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18100 / E1000 / E2001 from Rails/Heljan


Ian J.
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2 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

There was one started on Friday 

 

 

Hmm. I had a look to see if there was anything else, but didn't find anything. Odd.

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30 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

 

Hmm. I had a look to see if there was anything else, but didn't find anything. Odd.

Not that odd. It’s not in the RoS or Heljan forums, so is likely to get less visibility. 

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One Question that strikes me is how long did it actually run in its gas turbine guise. The description from Rails says1953  along with other sources but it wasn’t withdrawn for conversion to electric until 1958. Is 1953 a typo in the original description or did it really spend five years in store before being withdrawn?

 

Mark

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1 hour ago, Mark said:

One Question that strikes me is how long did it actually run in its gas turbine guise. The description from Rails says1953  along with other sources but it wasn’t withdrawn for conversion to electric until 1958. Is 1953 a typo in the original description or did it really spend five years in store before being withdrawn?

 

Mark

 
 Correct it did. An unsuccessful attempt was made to convert to running on a heavier fuel oil in the meantime. Remember this was GB in the 1950’s  when matters of rail engineering development were both half hearted and underfunded. History quickly caught up with gas turbine propulsion, The cutting edge of the South Bank 1951 soon became the scrapheap of later in the decade 

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1 hour ago, Ian Hargrave said:

 
 Correct it did. An unsuccessful attempt was made to convert to running on a heavier fuel oil in the meantime. Remember this was GB in the 1950’s  when matters of rail engineering development were both half hearted and underfunded. History quickly caught up with gas turbine propulsion, The cutting edge of the South Bank 1951 soon became the scrapheap of later in the decade 

Hasn't really changed, don't forget the badger was sold for scrap in 1992, it was preserved as a result, if not that would have been game over… prior to that it was only really used extensively from 1987 until the class 91’s arrived.

 

To bring right upto date, whats the real longterm future of the class 799 or class 19 prototypes today ?


These are real world EPs… expensive concepts, which once complete need to justify their continued existence.

 

Edited by adb968008
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28 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Does anyone know why it had a slice taken from its buffers ?

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26690797@N02/8514502236

5 minutes ago, newbryford said:

Probably to prevent it taking chunks out of curved platforms.......

It was built to GWR loading gauge which was more generous than on the London Midland region, and needed the buffers cutting to keep it in gauge. I wonder if they knew about this before it was delivered, or if the trimming was done after contact with a platform somewhere....  

 

Incidentally, that's the first time I've seen a photo of it in AC electric form with the original gas turbine number. 

 

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On 03/10/2021 at 23:06, pete_mcfarlane said:

It was built to GWR loading gauge which was more generous than on the London Midland region, and needed the buffers cutting to keep it in gauge. I wonder if they knew about this before it was delivered, or if the trimming was done after contact with a platform somewhere....  

 

Incidentally, that's the first time I've seen a photo of it in AC electric form with the original gas turbine number. 

 

Questions were being asked of the WR in 1954 about how compatible the loco would be with the them emerging 25kv overhead clearances.  so apart from coming off the more generously gauged Wr were any other changes made which affected it when converted to electric operation which resulted in the buffers having to be trimmed?

On 03/10/2021 at 19:53, Mark said:

One Question that strikes me is how long did it actually run in its gas turbine guise. The description from Rails says1953  along with other sources but it wasn’t withdrawn for conversion to electric until 1958. Is 1953 a typo in the original description or did it really spend five years in store before being withdrawn?

 

Mark

Not very long.  It first arrived at swindon in December 1951 on delivery to the WR and it's first official working of a passenger train was on 4 April 1952.   Its last recorded passenger train working mentioned in Kevin Robertsion's book was in September 1953 although after return to Swindon works on 2 November it worked a test train from Swindon on 4 November.  It left Swindon for Dukinfield in December 1953 and never returnmed to the WR.  At Dukinfield Metropolitan Vickers carried ut experiments to run the gas turbine on heavy fuel oil and although these were successful the rate of wear in the combustion chamber definitely wasn't and the results achieved were not acceptable to the WR.  

 

At a meeting in March 1956 MV offered to return the loco to the WR after it had been converted back to burn gas oil but in May of that year the WR officially washed its hands of the loco and placed things fully in the hands of the BTC.  The formal agreement between MV and the WR/BTC was finally cancelled in December 1957 and the loco was officially withdrawn in January1958.

 

Thus its operational life on the WR as a gas turbine working passenger trains - when it wasn't stopped because of failures or under/awaiting repairs - ran from 4 April 1952 to 8 September 1953.

Edited by The Stationmaster
Correct month error - now in bld where corrected
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1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Questions were being asked of the WR in 1954 about how compatible the loco would be with the them emerging 25kv overhead clearances.  so apart from coming off the more generously gauged Wr were any other changes made which affected it when converted to electric operation which resulted in the buffers having to be trimmed?

Not very long.  It first arrived at swindon in December 1951 on delivery to the WR and it's first official working of a passenger train was on 4 April 1952.   Its last recorded passenger train working mentioned in Kevin Robertsion's book was in September 1953 although after return to Swindon works on 2 November it worked a test train from Swindon on 4 September.  It left Swindon for Dukinfield in December 1953 and never returnmed to the WR.  At Dukinfield Metropolitan Vickers carried ut experiments to run the gas turbine on heavy fuel oil and although these were successful the rate of wear in the combustion chamber definitely wasn't and the results achieved were not acceptable to the WR.  

 

At a meeting in March 1956 MV offered to return the loco to the WR after it had been converted back to burn gas oil but in May of that year the WR officially washed its hands of the loco and placed things fully in the hands of the BTC.  The formal agreement between MV and the WR/BTC was finally cancelled in December 1957 and the loco was officially withdrawn in January1958.

 

Thus its operational life on the WR as a gas turbine working passenger trains - when it wasn't stopped because of failures or under/awaiting repairs - ran from 4 April 1952 to 8 September 1953.

18100 was, however, pretty widely photographed on the occasions when it did work, which tends to give the impression that it did more work than 18000. George Heiron took some great pictures of it. When I researched my article for Trains Illustrated, I seem to recall that 18100 did more and was less troublesome than 18000, but that might have been because it was viewed more sympathetically having been British-built. The biggest problem for Swindon and the gas turbines was repeated failure of the combustion chamber linings (the NRM has the failures book for 18000 with photographs of combustion chamber linings which look like a garden incinerator after you've burned stuff in it too many times - bent, buckled and rusted and been jumped on!). Now, if the gas turbines had been later and able to incorporate the space shuttle type heat shields, it could perhaps have been a different story. (CJL)

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12 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Questions were being asked of the WR in 1954 about how compatible the loco would be with the them emerging 25kv overhead clearances.  so apart from coming off the more generously gauged Wr were any other changes made which affected it when converted to electric operation which resulted in the buffers having to be trimmed?

Not very long.  It first arrived at swindon in December 1951 on delivery to the WR and it's first official working of a passenger train was on 4 April 1952.   Its last recorded passenger train working mentioned in Kevin Robertsion's book was in September 1953 although after return to Swindon works on 2 November it worked a test train from Swindon on 4 September.  It left Swindon for Dukinfield in December 1953 and never returnmed to the WR.  At Dukinfield Metropolitan Vickers carried ut experiments to run the gas turbine on heavy fuel oil and although these were successful the rate of wear in the combustion chamber definitely wasn't and the results achieved were not acceptable to the WR.  

 

At a meeting in March 1956 MV offered to return the loco to the WR after it had been converted back to burn gas oil but in May of that year the WR officially washed its hands of the loco and placed things fully in the hands of the BTC.  The formal agreement between MV and the WR/BTC was finally cancelled in December 1957 and the loco was officially withdrawn in January1958.

 

Thus its operational life on the WR as a gas turbine working passenger trains - when it wasn't stopped because of failures or under/awaiting repairs - ran from 4 April 1952 to 8 September 1953.

Thanks. That is useful to know. I will stick with 18000.

 

Mark 

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Thanks all for the prototype information about 18100. In my view it was the more attractive of the two gas turbine locos, but sadly doesn't fit into my time period. E2001 would be considerably more in keeping both being an LMR loco and nearer my timeline, so I might have to commit, even though I don't intend to have any OLE.  Perhaps it would be a "drag to the scrapman" type scenario for me.

 

Really pleased RoS  haven risen to the challenge of this loco and in my view we are one more step nearer to an RTR 10800 which is the loco I covet.  

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1 hour ago, Covkid said:

Thanks all for the prototype information about 18100. In my view it was the more attractive of the two gas turbine locos, but sadly doesn't fit into my time period. E2001 would be considerably more in keeping both being an LMR loco and nearer my timeline, so I might have to commit, even though I don't intend to have any OLE.  Perhaps it would be a "drag to the scrapman" type scenario for me.

 

Really pleased RoS  haven risen to the challenge of this loco and in my view we are one more step nearer to an RTR 10800 which is the loco I covet.  

If the published information about the various depots it was at/allocated to is correct after its initial period on the Styal Loop it must have been dragged around - if it did go to Liverpool as one source claims.  so there is definitely an opportunity to have it being dragged on a route where there is no overhead or where installation was not complete.

 

I never saw it but from photos it was also in my opinion better looking than the Swiss built loco and as a gas turbine it fots very nicely into the earlier WR period with both test/trial and later regular workings to Plymouth before spending its final operational days in traffioc working between London and Bristol.  Its last recorded passenger working from Plymouth was on 17 June 1953 and ended at Newton Abbot due to a failure.  There is no known record of it returning to West of England workings after that and the interval between that failure and its recorded appearances on Paddington - Bristol trains confirms that was the end as far as Plymouth was concerned.

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14 hours ago, Covkid said:

Thanks all for the prototype information about 18100. In my view it was the more attractive of the two gas turbine locos, but sadly doesn't fit into my time period. E2001 would be considerably more in keeping both being an LMR loco and nearer my timeline, so I might have to commit, even though I don't intend to have any OLE.  Perhaps it would be a "drag to the scrapman" type scenario for me.

 

Really pleased RoS  haven risen to the challenge of this loco and in my view we are one more step nearer to an RTR 10800 which is the loco I covet.  

I’m liberated from a time period because I’m more interested in historical developments. 18100 fits perfectly into the quartet of gas turbine machines. I’m with you  on 10800 because that would fill the last gap in the list of diesel electric prototypes.

 

As for E1000/E2001, it brackets a large gap with 85s on the other side. In a way, it’s amazing to have it announced before, say an 84. Not that I’m complaining – I think it’s wonderful.

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2 hours ago, No Decorum said:

I’m liberated from a time period because I’m more interested in historical developments. 18100 fits perfectly into the quartet of gas turbine machines. I’m with you  on 10800 because that would fill the last gap in the list of diesel electric prototypes.

 

As for E1000/E2001, it brackets a large gap with 85s on the other side. In a way, it’s amazing to have it announced before, say an 84. Not that I’m complaining – I think it’s wonderful.

Indeed it was a surprise to see E1000/E2001 before any of the early AC electrics, here's hoping the manufacturers pick up on the growing market for them and start doing some more AC electrics and EMU's. I'm hoping for a 304 next! would be perfect alongside E2001.

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On 06/10/2021 at 04:23, thohurst said:

Indeed it was a surprise to see E1000/E2001 before any of the early AC electrics, here's hoping the manufacturers pick up on the growing market for them and start doing some more AC electrics and EMU's. I'm hoping for a 304 next! would be perfect alongside E2001.

I’m holding out for the Class 70 (electric). 

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On 02/10/2021 at 18:22, Fredo said:

Hi, very much looking forward to the model of E2001, have you any idea what sort of train formation it would have worked with when on test during say 1959/60 as I have never seen any photographs. Thanks Fred 

 

On 02/10/2021 at 19:12, montyburns56 said:

 

There's a picture in Railways In And Around The Manchester Suburbs by E.M.Johnson which shows it going through Mauldeth Road station in 1960  pulling what looks like about fifteen 16T Mineral wagons with a brake van at each end 

 

Hello Fredo. There's not much out there that I've been able to find but to back-up montyburns there are a couple of photos in Colin J Marsden’s ace  book ‘100 Years of Electric Traction’ (pub 1985, OPC, ISBN 0-86093-325-3), one of which shows E2001 hauling an unfitted goods train from Mauldeth Road (Manchester - Crewe line) on 17 May 1960 passing East Didsbury. It's b/w and v.difficult to make out the consist, it looks mixed and includes mineral wagons but the rest are just too blurred, but again top'n'tailed by brake vans. 

 

The other photo is E2001at Wilmslow. Only 3 carriages are in view but the leading one looks like a Mk.1 BCK. On the basis that E2001 was used for staff training it would seem a fair bet to assume that any passenger rake as hauled by the AL classes on their introduction would be fair game? There's no date for that photo but on the adjacent line stands an AL1 on a press special from Longsight so on the basis that the first AL1, E3001 was handed over to BR on 27 Nov 59 at Sandbach & initially used for staff training initially it can't be long after that.

 

The same photo is also in another of Colin J. Marsden's splendid books 'The AC Electrics' (pub 2007, OPC) and the author says 'Most training and testing was carried out between Mauldeth Road and Wilmslow using empty MK.1 or LMS designed passenger stock or unfitted freight vehicles'.

 

Nothing much more to be gleaned from another really good book 'The Power of the AC Electrics' by Brian Morrison (pub 1988, OPC) except the delightful nugget that it retained it's original gas-turbine nickname 'Black Bess'.

 

Jonesy

 

Edited by Merseycider
Unforgivably getting Fredos name wrong and then getting Brain Morrison's name wrong.
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On 03/10/2021 at 18:25, oleander said:

Thats me signed up for both gas and eletric. 
Quick question . Is the only diffrence between E1000 and E2001 just the numbering ?

 

It'd appear the answer is yes, it was simply a straight re-numbering. There aren't that many pics to back it up but I can't see any obvious external differences. 

 

As far as I can gather the conversion from gas turbine was undertaken between January and October 1958.  On release it it retained black / silver livery and was still carrying gas turbine number 18100 for a short while on test in the Styal area before being re-numbered to E1000.  Every pic I've seen of E1000, about 6 and all undated, the body-side cycling lion emblem carried whilst gas turbine had been replaced with the ferret & dartboard. The earliest dated pic I can find of E2001 is May 1960 so didn't carry the E1000 number for very long.

 

Jonesy

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21 hours ago, Merseycider said:

Edited 20 hours ago by Merseycider 
Unforgivably getting Fredos name wrong and then getting Brain Morrison's name wrong.

(sorry, I couldn't help myself ;))

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On 10/10/2021 at 02:04, Merseycider said:

 

It'd appear the answer is yes, it was simply a straight re-numbering. There aren't that many pics to back it up but I can't see any obvious external differences. 

 

As far as I can gather the conversion from gas turbine was undertaken between January and October 1958.  On release it it retained black / silver livery and was still carrying gas turbine number 18100 for a short while on test in the Styal area before being re-numbered to E1000.  Every pic I've seen of E1000, about 6 and all undated, the body-side cycling lion emblem carried whilst gas turbine had been replaced with the ferret & dartboard. The earliest dated pic I can find of E2001 is May 1960 so didn't carry the E1000 number for very long.

 

Jonesy

Thanks for the info . Very Helpfull 

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On 11/10/2021 at 20:47, Colin_McLeod said:

 

"Not suitable for 3rd radius"


this, last line in the text, stood out for me in the blurb..

 

Quote

In terms of size and specification, this loco is similar to gas turbine 18000.

https://railsofsheffield.com/collections/exclusive-18100-gas-turbine/products/br-class-80-e1000-rebuilt-18100-gas-turbine-electric-locomotive-in-br-black-late-crest

18000 is a lovely model,  but i’m not sure I like the idea of shelf ware models that don't go around 2nd radius curves. This is something that must have been known throughout the development of 18000. Was this shared, I certainly didn’t see it.

 

i’m going to wait on an EP for this one before ordering, i’m not sure I want to be caught twice.

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