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Source: (consider it) Thread: Heaven: The SoF Railway Enthusiasts' Thread
Enoch
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# 14322

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90 is fast for steam. Speed in the past were lower than they are now. The fastest verified speed I ever experienced behind steam was 112.5. That was a special occasion, and anything over the ton was very unusual. More typical express speeds were 60-75. The LMS was proud to be running quite a lot of expresses in the late thirties at average speeds timed between stops at 60 (i,e, a mile a minute). BR never achieved as many, though it did manage quite a few, as the timetables had to allow for slacks for speed restrictions, track repairs etc.

There was quite a lot of surprise when the big diesels like Peaks could keep up a steady 80 mile after mile.

On the other hand, when lines were not subject to light rail orders, quite a lot of locals if there was a decent distance between stops managed to rattle around at 45-50 - pulled by the same engines that on preserved lines never get a chance to.

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Baptist Trainfan
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One is always worried about steam locos running fast - all those large lumps of steel reciprocating and revolving! No wonder "management" was concerned when they heard that the 9Fs could do 90 - they only had 5 foot drivers while an express loco had over 6 foot, so all the bits were pounding around that bit more rapidly!

Of course speeds in steam days were also governed by signalling and brakes. Vacuum brakes are slower-acting than air, and take time to disseminate down the length of the train: the speed record taken by "Mallard" was done during high-speed brake tests. Modern air-brakes can act on all wheels simultaneously; even Westingouse air brakes with the "triple valve" and cylinders on each coach were quite quick. And, of course, steam-age trains used clasp-type brakes, not discs.

Semaphore signals were in use, which may not have such good visibility as colour lights, nor possessing the useful "double yellow" aspect between yellow and red. And track circuiting was rare. The LNER streamliners had to allow two block sections ahead of the train for braking instead of the usual one.

Running "Tornado" at 90 today should be relatively easy, apart from the shovelling!

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Horseman Bree
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# 5290

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The shovelling depends on the power output which is not exactly tied to speed. You would probably load fewer cars for a high-speed run than you would for a 60 mph one, and you'd probably run the high speed on a relatively flat line - north of York, f'rinstance or GWR to Swindon.

I'll bet that the shovelling going up the S&C or Shap is just as hard as anything else you could do.

Given the added maintenance cost of 100 mph, you're not going to see it happen, once they've proved they CAN do it. The difference between 60 to 70 and 100 isn't particularly noticeable to the passengers on good track. A hard climb is more noticed and appreciated.

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It's Not That Simple

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Sober Preacher's Kid

Presbymethegationalist
# 12699

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Furthermore most locomotives larger than a Mikado (2-8-2) require so much coal that they usually have mechanical stokers.

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Horseman Bree
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Not in England. I'm not sure there were ANY stoker-fired locos, except possibly the Garratt built for the LMS.

Tornado only has 50 sq. ft. on the grate, which probably wouldn't have rated a stoker over here.

Where would you put a stoker in the cramped space available in their loading gauge?

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It's Not That Simple

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Sober Preacher's Kid

Presbymethegationalist
# 12699

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Just trying to drag this thread away from its British-centrism. [Biased]

Did I mention that Union Pacific's Big Boys had a 150 sq. ft. grate?

Incidentally the Interstate Commerce Commission in the US required that all locomotives over 150,000 lb for passengers and 175,000 for freight have mechanical stokers.

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Darllenwr
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# 14520

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On the subject of stokers, a number of the BR 9F's (3, I think) were built with stokers, but these were removed fairly quickly, as they were found to offer little advantage over manual firing ~ as has been pointed out, UK grates were never really large enough to justify mechanical stoking.

On the issue of speed of action of vacuum brakes, the GWR adressed this problem by fitting the Direct Admission valve to their coach stock. The effect of this was to admit air direct from atmosphere to the brake cylinder in response to the change of pressure in the train pipe. This meant that the driver's brake valve had only to admit enough air to operate the DA valves ~ the brake cylinders themselves drew no air from the train pipe.

I gather (from a member of the A1 steam trust) that Tornado has been tested at 110 mph, though with what trailing load I could not say. I think I am right in saying that the LNER expected speeds over 100 mph from their A4's in revenue service, presumably over the flats around York. The snag with this, to my mind, was the known vulnerability of the inside big-end. Mallard had to be taken off her train after her 126 mph sprint, having run the bearings of the inside big end. The problem was only really solved after K.J. Cook was moved to Doncaster from Swindon after Nationalisation and substituted the Swindon-pattern big end for the original design.

Mind you, it was remarked that Doncaster built their engines at clearances at which Swindon scrapped theirs ... [Snigger]

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Tea gnome
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# 9424

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Just spotted this which is rather nice.

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Floating Fund!

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Sioni Sais
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# 5713

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quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Just trying to drag this thread away from its British-centrism. [Biased]

Did I mention that Union Pacific's Big Boys had a 150 sq. ft. grate?

Incidentally the Interstate Commerce Commission in the US required that all locomotives over 150,000 lb for passengers and 175,000 for freight have mechanical stokers.

150 sq ft? Holy Moly, any fireman would be hard pressed to see what's going on in there, let alone get coal to the corners!

In addition to the size of the grate the quality of coal matters. If it burns hot, for a longer period, less stoking is necessary. The quality of coal in Britain probably led to relatively small grates (and also to poor steaming when decent coal wasn't available).

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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128

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I believe that the Bullied Pacifics were never tested up to their maximum evaporation rate on the steam plant at Rugby because it simply wasn't possible to shovel on the coal quickly enough.

British steam coal pre-1939 was good and so locos could have small grates. "Tornado" and other post-war locos had larger grates to cope with poorer-quality coal. But this made them heavy on coal when hauling light loads, as the whole grate had to be covered.

Poor coal also leads to problem with smoke-box ash build-up and clinkering on the fire-bars. The Portia Producer Gas system, used in Tierra del Fuego and South Africa, produces much more complete combustion by heating the coal with a very controlled air supply to the grate, and basically burning the gas it gives off. Very promising but came far too late.

Some British locos around 1900 used waste oil products instead of coal.

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Horseman Bree
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The GWR never built a wide-firebox locomotive (except for The Great Bear - which wasn't noticeably Great!) because they could be sure to provide really good coal for their expresses. That was one reason for the type of coaling station they built - it allowed for grade-sorting.

Post-war, the Castles and Kings were at a disadvantage until the drafting was redone, with double blast pipes and chimneys, to improve the burning qualities, after which the Kings were once again equal to most of the Pacifics.

(And, minor nitpick) Portia may have been above reproach, but she didn't know much about locomotives. Ingeniero L.D. Porta designed a new blast arrangement, which many enthusiasts say was/is the best of all (subject to further discussion)

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Horseman Bree
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Double-posting to ask SPK if the weight requirement for stokers was total engine weight or weight on drivers.

If it was "total engine", then most of the 4-6-0s on CN and CP would have been required to have stokers, particularly the CP D10 and CN H6 classes, let alone the lighter Pacifics, and all of those classes were hand-fired.

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It's Not That Simple

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Sober Preacher's Kid

Presbymethegationalist
# 12699

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Weight on drivers. The Pennsy K4 Pacifics were among the the largest and highest profile locos to still be hand-fired. The PRR's I-1 Decapods were fitted with mechanical stokers after testing found that hand firing was inadequate. The "Hippoes" as they were known were built in the late teens and early twenties.

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PD
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# 12436

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quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
The GWR never built a wide-firebox locomotive (except for The Great Bear - which wasn't noticeably Great!) because they could be sure to provide really good coal for their expresses. That was one reason for the type of coaling station they built - it allowed for grade-sorting.

Post-war, the Castles and Kings were at a disadvantage until the drafting was redone, with double blast pipes and chimneys, to improve the burning qualities, after which the Kings were once again equal to most of the Pacifics.

(And, minor nitpick) Portia may have been above reproach, but she didn't know much about locomotives. Ingeniero L.D. Porta designed a new blast arrangement, which many enthusiasts say was/is the best of all (subject to further discussion)

The Great Bear's problem was draughting. Churchward basically "stretched" the Star boiler to fit the Pacific. This made the firetubes in the boiler too long for their diameter with the result that she was an indifferent steamer. GJC usually did not make mistakes like that, but he did in this case. I suspect this may have been because although he was familiar with American practice, the US was building locomotives with 160-180psi boilers, whilst Churchward had embraced the high pressure route being taken by the French. A combustion chamber shortening the tubes to about 18'6", or wider tubes would have solved the problem, but GJC kind of lost interest in the locomotive after her initial trials.

The A4's middle big end overheating problems were due to the unfortunate alliance of high speed, Gresley's conjugated motion, and the Doncaster big end. Basically, the conjugated motion led to the middle cylinder producing slightly more power than the outside cylinders. This problem worsened as the locomotive racked up the mileage. This brought out another weakness, that of the big end which was an old-fashioned design which had worked fine in the Big Atlantics when they were handling their share of the 1200-1500hp needed to shift 350-400 tons at 75-80mph, but let the side down when horsepower and speed requirements went up another notch. Gresley partly cured the problem by changing the maintenance schedules on the A4s so that the wear on the conjugated valve gear did not get out of hand, but in wartime conditions that sort of special care became a thing of the past. BR(E) wanted a permanent solution to the problem to reduce maintenance costs, hence the introduction of Swindon "Big End."

IN British Railways days, the rule of thumb for fuel consumption was 1lb of coal to 1 sq. ft. of grate area per mile. The post-War LNER Pacifics conformed to this rule, but as they usually ran with 400-600 tons on the hook this did not really matter, as the loads they handled made their fuel consumption respectable.

Interestingly, R.A. Riddles who was BR's CME in the 1950s was very interested in American steam locomotive practice with the result that the BR Standard steam locomotives were big 2-cylinder locomotives, with outside valve motion and mod-cons such as "self-cleaning" grates. They may have lacked the romance of the older pre-nationalization designs, but they were effectient designs that tolerated hit-and-miss maintenance schedules very well. However, it sometimes took crews a while to get used to them, which could cause trouble. The replacement of the Sandringhams and Footballers on the GER mainline in the 1950s with Britannias was a case in point. The Britannia, as a big two-cylinder, was more prone to slipping than the three cylinder Sandringham, and this was compounded by a suspension problem (later cured) that made the Britannias prone to slipping at high speed. I have been told that being on a steam locomotive doing 70-75mph when she "picks her feet up" is a damn good cure for constipation!

PD

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LA Dave
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# 1397

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Keep it up SPK, though it's a losing effort.

The Milwaukee Road Hiawathas, when a 4-6-4 F7 was at the point, maintained an average pace of 65.6 mph between Chicago and St. Paul in 1940, including stops. This meant much 80 plus travel. This locomotive was capable of a 100 mph pace.

The post-war New York Central Niagaras, which led the premier Central passenger trains until replaced by diesel, also maintained a punishing pace on the mainline between Chicago and New York, with average speeds between Harmon and Chicago approaching 60 mph, including limited stops.

It's incredible to me that British locomotives did not go to automatic stoking. The K-4s, which you highlight, were fireman killers.

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Sober Preacher's Kid

Presbymethegationalist
# 12699

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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Just trying to drag this thread away from its British-centrism. [Biased]

Did I mention that Union Pacific's Big Boys had a 150 sq. ft. grate?

Incidentally the Interstate Commerce Commission in the US required that all locomotives over 150,000 lb for passengers and 175,000 for freight have mechanical stokers.

150 sq ft? Holy Moly, any fireman would be hard pressed to see what's going on in there, let alone get coal to the corners!

In addition to the size of the grate the quality of coal matters. If it burns hot, for a longer period, less stoking is necessary. The quality of coal in Britain probably led to relatively small grates (and also to poor steaming when decent coal wasn't available).

When ALCO built a similarly large 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone for the Northern Pacific in 1928, it did a publicity stunt where 12 people sat down and had dinner IN THE FIREBOX of that locomotive while it was still in the factory at Schenectady, NY.

In North America Eastern coal from the Appalachians is of higher quality than Western coal. The Western transcons like Union Pacific, Northern Pacific and the Great Northern traditionally had large fireboxes on their locomotives for this purpose.

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Darllenwr
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# 14520

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The main reason that mechanical stoking was not used in the UK was that it was considered wasteful of coal. As has been said, UK engines tended to have relatively small fireboxes. The restrictions of the loading gauge have something to do with this, such that large grates would have to be long grates ~ not very desirable.

As has also been said, mechanical stoking doesn't work very well on much under 50 square feet of grate and there were very few steam locos in the UK that exceeded that figure. A combination of good quality coal, restricted loading gauge and conservatism (small 'c') was the probable cause of this.

After World War 2, deterioration of coal quality led to more wide firebox locomotive designs, but by that stage in UK railway history, the writing was largely on the wall for steam anyway. Bear in mind that the first of the BR Standard Classes did not emerge until 1951 and that the Modernisation Report came out in 1955; do the maths. The last steam locomotive for mainline service was built in 1960 and it was a wide firebox type (BR 9F). After that, it was diesels all the way. [Mad]

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Enoch
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The Garratts did not have mechanical stokers, but most of them had revolving coal bunkers so as to help deliver the coal to the shovel. With the ones that didn't, the fireman had to walk back into the tender and dig.

Previously the coal trains from Toton to Cricklewood were double headed. There were grumbles that with the Garratts one crew was being expected to do the job of two.

Stokers were tried out on 9Fs. I believe the coal was delivered through a screw mechanism under the footplate. I've read a description of one pulling an express goods over Ais Gill, where the coal got jammed in the screw and the fireman ended up having to pull coal out of the tender and fire part of the journey by hand.

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Sober Preacher's Kid

Presbymethegationalist
# 12699

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Auger-type stokers were the norm in North America. They normally used smaller coal than hand-fired locos, 1-inch diameter.

The New York Central Niagaras tie with the Norfolk & Western's J-Class as carrying the title of "Perfect Steam" The Niagaras were large, powerful, had a massive coal capacity, roller bearings, the works. The streamlined J's on the N&W were like that too, but smaller. The Niagaras were also the last major new commercial steam design in North America.

Part of the NYC's advantage with the Niagaras was that they had track pans, of which the Central was of the few to use. They only had to take on coal once from New York to Chicago. They were also used on the Water Level Route, which is flat. The only grade of note on it is Mohawk Hill in Albany at 2%.

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Horseman Bree
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And in those controlled conditions, they were (just) competitive with GM E-units for cost.

Last valiant gasp for steam.

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It's Not That Simple

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Alaric the Goth
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I believe that Stanier, or rather one of his team, produced a drawing of an LMS 4-6-4 which was basically an extended 'Coronation ' Pacific with of course a larger grate area , and that was intended to be mechanically stoked. The LNER sketch for a 4-8-2 (for very heavy express passenger use) would probably have had to have been as well. I wonder if the Gresley P2 2-8-2s were a nightmare to fire on the gradients between Edinburgh and Aberdeen?

Have they really got 'Tornado' up to 110mph? That would, I believe, be a record for a British non-streamliner, and isn't far off 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley's postwar record (which, I assume, was hauling the train Enoch was on when he says he was going at 112.5mph?).

[ 05. March 2010, 08:32: Message edited by: Alaric the Goth ]

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Horseman Bree
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Since Gresley's P2 2-8-2s haad the same grate area as Tornado, I don't see that the firing would have been that much more dificult. The Edinburgh-Aberdeen route wasn't particularly long, and (obviously) wasn't all uphill, so the power demands were more occasional than continuous, unlike the London-to-Scotland runs.

The main reason for the extra wheels was adhesion rather than sheer power. Peppercorn made the adhesion problem far worse by his truly ugly conversion, unbalancing the weight distribution drastically, thus making the locos less useful than they might have been, but that has nothing to do with the coal consumption. They could still burn all the coal you could throw into any of the later Pacifics, since they had what was essentially same boiler.

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Enoch
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# 14322

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Alaric you have guessed correctly. I was a boy at the time. It is sad to think that most of the other passengers that day have now gone to their last terminus.

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Alaric the Goth
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• Please, It was Edward Thompson who produced an ‘ugly conversion’ of the six P2s, to form the class later known as ‘A2/2.’ There were also four ‘A2/1s’, which should have been built as the last ‘V2’ 2-6-2s but ET decided to make into very similar engines to the P2 conversions (but with ‘V2’ boilers). Then 15 brand new ‘Pacifics’ were built again by Thompson, to a slightly improved but similar design, now with large smoke deflectors) and were classified ‘A2/3’. The last was withdrawn in 1965. All 25 of these 6’2” 4-6-2s plus Thompson’s rebuild of ‘Great Northern’ had the ungainly positioning of the (outside) cylinders behind the leading bogie.

AH Peppercorn came along and tidied up the designs, with cylinders in a conventional place, so 15 of his ‘A2s’ were built from 1946-48, including preserved no. 60532 ‘Blue Peter’, and 49 ‘A1s’ were originally built (in 1949), the last of the originals being withdrawn from Darlington in 1966.

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Horseman Bree
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# 5290

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I stand corrected. Peppercorn produced locomotives with a very pleasing outline. I'm not sure what Thompson's problem was.

Thompson's arrangement certainly produced the worst adhesion, as well as the worst appearance.

The P2s, as Mikados, would have been very useful for certain types of heavy traffic, if left alone - places where loading mattered more than sheer speed. The Edinburgh-Aberdeen route was possibly one of the worst places to keep them.

And, as always, the question arises as to why the designers insisted on keeping the worst features, while strenuously resisting the better new ones. Apart from the Churchward/Stanier/Holcroft line, that is.

(Although I have to be fair to Thompson in light of his B1 design, that was very useful and economical, as well as cheap to build, although not particularly good-looking to my Swindon-trained eye)

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It's Not That Simple

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Darllenwr
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# 14520

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It has been claimed (though not substantiated) that Thompson's 'problem' was that he loathed Gresley and everything he stood for. I think it is reasonable to say that his hatred of the conjugated motion was not unreasonable ~ as has been observed above, play in the motion led to the inside cylinder doing a disproportionate part of the work at high speed which, taken with the design weaknesses of the LNER inside big end, led to a large number of inside big end failures in traffic. Thompson's desire to eliminate the conjugated motion made a good deal of sense.

Unfortunately, there was a good deal about his design policy that made no sense at all. I think that the reason for the mauled appearance of his A2's was down to an insistence on divided drive and equal length connecting rods. This pushed the inside cylinder a long way forward, which meant that the bogie had to go forwards as well, but the outside cylinders had to be left behind. Working on the principal that, if it looks right, it probably is right, Thomson's A2's were about as wrong as it comes.

A point in the favour of the theory that he loathed Gresley is that, of all the locomotives he could have chosen to rebuild, it was Great Northern, the original Gresley pacific, that he chose to maul. I believe that it caused a great deal of controversy at the time.

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LA Dave
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# 1397

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Yes, the Niagaras benefited from track pans as well as from the practice of sending maintenance crews into the fireboxes, while hot, wearing asbestos suits. This allowed faster turnaround at Chicago and Harmon but, ultimately, did not save the class.

The Niagaras lasted only a decade on the NY Central; by the late 1940s, diesel were already on the point of the premier trains.

The Norfolk Western ordered the last mainline steam passenger locomotive built in the United States in 1950. As a huge coal hauler, the railroad had an allegiance to their customers. Similarly for the Chesapeake & Ohio, which launched two coal-fired Lake Michigan car ferries as late as 1952. (One still operates each summer, while the other serves as a parts ship).

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Ah, the Chessie. [Smile]

They of the quiet and profitable business of hauling coal to tidewater, who were taken over by the first rascal/visionary of the modern era, Robert E. Young. Who somehow managed to spend money on 300 new streamlined passenger cars in 1946, plus the never-functional steam turbine engines.

On the bright side, at least those streamlined cars included the only dome observation cars ever operated in the East. They were later bought by the B&O, IIRC.

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Gee D
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quote:
I think it is reasonable to say that his hatred of the conjugated motion was not unreasonable ~ as has been observed above, play in the motion led to the inside cylinder doing a disproportionate part of the work at high speed which, taken with the design weaknesses of the LNER inside big end, led to a large number of inside big end failures in traffic. Thompson's desire to eliminate the conjugated motion made a good deal of sense.
To use a euphemism, the design itself was congugated. It had absolutely no advantages over Walschaert's, save that it was local, and waved the flag. Indeed, it had many disadvantages.

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Darllenwr
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
To use a euphemism, the design itself was congugated. It had absolutely no advantages over Walschaert's, save that it was local, and waved the flag. Indeed, it had many disadvantages.

I think that may be a little unfair ~ it had the advantage over a third set of Walschaert's that there was no mechanism between the frames, which made oiling up simpler. The Driver had only to see to the inside big end though, goodness knows, he had good reason to worry about that. [Big Grin]

The Gresley-Holcroft gear had the apparent advantage of being delightfully simple ~ just two levers. Kinematically it worked and worked well. Unfortunately, that assumes that everything is perfectly stiff and rigid, which is simply not the case once one takes account of inertia. In actual practice, it did not work anything like as well as theory suggested. But, and I stress this, it was readily accessible, which a third set of valve gear was not, and I imagine that this was the biggest attraction from Gresley's point of view.

Of course, there was also a weight saving, though I doubt that anybody was taking much notice of this point.

Having said all of that, you would note that Arthur Peppercorn designed his pacifics with three sets of valve gear. As far as I can recall, no other UK designer attempted to use a conjugated motion for the inside valve ~ taking the view that the apparent advantages were outweighed by the practical disadvantages.

And, before anybody picks me up on it, the use of rocking levers by Swindon does not count, that merely reverses the action of the outside valve, it does not derive an entirely different set of valve events from the combined events of two gears. And you would note that the Swindon rocking lever was angled, to compensate for the effects of the angularity of the connecting rod (when the crank is halfway round its stroke, the piston is not halfway along the cylinder, thus the motion of the piston is not simple harmonic, which can only be achieved by the use of a Scott's Yoke). [Ultra confused]

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Baptist Trainfan
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quote:
As far as I can recall, no other UK designer attempted to use a conjugated motion for the inside valve
I'm not sure that this is right. The so-called "Gresley" gear owed a lot to Harry Holcroft, late of the South Eastern & Chatham Railway and later Sir Nigel's assistant, Gresley's own design being found impractical (it was only used once).

The Holcroft design was, I believe, used on the Southern 3-cylinder designs such as the U1 and N1 2-6-0s.

Now another point entirely! This month's "Railway Magazine" talks of putting in temporary water troughs (track pans) on the GW main line to obviate water stops for a steam special. It says that they will be made of easy-to-fit (and dismantle) plastic sections, and will be filled by road tanker.

Ii sounds good, but is it true? [Big Grin] Or is it an April Fool? [Confused]

[ 06. March 2010, 19:50: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

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Baptist Trainfan
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Whoops - just noticed that Darwenllyr did refer to Holcroft in his post! But still worth noting that Gresley had tried his own, earlier, version before this was used.
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daviddrinkell
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quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
As far as I can recall, no other UK designer attempted to use a conjugated motion for the inside valve ~ taking the view that the apparent advantages were outweighed by the practical disadvantages.

Several of Greenly's Pacifics on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch - which of course looked just like miniature Gresley Pacifics - had a third cylinder, mainly because the owner, Jack Howey, liked the idea. Apparently with a clean fire they could go like the wind, but were heavy on fuel and the third cylinder was later taken out of commission except on 'Hurricane', which was Howey's engine. It ran with three cylinders for several more years until the fateful day when the valve gear locked solid in the middle of Romney Marsh on a busy summer's day and tied up the enitre railway for hours. Howey got his revenge on the engine by renaming it 'Bluebottle', although he relented after a while.

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Lord Pontivillian
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quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Now another point entirely! This month's "Railway Magazine" talks of putting in temporary water troughs (track pans) on the GW main line to obviate water stops for a steam special. It says that they will be made of easy-to-fit (and dismantle) plastic sections, and will be filled by road tanker.

Ii sounds good, but is it true? [Big Grin] Or is it an April Fool? [Confused]

I saw that to! I so hope it is true. RM is a marvellous publication [Big Grin]

[minor code fix]

[ 07. March 2010, 02:39: Message edited by: jedijudy ]

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Darllenwr
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As it happens, I knew about Gresley's earlier conjugated motion, which he used on his 3-cylinder 2-8-0 design for the Great Northern Railway. It achieved the same effect as the Holcroft gear, but used much shorter levers and many more pin joints. It was a case of kinematically OK, but you didn't want to watch it working. I suspect that it would not have worked too well with the longer valve travel used on the A3's once Gresley had got the idea from his contact with the GWR 'Castles'. Fundamentally, the Gresley A1's were a good design that was strangled by its short travel valves.

Incidentally, does anybody happen to know why the modified Gresley pacifics were designated A3 and not A2? I surmise that there was some other design of 4-6-2 running on the LNER at the time, but I would assume that this was an absorbed class of locomotive, not one of Gresley's designs. Anybody know better?

Certainly interested to know if there were other designs using conjugated motion ~ can anybody shed any more light on this. It has often intrigued me how Holcroft came to colaborate with Gresley, given that they came from different railway companies ~ companies that were apt to fight amongst themselves like cats in a sack ...

[ 06. March 2010, 20:46: Message edited by: Darllenwr ]

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Baptist Trainfan
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Yes - the Raven Pacifics from the North Eastern Railway became class A2, they lasted till around 1930 I think.

I think that had ordinary valve gear, don't know how many cylinders.

[ 06. March 2010, 20:47: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

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Darllenwr
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Of course! I had forgotten about them. From memory, they were not a wildly successful design; rather too long in the boiler barrel for reliable steaming. Which would probably explain why they tend to be overlooked. [Hot and Hormonal]

Also from memory, I think they, like their Gresley counterparts, had three cylinders but with independantly driven valves.

[ 06. March 2010, 20:50: Message edited by: Darllenwr ]

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Darllenwr
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This is a complete non seq, but those of us who enjoy extracting the urine from our American colleagues may enjoy this story.

I gather that it has not been confirmed, so it may be a wind-up. On the other hand, it does seem to be a lot of effort to go to for a wind-up, so draw your own conclusions.

I am indebted to my sister for drawing my attention to this story.

(edited to correct screw-up code)

[ 06. March 2010, 21:06: Message edited by: Darllenwr ]

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Horseman Bree
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The Raven Pacifics were extremely long because the the main rods drove the lead axle, rather than the second. This allowed for the three cylinders to be in line in a strong position, and for easy access to the between-the-frames motion.

But it meant that the boiler had to be longer, and, without a combustion chamber, the tubes had to be correspondingly longer. Hence, poor draughting and steaming. I would bet that the tubes were too narrow as well.

There was no way to shorten the wheelbase without a maajor redesign of the cylinders and related framing, so the easiest solution was scrapping and replacement. Most of the larger 4-6-0s were more useful.

[ 07. March 2010, 13:56: Message edited by: Horseman Bree ]

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Darllenwr
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Voila! One Raven Pacific

As Bree says, noticeably long in the boiler (one of the faults of The Great Bear on the GWR). It also perpetuates another of The Great Bear's faults ~ inside bearings on the trailing axle, just where they can get baked in the hot slipstream from the ashpan (not to mention the dust and ashes ...)

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Baptist Trainfan
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Yes - although the later locomotives (I think there were about 5 in all) were built with Gresley A1-type rear pony trucks, and I suspect the others got them later, too.

Some or all of them were rebuilt with A1-type boilers which entailed quite a lot of alterations. They lasted till about 1937.

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Darllenwr
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This is what I have managed to find on the Raven Pacifics so far. What is vexing is that I know I have seen a very different picture of one of them at work not so long ago, and I cannot remember where. This is irritating.

What I find interesting is that none of the early pacifics was exactly a roaring success straight out of the box (and by that, I mean The Great Bear, City of Newcastle, Great Northern and Princess Royal). I am particularly intrigued by Churchward's failure, since it was the boiler (as it was with most of the examples cited) that let The Great Bear down, which was unusual for Churchward; generally his boilers were very good. The same was true of 6200, Princess Royal (Stanier's first attempt on the LMS) and equally of Raven's City of Newcastle. As I remarked earlier, Great Northern was let down by her valves. Equally, (and I am risking the wrath of Bullied fans here) one could argue that Bullied's Merchant Navy's were flawed at the outset and I don't need to say anything about Thompson's designs. The only (pre-nationalisation) Designer who got it right first pop was Peppercorn.

Curiously enough, I don't think Riddles escapes unscathed either. The Britannias were successful enough, but the Clans have been quietly forgotten (although a new one is being built at the moment) and Duke of Gloucester only demonstrated her worth after she had officially been scrapped. I shall be interested to see whether Hengist (the new Clan) can be made to work properly ~ I imagine that she will be. My guess tells me that the Clans suffered from the same problem as Duke of Gloucester: by the time it was recognised that they were sub-standard, the will to do something about it no longer existed. Diesels were the coming thing and there was neither the time nor the money available to correct the faults of what was an obsolete technology, hence their rapid progress to oblivion.

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PD
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Thompson basically had the job of sorting out the LNER's locomotive fleet after Gresley's death. His attitudes to locomotive design were very different to Gresley, and he had the opportunity to standardize LNER locomotive practice.

In 1941, when he took over, the LNER locomotive fleet was largely pre-grouping. Gresley's output had, of neccessity been limited to relatively short runs of, to a greater or lesser extent, specialize locomotives - A1, A3, A4, Sandringhams and Footballers, K1, P1, P2, V2, etc. - all of which seemed to have a touch of the whimsy from HNG. On the other hand, Thompson was a meat and potatos kind of engineer who wanted powerful, reliable two cylinder locomotives used wherever possible, leaving the complications of three cylinder design for relatively small number of express passenger locomotives.

The B1 design was extremely well thought out. In Lincolnshire, where I grew up, they displaced a host of Edwardian relics in the late 40s and early 50s. In doing this they probably saved the LNER and BR(E) thousands by reducing maintenance costs and locomotive "down time."

However, Thompson did have it in for Gresley. There was a certain amount of spite to his decision to rebuild "Great Northern," and a good deal of sloppy thinking in the rebuild of the P2s.

PD

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PD
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quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Just trying to drag this thread away from its British-centrism. [Biased]

Did I mention that Union Pacific's Big Boys had a 150 sq. ft. grate?

Incidentally the Interstate Commerce Commission in the US required that all locomotives over 150,000 lb for passengers and 175,000 for freight have mechanical stokers.

150 sq ft? Holy Moly, any fireman would be hard pressed to see what's going on in there, let alone get coal to the corners!

In addition to the size of the grate the quality of coal matters. If it burns hot, for a longer period, less stoking is necessary. The quality of coal in Britain probably led to relatively small grates (and also to poor steaming when decent coal wasn't available).

When ALCO built a similarly large 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone for the Northern Pacific in 1928, it did a publicity stunt where 12 people sat down and had dinner IN THE FIREBOX of that locomotive while it was still in the factory at Schenectady, NY.

In North America Eastern coal from the Appalachians is of higher quality than Western coal. The Western transcons like Union Pacific, Northern Pacific and the Great Northern traditionally had large fireboxes on their locomotives for this purpose.

By the time you get out into my neck of the woods oil firing was pretty common due to the poor quality, and relative scarcity of, coal in the California and the Southwest. Generally wood gave way to oil as the fuel of choice.

By 1905 the SP and all of the surviving California narrow gauge lines were oil burners. The stuff they burned, though, was an enviromentalists nightmare. It seems to have been a relative of "Bunker C" - the thick, treacley goop more usually used in ship's boilers. Even when properly fired, CA oil burners proceeded under a cloudy pillar by day. I assume that, being oil burners, they were sufficiently free of sparks that they did not also proceed under a fiery pillar by night!

One of my favourite oil burner pictures is of an ancient Baldwin narrow gauge 4-4-0 belonging to the narrow gauge Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad, (a.k.a. "Narrow, Crooked, Ornery", or "the Northern California Outrage" from its N-C-O initials. The antique 4-4-0 is paired with a long whaleback tender recycled off a narrow gauge 4-6-0 or 2-8-0. The tender is almost as long as the loco.

The Baldwin narrow gauge 4-4-0s were about the same size and power output as the Isle of Man Railway tankies, but, of course, had tenders to extend their range. They were extensively used on the CA narrow gauge lines until displaced by 4-6-0s and in some cases 2-8-0s. It was only on the D&RGW narrow gauge, the East Broad Top, and the White Pass and Yukon that the narrow gauge steam engine grew in a hefty looking 2-8-2 in the USA. The D&RGW K-36s were regauged/rebuilt from standard gauge consolidations and came with such "mod cons" as were available in 1925. The D&RGW's poor neighbour, the RGS, was using C-16s (DRGW classification) built in the 1880s as late as the 1940s. An unsually long life for an American locomotive.

PD

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Horseman Bree
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Frpom Darllenwyr's link, I see that the Raven Pacifics were about 9 tons heavier than Gresley's Great Northern, which probably didn't help, either.

And what is it about cab windows in England? You'd have to kneel to see out those side windows! And the top windows appear to be basically useless as well.

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Sober Preacher's Kid

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The SP had their Cab-Forward MC and AC classes of 4-8-8-2's and whatnot. They were oil-burners and as the name says, had the cab at the head end, then the boiler, then the oil tender at the rear. They were used primarily on the Overland Route to Salt Lake City which had lots of tunnels and snow sheds. They were designed to prevent crews from being asphyxiated.

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Horseman Bree
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ISTM that the CPR went over to oil for their locomotives quite early as well, but the reason given was the forest fire hazard. Oil doesn't produce anywhere near as any sparks, or hot ashes to drop on to the track and the wooden bridges/trestles.

CN was later into the Rockies - their mainlines weren't even opened until 1915 - but their lines west of Jasper were oil-burning as well.

There was, and is, lots of coal in the area, but not much of particularly good locomotive grade, and the costs of moving the stuff were a major problem in the mountains, compared to oil.

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PD
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quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

And what is it about cab windows in England? You'd have to kneel to see out those side windows! And the top windows appear to be basically useless as well.

Appearences can be deceptive. The few times I have stood in NER cabs the forward and side views have been OK. Also, by the 1920s, there was usually a tip-up seat for the driver, so once the locomotive was linked up it was usual to sit. The one catch was that sometimes the seat was an after thought the engine controls were laid out for a driver who was on his feet.

BTW, although British railways run on the left, several railways arranged the controls for a driver on the right hand side of the cab. As boilers got larger, the right hand position went out of favour as it made sighting signals difficult.

PD

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Sober Preacher's Kid

Presbymethegationalist
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quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
This is a complete non seq, but those of us who enjoy extracting the urine from our American colleagues may enjoy this story.

I gather that it has not been confirmed, so it may be a wind-up. On the other hand, it does seem to be a lot of effort to go to for a wind-up, so draw your own conclusions.

I am indebted to my sister for drawing my attention to this story.

(edited to correct screw-up code)

What's to get wound up about? And what sort of urine do you expect to extract?

An overheated journal bearing, or "hotbox" as they are known, is a common occurrence. Caboose crews were formerly charged with spotting them, today railways have hotbox detectors on the trackside to do this.

"Thrown into emergency" means that there was a break in the train air line, which caused the brakes to activate without the engineer's command. This is standard practice. Brakes are designed to work like that.

This incident happened to have the poor timing of occurring with coal hoppers while on a wooden trestle. There are lots of wooden trestles out West, especially on secondary lines.

It'll be a bit expensive, but that's life on the rails.

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PD
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Sounds like a case of bad luck and bad timing to me. I would have thought, though, that the hot box detectors would have been yelling long before the thing went on fire.

FWIW, there are still a fair number of wooden bridges around here, though most of the larger structures have been replaced in steel. The traditional American tressle had a lot going for it in that it is quick to construct and fairly cheap. Most American railroads west of the Mississippi were constructed in nearly empty, developing territory. Getting trains running was far more important than heavyweight construction. For example, the D&RGW "Chili Line" was laid in 35lb/yard rail and followed the contours of the land as much as possible. This left it with some fearsome grades - for example, Barranca Grade, which was fully 4% - 1 in 25! The usual timetable from about 1913 onwards was a single mixed train daily. It eventually received secondhand 60lb/yard rail from elsewhere on the D&RG but it was always a tenuous link between CO and NM.

PD

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