Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

The problem as I see it is that actually you are starting from the premise that Thompson has been harshly criticised rather than questioning whether he has - it's a subtle difference but an important one, and I think shows in your obvious dislike of Roger's book. He clearly was biased, but he had access to primary sources that cannot be discounted unless you are able to review the correspondence quoted and check that the quotes have been used out of context.

My own feeling is that Grafton's book actually does rather a good job of doing what you say you want to achieve, and again he had the opportunity to deal with primary sources, something you will not have. I'm not sure, given that fact, that you will be able to do a better, unbiased job.

 

If I may - that is my position now. I was in a different position six years ago.

My position has changed with the evidence I've collated. So that's not quite the same. You assume from this thread that I have always held that same premise and position, but where I actually started was, as with all LNER enthusiasts it seems, is to start from the opposite viewpoint of Thompson could do no right and his locomotives were all awful.

That has changed significantly to the point where, yes, I do feel he has been harshly criticised, but equally I feel he was his own worst enemy at times too. Perception is a difficult balance and I hope when I've been questioning the accepted viewpoints that it has at least made people think on the whole thing a little more than just accept that "Thompson was determined to rid the LNER of Gresley" - an oft quoted and misquoted sentence from a number of writers but difficult to actually justify when you look at the basic facts of Thompson's tenure.

I accept that to an extent. I am glad you agree that he was clearly biased though. As I have said before, there's some excellent bits contained within the volume but you cannot get away from the fact that Rogers' book over eggs the anti-Thompson line.

My primary goal with my book was to collate everything and present things in a different way, so I am not worried about doing a "better job than Grafton" - I am doing this differently.

Peter Grafton's book is excellent and he had the advantage of me of living in a time when many who knew Thompson personally were still alive and for the most part able to give their stories. But he approached the subject very differently.

 

I don't think Dick Hardy's account is inconsistent with the negative accounts. Other people have said Thompson could be charming when he wanted to be , and Hardy himself said he had nothing to do with Thompson's Pacifics - his experiences were mainly with the B1's and rebuilt B12 and D16's all of which pretty much everyone accepts were good engines.

I still feel the criticisms of Thompson are over the top, but the 'over-the-topness' is mainly from enthusiasts and few of them are ever going to change their minds. Intemperate criticism by disgruntled contemporaries is part of what pretty much every boss can expect - even Gresley had his detractors within the organisation, muted of course because of his success and standing with the LNER board. I recall reading one book by someone who worked for the LNER which absolutely tore into some of Gresley's design details.

 

Great post and precisely what I am trying to do. It is difficult to postulate this sort of thing amongst friends and family not so versed in railway lore. Far better to indulge and develop the ideas and trains of thought with people who might disagree but are like minded enough in their interests to understand and counter argue the points I am making, or hypothesising.

 

Precisely, I should probably have clarified my last sentence to encompass this point, although it really does depend on the quality of the available material. Halifax and Churchill prove this point, as does Mark Casson's account of how the Victorian Railway could have developed.

The issue here is whether we actually have enough detail about Thompson's personality to really get to grips- maybe a better approach would be to actually consider Gresley as a 'null hypothesis', and put the two of them in the same book. That way, you might have meat for a fair comparison, and a foot in the door for a standalone account of Thompson based upon findings. As such, I think there's two books here.

 

That's a very fair point.

 

Putting them here so as to not disturb the Fowler thread any longer.

Hartland Point was a failure with the sleeve valves yet led to the Leader(s). By comparison, Thane of Fife asa rebuilt A2/2 from P2 was tested for one calendar year before any more A2/2 rebuilds of P2s were authorised.

By comparison with Hartland Point, Thane of Fife was a resounding success - a workaday mixed traffic Pacific that did the work asked of it (accepted - not as well as could be achieved with a P2 but with much lower fuel consumption and no issues arising from the wheelbase. Its problems were to arise later in life).

Yet which prototype is the more criticised? Hartland Point, Leader or Thane of Fife? The answer bewilders me as only one of those three had another fifteen to twenty years working life.

I take Paul's point that there are some fair and reasonable criticisms of Thompson. The contrast between his treatment and Bulleid is still in my view curious at times.

 

Were *any* of Bulleids locomotives (as built) as good as Thompson's B1?

 

Define 'good'. I can think of ways that could be answered either way, without necessarily actually dealing with the question!

Sent from my GT-N8010 using Tapatalk

 

I don't think there was much wrong with the Q1.

Tom

 

I think it's fairly simple (although I say this as a fan of the rebuilt Bulleids). For all his failings in execution, Bulleid is still seen as someone who tried to push the steam locomotive forwards. Unfortunately, he tended to do best when his ambition was limited. So if he did a conventional locomotive boiler, then you ended up with the excellent Pacific boilers, and if he needed to sort out a conventional 0-6-0 design you get the remarkable Q1. The Nelsons were not performing to expectation, so he re-draughted and re-cylindered them and they performed well to the end. He took one of the Urie N15s (755), which were generally considered second rate compared to the King Arthurs, and turned it into a machine that Nine Elms promptly petitioned to have transferred to them and started rostering on Nelson turns. Ultimately, you will not find Maunsell fans with a grudge about what Bulleid did to his predecessor's classes, because he genuinely improved them with quite minor touches. Some will complain about the aesthetics of the Lemaitre exhaust on half of the Schools, which wasn't properly designed and therefore had a net zero effect on performance.

Given free reign, things started to go a bit wrong, but he was unquestionably trying to advance the state of the art. Hartland Point was a much bolder experiment than Thane of Fife, on a member of a class which were all withdrawn by 1951 anyway. Yes, it was a failure, and as Paul Hitch says Bulleid probably should have known better (although even Chapelon was intrigued by the possibilities of sleeve valves). I suspect Leader had got too far to be redesigned to poppet valves and still built on the timescale he knew he was against by then, but if it had worked? A total adhesion, two cab steam locomotive capable of main line speeds?

That's my version of why Bulleid gets more slack than Thompson. He had bigger ideas and consequently bigger failures, but some of his successes were pretty impressive too. Who else would have built a Class 7 with better route availability than any of the Class 5 4-6-0s?

 

In terms of outright performance on the road, the Light Pacifics wiped the floor with the opposition, B1 included, in the '48 Exchanges but that performance came the cost of markedly higher fuel consumption so as 35B has already said, define "good."

 

Can I summarise 69 pages as:

Thompson replaced Gresley, who was well thought of. Designed one very good loco - the B1, two poor ones, the A2 Pacific rebuilds and L1 tank, then was replaced by Peppercorn.

The End

 

I feel that's asking for trouble!

I fear that's a rather unfair comment. As an attempt at humour it is quite lacking. The threads had some ups and downs certainly but we've also had a very interesting debate at times. I like to think we've all learned from it in various ways.

 

Not meant to offend. Got told off on a model rail forum a bit ago for calling P4 modellers "rivet counters" while I am happy playing with Triang and Hornby Dublo!

It is an interesting topic agreed.

One thing Ive noticed about Thompsons locos is that they were, visually, at least, similar to Gresleys, unlike Stanier whose designs were noticeably different from Fowlers, or Bulleids who were unlike anyone elses.

I would have thought that someone who wanted a break from the tradition of his predecessor would design something totally different?

 

Well let's compare. If any of this is wrong, please correct me. I have only compared steam locomotives - I am aware Bulleid did more for diesel-electrics and electric traction.

Thompson (new designs and rebuilds):
B1 (430)
B2 (10)
B3/3 (1)
D (1)
L1 (110)
K1 (70)
K5 (1)
A1/1 (1)
A2 sub classes (25)
O1 (58)
O4/8 (99)
Q1 (13)

Total: 820 new and rebuilt locomotives.

Bulleid (new designs)
MN (30)
Light Pacific (110)
Q1 (40)
Leader (3 total 1 running)

Total: 181 new locomotives.

Of these, there is no doubt that Thompson and Bulleid produced two excellent designs - the B1 and Q1. There's also no doubting the performance potential of any of Bulleid's Pacifics. I would argue that the performance capability of Thompson's Pacifics is also not in doubt - they were capable of pulling trains and doing so perfectly adequately - but like Bulleid's Pacifics, the A2/2s suffered from some potential design flaws which hampered their availability at times, whereas classes A1/1, A2/1 and A2/3 were better (though not perfect) in this regard. Bulleids Pacifics outnumber Thompsons by nearly three times.

Thompson produced the L1 which was let down primarily by wartime austerity and a choice of axle box type. The K1 was modified slightly from the prototype by Peppercorn but the finished product was good and worked well.

The O1 and O4/8 made the best use of materials and standardised parts to breathe new life into older locomotives and both classes are well thought of.

The Q1 is a mixed bag and is either a good exercise in recycling older locomotives for new purposes or a tank engine with limited range and use.

Class B2 was a simplified B17 and most sources argue made a mixed bag of a class worse.

Class B3/3 was a rebuild of a Caprotti B3 (Earl Haig) and was described as being an excellent locomotive by a number of sources. Its flaws lay in its GCR parts. It was constantly damaging its frames, I have researched and confirmed this to an extant. Its standard parts were put into the pool for B1s and it was scrapped early on in BR days.

Class D was unnecessary and a one off using parts readily available (Director cylinder block and valve gear) to rebuild a locomotive requiring heavy overhaul. No further rebuilds and a mixed result dependent on the source you read.

Class K5 was described in RCTS and elsewhere as a "good engine by all accounts" being easier for shed staff to work on than the K3s. However it was also a costly rebuild for a one off and I suspect rebuilding the K3s en masse was not an option - as new build locomotives more K5s might have been better. However Class K1 proved superior in comparisons and was multiplied instead.

All of the Thompson machines bar B3/3 and class D made it into BR days and the vast majority made it to the late 50s and early 60s. As did Bulleids, bar the Leader which was a project aborted before all three were rebuilt.

Thompson gets a lot of criticism for his Pacifics, numbering just 26 locomotives. This seems disproportionate to the mark he made on the LNER's locomotive stock. Even taking into account the L1s as a mixed bag, over 700 Thompson locomotives could be considered good to excellent.

All of Bulleids Merchant Navy locomotives were rebuilt by BR due to their known issues. The vast majority of the Bulleid Light Pacifics were too. None of Thompsons designs were rebuilt in any way, with minor changes to things such as their axleboxes (L1s) and some modifications to the setup at the major LNER works under Cook improving availability for others (Pacifics, etc).

To me, the criticisms of Thompson don't stack up as much as people would like them to. He had a job to do - and was much more pressured than Bulleid in what he was allowed to do (only using standard parts, only allowed rebuilds of certain classes to test ideas). He built some one-off prototypes and some were propagated, some weren't, like any designer.

It just seems to me that for too long Thompson has suffered disproportionately due to the extreme views held by the pro-Gresley crowd, to the extent his reputation has suffered despite - on the face of it - actually doing a not too bad job, potentially good job, in difficult conditions. Bulleid by comparison provided the SR with 40 Q1s which were excellent. The Pacifics were a mixed bag and cost the southern region a lot of money to rebuild through Jarvis' direction.

Who got the better deal, the LNER or the Southern? I know what my answer is.

 

The LNER. Another odd idea Bulleid came up with was the double deck EMU, the 4DD, to accommodate more passengers. Two were built and were not popular with either passengers (cramped) or the operating staff (took too long to load and unload at stations) The simple solution to the capacity problem at peak hours was to extend the platforms and run 10 coach formations.

 

But simple was also expensive - extremely expensive in some places (Woolwich comes to mind). I'll not knock someone for trying something out - provided they learn from the experiment.

 

While I think the question of the latter-day reputations of Bulleid and Thompson is interesting, I think you are playing slightly fast and loose with the data here to fit your theory.

Firstly as a small factual correction, it isn't right that the "vast majority of the Bulleid Light Pacifics were [rebuilt]". 60 were rebuilt; 50 stayed in original form to their end. So it is closer to say that "just over half" were rebuilt. The normal explanation for that is that with the quicker than planned demise of steam, the cost justification for the rebuilds disappeared, though I suspect that small on-shed improvements, notably to the reverser, also helped tame their worst excesses. If nothing else, it shows the business case was close enough that the rebuilds needed a long lead time to pay off; and the originals were, when running well, supremely capable engines that nonetheless had a wide route availability. Especially west of Exeter where, until their introduction, nothing larger than an N class 2-6-0 had been available on most routes.

If you want a design that was unarguably bad value for money, consider how the Drummond F13 4-6-0s were introduced with great fanfare onto the Waterloo expresses, and within months had been ignominiously shuffled off to night time freights before being "rebuilt", a.k.a. scrapped. At least in a rebuilt Bulleid, 90% of the original was retained.

More generally, you have characterised Bulleid by four locomotive classes, but have thrown in a lot of rebuilds and reboilerings into the Thompson camp. It is certainly true that coming up with schemes to rebuild and reboiler locos is a large part of a CME's work, even if less than glamorous. But I don't think you can claim the O1 and O4/8 rebuilds as adding to the positive side of Thompson's balance, unless you also include the redrafting of the Lord Nelson's to Bulleid's tally. In other words, if you are going to compare, at least compare on equal terms: either new designs only, or - more realistically - the whole body of work. In that regard, Bulleid's four designs of steam loco were only part of his output: you have to realise he was also involved in work on mainline diesel and electric locomotives; EMUs and making improvements where necessary on Maunsell's locomotives. All of that would need to be considered when forming a view about whether the SR or LNER boards got better value from their wartime CMEs.

I think really @8126 has summed up the situation well. Thompson was unlucky to follow a justly celebrated CME who had added dash and élan to LNER motive power affairs. To follow Gresley and then to be seen as - being charitable - a reversion to the mean was hardly likely to inspire the department, and once views form, they only tend to harden over time. Bulleid too followed one of the all time great CMEs, but Maunsell's specific form of greatness was different from Gresley's. When Bulleid arrived, he bought flair and pizazz to the railway - whether in the form of a bright new livery, or in vastly powerful new engines that, at least promised, better conditions for crews. Change within an organisation is always hard to do well, but it is easy to see how the CME's and Loco Departments of the SR may, after a period of trepidation, felt a real uplift at the arrival of Bulleid after the somewhat dour Victorian Maunsell; while at the same time the same departments on the LNER may have been somewhat deflated to find Gresley replaced by Thompson. Such attitudes then become hard to shift. The role of a head of department is partly to lead and inspire, and what ever his technical faults, Bulleid's reputation rests on the fact that he was able to lead and inspire those around him better than Thompson.

Tom

 

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