What Ifs, and Locos that never were.

Tut Tut! I spy W.I.B.N. save there is not much "Nice" about it. You have got some locomotives to do up anyway.

 

I suppose the LMS Garratts did,at least, work and did the job they were intended for, the Toton to Brent coal hauls, the Leader didn't get into revenue earning service. Why was it built at all while Brighton were building exactly what the Southern needed, in the shape of Fairburn tanks?

 

Paul - you need to develop a sense of humour and learn to distinguish between serious and tongue-in-cheek comments! (Hint: check the smileys...)

Tom

 

Why not go the whole hog and recreate Brunel's Thunderer ? 'Owzat for educational benefit concerning the most significant dead-end in British railway history!

 

Or a Webb compound?

 

Needs a bit more than a smiley to suggest humour. Post 464 gets it right.

 

If then this

https://www.flickr.com/photos/31514768@N05/22113861248


and play with valves as the P2 people do.
Usefull heritage steam

 

The Derby 4 axleboxes are referred to as being undersized. However there are those who have argued that this is not the full story. In fact sticking to a story is remarkably common, rather like sticking to the description of Anne of Cleves as being a "Flemish Mare", a label that owes nothing to the Tudor period. So it is that you have to search a little deeper and be very careful with respect to what you accept as absolute.

 

Something buried in my memory is nudging me, but I cannot quite remember exactly what it was, something to do with the type of lubricants used in the axleboxes?

 

I wouldn't mind a new one of those, because I reckon it would turn out to be not nearly as bad as history sometimes suggests. Albeit no doubt a very idiosyncratic loco.
But I'm not paying for it!

 

I've been thinking about this, and I think its not actually true, and due to a misunderstanding about how the books were kept. Even Bulleid wouldn't have built a 5 or 6MT 0-6-6-0 to do the same work as a 2P 0-4-4.

The locomotive fleet was't expanding so money for new locomotives would come from the renewals account. Each loco in the fleet has a value in the renewals account, and when it comes to be replaced that's the money available.

My guess is he was planning to use the renewal fund money available for replacing the M7s for the Leaders, but I don't believe the Leaders were intended to pick up the M7 duties. I reckon he would have been planning to reallocate other classes to pick up the M7 roles.

It wasn't especially unusual for nominal replacements to actually be quite different to the locos they replaced. After all the required fleet is bound to change over the years. That must have been especially true on the Southern with so many steam locomotives made redundant by electrification. As an example, in 1925 the GWR board authorised the replacement of various 19thC 6'8 wheel 2-4-0s and 4'8 wheel 0-6-0s with 5'8 wheel 2-6-2 tanks.

Jim C

 

Deleted.

 

Very few new designs worked straight off the drawing board with no modification. A locomotive designer once said to me that it takes on average five years to sort out a new design and make it reliable and can be an expensive learning curve. I think he was fairly close to the mark with that statement. The Leader's never had that chance. It would be an interesting paper exercise to consider what design mods you would make. For me, the first would be replacing the sleeve valves with a poppet valve gear.

 

Actually, come to think of it, I seem to recall you're right. I think it was the tallow content in the oil used by the MR and early LMS which was the problem. I have a feeling Adrian Tester's book deals with this - It's something I've been meaning to get hold of for a good while. Cue another visit to Nick Tozer's Excellent establishment!

Richard.

 

I don't know to what degree the SR were doing their accountancy that way by the 1940s. The whole genesis of the Leader project seems complex. It appears that the traffic department wanted replacement passenger tank engines; the CME had material for 25 Q1s on order (during war time materials availability was a major factor) but no specific loco to build. What then followed seems to be from the CME's department a bewildering array of loco designs working towards a passenger tank engine (some of which were Q1 variants of various wheel arrangements); but behind the scenes it appears there must also have been some feverish work to come up with a more tightly defined specification from the traffic department that would also be acceptable to the civil engineer.

Finally, the specification given by the traffic manager in April 1946 was as follows:

Routes and weights to be hauled:
Plymouth to Tavistock or Okehampton: 256 tons
Okehampton to Halwill Junction and Bude: 256 tons
Banstaple and Ilfracombe: 325 tons
Exeter and Exmouth: 384 tons
Bournemouth and Swanage: 320 tons
Brookwood (or similar stabling grounds) to Waterloo: 450 tons
Speed of trains: 50 - 60 miles per hour
Distance stop be run between taking water and coal: 60 miles for water and 120 miles for coal.
​

That specification was well in advance of anything an M7 could manage. There is a subsequent letter (October 1946) from the Traffic Manager to the General Manager outlining the justification for needing to replace the M7s; though interestingly that letter notes that there were still 104 M7s in existence (25% working empty stock trains between Clapham Junction and Waterloo; and the rest on West Country branch and local services); the proposal in that letter was for 85 locos (i.e. the 25 already proposed, plus another 60). So 85 locos to replace 104 old ones, though the specification makes no mention of what the target availability was supposed to be.

The proposal from Bulleid when it was presented to the board in July 1946 was as follows:

In order to meet these requirements [i.e. those from the Traffic Manager] within the limits imposed by the Chief Civil engineer as regards permanent way and bridges, I propose a locomotive in accordance with the enclosed diagram.

This engine will have a maximum speed of 90mph will be able to work goods trains which are normally taken by the Q1 and passenger trains equal to "West Country" engines, and will carry at least sufficient water and coal to run 80 miles between taking water and 150 miles without taking coal.

The engine weights are so distributed as to enable it to run over the whole of the Company's lines, with the following exceptions:

Wenford Bridge line; Hayling Island Branch; Bere Alstona nd Callington Line; Rye Harbour branch; Newhaven swing bridge; Dover Prince of Wales Pier; Axminster and Lyme Regis Branch; Isle of Wight Lines, none of which is important.
​

Bulleid then goes on to discuss costs, estimated at £17,000 per loco if built as a batch; or £25,000 if just a single engine built; along with a brief technical description of the loco. The proposal at that point was still not what was finally constructed.

Tom

​

 

Bulleid could also have made a mess of a faster running Heissler.
A V2 compound engine under boiler and gearwheels from some heavy war surplus equipement
Cheaper and possibly a dead end as well.

 

We don't have any example of a 'double single', working or otherwise. Either one of Mr Webb's (LNWR) or one of Mr Drummond's (LSWR) would fit the bill .... though exactly how useful either of those gentlemens' designs might prove anywhere is open to conjecture (said he, diplomatically). Of course, if certain elements within the GWS get their way over a new '3031', all bets are off!

 

Its certainly noticeable that in 1927 GWR Loco committee minutes stated the specific classes to be withdrawn and replaced, but in 1947 the minutes said (of the 9400s) just that they were replacements for unspecified locomotives to be condemned. But the basic thread seems clear. The Leader was not intended as a like for like replacement for M7s, as is simplistically stated, but for a new requirement defined by the traffic requirement.

 

Talking about 9400 tanks on the Western, any truth in the rumour that they were ordered on the eve of nationalisation largely to lumber BR with something they wouldn't have wanted. After all, diesel shunters, which soon developed into the 08s were already built, the axle load of the 9400s put them into the red category, limiting their usefulness, the order was placed with RSH rather than in house at Swindon, making it more difficult to cancel. Finally, the GWR didn't want the amalgamation.

 

As Webb abandoned the double single idea, Drummond then had a go at them. Why?