Why weren't the Standards standard?

Hmm... GWR Cornish Riviera Express, LNER Coronation, LMS Coronation Scot, BR Elizabethan, BR Caledonian...

 

Can add the LNER Silver Jubilee and possibly the West Riding to that. Also to counter Hermod's "going uphill was awfully slow," Nigel Gresley said the secret to fast schedules wasn't headlong dashes downhill but the ability to go fast uphill and
he designed his streamliners to do just that.

 

that doesn't make sense. Streamlining has, in my opinion, two aplications.....at the very cutting edge of high speed or for publicity purposes.

 

I don't think that is quite what @Spamcan81 meant. "Design" encompasses more than just the outside appearance: if you stripped away the outer shell of an A4 ("a streamliner") you would still have a locomotive that had been designed to run very effectively up hill. So my understanding of his comment was not "he added steamlining so they went fast up hill" but rather "his streamlined locomotives were designed so that they went uphill fast", accepting the fact that the aerodynamics would be of minimal importance at lower speed. Good steam raising boilers and effective front end distribution of steam are every bit as much a part of the overall design as the outer casing.

Tom

 

In principle you're right but one reason that The MNs and WC/BBs ran so freely with 6'2" wheels was Bulleid's 24" stroke which minimised piston speeds. A four-cylinder locomotive with 18" stroke wold have reduced speed and all masses to such an extent that even smaller wheels would probably have run perfectly well. Remember what the 9Fs could do with a 28" stroke; OK, they thrashed themselves to bits at 90mph but with everything going at around 65% of that speed there would be little problem.

 

Getting back to standardisation, I think that far to much is made of the GWR system, which was far more a book keeping exercise than a shop floor reality.

 

I hope you've got your steel helmet and flak jacket easily to hand.

 

Paddington Exeter ca 165 miles in 2 hours 50 minutes non stop.Castles and Kings ca 1940 is less than 60 miles per hour?

 

Yeeaahh....no.

 

On t'other hand London to Newcastle 268 miles in 4 hours is an average of nearly 67 mph.

 

In this case is it the word 'Standard' meaning more of locomotive designs that could run anywhere over the former GW/Southern/LNE/LMS lines? In other words, a single series of locomotive fitting all UK mainland lines, rather than commonality between themselves.

 

I'd be interested to see his evidence. It was noted that at the time of nationalisation GWR running sheds could run with many fewer components in spares stock than the other lines.

By modern standards there was still too much individual fitting of components, too much skilled work required and too little mass production of components that were interchangeable without skilled intervention, but that was how things were when skilled labour was cheaper and automated manufacture more expensive.

I find myself, against my will, being drawn towards looking at financial records... I wonder how the breakdown of costs for a new locomotive worked out, and where the serious money was spent. I wonder how expenditure worked out over the locomotive's lifetime. Its recorded, for example, that the cost of lubricating oil was a sufficiently large item to be reported to the GWR directors as a separate item. Its also clear that lubrication was a key R&D concern on the GWR. Lubricating oil consumption tended to increase with reductions in water and coal consumption, I wonder where the crossover points were at different points in history. Then there's machinery. I've looked at GWR locomotive committee minutes, and at every meeting it seems they were approving the purchase of this or that large machine tool, sometimes at eye-watering prices. I start wondering where the returns and cost benefits were if they had introduced even more precision manufacture of standard components... But its all an area that Collett and Cook seem to have been keenly focussed on.

‘Vae, puto calculo fio’ as the Emperor Vespasian nearly said...

Jim Champ

(Vespasian (not one of the mad emperors) was a notorious joker, and his last words are reported as ‘Vae, puto deus fio’ - 'Oh dear, I think I'm becoming a god', referring to the roman habit of deifying dead emperors. Puto calculo fio (probably with the grammar needing correction) would be I think I'm becoming an accountant.)

 

Was it a special or everyday and with how much load and when?.Just curious

 

LNER 'Silver Jubilee' train, running weekdays 1935 to 1939. Film to prove it.

 

The Great Western could get away with fewer spares because they had a surplus of everything else, Locomotives, Man Power and facilities, this is why GWR tollerances were tighter than others, there was always spare capacity. Once things were 'outside the box' things went awry. If we look at a couple of 'recent' examples. In 1974 a Hall class loco, built from GWR 'Standard' components was removed from Barry Scrapyard in order to be converted into a 'Saint'. In 1990 a group of engineers in the North East put a piece of paper on a table and decided to build a 'built from very non standard' components, none of which actually existed at the time Peppercorn A1 class loco, It's now 2017 and 'Tornado' has genuinely 'been there, seen it, done it and got the Tee shirt' but 'Lady of Legend'.......................?

 

Ok, I'll bite, but mostly because I have no idea what you are driving at! Can you please explain what your 'recent' example of 1974-2017 has to do with the GWR.

 

Wonder if a 9F with low ash coal could have done it?

 

If you truly need an explanation then you really have proved my point precisely

 

Well, I must say that its in many ways an excellent example, in that it tells us exactly how much value we should place in your proposition.

 

Or indeed BR (Standard 2 & 3 tanks)