Heritage Line Loco Power Requirements

... but admit it Paul, they are a damned sight easier to oil around than an 02!

 

Good grief yes! One of the very few small engines designed with a real attempt to make life easier for the user. For instance, dropping the fire is a matter of pulling two levers. Presumably 82045 will be much the same.

Paul H.

 

If more are built then this would, I guess, be on a commercial basis, with very little or no volunteer labour. The patterns and drawings made by or for the 82045 Loco Group could be available (why reinvent the wheel?) but I would expect to have to pay for the privilege of using them were I to be constructing another 82xxx. That said, I still have a strong belief that it will happen.

 

Not quite, I was actually curious to know how many miles a loco would do before Workshop attention was deemed necessary, not referring to any specific case.

 

Well in that case it's done on a case by case basis, where a number of factors will come into play, how hard it has been worked being just one. Some locos will go the full 10 years on our line without the bottom end being touched, others need an intermediate overhaul part way through.

 

If the records are used then on BR(W) circa 80,000 - 100,000 miles for the range of main types seems to be the norm with perhaps less for the smaller types. That doesn't mean dismantling to the last nut & bolt, but likely attention to horns, axleboxes, tyres, rods, valves, pistons & valve gear. Boilers seemed to vary with some doing even twice that before being taken off the frames.
That is main works attention not that given at the local workshops.
Pres era experience suggests that well rebuilt locos will achieve that mileage but the boiler 10 yearly strip down often dictates when other work also takes place.
Valves & pistons usually need examination and most likely new rings at 20 - 25,000 miles with valves needing a rebore at 40 - 50,000 miles.
Tyre turning is very largely dependant on the type of line on which the loco is regularly used.

 

All that remains of Taw Valleys old boiler is the outer crown sheet and ring for back tubeplate. Not much else.

 

Only time will tell but I cannot see a sound financial incentive for any commercial organisation to take this on as some sort of investment. Nobody is going to manage and fund such an exercise as a hobby.

Resources for steam loco work are at best overstretched as it is currently.

 

Tyre turning is very largely dependant on the type of line on which the loco is regularly used.

.... or as the NYMR have discovered, how good the railway's flange lubricators are. The Q6's wheels are being re-tyred because they have started to wear hollow. Previously it was the condition of the flanges that dictated the need for turning but with new flange lubricators they are seeing very little flange wear.

 

that's because there are too many locos preserved for the work available. Hence my belief that a proportion of those in the queue will become permananent museum exhibits.

 

Your inference is wrong Paul. The choice of the Brighton Atlantic was perfectly reasonable. A lot of applicable parts already available (together with a boiler? How often does that happen?) to run on a line which has rolling stock applicable and other locomotives to complement it, and a great amount of desire and determination.

You've been told many times before Paul, but your stubbornness to accept there are different situations available is a total nonsense.

 

I have heard 30,000 miles as being the figure for certain work - value and piston exam, for example, and a 'good check over' of bearings etc. on all the motion but I know locos are doing much more and the figures @1472 quotes sound more like reality for major mechanical work.

I was told that doing full internal and external boiler exams at 7 years would bring mechanical and boiler work in line at the same time, but of course that depends what annual mileage a loco does. The well respected engineer I referred to above was clear that a well maintained loco could do in excess of 12,000 miles a year without harm, others engineer have said as little as 7,000 miles, but a target of around 9,000 to 10,000 seems to be seen as not detrimental to long term health, with the ability to do more but preferably not every year. Of course, on one level, a locomotive to a tool to do a job and if it needs to run 14,000 miles to do that job one year, so be it, but all concerned (including accountants!) must accept there could well be a cost in terms of downtime and actual £ notes!

Of course, it also depends on what that work is - where, the loads, the gradients etc.! It also depends, a @Jamessquared has indicated, it also depends on the loco, with more modern types seeming to be less affected by higher mileages, and also the 'hammer' the owner is willing to accept and able to keep on top of maintenance for.

Steven

 

Mileage between overhauls I always find interesting - I get the sense for many enthusiasts, they just see a loco out-shopped, mentally add ten years to that figure and forget about mechanical wear and tear - and then get surprised if a loco has to be withdrawn after 7 or 8 years. Ideally, you'd want a loco to need a heavy mechanical round about when it needs the boiler removed anyway, but that I suspect means that whereas an average of 8 or 9,000 miles per year may be quite attainable for a BR standard, it would be beyond the realms of possibility for, say, a Terrier.

I've got mileage figures on the Bluebell back to 1960, and though I haven't analysed them in detail, I get the distinct impression that our locos run much higher annual mileages now. For many years, there were probably 8 or 10 locos available to cover maybe 20,000 annual miles, so locos would run in the region of 15 - 25,000 miles between overhauls; and turning them round was relatively simple. (At the same time, of course, much effort was going on to restore Barry wrecks). Now we are running perhaps 35 - 38,000 miles per year with (once locos like Baxter are removed from the equation) maybe 6 or 7 locos available, so the mileage between overhauls is correspondingly more. For three of the last four years, the Wainwright H class (now well over 100 years old) has covered more than 9,000 miles, but I can't imagine that it can do 80-90,000 miles over ten years - so either it won't last ten years, or we will have to scale back the annual mileage, or it will require a major overhaul next time round. By way of contrast, Camelot (BR Std 5) did 11,500 last year, but should be able to handle that level of use with less impact.

Hence my comment very early in this thread about there being an interesting balance to be struck over how many locos you actually need available. If your peak traffic requirement is, say, 4 locos, then are you better off with say 5 or 6 available, or 8 or 9 and doing smaller mileages but wearing them out less? Certainly I can think of some railways that seem to be running with maybe only 1 or 2 more than the peak service requires, which is fine but leaves you very exposed to a single unplanned failure (as Swanage have recently seen to their cost).

Tom

 

I don't understand that... AIUI the components wear in use, and for a good number of components mileage run is a significant indicator of the wear. So, given an optimal maintenance regime, if you do 2,000 miles a year you get 2,000 miles a year of wear/harm, and if you do 20,000 miles a year then you get 20,000 miles a year of wear/harm, and at some point the locomotive must be taken out of service for the wear to be rectified. I don't think I see, in the long term, that it matters that much whether your 20,000 miles of wear a year has to be resolved on one locomotive every five years or on four locomotives every twenty years (with considerable obvious caveats about maintenance of other components where mileage is not the key indicator).

I suppose it depends on how much maintenance need accrues that is not mileage related. And that in turn is going to depend a lot on your facilities. As a simple example, stock that only comes out into the sun and rain when it is actually running services is going to require a lot less maintenance of the paint and weatherproofing than stock that lives outside 24*7.

 

Some rare survivals would probably be better kept as museum exhibits. Space on many lines is at a premium of course, but there does seem to be a trend to provide undercover accomodation, which will improve matters in many instances.

Although it raises a very valid point, the premise that there are 'x' number of locos which have little or no present prospect of gainful employment is in any case somewhat simplisitc. Reasons which prevent restorations can (and do) change. So long as the turnover of locos which have at some point been restored to use leaves those dropping off the active roster in better condition than before initial restoration, the question is one of adequate storage. Where a current ownership has, for whatever reason, meant a loco lying around unrestored, it's worth noting that people are as susceptible to the ravages of time as locos. In the meantime, the issue again is storage.

 

While I don't necessarily disagree that there are more locos preserved than there is currently viable levels of work for (define 'viable'!), the fact is many Railways are short of serviceable steam locomotives.

I suspect the reality is that emotive and financial issues provide the background to this seeming contradiction - and the sense that 'enough is never enough' which means there are a very few places with more than sufficient serviceable locos but they are understandably reluctant to lend any out, especially for more than 'Gala' visits.

Steven

 

My opinion, for what its worth. I think 82045 is a great choice of loco and the work being done on it is tremendous, well done to all concerned. I also think the same about Beachy Head, its appropriate to the line, a gap in preservation (as is 82045) and large components like the boiler were available

 

@Jimc - I was convinced that I had typed '....a well maintained loco could do excess of 12,000 miles per year without undue harm', which is certainly what I meant to say! Turn it round, and note the phrase 'well maintained, what was being said (and not by me, but my a former Regional CME at BR) was that the maintenance required to keep a loco in good order should be manageable by the heritage sector at mileages in excess of 12,000 per annum.

The dilemma that Tom highlights is that on one hand having more locomotives available provides greater 'insurance' against failure and the unexpected but also reduced the amount of work available for each one. 'Great' is probably the reaction of those maintaining them but when economics come into it, questions of viability arise! Sadly, a considerable element of the work involved in any overhaul (and all are different) is likely to not be directly linked to usage. The obvious examples are the time spent and consumables used in dismantling and reassembling a loco - motion, etc. is unlikely to require no attention, while the boiler has to be stripped and probably lifted (wide firebox maybe not!) for that full internal and external exam at least every 10 (possible 11) years and perhaos more frequent (there are mechanical/usage wear factors on boilers, not just the 'mythical' '10 year ticket').

The other factor is that many overhauls undertaken in recent years and probably for some locos for years to come involve a considerable element of repair for 'wear and tear' going back over long period - into BR days. As previously stated, the expert view was that boiler's 'life' is about 40 years. No matter what use has been made in the last 10, if that is up, major work (and hence expenditure) is required. Depending on how this is funded, it may be that 'use less - last longer' is an option for the future, but how many people would spend say £500k and then not look for a return on the investment?

The number of locos needed compared with diagrams is not perhaps difficult to work out but I would suggest there is no general rule. For a railway running one loco at a time, I would suggest you need 3 - 1 in use, 1 spare, but when that 1 is on washout/repair, then you need another spare. Likewise with maximum 2 daily diagrams (although you may risk a weekend only 2nd diagram with 3 available), probably need 4. I have heard the rule of '2 for every diagram' suggested, but I would suggest this become less essential as number increase. Depending on how long a wash-out takes and how regularly they are needed (i.e. can there never be more than one loco on washout), say 4 daily diagrams could arguably be managed with 6 locos - 4 in use, probably always one on washout/maintenance and one spare. 2 spares would be more comfortable but does any railway pay for a loco to be doing nothing and how happy are owners providing just 'a spare'?

The Jacobite covers 2 diagrams now for much of the season with 3 locos and diesel substitution seems to be rare. If that can be achieved without a fully equipped depot (but with a lot of work on the machines in question each winter in fully equipped works), then perhaps 'lots of spares' are not really needed where full depot facilities exist?

Dives for cover.......................

....but first, a couple of questions:

1. What evidence exists that running much lower mileages does make genuine savings on maintenance and overhauls, and what sort of order of cost are these savings? (I don't question that less wear and tear must result, I am just asking what cost and time it it likely to save - 30,000 miles in 10 years producing an overhaul cost of £300,000 or 100,000 producing overhaul costs of £500,000 produces a very different 'cost per mile'!)
2. How frequent are washouts on most lines and how long do they take? How do volunteer lines resource doing them?

Steven

 

The question I was trying to ask was whether in the long run there's much difference between one general overhaul on one locomotive every 5 years, or two general overhauls on two locomotives every 10 years? You're still doing a general overhaul every 5 years.

 

Which is why mileage between overhauls is so important. Put bluntly, if you are running, say, 40k miles per year with modern locos capable of about 80,000 between overhauls, you need five available all the time to run the service, which means one overhaul every 24 months. Whereas if your locos are older and will only run 50,000 between overhauls, you will need either eight available at any one time to get ten years of use; or still have five but only get about six years out of them. Either way, your maintenance requirement changes from one loco every 24 months to one loco every 15 months, which is obviously more expensive. Which I suspect has much more to do with why BR Standards are popular even if a bit big, than any efficiency saving in coal.

Tom