Current and Proposed New-Builds

So what you are saying is that Drummond got the equivalent of a brand new top of the range company car, while Stroudley got a fourth hand mini metro, with stains on the seats, a hole where the radio used to be and a funny smell but with some fluffy dice thrown in for an upgrade for a company car.

I wonder what would have happened if Bulleid had been allowed to design his own personal vehicle...

 

Don't go there!

 

Some sort of Leader maybe? Interesting what could have been thought you've raised.

 

He wasn't allowed to but he did - the truth behind the Leader perhaps; nice empty cab at the trailing end for his portable armchair and desk

 

...And plenty of time to sit and use it whilst someone summoned another loco to tow it back to Brighton again after another failure out on the line...

Richard.

 

Half of a Leader mated with half of a 4-SUB motor coach?

 

Half a Tavern car, surely?

Tom

 

This is my idea for it

 

If you know of the whereabouts of a Cardean boiler, we'd love to hear from you...

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

Oh god, no!

 

The modifications to the 4700 are (or were) to allow main line running. The modifications to the County were in order to make use of an otherwise unwanted boiler, but in the end little of that has been kept, saving little money but retricting the boiler pressure to 225 psi. With a new 280 psi boiler they could have made slightly smaller cylinders (admittedly at extra expense) to fit the current loading gauge and still had a TE similar to that of a County at 250 psi or even a bit more. With the 225 psi boiler and the Modified Hall cylinders the result will be a TE slightly lower than that of a Hall, way below that of a real County, with cylinders not making best use of the available steam.

The effect on appearance will be nil for the County but barely noticeable for the 4700.

So I personally consider that the decision for the 4700's boiler was sound and the decision for the County's was a mistake, at least in retrospect. That doesn't make me an "opponent" of the County project, but it certainly won't get any of my money, whereas the 4700 may. Others are of course entitled to different opinions.

 

Tavern car body, sure, but it needs to keep the 4-SUB motor bogie so it can run as a hybrid.

 

It would be interesting to look at a drawing of the LSWR Inspection vehicle to see how many parts were off other types of engine. I bet it would be quite a few of them, stuff like motion especially.

Things that were one offs needn’t have been massively expensive as long as there were no patterns for castings to be made.

I think Tom’s figure of a little more than an M7 looks about right.

Oh and I bet you could easily get travel sick or have your fillings shaken loose on the Brighton thing.

 

The Brighton thing looks a bit like a Commode or a ladies bathing hut to reverse you into the sea at Brighton.

I would hope it would have the inside of a Tavern Car.

I can’t believe no one at the Bluebell, MHR or Swanage hasn’t proposed a new build Tavern Car.

 

Would prefer her pre-rebuild to be honest

 

Pretty little loco ..... puts me in mind of the Jersey Railway's first pair of 'Sharpies', Haro Haro and Duke of Normandy

 

When you compare that drawing with the later form, it is clear just how little modification Brighton did to construct the inspection vehicle.

Tom

 

Cylinders and the bogie wheels (very small) are the two things that obviously leap out as not having any equivalence elsewhere in LSWR design and therefore presumably requiring new patterns. The boiler is also very small diameter - I wondered if it could have any shared dimensions with the C14 motor tanks, but seemingly not.

The driving wheels are the same diameter as on an M7. Lots of other fitments - buffers, safety valves, lubricators and so on - were presumably pretty standard.

The other thought about the cost is to what extent that quoted cost encompassed the drawing office effort - I don't know the answer to that, but I guess it is not beyond the realms of possibility that that cost was in some way disguised under some other budget. Otherwise, the drawing office effort would be disproportionately high for a loco built as a one-off relative to spreading that cost over a class of many locos.

It does look like Drummond got decent usage out of it, since it reputedly ran a high mileage while he was in charge, including for a period a 120 mile round trip from Surbiton (where he lived) to Eastleigh every day - there are tales as well of speeds which, if true, might have made for a somewhat lively time! Supposedly it ran 171,000 miles between January 1900 and December 1912.

A couple of good articles here:

http://www.wirralmodelengineeringsociety.co.uk/Articles/The Bug pt1.pdf
http://www.wirralmodelengineeringsociety.co.uk/Articles/The Bug pt11.pdf

Tom

 

The question I have is where was it kept at Surbiton. Was there a shed there? I sort of imagine Drummond having a personal branch to his house and it being kept in a shed in his garden like Lord Belbrough.

Or under a false hill like Batman, or Thunderbirds. Drummond sliding down a pole to get to the shed.

 

I would guess that The Bug was based at Nine Elms Loco. The interesting bit is when you consider that it probably worked chimney first if at all possible. I think the nearest table was Woking. There must have been some system for letting the crew know whither they were bound, so that they could pick the Old Man up while facing correctly. Did they work saloon first from Nine Elms to Surbiton and chimney first back to Nine Elms Works? Nine Elms - Surbiton - Eastleigh was easy, of course.
Pat