Gresley V4

Would probably needed the 12 to replace the remaining NB 4-4-0s and the K2s

 

The P2 project has been set up as a separate stand alone company and I would assume the others would too so if one part goes belly up there will be no domino effect. Again just good business practice.

 

The V4 was built in 1941 but Sir Nigel Gresley passed away on April 5th of that year. The design could work over a substantial portion of the LNER network; some 5,000 miles out of 6,414. That is what it was built for. It weighed 70 tons 8 cwt. with a maximum axle load of 17 tons. (The B1 weighed a little more at 71 tons 3 cwt. and had a maximum axle load of 17 tons 15 cwt.)

The K4 class were designed for the West Highland line and were well suited to working over the more mountainous sections of the route. They were not so well suited to the Glasgow to Craigendoran section. The V4 was more suited to this part of the line but being a general purpose design it lacked those features that were to be found in the specialised mogul.

The testing of the V4 took place in East Anglia. The full results might exist somewhere but if it turns out that they were disposed of it should come as no surprise. Heavy load tests were very satisfactory, the engine rode well and was adjudged to be more powerful than a "Sandringham". It would be beneficial to have some numbers but it looks like the only way to obtain these with any certainty is to build and test a new member of the class.

Given that the old Great Eastern proved rather problematic when it came to the provision of improved motive power it seems strange that the design that would provide a very good solution to some of the problems was moved as far away as was possible.

 

Sounds Like you have Cliffe and Clay !. Wasn't the steel firebox V4 sent to Scotland, where the water was better for it - and the other one sent to join it later when it was clear that no other V4s were to be built.

 

The Stainer Class 5s fitted with steel fireboxes, 44718-727, also spent their time in Scotland.

 

I have the book on the LNER 4-6-0s and the book on the 2-6-0s. Sadly I don't have the third book in the series. So I scratch around a little for information concerning this most obscure Gresley produced design.

It was quite advanced for the time it was built making use of welded fabrications rather than castings. I wonder if the LNE might have progressed to fully welded frame construction? Chapelon wanted to go down this route and he, Gresley and Bulleid did share ideas.

The LNE did suffer from water quality issues in some areas. The P1s had notable trouble brought about by this.

This design is interesting in that it is not the archetypal mixed traffic 4-6-0. It was built to replace an earlier 2-6-0 design, the K2. It didn't have the tractive effort of the K3, neither did it have the K3s adhesive weight but it could we'll have produced higher dbhp figures.

The A1 people are wanting to produce a missing link in U.K. locomotive history. We have a large number of conventional mixed traffic types. The V4, along with the V2, represent a different approach. And though the heavy duty type is widely and highly regarded we just do not have enough information to make an accurate appraisal of the lighter sister design. Not just yet.

 

I would recomend the book the lner 2-8-2 and 2-6-2 classes but its quite general. Perhaps if OvsB hadnt been headhunted by the Southern...

 

I read the book on the 2-8-2 and 2-6-2 classes but never obtained my own copy. I wanted more information than could be found in this fairly modest volume but apart from the RTCS books, well you know the rest.

Bulleid being head hunted was not too bad since HNG still had some very capable people in the team that worked with him.

It would have been interesting to see Bulleid's version of the K4 which he wanted to make use of for his mixed traffic type. It appears that there was some anxiety regarding the speed that such a machine would have been capable of sustaining. In light of what 3442/61994 achieves maybe this anxiety was misplaced. Bulleid wanted to build a 2-8-2 but ended up producing Pacifics. He admired the P1, a design which was never fitted with long travel valve gear. They could attain speeds into the mid 60s, very mid at that, but a long travel fitted machine would have been much more lively. Fitted with a better exhaust system, motion taking on some lessons from US practice, and a locomotive capable of running at 80+ mph was readily achievable. With better adhesion than a Pacific, hence better starting amongst other advantages, what was there not to like?

 

Totally agree. Then BR could have copied it instead of building more Pacifics.

 

The V4 was an excellent machine. Never in dispute.

It's problem was the number of specialist metals used in it, and the conjugated valve gear. Unlike the V2s, for which more were authorised to be built and were being built, such a small class coming under the remit of Edward Thompson - however good the design - was never going to be perpetuated on those two grounds specifically.

It's strange to note that the early withdrawal of a number of Thompson's classes is used to question his reputation, but the V4s were among the earliest Gresley classes withdrawn. They may in fact, unless I am mistaken, be the earliest Gresley design that made it to BR days to be withdrawn.

Like most LNER classes which disappeared in the 50s, it is lamentable that the preservation movement was still in its infancy. One of those would have made quite a comparison with today's ubiquitous black fives.

 

Always struck me that had Thompson not retired he would have ended up on Riddles team at Marylebone or perhaps Riddles would have been on his team as their approach was very similar.

One of the justifications for the standards was to be a general purge of older and/or 3/4 cylinder locomotives and replacement with their standard equivalents and the V4's would have been an obvious target.
Events ( Modernisation, post war shortages etc) overtook the envisaged wholesale retirement of many locomotive classes ; the - Royal Scots, West countries, Castles, A3's all to replaced with Britannias. Patriots, Jubilees Arthurs, B17'S and Counties all replaced with Clans and so on.

 

How does a 2-6-2 compare to a 4-6-0 in terms of ride quality? This would depend on implementation but as a general rule is one better than the other?

 

Depends on the design, a B17 was by all accounts a real horror but a B1 wasn't. I've not had a lot of footplate riding experience back in the day but the three run down Black 5s I've ridden on we're bad enough for me. In theory, I suppose a
2-6-2 with a carrying wheel at the back should give a smoother ride, a run down Bulleid Pacific was better than the Black 5s. Those with more knowledge than me may be able to comment on the merits of three cylinders as opposed to two. I recollect the 5s having a distinct left to right oscillation particularly starting away or working hard.

 

You've also got to think about adhesion (in principal a 4-6-0 should be better than a 2-6-2); firebox (a 2-6-2 would allow a wide firebox etc). So any design is really an exercise in trading off priorities.

Tom

 

Tom pretty much summing it up - in terms of the LNER locomotives, B1/B2/B17 and most other 4-6-0 LNER classes were poor for riding quality when run down. The exception seems to be the B12 and its sub classes.

Class V2 could get horrendously run down and it varied locomotive to locomotive - but a fresh out of works or well run in locomotive would prove fine. The V4s are well spoken of for running quality. Like any steam locomotive, it is a little dependent on the subjective views of the railwaymen who ran them as well as the objective (sometimes) eyes of the fitters, engineers and accountants behind them.

 

I don't think any spare boilers were made for the V4s so when the two originals became worn out there was no alternative to withdrawal, it wasn't a reflection of the soundness of the design.

 

Not sure I follow that logic - constructing a new boiler was hardly a major task for the old workshops, and to a degree, boilers were consumable items. So had the desire been there, a worn out boiler should not necessarily have condemned a whole class. Seems far more likely that @S.A.C. Martin is closer to the truth - they went because they were non-standard. However good the design, maintaining the spares for a class of two would add overhead (relative to maintaining spares for a class of hundreds) that would be unlikely to be recouped even if the non-standard design was markedly superior to the standard one.

Tom

 

By the time they were withdrawn (1957) the writing was on the wall for steam and it would clearly not be cost effective to make spare non standard boilers for a class of two if it ever was.

 

All 4.6.0s got to be rough riding when they were nearing their shopping times, sorry to the contributer above, but the B1s were some of the worst. It depended on the design & width of the trailing axleboxes, & the facillities & skill of the fitters at the sheds they were allocated to. They had to be tuned out to fullfil the diagrams they were rostered to until they got to bad or their shopping times came round, but in the meantime the crews had to get on with it!
I applaud the A1 company for provisionally doing the V4 , as I think it will be a usefull, & interesting engine & fill a gap in modern loco histoy.

 

As in all steam locomotive designs there existed at the time of their inception a large number of factors that were taken into consideration. For the designers there was seldom, if ever, the opportunity to develop a design without any restricting conditions having a bearing on the project that was being carried out.

As well as the constraints of gauge, axle loading, finance, workshop capacity and more there are those things that are considered as either positive or negative depending on the viewpoint of the observer.

Designers work within the constraints that they face. They make choices, having to decide from the range of alternative solutions available to them how best to meet the requirement they are working upon.

So 4-6-0 or 2-6-2, two cylinders or three, use inside valve gear or try to avoid it, what boiler pressure to use, degree of superheat to aim for? And the list goes on. A 4-6-0 might be cheaper to build in general terms than a 2-6-2 but if the 4-6-0 loses mechanical condition more rapidly and so suffers from rough riding you either have the crews live with it, introduce a carefully designed maintenance scheme in order to keep minimise the rate of deterioration, make a more expensive machine making use of Franklin wedges, build more engines in order to ensure that the machines that are available are fit for the work expected of them, or you can restrict loads and speeds in order to reduce the rate of deterioration. Decisions, decisions, you may well agree with the choices that a designer has made or, there again you might not. The 2-6-2 will probably not suffer from deteriorating ride quality in quite the same way but there is the adhesion question. But make it a three cylinder engine and you can have a higher nominal T.E. with lower torque peaks and so be less likely to overcome available friction.

Cylinders. Some see no point in having more than two. For a multi cylinder design there is no good reason not to go for compounding according to one school, another wouldn't even consider it. Boiler pressure is another area where there are different schools of thought, superheating is still a similar area. Some want valve gear to be inside, others outside.

Schools of thought. An individual and the way they select and reject from the wide range of design options available to them whilst striving towards the goal of producing the best locomotive that they can within the limits dictated by both resource and talent. To say nothing of the level of scientific understanding availabile at the time the design was being worked out.

The V4 was a product of a design team working to a well considered, well established school of thought. They didn't make machines like the GW Hall, or the SR S15 or even the LM Black Five. They did not make use conventional inside valve gear if it could be avoided (the preparation crew would be relieved at that). Free steaming boilers with round top fire boxes were the order of their day, not the expense of the Belpaire. To deciples of some other schools some of the choices made may appear a little strange. But were they?