Sandringham New Build(s)

Apologies, the word I missed out was "why" "it was classified as a rebuild" (did the old capital accounting shenanigans still count? Did Thompson want to avoid accusations of building lots of new classes? It's got a B1 boiler, B1 cylinders/valvegear etc(?), presumably the new frames were B1 pattern. I would have thought it was better classfied as a B1 (or even a sub-variant of B2) with additional bits.

 

Hi Mike - yes I think it was definitely an accounting measure. They did the same thing with the K1/1, O4/8s and O1s and A1/1 too. If you go to the Thompson thread you'll find a lot of info amongst its pages as to why, but it was largely because the LNER drawing office were restricted by war office and emergency board measures (e.g. minimal drawing office time on locomotives, time maximised for the materials, machinery and weaponry to be manufactured by the LNER for the war effort).

 

The big end problems of the Gresley Pacifics etc. were largely eliminated post nationalisation by a redesign of said big end.

 

An interesting analysis. It may well apply globally, as 3-cylinder 4-6-0s were rare outside GB. I think the Irish B1a/800-class followed the LMS Scott/Jubilee cylinder layout. The Prussian S10.2 and Danish R-class had front-axle drive akin to the NER S3/B16.

In 1935/6, Gresley considered a design for a "Super Sandringham" large 4-6-0, which featured an A3-type front end with 3-cylinder drive concentrated on the middle coupled-axle. The proposal did not proceed.

 

Ashpan looks a bit shallow (but how many long-duration runs are there in East Anglia? Even if you stopped at every signal, Norwich isn't that far...)

What would you call a super-Sandringham? A Buck House?

 

The prussian S10.2 was ordered and specified by more or less the same people that also ordered some fourcylinder simples a la Claugton and fourcylinder de Glehn compounds.
The S10.2 had the lowest maintenance and repair costs ,was less fuel economical than the compounds and more powerfull than the four cylinder simples.

The danish 6feet2 4-6-0 came pre WW1 as two cylinder simples and after WW1 as three-cylinder with front drive.The two cylindered was causing higher track maintenance costs but used less coal.Both classes was scrapped mid sixties.

 

How were track maintenance costs calculated? I don't doubt that different locomotives had different effects on the track, but am intrigued as to how it was measured.

 

It has been written in some books many years ago.
We can maybe reconstruct the happenings.
For many years danish locomotives were constructed by a mr Busse that like a lot of british CMEs were to great to fail.
His last creation was some fourcylinder compound Atlantics from 1907.Ran like sewing machines, when they ran as they did sometime.
In 1910 he was sacked.The new brooms decided Borsig of Berlin should construct danish locomotives and they came up with the two cylinder Rs in 1911.
They handled the trains much better.But in 1918 Borsig was again asked to improve it and they made it three-cylindered .Heavier,more expensive and less powerfull.
It was known and accepted and the threecylindered were allowed to run faster tha the two cylindered were tracks were ligther,
the four years between 1907 and 11 would have been sufficient to evaluate cost of track maintenance and the decission of going threecylindered was hardly made for fun in a state owned system

 

Peter Townend gives a very detailed account of the maintenance and repair regime established at Kings Cross for the middle big-end on the Gresley Pacifics during the 1950s, in his Book East Coast Pacifics at Work. One very interesting aspect was a recurring overheating of the driving axle-boxes of the A4s, compared to all of the postwar Pacifics which had divided drive and were free of driving axle-box troubles.

Cheerz,

Alan

 

Unfortunately it didn't work, due to frame expansion in the long front end. I think ultimately a differential valve setting (just like on Gresley's conjugated setup) was evolved to deal with the problem. I don't mean herewith to denigrate Thompson's designs - indeed I'd quote P. N. Townend that the only things wrong with the Thompson A2/3 and A1/1 derived from the cylinder position. He does also criticise the original riding, but that was cured by revising the loads on the side control springs and applied to the Peppercorn Pacifics as well.

I do think the B3/3 was a rebuild too far - in contrast to the O1's (and indeed the B12/3's and D16/3's, both of which were essentially Thompson's innovation, though obviously Gresley's overall responsibility). Those were excellent.

Still we are getting into the Thompson vs Gresley debate, in which I seem to be fairly unique in believing both men had great strengths and also substantial flaws.

 

Altered as it was Tosh....

Is the 100a B1 / B2 b17/3 boiler parallel barrel or is there a taper at the firebox end.... ?

 

You mean they were human?

I dunno, I think quite a few people might agree with you; I kind of do (I'm not an expert on either one, so I wouldn't want to opine definitively on either's strengths/flaws balance, but I could easily see them being not too far apart on that measurement axis).

Noel

 

Without wishing to entirely disagree with you Pete - but - I have the LNER and then BR engine cards for nearly every single one of the Pacifics in front of me (only the Raven Pacifics are missing from my copies of the NRM's records) - and divided drive definitely did work, because the overall time in works and the mileage between repairs, and the mileages annually, were by far higher on the Thompson and Peppercorn Pacifics than on the Gresley locomotives post 1941 - which ultimately is the acid test for whether the change in design "worked": because it's about the amount of work the locomotives actually did that counts.

Besides which - having gone through those engines cards at length - the frame issues/repairs are minimal, at best, for the Thompson and Peppercorn Pacifics and the worst offenders for frame damage and replacement/repair remain the Gresley A10 and A3 Pacifics, by far, for their whole working lives.

I wrote to Peter Townend and provided him with copies of my research from my book on Thompson. I don't know if his views have changed (!) but we had a very good discussion by email regarding the evidence we have (existing in the form of the L.N.E.R. Availability Statistics and the Engine Cards at NRM York that have survived).

It's clear that the Gresley pacifics were massively improved, and closed the gap on the excellence of the Thompson and Peppercorn designs, by way of changing their setups at works for rebuilding in the early 50s (e.g. zeiss optical equipment for frame setup and similar), but they were still not managing the same level of availability as the latter two designers Pacific locomotives.

That's not a criticism, incidentally - you would expect locomotives of some twenty years older to be worse than those which came after.

Yes this appears to be true, but one of the A1s is reputed to have had an A4 bogie swapped in for a time - and then swapped back when discovered as non-standard. An interesting story - if anyone has the details I'd love to know more.

The B3/3 appears to have been a prototype for the B17 to B2 rebuilding and nothing more, with all of the standard parts going back into the spares pool once the frames were declared life expired. The whole point of the B1s and similar standard classes was to be built in enough numbers to remove the myriad of pre-grouping classes and reduce the number of different classes on the LNER altogether. This largely did happen, but not to the extent of reducing the number of classes of locomotives from around 170 to 19 as Thompson envisaged.

 

Yep, something lost in the Thompson debate, for sure.

 

Fast British three cylinder locomotives have been made as unified drive to second axle,split to first inside,second axle for outside cylinders and for all three on front axle.
The B16 1/2/3 had smaller wheels but average number of rev per minute has been the same more or less.Does these engine cards still exist and can it help us in the search for best possible solution?
For old locked down men this is a matter of vital importance.
How did the Green Arrows do compared to Pacifics?

 

Recalling OVSB's objective, of handling all SR non-electrified traffic with but four classes, plus noting Beeching's exercises establishing the distribution of traffic across the national network, Thompson's ambition doesn't seem unreasonable. How practical either Thompson or Bulleid's stances were is moot. Unless the SR had withdrawn from IoW or Hayling Island and the LNER been willing to forego heavy seasonal agricultural traffic, on lines such as the W&U, they were always going to have been lumbered with financially insignificant exceptions which defied any rational 'standard model'.

 

I have PM'd you regarding this, so as to not take the topic, off topic, much more. Best wishes

 

https://www.edp24.co.uk/lifestyle/h...acks-train-b17-steam-locomotive-build-8100808

Bit of publicity for the trust.

 

By backing it, does he mean with his checkbook?

 

Think the additional exposure and the potential for extra bums on seats at any 'Event' he attends is actually worth rather a lot. Maybe we get him interested in the 'Clan' as well, wonder who owns the original ' Clan Stewart' name plates