Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

On the other hand, and I have seen this for myself in one company that I worked for, you only discover the mettle of someone once they take office, and being able to blag your way into power doesn't mean that you would be good at it. I'm not suggesting that this was the case with ET, of course, before Simon discharges both barrels at me , just making an observation

 

The Peter principle...

Oh for sure. after all the politics is only part of the job, and if that's the only bit Smith is good at Smith probably won't make any better a CME than Jones, who can't do the politics but can design a decent big end bearing...

 

Like I said, while directly comparing things is difficult, I have no doubt the LMS applied very drastic economy to locomotive maintenance in the 30's and 40's and the LNER did not approach things the same way. The true measure of locomotive performance is profit per mile including all maintenance , fuel, water softening etc. costs , and i don't believe either company was capable of calculating that.

The key remains, here we are discussing the LNER, and the Thompson Pacifics failed comprehensively - the frame layout was excessively flexible, broken smoke box bolts and steam leaks needed constant attention , and due to the diligent work of the RCTS and Willie Yeadon the actual facts are there for all to see. Any fair evaluation of Thonpson has to accept his Pacifics were failures in their prime aim.

 

As an engineer, it seems that ET was a bit of mixed bag. It also seems from our discussions that his personality made him a bit of a polarising figure.
Some who knew him said he was by difficult to get along with others said he was fine.
I know that judging personality from photographs is not exactly scientific, but the few photos I have seen of ET make him appear less than easy to get along with.
Has anyone seen a photo of him smiling?
Photos of Gresley seem to show a little bit of mischievousness behind the man. Stanier seems to be positively happy. But Thompson appears as a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders and is not happy about it.
Of course I am only going on photos that I have seen and make no conclusions by it. But maybe it has been easier to think the worst of him when the only impression we have is that he looked like a pantomime villain.


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Well hang on a minute...they did work for a good twenty year period.

The Thompson Pacifics as a whole clearly weren't failures outright and they were highly capable machines when put to work.

I don't think anyone is doubting the frame arrangement for the A2/2s was inadequate but the flexibility there is down to the P2 design of the split frames between the front and second driving wheel axles (which became the front driving wheels on the A2/2).

There's suggestions that classes A2/1 and A2/3 didn't suffer the same level of maintenance issues the A2/2s did - and in any event the A2/2s biggest issue wasn't keeping the cylinders and frames tight (though it was an issue and a clear weakness - accepted) - it was the small pool of boilers available to the A2/2s that keep them out for long periods until the decision was made to make them standard with the other Pacifics and fit peppercorn boilers.

So saying the Pacifics were a failure in his main aim to reduce maintenance costs is possibly a tad harsh - their issues weren't just the obvious ones and it's clear from writers like Townend, who worked on them, that the A2/3s in particular were highly capable and actually quite liked machines.

The problem is - unlike other railway companies - we have no way of really asserting if the Thompson Pacifics were really as bad or as costly for maintenance. We have the engine cards at the NRM and from there you can see a small comparative sample of works visits.

But these don't go into a lot of detail and they certainly don't reveal the full extent of repairs. For all we know, the Thompson Pacifics went in to works more often but due to the separately cast and fitted cylinders, were quicker to fix so were in and out quicker than the monobloc V2s or similar, for example.

Equally they could have been worse to work on with three sets of valve gear rather than the 2:1. There's no way of fully ascertaining this though as there's no source I've found that gives enough information to make a fair comparison.

In any event his Pacifics numbered 26 machines across four classes, with sixteen excellent ones otherwise hampered - by comparison to that which came after - the front end arrangement.

When you consider the ten left, six of them being the P2 rebuilds which had many troubles before being rebuilt, and the last four were the A2/1s, which many consider underboilered - that's not a bad range of machines but clearly only pointing towards a future without conjugated gear and certainly not entirely the future for the LNER Pacifics.

The B1s formed the majority of his locomotive policy and numbered over 400. That surely is an overwhelming endorsement of his simple to maintain and build and run philosophy? Factor in the K1s and O1s - accepting the L1s as, at best a mixed bag - and the majority of the engines he introduced to traffic were of a very good standard and what the LNER needed.

But this is part of the problem. For too long Thompsons "failures" have been pushed to reduce his credentials as an engineer, to denigrate him. We do not seem to do the same with Gresley or Bulleid and that's part of the "are we treating him fairly question" that I've been exploring.

And just an FYI - in Peter Graftons early releases of his book, there are different photographs of Thompson including one of him smiling at a party. He looks a completely different person. We should remember he came from an age when smiling for portrait photography wasn't the done thing - and as such we shouldn't place too much weight on that.

But I agree, the perception of Thompson can carry through to seeing something in photographs that isn't necessarily there, because we've effectively been instructed to think it.

 

Out of interest, where does the evidence for Thompson's dislike of/vendetta against Gresley come from?
E.g. the idea it is connected with Raven not getting the top job, or with some other personal issue?
Is it all supposition based on the rebuilds or is there any more primary evidence of animosity?

 

So JF Harrison is quoted in several books and biographies as Thompson having this vendetta - and bear in mind, he worked alongside and also for Thompson during the war years. One such quote, off the top of my head (and away from my books) was "all the while at the back of his mind was the thought of undermining Gresley" or such like.

Dorothy Mather while she was alive was also critical of Thompson in this way, I am told, (though my brief encounter with her around eight years ago didn't go into that, she was more critical of his management of Peppercorn when CME. Particularly the number of times he dragged Peppercorn away to work on something).

Lots of sources have suggested a dislike/vendetta. It's interesting then that the few direct interviews with Thompson that exist - one of which was the OS Nock one I posted a few weeks back - Thompson praises his former chief but always caveats it with his criticism of using the conjugated valve gear.

This is suggested in almost every book on Thompson but from what I can make out from the sources on Raven which mention Thompson, Raven was not all that upset at not getting the top job - and if he was, his son in law wasn't unduly bothered either.

There's no doubt that Thompson and Gresley did clash throughout their working lives together. The two biggest incidents concerned the rebuilding of the D20s and its prototype details being released to the press, and another in a meeting of the major engineers (which Gresley chaired) right towards the end of Gresley's life.

However there is also evidence, if one choose to look for it (and this is related well 9in Grafton's book) that they did socialise together and particularly so when Gresley's wife died, and Thompson moved back north from Stratford.

There's a strange parallel between Thompson and Gresley in that both lost their wives before their time. Thompson however did not have children and Gresley did - one rather feels that Thompson supported young engineers on the LNER particularly because of this. That is supposition on my part. There is no doubting the fact that Thompson at age 60, taking on the CME role, was both surrounded by people almost all the time and possibly also feeling unbelievably lonely too.

I don't doubt that Thompson and Gresley had their differences on engineering matters, and their personalities probably clashed too - they were very different people after all and it's clear both Thompson and Gresley were set in their ways on many things. The idea it was a vendetta Thompson had though doesn't sit with me. Even if you accept the Cox report as being flawed in its results, Thompson was still CME and he was his own man. I look at it and I see someone who feels incredibly strongly that what he was doing was right - whether it was right is another matter.

But to me it doesn't look like a vendetta - more potentially arrogance on Thompson's part that he assumed he could fix certain aspects of Gresley's engineering without introducing new issues. That's the nub of it for me. I think if you truly had a vendetta, and wanted to tarnish your old chief's reputation, publishing the Cox report in the railway press at the time would have done that more than keeping it private and even not giving full details when prompted by, say, OS Nock.

I've been accused of wanting to see the best in Thompson - maybe I try to because the evidence seems to stack for me more that Thompson believed he was right in an engineering sense rather than it being about the man, Gresley, which is what it is made into on many occasions. Thompson was quoted as saying "he was the greatest engineer of our time" of Gresley which, whilst it was then served with criticism of the one thing he fundamentally disagreed with, seems respectful to me.

I don't know for certain - no one can - but it doesn't look as cut and shut as "Thompson wanted to rid the LNER of Gresley" to me.

 

At the risk of getting all Josephine Tey, someone saying something was in someone else's mind is inadmissible as evidence! What made Harrison (etc.) think this was in Thompson's mind?
I have close colleagues with whom I have had vociferous professional disagreements. However I have enormous respect and affection for them and would back them to the hilt against anyone else! But someone just hearing our disagreement might think there was animosity when there isn't.
You get my point.
Sadly, it is also sometime the case that because of the general feeling of "no smoke without fire" entirely baseless allegations against people become accepted on the basis of repetition alone.
I am not saying any of this applies to Thompson, I know little about it, only that to be objective you (in your book) would have to find a primary source for some snide remarks to convince me that any such fixed resentment really existed.
I appreciate many others would need an affidavit signed in Gresley's blood of undying brotherhood to convince them that the vendetta DIDN'T exist....

 

My point was not that the Thompson Pacifics were absolute failures, but that they failed at precisely the thing he intended them to excel at. You quote Townend on their performance but he in fact was one of those who highlighted the extra maintenance problems - if you are being fair you need to mention both comments.

Although some people do in fact rate the Pacifics as absolute failures. I personally can't see that, as you say the A2/3's lived out full lives and when in good condition seem to have been just as good as any of the others except the A4's. Even the A2/2's, much despised, have the odd good performance to their name.

But fighting over the exact degree of problems with the Pacifics is precisely what is obscuring his good work in other directions. One doesn't make the case for Dugald Drummond as an excellent engineer by trying to rehabilitate his 4-6-0's.

 

I don't disagree with the need to quote both, but the problem is being able to quantify exactly what the nature of the extra maintenance problems are. We've identified that the A2/2s biggest problems wasn't the front end weakness originally but the pool of boilers available to them for overhaul - which is what kept their availability lower than the other Pacifics for some time until the decision to fit Peppercorn boilers was taken.

We also can't quantify - because the information isn't physically available - whether the Thompson machines were more labour intensive or not categorically. We can see they went into works more often - but how much maintenance/repair work was needed on them? Were they in more but out quicker than other classes?

One of the things I've noted on other railways is that the mileages between major overhauls is significantly lower than the LNER machines, but they are into works more often. We can see the GWR brought locomotives into works at regular periods - hence lower mileages between classified repairs - whereas the LNER would only shop a locomotive when it hit certain criteria by comparison. It can't be coincidence that there's comment on the standard of tolerances and repair of LNER facilities compared to GWR ones (and Cook makes this point a number of times).

What I guess I am trying to say is that it's not as simple as they were definitely more maintenance intensive, it may be they were for certain components but not others. We just don't have enough information available to actually make that judgment. However I absolutely take Peter Townend's points and his word - they were clearly in works more often.

But that information on its own doesn't identify how good or bad a locomotive design was because it's never compared directly, locomotive for locomotive, in terms of all the factors (cost, parts, intensity of repair, etc).

I think taking the Pacifics as the ultimate example of how people denigrate Thompson's work is a fair point. If we find they were not as bad as painted by certain sources, then surely that does need to be flagged up?

No one here is arguing for a wholescale revision of the opinion that the Thompson Pacifics weren't perfect - and I think we all agree the A2/2s were the worst of the bunch. It's to what extent we then examine the evidence and ask if Rogers - who rates Thompson as being on a level with Paget (!) is correct or if Townend, acknowledging their issues but praising the A2/3s in particular overall, is correct.

 

If you start with the premise that the Peppercorn Pacifics were the best of the bunch, did what was learned from the Thompson Pacifics contribute significantly to their design? Design does tend to be an incremental process.

Sometimes one learns what to repeat, sometimes what not to repeat, but hopefully we always learn.

 

Very well put!
What's the answer?!?!

 

I don't know. But I thought the question was worth asking.

 

As a result of this thread I've just ordered and started on the 2007 version of Grafton's book, and I have to say that he puts up a reasonable and balanced argument in favour of Thompson, and it is clear from this the Thompson was a man with a complex personality, capable of flying into a rage if challenged by his subordinates on the one hand but also capable of acts of personal kindness and professional care of his staff. Since Grafton wrote this book in the early 1970s when he had access to many people who had worked for Thompson, I don't see that it is going to be very easy to revise this account - if indeed there is any need to - unless a treasure trove of new information is found. Is Peter Grafton still with us? If he is, I'm sure it would be worth getting his views.

After skimming through Grafton's book I found myself warming to a man with no family who insisted on being taken, virtually from his deathbed, to see his protege play cricket!

 

It's clear the roller bearing A1's were the absolute best in terms of maintenance costs. On the other hand by the mid 50's they were relatively wasteful on coal - no, that's unfair, relatively less efficient - because policy had changed and faster lighter trains were being run, at which the A4's excelled. So not only does the poor designer have to learn from his and other's mistakes and meet the demands of the traffic department, he also needs a crystal ball.

In practice, a batch of 100 6'2" unstreamlined but Kylchap fitted A4's would have been just fine instead of all the A2's and A1's, but that is with hindsight. And they would have counted as mixed traffic. The remaining A10's could have been transferred to the GE for the Norwich expresses and all would have been hunky-dory.

I'm not planning to take this any further - we've been round in circles and I'm not sure we have changed many minds. As I said several pages ago Thompson could have done a better job but he by no means did a bad job.

The personal animosity among some of his senior staff may or may not have been justified - we cannot now tell what was said or done that might have caused that, it is even a doubt whether or not he specifically picked Great Northern.

What is clear is that he was a far more rounded and complex person than some of the more nasty attacks on him suggest, and the idea that he hated Gresley as a person is without any evidence other than hearsay. Just because he objected to one of Gresley's favourite design features is not sufficient reason - he had an opinion and he sought statistics and external opinion to support that. It is unfortunate that he missed the contribution of the big end to the problem, but nevertheless surely he was justified in at least trying alternatives. Similarly, the occasional reprimand by a superior is not usually the cause of lasting hatred, whatever curses may be issued by the victim in the executive cloakroom afterwards.

No other CME seems to have been subjected to similar personal attacks or imputation of ulterior motives, and frankly it is embarrassing that they continue.

 

There's a lot of things Grafton may not have had access to in even the 2007 edition. We now have the benefit of the A1 Trusts investigation into the P2s and Andrew Hardys excellent work which puts the A2/2 into better perspective.

Not only that but there's countless new sources I've found in terms of reporting Thompson - particularly the contemporary railway news reports.

My book isn't aimed at adding to Graftons work or supplanting it - it's very much a look at whats been said and how it's been reported and whether the criticisms are fair. Think of it as an holistic appraisal of how Thompson has been reported more than an out and out biography.

 

I think Thompson comes across as quite unstable. Fits of rage and outbursts in what had become a heavily Unionised Industry by 1941 was not the 'done thing' by Senior management. He has lots of parallels with Douglas Earle Marsh of the LBSCR ex GNR. Perhaps your book should be titled 'the last autocratic CME'?

The D.E. Marsh reference neatly fits in with pete2hogs' comment about no other CMEs subject to such criticism - Marsh was heavily criticised. His only successful designs (of which there are few) show the hand of his chief draughtsman Basil Field.

Cheers,
Julian

 

Just to make it clear - (after I wasn't going to keep on but there you go!) I know other CME's designs have been criticised, but it does not spill over into personal stuff - indeed many of the great autocrats seem to get off quite lightly, even Webb (who was a virtual dictator at Crewe not only in the works but in the town as well!) It is the personal attacks and imputation that he had some sort of severe behavioural problem that I find embarrassing. I can assure you that autocrats still existed in many a unionised organisation right into the 70's - I worked for one. Rather like Richard Hardy, it taught me a lot.

Also, actually designing locos is only a part of the CME's job and not necessarily the most important part. The Stirlings and Churchwards of this world made sure nothing got on their locos without it being exactly what they wanted - others were less involved . Sir Henry Fowler is an easy example, but he was not alone. Robinson is another, somewhat surprisingly. He seems to have issued an instruction along the lines of 'get me out a four cylinder version of the Sam Fays' and then let the drawing office get on with it.

 

There are three stories regarding times that Thompson lost his temper - hardly indicative of a continuous trend throughout his tenure as CME.

Gresley has been criticised for being forthright and overbearing - sometimes unkind (see the biography on OVS Bulleid on how he'd treat staff) but would you call Gresley unstable?

This is the infuriating thing. The use of the word "unstable" was used by Colonel Rogers in his book on Thompson and Peppercorn and it seems to be used to help undermine Thompsons character without any actual evidence to back it up.

One count of smashing a window during a severe attack of jaundice (in wartime) two disagreements with staff around him that have been mentioned and that is apparently enough to condemn Thompson as unstable.

However if I may present one point in defence of Thompsons behaviour - because that is fair and the right thing to do here - where he's been presented as "unstable" by some there are others who knew him personally (including but not limited to Richard Hardy) who will entirely refute this whilst accepting he could be difficult at times.

That quote about the draughtsman is such a complete straw man argument and entirely without merit.

As I understand it all railway CMEs, particularly in the 20th Century, gave instructions to draughtsmen to draw and design locomotives to specifications they agreed.

That's how it worked in drawing offices, is my understanding, and it is true of the LNER too. Gresley may well have been more hands on than Thompson in some details but he would not have been at a desk drawing locomotives as you seem to intimate all of his time. As CME there are other duties which is why you rightly delegate tasks.

Neither Marsh nor Gresley or Thompson would draw out everything on their locomotives and to use it as a stick to beat down Marsh and Thompson but to somehow completely ignore that this was true of other CMEs is unfair.

 

I fear you protest just a touch too vehemently! Have you read the biography of Marsh? A very interesting picture of a person who would lash out under stress.

PH