014 by John M Upton

[MikeOxon]

I am so tempted to pick up a cheap Hornby Q1, a few sheets of plasticard and a scalpel....

Please do!  Much more interesting to see some invention instead of just another RTR

[scots region]

 

Sorry for the vast image, that just how the link works. Anyway this is an Accucraft Dora, from their US range. Its spartan look is no accident, its designed with future modelling in mind. What caught my eye was the internal gearing, it might be a basic locomotive, but its a really fascinating idea for design, I wonder what a 'internal Shay' would look like. If I can align the planets properly I may try to justify it as a 'birthday expenditure'. Some detailing ideas, Change the chimney for something more 'fashionably Stovepipe', swap the the couplers for either center buffers or choppers, de-American the smokebox door and build a british 'cab and bunker arrangement, oil boxes, lamp irons, jacks, sanders, other assorted paraphernalia whose names escape me. Paint it Prussian Blue or Apple Green and red up the coupling rods.

 

Yours

ScR.  

Edited January 19, 2014 by scots region

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

While most people agree that the GWR attempts at streamlining were a mess, what if they had tried a little harder? ...

 But that would have meant interfering with the sacred institutions of the Churchward 4-6-0 design. It's not what's outside, but what it has got on the inside that counts. Too many cylinders, tortuous steam pipes, undersize superheater and grate area. The old man had shown what came next, but his successor had thrown that away...

 

LNER looked at the Fliegende Hamburger (in service since 1933) for the Silver Jublilee but Gresley believed that steam could do better.

Actually proved that at that time a hand fired steam loco could make a faster schedule with better accomodated and restaurant serviced passengers.

 

The best the German FH design team would promise was relatively cramped accomodation and a cold buffet on a four hour fifteen minute schedule. It would probably have accomplished this with superior energy efficiency; but even that may not have been economic at the time because it would be less efficient use of relatively cheap domestically produced coal, as compared to more efficient use of more expensive per unit energy content (because imported) oil.

 

Having experimented with his A3 hauling the trailing load required over the route, some internal alteration inspired largely by M. Chapelon in the way of: more combustion volume, reducing internal losses in steam pipes, enlarged valves relative to cylinder diameter, increased superheater area, produced a loco capable of the job with a lot in reserve, whether or no it had a streamlined exterior. (The conventional locos at need could make the Silver Jubilee schedule.)

 

The relative cheapness of coal in the UK as compared to France was probably what dissuaded Gresley from going the compound route that Chapelon favoured and demonstrated so ably as an improvement to thermal efficiency. Gresley had taken a look at this with his most Bulleid-esque experiment, the W1. But that doesn't stop us imagining the mechanically fired 4-6-4  compound loco that Harrison would have liked to have built as the logical next step in the Doncaster development. He was pretty confident of a sustained 4,000 ihp machine.

[Londontram]

Not sure if anyone has covered this sorry if they have but I was surfing round on the net last night and came across the images for the red hall used for the Hogwarts express which got me thinking of a what if. With the internal wrangles going on with the LMS in the 1920s over the need for a new express locomotive and the operating departments getting the loan of a GWR castle is well documented, it’s also stated that the LMS asked the GWR to build them a batch or let them have the plans. What if the GWR had built them instead of the LMS building the Royal Scots class, picture a castle in full lined out LMS crimson with maybe the only external difference being a round topped dome and possible a Fowler or later a Stanier tender. Would make an interesting what if model. Steve

Edited February 5, 2014 by Londontram

[Guest]

I don't think about imaginary locos, I design them!

 

Edited February 5, 2014 by 80104 Productions

[scots region]

Not sure if anyone has covered this sorry if they have but I was surfing round on the net last night and came across the images for the red hall used for the Hogwarts express which got me thinking of a what if. With the internal wrangles going on with the LMS in the 1920s over the need for a new express locomotive and the operating departments getting the loan of a GWR castle is well documented, it’s also stated that the LMS asked the GWR to build them a batch or let them have the plans. What if the GWR had built them instead of the LMS building the Royal Scots class, picture a castle in full lined out LMS crimson with maybe the only external difference being a round topped dome and possible a Fowler or later a Stanier tender. Would make an interesting what if model. Steve

 

LT, I've had a thread on this very matter.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75039-lmsr-castles-detail-differences/

[Flying Pig]

I don't think about imaginary locos, I design them!

2-2-2T.jpg

 

2-4-2T L&Y mock.jpg

 

I'm afraid the front wheels of your otherwise splendid 2-2-2T would almost certainly foul the cylinders.  The most elegant engineering solution to this problem is to do away with them altogether and balance the design by extending the bunker and lightening the smokebox.  I've provided a pair of small rollers on the guard irons purely to reduce the tendency to nosedive under braking at the end of a long run when the bunker is empty.  The fin is an experimental addition to damp down the side to side motion resulting from such an unavoidably short wheelbase.

 

[DavidB-AU]

What about an Emmett type 0-2-0?

 

Cheers

David

[Londontram]

LT, I've had a thread on this very matter.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75039-lmsr-castles-detail-differences/

Thanks for that Scots region, I did use the search engine on this site with different connotations of Castle, Royal Scot Castles on the LMS etc. but drew a blank. I’m a life long LMS fan but think the Castles are one of the finest balanced 4-6-0 designs ever and it dose sort of look good in the LMS crimson lake. Regards Steve

[MikeOxon]

I'm afraid the front wheels of your otherwise splendid 2-2-2T would almost certainly foul the cylinders. 

 

I don't think about imaginary locos, I design them!

 

I had assumed that this was a 4-cylinder engine   - small cyls both outside and inside the front wheels.  This would reduced the sid-to-side oscillation to manageable levels 

Edited February 6, 2014 by MikeOxon

[Guest]

This probably needs tweaking!

A mock up of the Collett Goods 2251, with modifications!

What about an Emmett type 0-2-0?

Cheers
David

Software won't allow me to unfortunately

[Guest]

I'm afraid the front wheels of your otherwise splendid 2-2-2T would almost certainly foul the cylinders.  The most elegant engineering solution to this problem is to do away with them altogether and balance the design by extending the bunker and lightening the smokebox.  I've provided a pair of small rollers on the guard irons purely to reduce the tendency to nosedive under braking at the end of a long run when the bunker is empty.  The fin is an experimental addition to damp down the side to side motion resulting from such an unavoidably short wheelbase.

 

Actually, may I correct you?

 

As the software I use is limited, it wouldn't allow me to do what I intended. I was going for a design where all the wheel are fixed to the frames, with no pony trucks, but only 1 powered axle. The only way to achieve that was to list the front and back wheels as pony and trailing, so the software would accept it. So both the front and trailing wheels aren't designed to move laterally.

 

So think of the design more as a shorter Pannier tank, with only 1 driven axle..........if that makes any sense

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

This probably needs tweaking!

A mock up of the Collett Goods 2251, with modifications!

The cylinders positioned outside the front drivers are an exciting feature. Somehow the footplating must be acting both as the structural connection of the cylinders to the main frames; and within this stucture there must be the steam admission and exhaust operated by inside valves miles away from the cylinders. These are concepts worthy of a Bulleid. The only way to improve on this is to make the leading drivers as discs with ports in them, and a second ported disc revolving on the wheel face to make a variable rotary valve system: steam admission and exhaust through the wheels! ( The front coupling rods will have to go inside.) It'll leak steam like it's going out of fashion, but it won't need any relief valves on the cylinders, so that's a saving.

[Guest]

The cylinders positioned outside the front drivers are an exciting feature. Somehow the footplating must be acting both as the structural connection of the cylinders to the main frames; and within this stucture there must be the steam admission and exhaust operated by inside valves miles away from the cylinders. These are concepts worthy of a Bulleid. The only way to improve on this is to make the leading drivers as discs with ports in them, and a second ported disc revolving on the wheel face to make a variable rotary valve system: steam admission and exhaust through the wheels! ( The front coupling rods will have to go inside.) It'll leak steam like it's going out of fashion, but it won't need any relief valves on the cylinders, so that's a saving.

All my designs are faulty!

[Guest]

[scots region]

0-4-4PT.jpg

Oh, me like.

[MikeOxon]

According to Alan Peck's "The GW at Swindon Works", Dean wrote to the electrical engineer, Crompton, in 1892 that he had been instructed by the Chairman to discuss the subject of electrical haulage through the Severn tunnel. It seems that Dean showed no enthusiasm for the idea - perhaps he saw it as another potential 'atmospheric railway' type of disaster - and the correspondence fizzled out.  Instead, Dean went on to build the 4-6-0 'Crocodile', to haul heavy freight trains though the tunnel.  But what if the line had been electrified.  What might a Victorian electric 'crocodile' have looked like?

There's an article in 'The Engineer' dated June 13th,1890 (I like to keep up to date with my reading), which discusses the potential for development of main line electric traction and suggests some design parameters. (see: http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/4/49/Er18900613.pdf ).  Crompton designed small 4-wheel locomotives for the London underground but these would be inadequate for main-line use.  The Engineer article suggests that a heavy six-coupled locomotive, with 6 foot diameter driving wheels, each directly driven by an electric motor, might provide sufficient adhesion and power for main-line haulage.  In view of the need for heavy freight working on the gradients in the tunnel, .then a double unit would seem appropriate, given the motor power available at the time. Six 150hp motors would provide 900hp and an overall weight of, perhaps, 70 tons, which should do the job fairly well.

Possibly, the biggest issue at that time would have been the design of the power station itself - a state-of-the-art requirement, to match the engineering of the tunnel itself.  It could also have been used to power electric pumps, anticipating the modifications eventually made in the 1960s.

So, I give you the Dean/Crompton electric 'crocodile':

 

 

Mike