Imaginary Locomotives

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Pandora said:

Not sure I understand your question, by deputation in waiting,  do you mean a group of people loyal and supportive of Gresley?  Doncaster  Plant Works were loyal to Gresley and Peppercorn too, My Grandfather worked as a boilersmith at the Plant, retiring around 1960 with 40 years of service, as a young boy I recall hearing him tell, in colourful words, of the universal distrust and dislike of the autocratic Edward Thompson, and the welcome  appointment  of genial Arthur Peppercorn when Thompson retired.

 

No, I meant ASLEF, whose members were being required to do more work for the same pay.

[62613]

On 31/05/2022 at 04:05, Pandora said:

The Gresley Pacifics were heavy on coal in their original form,  uncomfortably close to an empty tender at the end of a duty, it is recorded as  a cause of worry to Mr Gresley,  Bert Spencer, was a key player in the corrective redesign work of the A1, Gresley and Spencer maintained   a strong life-long professional relationship, poor Spencer had a rough time by Edward Thompson  following the death  of Gresley  

Quite a few large locos had a high coal consumption at that time, due to things like short - travel valves, cramped ashpans, and so on. LNER classes B7 and B16, for instance, weren't called "Miners Friends" by their crews for nothing

 

[tythatguy1312]

On 01/06/2022 at 18:23, 62613 said:

weren't called "Miners Friends" by their crews for nothing

If I had £1 for every 4-6-0 that was heavy going on coal I'd have enough to make a definitive list of them. I suspect part of it was in the smokebox design for some designs (such as anything Drummond designed), as chimney improvements on the only one of his 4-6-0's to make it to WW2 showed immediate improvement.

[Gilwell Park]

Hi. This is my 4-4-0 version of the N class 2-6-0. Bachmann N boiler on Hornby tender drive Schools chassis. Powered by Hornby compound tender cut down to near correct height. It should probably have smoke deflectors but I like the look of it without.

[John Besley]

Very believable

[StephenB]

On 31/05/2022 at 21:51, AVS1998 said:

 

Just a quick one I mocked up as a 'what-if' for the Schools class, if it had been able to use the Belpaire firebox as intended. Below the footplate it's near pure-Schools, retaining the 3 cylinders, driver and bogie wheel size. The tender is an Ashford standard 3500 flat-sided product. 

 

I haven't thought of a name yet. 

A very attractive loco, along the lines of the GNR(I) V and VS.

 

Stephen

[6990WitherslackHall]

On 31/05/2022 at 22:16, AlfaZagato said:

University class?

Or College class perhaps?

[6990WitherslackHall]

On 21/05/2022 at 21:08, JimC said:

With my lowered boiler I suspect I may have drawn a footplate height that is actually above the firebox door! I had trouble with access into the cab. Perhaps the tank needs to be set back on the tender so the crew climb onto the tender footplate, not the locomotive one?

So if we do that and raise the boiler back to a more conventional height so the firebox is accessible...



Umm, maybe that's not an improvement! Its starting to make the Kruger's look pretty!

Incidentally, how does one describe that wheel arrangement? I suppose its a 4-2-2-0 of sorts, or perhaps 21A for the continental?

I'd have the large driving wheel in the centre like the Dean single and the Stirling Single

[JimC]

6 minutes ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

I'd have the large driving wheel in the centre like the Dean single and the Stirling Single

Don't forget the starting point was the Crampton type which has an extreme driving wheel diameter which will not fit the axle under the boiler barrel. Agreed the driving wheel in the central position is superior, but that was never the point! 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2022 by JimC

[DK123GWR]

On 31/05/2022 at 22:16, AlfaZagato said:

University class?

I doubt there would have been enough universities in SR territory at the time to name an entire class of locomotives after. At the outbreak of WW2 you have Reading and London. I would guess that the Southern also reached Oxford and Bristol over GWR routes. That's 2-4 locomotives.

59 minutes ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Or College class perhaps?

By 1932, the University of London had (according to Wikipedia):

Birbeck, UoL

Courtauld Institute of Art

Goldsmiths, UoL

KCL

LSE

London School of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine

Queen Mary UoL

Royal Holloway, UoL

Royal Veterinary College

St George's, UoL

School of Oriental and African Studies

UCL

Bedford College

Imperial

New College London

Richmond Theological College

School of Slavonic and East European Studies

Westfield College

Wye College

 

The Institute of Archeology would be added in 1937. The 19 or 20 here should be sufficient for a class about half the size of the Schools, so you might need to top up from another university if you want more names (Oxford is the obvious choice, geographically speaking).

 

The GWR named at least two locomotives after Oxford Colleges (Saint Edmund Hall and Lady Margaret Hall)* which has sparked two random thoughts:

a) Were there any others (on the GWR or elsewhere)?

b) How common are examples locomotives on different (standard gauge, mainline) railways having the same name at the same time? The LMS Coronation and streamlined LNER B17 (both named City of London) come to mind.

 

*There's also St Benet's Hall, but that's technically a PPH rather than a college

[Compound2632]

28 minutes ago, DK123GWR said:

I doubt there would have been enough universities in SR territory at the time to name an entire class of locomotives after.

 

The Schools weren't named after public schools exclusively in Southern territory. Repton?

[The Johnster]

Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, not sure about Bradfield, Haylebury, Cheltenham, Repton, Clifton, Stowe, Malvern, and Blundell's, 11 or 12 out of a class of 40 locomotives not 'in Southern Territory' or served by the Southern Railway.

 

My thanks to the Pedia of Wiki...

[Flying Pig]

4 hours ago, JimC said:

Don't forget the starting point was the Crampton type which has an extreme driving wheel diameter which will not fit the axle under the boiler barrel. Agreed the driving wheel in the central position is superior, but that was never the point! 

 

 

 

It's not that the axle won't fit under the boiler - there were plenty of singles with drivers in the 7 to 8 foot range - but that by moving the axle the boiler can be moved down to keep the centre of gravity low.

[Compound2632]

Just now, Flying Pig said:

the boiler can be moved down to keep the centre of gravity low.

 

That being thought a good thing by engineers who did not understand how to resolve forces.

[rockershovel]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That being thought a good thing by engineers who did not understand how to resolve forces.

... which is quite an important thing to understand about engineering as practiced between about 1700 and 1850. 

 

The canals and early railways, and the great reconstruction and expansion of our cities in stone and brick in the first half of the 19th century were constructed by an essentially empirical process reaching back to classical antiquity. 

 

Ironbridge Gorge is the transition point. The great timber viaducts of the GWR were the last great flourish of the shipwrights trade. 

 

The great bridges and trains sheds were something entirely new, the expression of the principles of mathematical design in materials which could be forged and wrought in completely new ways; but only to the extent that those mathematics were understood. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by rockershovel

[tythatguy1312]

and to think it was the Shipwrights themselves (or, more specifically, the Admiralty) who got the planned one over the Tamer vetoed to avoid more than 3 major obstructions

Edited June 8, 2022 by tythatguy1312

[billbedford]

On 07/06/2022 at 06:13, rockershovel said:

Ironbridge Gorge is the transition point. The great timber viaducts of the GWR were the last great flourish of the shipwrights trade

 

Not really, shipwrights don't usually use straight timbers. Maybe you're thinking of house builders?

Edited June 8, 2022 by billbedford

[rockershovel]

5 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

Not really, shipwrights don't usually use straight timbers. Maybe you're thinking of house builders?

Good point; I suppose the nearest comparison would be the great wooden rooves (roofs?) of public buildings from the later Middle Ages onwards.

 

 

[2251]

5 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Good point; I suppose the nearest comparison would be the great wooden rooves (roofs?) of public buildings from the later Middle Ages onwards.

 

 

The best example of this is the roof of the mid-nineteenth century (former) Bristol Pro-Cathedral, designed along the lines of a ship's hull by the remarkable Bishop Ullathorne, who had gone to sea before the mast as a boy.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-Cathedral_of_the_Holy_Apostles

[The Johnster]

He can’t have gone to sea before the mast, the mast’s always been there.

 

Coat?

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, 2251 said:

The best example of this is the roof of the mid-nineteenth century (former) Bristol Pro-Cathedral, designed along the lines of a ship's hull by the remarkable Bishop Ullathorne, who had gone to sea before the mast as a boy.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-Cathedral_of_the_Holy_Apostles

Hence the name given to the main axis of a church, the nave; Latin for "ship"

[PhilJ W]

I came across this item about a possible replacement for the 08 diesel shunter.

https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/class-08-locomotive-replacement-concept-unveiled/61795.article?ID=z9xqh~9ntftt~nzqxhz~W4ik~Ky0gk&utm_campaign=RG-RBUK-RG Smartrail - 090622-JM&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=RG-RBUK-RG Smartrail - 090622-JM&adredir=1&adredir=1

It uses a single bogie from a redundant/scrapped SD-40 (class 59). I wonder if a similar locomotive could be built using a British bogie?

[DK123GWR]

28 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I came across this item about a possible replacement for the 08 diesel shunter.

https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/class-08-locomotive-replacement-concept-unveiled/61795.article?ID=z9xqh~9ntftt~nzqxhz~W4ik~Ky0gk&utm_campaign=RG-RBUK-RG Smartrail - 090622-JM&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=RG-RBUK-RG Smartrail - 090622-JM&adredir=1&adredir=1

It uses a single bogie from a redundant/scrapped SD-40 (class 59). I wonder if a similar locomotive could be built using a British bogie?

Though silly, the idea of using a 1-Co bogie seems strangely appealing.

[AlfaZagato]

No reason why it couldn't be done.   Only reason to do so would be if there was a UK made bogie still well supplied. 

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

No reason why it couldn't be done.   Only reason to do so would be if there was a UK made bogie still well supplied. 

Classes 37, 47?