Heritage Line Loco Power Requirements

What about uneven Valve events?

 

The SR regularly ran them with two coach trains...

 

It's a good thought. I have heard this ascribed to lubrication, valve setting, Stroudley pattern counterbalancing, manufacturing errors and errors in the calculations for the balance weights. The last seems the most likely but who knows?

I don't think the Stroudley system is to blame, although it may make the calculations more tricky. Neither of the two A1x type I travel behind quite often suffer from the problem. A smallish Andrew Barclay outside cylinder 0-6-0t did although not quite as badly as a G.W.R. 0-6-2T which was a brute.

If the cause can be identified and readily sorted then it needs to be. It is unpleasant for all travellers and painful for people with neck trouble.

PH

 

They did indeed. Even more daft economically than today on five!

Paul H

 

Wouldn't look anything like anything which ever actually ran

 

Start in the deepest recesses of Cornwall with a spamcan and 2 bogies. Pick up 2 at A. pickup3 at B, pickup 2 more at C and pick up 3 at D. We now have a 12 coach express

 

At Exeter.
PH

 

Paul

You are allowing your prejudice to cloud your clarity of thought I'm afraid.

For example, one of the common single or double coach workings was a Padstow to Wadebridge local. The train engine started out at Exeter as the ACE, probably with about 8 or 9 carriages. It worked through to Padstow, probably with 6 by time it arrived, then hauled a single-carriage evening service back to Wadebridge, where the loco needed servicing. The train needed hauling; the loco needed to work back to the depot. Far cheaper using the available pacific on a one coach train than having a smaller loco steamed specially for the duty, and then working the pacific back light engine in any case.

Similarly one I illustrated earlier showing a West Country on the Cuckoo line: it had worked down from London on a large train, then did the two coach local as a fill-in, before working back to London later in the morning.

You have to understand the context of the working rather than just assume it must be unremunerative.

The other interesting consideration is what is the right balance between matching locos to their duties vs. having too many different types of locos. You can go too far in either direction. Craven essentially built almost bespoke designs for every individual traffic on offer, with the result that the spares and repair situation became chaotic. Hard to imagine that some micro-optimisation of the coal bill was sufficient to offset a situation in which the LBSCR had 50% of its motive power out of traffic at any one time for want of ability to repair them!

Tom

 

Possibly so. In much the same way as you are allowing big chufferitis to cloud yours.

PH

 

It's not "big chufferitis" at all - in fact purely personally, I far prefer working on small engines. Rather, it is just to make the point that the cost model of operating steam locomotives - both now and in BR days - is far more complex than simply measuring how much coal you put on the grate.

Tom

 

It isn't always practical to recreate the traction/rolling stock which any heritage line would have operated in BR days. Take the ELR, passenger services on that stretch would have been two coach push pulls with an LYR 2-4-2 tank, replaced in the mid/late 50s by Metro Camm DMUs, freight was LYR A Class 0-6-0s, later Ivatt class 2s, and WD 2-8-0s for the heavier work, some through passenger workings on the route between Accrington and Manchester, probably Black 5s or Standard 4s/5s. Pacifics would never have been seen on the line.

Heritage railways have to make use of what steam traction is available, and if some of them are larger engines than would have worked on the line in pre preservation days, then should they not use them?

 

Indeed not, it includes lubricants, stores and repair costs (including provision of facilities to handle large pieces of motive power, impact on civil engineering) etc. When the T.9s began to wear out there was no modern replacement , hence the absurdities described.

Now a modern replacement for the T.9 would have been just the thing for a present day tourist railway. Wait a minute, I think there must be an attack of W.I.B.N. coming on!

PH

 

Whilst agreeing about the lack of standardisation during the Craven era, it's worth noting that this was only one reason for the often chaotic locomotive situation on the LBSC. As often happens, the shortcomings of Craven's policy gave the board a fig leaf to divert attention from their own inability to take many key decisions which were sorely needed. Industrial relations also often played their part, right up to the regulated conditions of WWI, when they became someone else's problem "for the duration".

Standardisation aside, Stroudley's autocratic reign acheived little in addressing the many underlying problems at Brighton works, which were only partially alleviated by increasing the scope of repair operations at New Cross. Investigation of the post-Stroudley era reveals that under his successor, Robert Billinton, the board were constantly exercised with the thorny issue of loco availability, with quite unacceptable numbers sidelined, often left (well out of sight) at locations dotted around the system, awaiting repair.

Poor loco availability continued to plague the railway until Lawson Billinton's time. Even then, I suspect the issue was conveniently swept under the carpet when everything became subordinate to the war effort.

The Brighton site was cramped and poorly laid out, a situation which persisted right up until C&W operations moved to the new site at Lancing in 1909, years after Billinton's death. The board of the LBSCR had been dilatory (to put it diplomatically!) over investment in the loco works. It was realised as early as 1902 that the situation was untenable, which, when coupled with the pressure of having to maintain the company's marine operations, can't have done anything for the health of the overworked senior Billinton, which began to fail around this time. Like discussions over the works, responsibility for marine operations was only finally addressed at the end of Billinton's time.

None of this, of course, could happen today.... (oink oink, flutter flutter)

 

The Southern never had any DMUs. A bit later they did get the DEMUs, but away from the electrified lines they continued to use steam until either the routes were closed or they started to get the class 33s

 

Less insulting than bizarre. I doubt anyone on here apart from Mr Hitch would accuse Jamessquared of large chufferitis.

Is there such a thing as small chufferitis?

 

Did the Southern ever have any allocation of DMMUs? Every photo I've seen are always DEMUs, and I know that the numbers of these was always less than the traffic bods wanted.

There was a discussion on 'another forum' about plans to dieselise west country branches, which the regional reorganisation killed off, but of course, that's now no more than a footnote.