Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

Absolutely. It is likely that Thompson was more disliked by others outside of the LNER than within - example, Dorothy Mather disliked him intensely on a personal level.

He said some very odd things before his retirement, including a comment about Peppercorn "never getting the top job if he married her" - which seems distinctly at odds with the immediate appointment with his approval of Peppercorn in 1946 as CME. One wonders if this was one of his throwaway remarks that was meant to be taken in jest (given Peppercorn and Mather's differing ages when wedded - who would have time for work with a young wife?!) but we can't confirm or deny it either way, it's all speculation on that front.

What is not speculation is that Thompson was an absolute pest to Peppercorn during the war outside of the office: that much is certain.

Ringing at late hours, to discuss work, even after the working day was done, almost every day. At the heart of this - he was a widower who had moved to Doncaster to be closer to his work, away from relatives and close friends. He was lonely.

I don't condone his behaviour in that instance, but I can understand it, and it is very sad. This is a man whose house was bombed and he was living out of his office on a put up bed at times. In his 60s. Thompson was an extraordinary man and he was also very human. That's something which a lot of people overlook, either deliberately or out of ignorance.

 

It's a general point, rather than specific to Thompson, and is based on experience of seeing lieutenants to successful leaders implementing much more change than you would have expected based on their successful previous careers. Therefore, I questioned the assertion that "surely [they] will have been well aware..." because, in the absence of known information to prove the assertion, it presumes a level of knowledge of the new man that history suggests can't be taken as read.

 

Just one observation on this post, and his comment about Peppercorn. The 1940s were a very different era, and much more morally judgmental. In the absence of other information, I would be reluctant to discount the possibility that this comment reflected a view that such a relationship would have earned Peppercorn a black mark - perhaps unfairly given Thompson's support for Peppercorn's promotion. As you say, though, pure speculation.

 

I'd really recommend a listen to @Corbs Railway Mania podcast with Simon, it's well worth a listen and it might answer a few of the points you've made link is here

 

The key thing for the board though is - did they get value from their appointment? Reading this thread, and a draft of @S.A.C. Martin 's book (Sorry Simon - I will get around to sending you comments soon!), it appears that on several of the key objectives for the CME, the board were beginning to get that value. In particular, improving availability figures for the front line large locos; and a strategy for reducing the large number of (mostly elderly) classes for which spares had to be kept. Had he worked five years longer, those effects would have been much more apparent.

On the question of value : different boards will have different perception of value (and it changes over time). I recall a quote about Bulleid (might have been from Missenden) to the effect "he cost us a lot of money but we got our money's worth". The inference being that even allowing for the maintenance headaches caused by his Pacifics, Bulleid was seen by the board as a net positive to the SR. Had he taken over from Gresley in 1941 he may well have been seen as a disaster in exacerbating availability problems that were already rife; but equally had Thompson taken over from Maunsell in 1938 he may have been another slightly dour figure in a railway that needed "revving up". So value depends on the context; my sense is that Thompson was the right man for the job on the LNER in 1941, and was beginning to make inroads in their key problems.

Tom

 

You do have a point there, and of course Thompson was 61 by then. It’s all speculation though and probably unfair on all involved to speculate further.

 

I'll try to make time for that - thanks for the link.

 

It is probably the best bit of audio work I have done for some time, and is a much better medium than the lectures I have undertaken in a number of ways. I am very grateful to Corbs who put it together for the work he put into it. I'd love to do another one so we can discuss some of the new material I have found.

 

I'll look forward to part 2 then Simon I thought you put some very good points across, I think some of the correspondence regarding the 'Why do Bulleid Pacifics slip so much?' could do with having a listen to it.

 

The oft-repeated "Thompson Pacifics slip badly" completely ignores a couple of fundamental facts: all Pacifics slip, and the rate of adhesion between the driving wheels and the rail of the major Pacific locomotives is in fact known. We have a full table of these statistics given in some of the Pacifics books by various authors. One eye opener is the worst offender is the Peppercorn A2 - which given Blue Peter's slip in the 90s, probably rings true. There's no entirely sure footed Pacific in the British Isles, just different interpretations of the same wheelbase and different driving styles. Some will drive certain locomotives better than others.

 

I think that's fair. When you consider the aim was to build hundreds more B1s, L1s and K1s in particular, plus the development of the diesel shunter quite late on in Thompson's reign, the LNER could have looked very different as a railway - imagine only 19 classes of steam locomotive plus the odd diesel shunter and the 5500 pre-grouping and grouping locomotives that would have been withdrawn.

Again, fair points all. I think though Bulleid - in his defence - was trying to resolve the exact same maintenance staff availability problem on the Southern that Thompson was doing on the LNER (you have pointed this out before, actually, Tom, and I really liked that point because it rang true), simply by virtue of removing the maintenance staff from the equation (oil bath) and putting the onus on the crews instead.

No rush Tom - thank you for taking the time to do this for me. It's much appreciated.

I very much appreciate everyone's notes that have been sent to me.

 

I can't help thinking that we get over simplistic about slipping. How many locomotives out there won't slip given a big load, full regulator and full forward gear? Surely its got to have an awful lot to do with how well the available power can be controlled?

 

Yes, and a number of other factors. For example valve gear design will have an influence. The torque will not be even through the 360 degree wheel rotation. Larger differences between maximum and minimum will upset the adhesion more. Lead steam will tend to briefly reverse the torque from each cylinder. GWR 2 cylinder locos had negative lead in full gear which gave them an advantage when starting.

Sent from my SM-A105FN using Tapatalk

 

I think Simon you ought to qualify your remark here, rather than cast aspersions on Peppercorn. I don't want to go over again the 'Blue Peter' slip at Durham. To imply the Peppercorn locos were less perfect than the Thompson pacific rebuilds from this one extreme example is rather taking things a bit too far IMHO.

Cheers,

Julian

 

Hallo again Julian,

I feel like you are willfully ignoring the wider point I was making in favour of trying to hypothesize that i was in any way undermining Peppercorn's character, design, or whatever. Which I am not, in any way, shape or form.

In the extreme example Blue Peter's slip was caused by a multitude of different factors, including its low adhesive ratio, ranging from regulator type and how it was used to lack of familiarity with the type by the crew and everything inbetween.

The point I was making was that ultimately the difference between the different Pacifics adhesive ratios isn't important.

All Pacifics slip, all have lower rates of adhesion, all of them are driven by drivers who may or may not be au fait with how to drive their charges well. It ultimately doesn't matter which type has a slightly better ratio of adhesion: the difference in the ratios is by far less important than other factors such as the regulator type and the driver holding it. It's a much of a muchness and in some cases there is as little as 0.01 difference between classes. Pacifics of all kinds are lighter on their feet than almost all other wheelbases. The Peppercorn A2 had a slightly lower rate of adhesion than a Thompson Pacific. That's factual. They were both lower than the Peppercorn A1 and Gresley Pacific types. Is it a big deal? No, they were all pretty low on that score!

You keep popping up every so often on this thread with some new form of "gotcha" line of inquiry. It's wearying Julian, and it's not particularly fair. Nobody here is denigrating Peppercorn. Least of all - as an A1 covenantor of many years standing - me.

Do think before you post next time.

 

Which in addition to the above, rather proves my point. Ultimately we could play a ridiculous top trumps style game of "my pacific has slightly more adhesive weight than yours" but ultimately there are more important factors at play when starting a Pacific on a train without slipping.

 

I’ve often wondered to what extent the different design of trailing truck has an impact on the propensity to slip, particularly since that is an area in which LNER Pacifics are rather different from those on the SR and LMS.

In racing cars, the difference between powering out of a corner or sliding into the wall is generally a combination of chassis design, tractability (*) of the engine and driver skill; I think the same three factors all apply to steam locomotives.

(*) ie the predictability or otherwise of features like throttle lag, changes of torque with revs etc.

Tom

 

IIRC one of the factors affecting the slipping of Gresley Pacifics was the need for these to require starting in full gear in order to set up the conjugated valve gear and - especially around Kings Cross - the subsequent need to change to a lower position in order to ascend any gradient. It is therefore easy for drivers - familiar with the technique of driving Gresley Pacifics - to not change their driving technique for non-conjugated gear Pacifics with uncertain results depending on rail conditions. In many ways it seems to me to be the equivalent of the difference between driving cars with manual and automatic gears - or even between driving a car with 4 forward gear positions and one with 6 forward gear positions.

 

Not sure I understand that, starting in full forward gear being general practice. I’m also not sure what you mean by “setting up” the conjugated valve gear, since it is essentially a rigid system. (As opposed to something like a Webb compound with a slip eccentric where a turn of the wheels is necessary to get everything set).

I’ve got a vague recollection that the full gear cut off on Gresley Pacifics is not as long as on some other locos, which would make it incrementally more likely that you could stop in a position in which no steam can reach the cylinders on starting - can anyone confirm that? I seem to recall reading that the full gear position was in the mid 60s % rather than the more normal mid 70s. Have I misremembered that?

Tom

 

Simon, I hesitate to join in such learned discussion, but I think that introducing Blue Peter's mishap at Durham into a general discussion about locos tendency to slip is a complete red herring. Any locos that has the misfortune to be so badly mishandled as the A2 was that evening will get into a potentially catasthropic uncontrolled slip. 46229 did exactly the same at Dent in ?1983. Luckily we got away with it, but that was a hair raising event - the only damage was to the rails that needed to be replaced that night. I would suggest that such extreme events are sufficiently rare enough (fortunately) as to be totally unrepresentative of any type of engine's tendency to slip in normal service.

Peter