WW2 locomotive building.

ah now you can't be comparing GWR and SR loco output like that and drawing conclusions. The SR also built a lot of electric traction which alters the balance quite a lot.

 

I think you have missed the point that I was making, which is that the economic calculation about the pros and cons of both standardisation and iterative design improvements vs new designs are fundamentally different depending whether you are talking about applying them to classes that number into the hundreds or not the tens. To take just one example, the LMS built about twice as many Black 5s alone as the SR built of every design of new steam locomotive they had put together.

Tom

 

well I believe the SR standardisation was second to none when you consider the electric units which were largely the same design with variations for certain traffic roles.

 

Yep, cash is king. Railways were/are a business after all.

For Swindon to leave behind their tried and true designs that were still very much doing all that was asked of them, let's say anywhere from the late 1930's onwards, it may just have been too much of a financial risk in a time of falling receipts. I get the feeling the other big 3 were always searching for an exceptional design that would make all the difference and turn things around in financially difficult times. Certainly there was some excellent work done but at what financial cost. An awful lot of money must have been burnt through on design, construction, troubleshooting, rectifying and experimentation. Take the SR's Leader project, (granted, possibly the most extreme example!), - I would bet the accountants would have loved that chunk of money back!

 

Cash is indeed king. But there comes a point where avoiding spending it is a false economy - as I suspect the accountants at British Airways may be thinking right now...

 

Lol, I'm a cheap b*st*rd at heart and I've been bitten more than a few times by the false economy bug myself! Sometimes it definitely pays to "just spend the damn money".

The crunch was definitely coming for Swindon practices. Nationalisation more than likely/almost certainly saved them from having to make any major direction changing decisions although diesel thinking had started - which does makes me wonder if there was ever any thought in Swindon that steam was ultimately a dead end.

 

But remember the GWR were looking into electrifying the lines west of Taunton in the late 30's but the costs and WWII got in the way of doing this.

 

An interesting difference between where on the GWR system electrification was perceived to be most beneficial at that time and now.

 

London to Taunton was in the frame I believe.

 

It pains me to say it, being an LNER man, but the GWR had justification - the Midland didn't.

The LNER had a very different organisation the the other groups, and was very tight on money. Hence the deliberate retention and often rebuilding of relatively old types to keep them in service. In such a situation standardisation is less relevant than for a company like the GWR (and the LMS with Stanier) that can afford to replace wholesale many of their locos. It may account for Bullied's attitude to standardisation (just an extra set of incompatible spares) .

Parts of the LNER in 1948 would look much the same, for motive power, as they did in 1923. Fortunately they inherited a basically competent set of designs from their constituents.

 

double post

 

AFAIK the GWR thought that they were best, BUT didn't they attempt to adopt 'best practice' and they were anything but ignoring what was happening elsewhere

 

Topography and loco performance I suppose. I remember reading an old mag from circa 1962 when the writer (Nock?) commented on a run behind a French electric from circa 1962, where he was struck for the first time that the constraint on performance was the line speed rather than loco, as would have been the case with steam. Perhaps the GWR thought that electrics could have run unaided over the banks at line speed? I'd be interested if someone better read than me could comment further

Patrick

 

The GW did and didn't. It had good boilers and good valve gear but it stuck with right hand drive, a poor braking system, inside valve gear and poor crew conditions. Away from locos, it stuck with lower quadrant signals, stuck to fang bolts for rail chairs and a host of other things that other railways had decided were not the best approach.

The Midland believed its small engine policy and frequent short trains was right. Others didn't. Interestingly, the current passenger train operations over the big railway are pretty much like this on many lines.

The LNER was tight for money but it adopted a policy under Gresley of building locos for specific duties rather than large numbers of a few classes. It stuck with RCH standard gangwaysand screw couplings instead of buckeyes and Pullman gangwys (but so did the LMS and, intriguingly BR with its DMU's, which is really another discussion.)

 

[QUOTE="D1039, post: 1834695, member: 1545"]Topography and loco performance I suppose. I remember reading an old mag from circa 1962 when the writer (Nock?) commented on a run behind a French electric from circa 1962, where he was struck for the first time that the constraint on performance was the line speed rather than loco, as would have been the case with steam. Perhaps the GWR thought that electrics could have run unaided over the banks at line speed? I'd be interested if someone better read than me could comment further

Patrick[/QUOTE]
I think this is right. The Great Western main line through Devon and Cornwall seems an ideal length for main line electrification:
the gradients begin after Taunton with the climb to Whiteball and then beyond Newton Abbot become severe, recurrent for 100 miles
with plenty of speed restrictions and junction stations just where you don't want them - in the dips.

Had it been electrifed with a good power to weight ratio, it should have been possible to improve both the timings and the general service.
And to get operating economies. Whether regeneration - which notably saves adjusting and reblocking the brakes -
was possible then with the 1,500 volts DC proposed I'm not sure. Presumably, though never mentioned, the stumbling block was
- and is - the difficulty with storm conditions at Dawlish but the new inland line to avoid the sea wall was suspended in 1939
and of course never built. If only they had put in the overhead for Dainton and everything beyond Newton Abbot and reckoned to go
further East later - to at least Exeter.

 

Beg to differ with your last sentence Steve. The LNER did use Pullman-type gangways and Buckeye couplers on its main line/express coaching stock. The non-corridor suburban stock still used screw couplings. I believe much the same situation pre-1923 too.

 

You're too right. I don't know what happened with my post. I was showing how the GW didn't necessarily do things the best way and intended to say 'The GWR stuck with RCH standard gangways and screw couplings.....' I'll blame it on cutting and pasting as I adjusted the text before posting.

 

As Anderson was in charge of motive power, that gave him an obvious entreé into design matters on the basis of what wasn't working in practice leads quickly to "I know what will work".

 

Oddly enough Stanier's Class 3 tanks weren't very good either.

 

Yes. It was a shame it didn't, though!