BR Locos that are still overseas

Well, there's a blessing, at least. ;-)
Ugly brutish things with hardly any relevance to UK, I can't understand why anyone likes them...

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Locomotives that are under seas are another category. There are the feted 8fs on the SS Thistlegorm, and also somewhere in the Irish Sea. There's a well known wreck called the St Chamond off Cornwall, which some sources suggest was carrying RODs, but most don't identify at all, and there are 8 ex GWR Armstrong Goods somewhere (in the english channel according to RCTS) which would be the only "surviving" Armstrong locomotives!

 

Yes, very off topic - it's meant to be able British locos overseas, not under the sea!

 

The British-built "Liberation" 2-8-0s, a heavyweight version of the WD for Continental service, could also be seen as challengers in the "brutish" department.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Class

 

How similar is the Liberation to the SNCB's American Type 29s? The vital stats aren't far apart.

 

There are, of course, bloody hundreds of USATC S100s and Yugo Type 62s about, not to mention the Polish TKH derivative - all absolutely horrendous monstrosities. An eternal curse on Howard G Hill for imposing these wretched engines on the world!

 

I imagine those fighting in WW2 had the opposite opinion.

Keith

 

Where? Please be specific.
Ray.

 

Here: http://www.project62.co.uk/locolocation.htm
John

 

Is there any reason why the 57xx, for example, could not have been a standard WD shunter? And then they carried on making the blasted things postwar, at least in Yugoslavia (and Swindon, in 15xx form)... short wheelbase with large overhangs + big outside cylinders is a recipe for a horrendous ride. Could have been a lot better as a 2-6-2T...

 

US manufacturing capability would have had a lot to do with it. The American manufacturers could turn out locos by the hundred and hardly break a sweat; the same would simply not have been possible in the UK with all the other pressure of work and the fact that the factories were still vulnerable to German raids.

As for ride quality - it was a shunting loco, so who cares? Designed to be able to run on rough track, round sharp bends, with maximum adhesion, like generations of dock shunters before. A 2-6-2T would have been a fundamentally different loco. The suitability or otherwise for latter day use on heritage railways I doubt came very far up the priority list ...

Tom

 

As Tom says plus Colonel Hill would not have agreed to specify something like the 57xx (and the wheelbase would have been too long - Bulleid rejected WD Austerities because of that and took the USA locos), but insisted on something more familiar to US loco mfrs. You may have read Hill's article in the Dec 64 Trains, in which he recalls Major Hart Davies of the RE initially wanted a repeat order of the WW1 2-8-0 Pershings, when he came shopping for what resulted in the "S200s", but Hill persuaded him to consider a more modern 2-8-2 design. Incidentally, I think they were too large for the UK loading gauge at 13'6" high and 10ft wide. The D59s were a development of the S200 with cast delta truck but prior to that around 660 AWDs and CWDs had been built for the Sub-continent to a nearly identical design.

Sounds like you should get my latest book, which covers all these types plus the Belgian 29s (Chinese KD7, Mexican GR28), plus the S160s, and much much more.

https://www.tynedale-publishing.com/shop/locomotives-of-china-the-foreign-locos

 

Do you have personal experience of riding on the 15xx?

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This was the Americans' idea of a real shunting engine. An 0-6-0 "light switcher" with short wheelbase and 25-ton axle-loading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USRA_0-6-0

And for where 75 tons adhesion was not enough, you could try the 0-8-0 "heavy switcher":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USRA_0-8-0

 

The 15xx is possibly my favourite GWR loco. Remember seeing them at Paddington ca. 1962 and thinking real beasts. And almost modern

 

They may be of unusual design but they work, sound good when working hard and are steam locomotives. Yes I would prefer a couple of Bulleid pacifics but am happy with S160s

 

No, but one only need watch the videos of 1501 hunting and lurching, squatting and diving (especially when running light) to see that it's far less comfortable than a 57xx...

 

Wasn't the Austerity the standard WD shunter? I thought the USA tanks were ordered by the USATC mainly for use in mainland Europe although some were subsequently transferred to our WD as well as used by SR and GWR.

 

They are not that similar. The 29 is about 10 tons heavier, has bar frames, larger weels, slightly bigger cylinders, a worthington feedwater pump, air operated power reverser, air operated butterfly doors, etc . They do look similar but this is probably more due to the fact that the "Liberation" design was influenced by locomotive designers from 7 European countries (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Greece amongst others), who imho looked more toward the S160 and American practice for ideas.

Belgium and France both opted for different solutions (300 type 29's and 1340 141R's). Belgian Railways contacted Alco in 1944 directly. The reason for chosing ALCO was their superior manufactering capabilities. Vulcan could only deliver the Liberation-class from 1946 onwards, while the Type 29's could be delivered in 1945.

On the design of the type 29: In 1942 Belgian railways had designed 10 series of "Standard"-locomotives for post war development and replacement of older classes. In aesthetic design, 6 of the 10 classes drew heavily from the Type 1. Amongst these standards was type 107, a mixed trafic 2-8-0. While Alco first offered an improved S160 as a sollution, Belgian railways needed a more powerful loco that came as close as possible to the Type 107. ALCO's proposition then was a locomotive that would become the chinese KD7. This design was modified slightly to what would become the Type 29. The advent of 300 type 29's meant that the Belgian standards never came to be.

 

Hill says that Hart-Davies brought a Lend-Lease requisition in November 1941 for 50 locos for the British Army, to be duplicates of the Baldwin 0-6-0Ts supplied to Britain during WW1, but Hill thought they could do better than that, and came up with the new design in about a week. I count 382 locos in total based on known works nos, and a lot of these did go to the USATC. Hill notes that the USATC was not established until 31 July 1942 and the locos were ordered by the Corps of Engineers Railway Branch (although later ones were delivered with Transportation Corps plates).