46235 City of Birmingham

I've always wondered why that difference was there between different members of the class...feel a bit stupid now as its quite obvious

 

The scientific approach I was referring to was the series of trials that Churchward carried out including acquired the french compounds and building a 4-4-2 of his own so that the comparison was completely fair. However, I would submit that throughout the years following Churchward the company continued to apply sound principles such as running the prototype for some time before replicating it. Whilst a few designs eclipsed the efficiency of the GWR locos it is fair to say that these were generally a small proportion of the overall fleet of their owning company. No other British company enjoyed an entire fleet of engines large, medium and small, passenger and goods that were uniformly so good. Not the best, and certainly not the best of a particular type (at least not by the end of the 1930s), but all above average.

The truth is also that the GWR were well aware of the advances being made elsewhere. I would suggest that at the start of the 1930s the depression would have reinforced the view that sticking with what they had was the sound business decision. By the end of the 1930s they were very obviously considering the future to be one that would be led by internal combustion. Only a fundamental change of traction could deliver the sort of financial advantage over their standardised and uniformly good steam fleet. Without the intervention of the war and nationalisation I think the GWR would have been the first of the big four to dieselise.

 

I don't think anyone's going to dispute that there were advances going on elsewhere that led to increased efficiency and increased power per unit. The question is whether there would have been a business justification in diverting resources away from where they were spent and into those areas. The benefits of standardisation are wide ranging. When, for instance they designed a new small end with greatly improved lubrication and bearing lfie (one known Collett Era improvement), then on the GWR they needed only about 4 or 5 new designs made and incorporated into works practice for that design to be capable of being rolled around the entire outside cylinder locomotive fleet with benefits for everything in service.

The question is not whether superior locomotives could have been designed. Clearly there were flaws, and they could have been looking harder at steam flow through the superheater and regulator for instance, and as an enthusiast beginning to learn something about valve gear I wonder why on earth they persisted with a basically victorian layout on the 5700, 2251 and 9400 when something theoretically much better had been designed with the 5600 and could perhaps have been adapted. But the question is whether limited design resource (and money) would have been better spent there than in the areas it was spent - on increasing reliability and time between overhauls, and on as far as possible adapting and homogenising the absorbed fleet. Nothing to the same extent happened on the other lines, partly of course because the circumstances were so different.

But to say whether this policy was right or wrong, well I think that's very hard. Even these days that sort of decision is very often more an act of faith than it is of examining the evidence for a rational decision, just because there's not actually any practical way of gathering evidence to make a rational decision from. I've seen it time and time again in my career in IT. Don't always make yourself popular by saying it though. People don't like being told they are making "act of faith" decisions even when its clear that they have no alternative.

 

If you look at the railways brought together at the Grouping those brought into the new GWR were quite negligible when weighed against the size of the old GW. It did not have to produce a new identity and was certainly not in so difficult and complicated a situation as the LMS or LNER. It would have been very interesting to see the outcome if the old GW had been forced into a partnership with one or two equally sized partners each with their own well developed traction.
1923 allowed Swindon to carry on much as before. If you think that they had a problem facing homogenising a combined fleet it was insignificant compared with that faced by the LM and LNE. The May 1925 GW/LNE interchange result may not have been the best outcome for Swindon. The GN Pacific was quite undeveloped at the time, it showed glimpses of what was to come - it delivered the highest power output but the short vs long travel valve issue had not been tackled, neither had that of broad ring vs narrow valve ring. The GW was quite content, rightly so at the time, but it could be argued that it remained content for too long.

 

But surely that is the "balance" of standardisation in that the machinery produces a constant (and predictable) performance and that - if needed - any substitute can be quickly identified if needed. Whilst the LNER constantly highlighted the prowess of certain classes on exceptional loads the GWR simply matched locomotives to loads and timetabled trains accordingly.

Whilst to this LNER fan there seems no good reason why the GWR had 3 mixed traffic 4-6-0s (Halls / Granges / Manors), although acknowledging the Manor was used for lighter lines, was this a part of the standardisation concept or simply a way to recycle 43xx parts.

In one respect the GWR policy was replicated by Stanier whose LMS efforts with the Crab 2-6-0; 5MT 4-6-0; Jubilee 4-6-0 and 8F 2-8-0 espoused Swindon thinking whilst his Pacifics suggested how Swindon might have progressed had it not been satisfied with the status quo that the standardisation policy engendered. In that context the Swindon dilemma is clearly identified - accept standardisation because it meets the traffic needs at an economic price or experiment and provide reserve for future traffic developments.

 

Both really. The 4300s were a bit prone to running short of steam when overloaded running fast and heavy trains, and of course trains were getting heavier and faster. A Grange took 50% of a 4300 and added a Hall/Saint/Star/2800 size Standard 1 boiler, so was presumably cheaper and quicker to build than a new Hall. They had new design cylinders with some Chapelon ideas in that seem to have made them better performers than the original Halls. A lot of parts were common to Halls Granges and 4300s. The Manor was a cut down lightweight version, which had to have a new boiler, bigger than the 4300 Std 4 but smaller than the Hall/Grange Std1, as at that time there was nothing between the two.

 

I think I am right in saying that at the time there was a tax implication, and tax was avoided by "rebuilding" rather than new construction.

 

You are quite right about the absorption being easier for the GW.

I don't agree that it remained content for too long. My view as I tried to explain is that by the time they would have been seeing that they should move on in the late 1930s the move would have been to a different form of traction. Without the war I suspect they would have moved to i.c. by around 1950, and their steam fleet could easily have provided them with sufficiently good performance without significant development.

I think the interesting historical "might have been" is what would have happened if the GW board had accepted the government's invitation to effectively become the BR Board at nationalisation. Could either have been a master stroke or an utter disaster.

 

No, not tax, and pretty much the other way, at least as I understand it, but certainly Government came into it.
I'm not sure this is the place for a lecture on railway finances, but AIUI various acts of Parliament controlled how they managed their money, and part of it was separating capital and revenue, and making a depreciation allowance for replacements into the renewals fund.
In the 30s there was a shortage of revenue and a need to save money on repairs, but the renewal fund was healthy. So by turning major repairs into "renewals" - which in this context meant something much closer to "make a new one" then "make the old one like new" the GWR could save money on the repair bill by using the money in the renewals fund for major upgrades of old locos into like new. And to be fair all these renewals, (yes even the Dukedogs), seem to have had a considerably extended lifespan against the locomotives that were simply repaired.

 

Thank you.

 

It happened a long time before the 1930s, only the GW could start out with a Broad Gauge 0-4-2T and after several rebuildings end up with a Standard Gauge 4-4-0 tender loco (3251 class). The Midland were also adept at accountancy rebuilds, the 583 class 4-4-0s for example must have contained very little, if anything from the original Johnson Locos they replaced.

 

Creative accountancy regarding "new" and "intensive maintenance" is alive and well in many diverse fields of engineering. It is not necessarily even a tax issue, just who in the company has what approval/authority to spend what from what budget - and how to use that to get the required outcome.
Also still very much a feature is that clients/management often just want an adequate solution to their problem and are not interested in paying even the slightest premium/investment for a cutting edge solution - although of course if it saves money that is a different matter.
After all, although I think Aston Martins are awesome, I drive a Ford Fiesta...

 

According to the accountants, Maunsell rebuilt these:



into these:



The tender certainly survived the rebuilding ...

Tom

 

I think its a bit more complicated than that. Its one of the things I've been looking at for the thing I've been writing. The way it seems to me is this:
The word renewal has a number of shades of meaning, but its definitely changed over the decades and more. I checked out some late 18th and early 19thC dictionaries on line, and whereas in a modern dictionary it tends to shade towards repair, in an early 19thC locomotive it tends to shade towards replace. The Renewal fund was money set aside to renew locomotives when they were worn out, so a renewal, all else being equal, which of course it rarely was, started off as 6ft driver 2-2-2 no 64 being scrapped and replaced with a new 6ft driver 2-2-2 No 64, and the new no 64 would of course be contemporary design, and the replacement value of the old one, which is what was accruing in the renewal fund, was near enough the purchase price of the new one. You have 64 locomotives on the books, numbered 1 to 64, so when the old 64 is clapped out you get a new 64. If a few of the bits of the old 64 are usable on the new 64, well, you've saved a few guineas...
The first problem came with lead times. You'd order the new No 64 when you reckoned the old No 64 had a year's life left, and a year later new 64 came out of the factory or off the wagon from Stephenson's or whatever. But maybe old 64 had a bit of life left, so waste not, want not, it got renumbered 64a or 1005 or something until it finally died.
The next problem was, after about 1885 or so you probably didn't want to replace like for like. Instead of a fleet of 40 6ft passenger 2-2-2s, you wanted 30 4-4-0s...

Umm, I'd better stop here, this isn't City of Birmingham. There is more, but if folk aren't bored rigid better ask for this to be spun off for a new thread.

Jim CHamp

[I've just come to a terrible realisation - as a life long IT techie, I've come to this, researching and finding not uninteresting stuff to do with bean counting... ]

 

This thread has become a lot more interesting since the diversion, but let's not split it off because that might encourage people to return to the original debate.

 

To study the Castle he had access to in 1925 and make improvements accordingly? Just a shame he didn't take a look then at the big end design would have avoided a whole heap of difficulties....

 

It wouldn't have helped that much I don't think. AIUI what Cook considers to be the really big improvements in the bearings and lubrication, felt pads and so on, was later on, 1930 or so. Cook seems clear that GWR big ends were not fully satisfactory in 1925.

[irony]Oh hang on, that can't be right: everyone says the GWR didn't do any design work after 1927[/irony]

 

I think what is often (and in some ways understandingly) missed is the simple economic fact that these were commercial companies, constituted to make money for their shareholders, not to act as the innovative breeding ground for their engineers.

As a GWR shareholder would you have accepted capital being spent on developing new designs if the fleet already existed to do the work required competently and efficiently? In the case of Gresley the LNER needed new locomotives to meet demands and thus he had scope to be imaginative (much as Churchward had been in a similar position from c.1902 to c.1920), whilst later at the SR Bulleid had the opportunity in wartime to get new developments approved by the Executive, different era's and different economic realities.

As touched upon above much of this relates back to the innovation of Churchward and his willingness of study other worldwide methods and techniques between c.1900 and 1920, this left the GWR in a strong position on his departure, however strangely the other companies don't seem to get a similar criticism for the 'stagnation' of their design and innovation between 1900 and 1920?

 

Thanks for the clarification, my mistake, I was of the impression that the drawing office at Swindon just sat around drinking tea between 1927 and 1948......