LBSCR and GWR valve gear?

According to GWR Loco Committee minutes, on 7th October 1907 the GWR locomotive committee authorised the sale of a model of locomotive valve motion to the LBSCR for £130*. This was no trivial sum at the time - a second hand locomotive was sold at the same time for £500. I wonder why the LBSCR wanted it? It would be interesting to know whether this was just an instructional model of something fairly standard, or, by contrast, whether it was of Churchward/Pearce's state of the art long travel valve gear.

* I originally typed 150. Corrected.

 

I imagine, but I don't know for certain, that it was similar to the 'model' at Derby Drawing Office, used by the draughtsmen to calculate valve movement at various settings of the components, e.g. angle and throw of eccentrics, and at various stages of nominal cut off. Eric Langridge makes several references to it. As such, it wasn't a model but a fairly sophisticated working tool.

 

Without looking up for dates, but could this be in connection with (the then) advanced design cylinders and valve gear for the I3 4-4-2 tank locos?

 

Interesting notion. Doyen of the class, saturated No.21, was outshopped in Sept 1907, pioneer superheated loco No.22 followed in March 1908. IIRC, following the less than stellar performance of classes I1 and I2, Marsh seems to have been more open to many improvements from the Brighton DO. The name B.K.Field mentioned with regard to superheating (see link below). Is anyone aware of any among Mr Marsh's staff with personal connections to the GW?

https://sremg.org.uk/steam/i3class_01.html

As a landmark design in British design, an I3 really should've been preserved (even if an I1x would doubtless have been more useful to today's Bluebell! ).

 

Er ... D.E. Marsh? He was, from 1881, an apprenticed pupil to William Dean. Subsequently a draughtsman at Swindon, then inspector of materials, then assistant works manager - an apparently unhappy time, as he didn't get on with his superior. In 1895 he moved to the Great Northern as Chief Assistant Mechanical Engineer to Ivatt and Works Manager at Doncaster.

Tom

 

Not forgetting that Douglas Earle-Marsh had been at Swindon before going to the Great Northern Rly, then on to the LB&SCR in 1905.

 

Aahhhh .... I was fixated on his GNR career and thinking of Churchward's "great leap forward", so Ta muchly for those!

 

Am I right in thinking that I saw this on display in the Silk Mill Museum in Derby? It's a good few years ago - I've been meaning to revisit but last time I was in those parts it was closed for refurbishment.
Pat

 

I can't say as I've never seen it, but Eric Langridge reckoned he saw it long after the end of steam so presumably it's preserved somewhere!

 

A foretaste of the relationship he had with his subordinates at Brighton. A deal of mystery seems to surround Marsh. Was the excellent I3 front end actually the work of the Schmidt company? Did he leave because of ill health or was this a device to avoid a messy sacking?

 

Good point. He seems to have been sufficiently well to become a consulting engineer on leaving Brighton, a position he held until shortly before his death, over twenty years later. A cynic might ponder how many senior staff worked for three separate railway companies within a decade.

As an aside, I think criticism of Marsh's record on loco repairs is unfair. The chaos at the excessively cramped Brighton Works, ahead of the opening of the 'greenfield' C&W facility at Lancing, certainly seems to have been a factor in sending his predecessor, Robert Billinton, to an early grave.

 

Difficult to tell at a century's remove. The problems at Swindon with his superior seem to have been as much on the other side as on that of Marsh. When he went to Doncaster, he was apparently well regarded, increased the efficiency of the works, and was liked by his colleagues. It was presumably his success at works manager that recommended him to the Brighton board of directors; sadly he seems to have got off on the wrong foot in what was undoubtedly a difficult situation. Whatever his methods of works improvement had been at Doncaster, they didn't seem to flourish in the sea air.

Interestingly, in the 1930s the sons of both DE Marsh and Basil Field - the LBSCR Chief Draughtsman - were apprentices together at Swindon. Marsh's son apparently confirmed in a conversation that the front end design of the I3s was the work of BK Field - long suspected, but always denied by Marsh who was of the view that the superlative performance of the I3s was only down to the superheating, and nothing else. (A point somewhat disproven by the poor performance of the superheated I4s ...) The superheater company, under Dr Schmidt, seemingly did a lot of the design work on the boiler (specifically the tube layout), and also assisted with precise details of the valve gear layout. Altogether, the design seems to own a lot to others, but then to a degree that is consistent with the then role of a CME, which was about far more than just designing engines.

There were certainly plenty of rumours flying round. In his biography, Klaus Marx relates a personal conversation he had had with Don Bradley asserting that Bradley had seen Brighton Board correspondence to the effect of "you either retire or we demand your resignation". Sadly (or perhaps happily, in some ways) the material no longer seems to exist, probably having been dumped when Brighton works was cleared.

Tom

 

Here is evidence of Douglas Earle-Marsh's work in the drawing office at Swindon. Page 162 of volume 1 of the Swindon drawing registers. Douglas would have been 23.

Drawing number 5890. Fire hole ring and door. DEM 3/12/85

Interestingly this is one of only two drawings I could find as being his work during a quick scan of about 10 pages of the register, so he was not very prolific at the drawing board.

Andy.

 

Funnily enough I found two substantial old books when clearing out our office at Friars Bridge Court in 2019. The turned out to be the handwritten minutes of the Board of Directors of the South Eastern & Chatham Railway from about 1912.

Off topic I'm afraid, but strange things do happen!

 

I hope you saved them!

Tom

 

I am struggling to envisage any reason why in 1907 the impecunious LBSCR would pay the GWR £150 for a valve gear model.

The LBSCR never adopted the Churchward/Pearce valve gear at all whether the 4 cylinder arrangement on the Stars with Walscharts, or the Saints etc launch type links with Stephensons.

I've never come across any reference to this 'model' being at Brighton other than Jim's discovery.

And it clearly wasn't of any use with what Marsh and Basil Field were doing at this time.

This period of LBSCR loco design is rather strange as very little was actually novel and new and did not require GWR input on valve gears and certainly not for £150!

Perhaps the first instance of Marsh 'cooking the books' as Bradley and Marx explicitly allude to during a period a few years later?

 

Yes, they were saved for posterity within the company. They live in the MD's office now, which seems appropriate

 

You all really should get them duplicated or scanned, in case something happens to them (the way the HP archives were destroyed in a fire). Not the most important part of UK railway history, but they might have useful insights beyond the company.

Noel

 

Thinking about it I bet that LMS2968 is correct, and this was the sort of model that's a design office tool. Could they have been looking at longer valve travel? Did the later Marsh locomotives have longer travel than the earlier ones? The GWR would presumably have designed a tool that could compare the different link arrangements and so on, as they retained the older arrangement on smaller classes right to the end.

 

Unless it was Marsh's 'pet project' and model built by him?