Sir Nigel Gresley - The L.N.E.R.’s First C.M.E.

so , a properly fitted coupling rod secured by sound bearings , not in contact with any other surface will clank?

 

it didn't break the speed record .
it broke the record for distance covered at high speed

 

Thanks for pointing that out. As a matter of curiosity, did the A3s suffer from MBE problems?

 

Affirmative

 

nope , I'm wrong . it took the speed record at 112.5 mph

 

That raises the question... why wasn't it investigated before the A4s came on the scene?

 

No problem...we all make mistakes...

 

It would be interesting to know if there has been any FEA on this subject? Does Tornado have a similar MBE layout?..just curious...

 

According to Cook, who fixed the problem, the main issue was lubrication, and secondary improvements were in the detail design of the whitemetal surface and accuracy of machining.

 

He'd left for bigger things but clearly he did want to go back the LNER. The LNER rejected him, he didn't reject the LNER.

All of which, imo, points to the value of looking at the pre-LNER history and management and taking a long view approach to explaining why in 1923 Gresley is faced with this particular constellation of problems, people and attitudes, and how loco policy was shaped by those problems, people and attitudes.

As David Byrne once asked 'How did we get here?'

 

there is more to it than that
heat and whip in the conjugated gear linkage when running at high speed can advance the cut off on the middle cylinder to the extent that the white metal can overheat and drop out of the bearing . this can in extreme cases (Silver Fox) allow the piston to come into contact with the cylinder end.
some engines had the middle cylinder lined up to reduce the load on the bearing.
attention to lubrication and a high level of maintenance can reduce the risk considerably .
Cook also had a GWR style big end fitted which was a considerable improvement on the original. he also introduced optical alignment of the engine which initially caused more heating problems due to reduced tolerances.

 

Cook states in his book "I did have three connecting rods of the GW design manufactured and put on Pacific engines but there was no particular virtue in this. I could and did modify the Gresley Marine type of big end to embrace all the features desired, viz a complete white metal lining over the whole area of the bearings, machined to a close tolerance and fitted with feltpad lubrication. "

I am no steam engineer, but reducing the diameter of the middle cylinder has always seemed to my inexpert mind a particularly dubious bodge. If the middle cylinder is producing too much power for the bearing then beef up the bearing. However perhaps it seemed at the time as if the problem was insuperable and the bodge was better than doing nothing.

 

Indeed, always worth asking that question. But my observation was not about what Geddes may have wanted, but why he may have been unable to return.


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As I said at the start, like Peter Drummond, Eric Geddes is always prefaced with the words 'the hated'. I've never read anyone with a kind word to say about Geddes as a person, so I am not surprised that no one wanted him back. But if he had gone back and the LNER had been under him or Thornton it would, I suspect, have been significantly different to an LNER under Whitelaw.

There is an intellectual point to the these counter-factuals, to imagine an alternative LNER under Geddes and/or Thornton and the things they may have focused on, brings into sharper relief the LNER under Whitelaw and the things the board did/or did not focus in on. For example, would an LNER under Thornton or Geddes have addressed the infrastructure issues that @5944 pointed out - Geddes coming from a freight background and Thornton coming from the GER. Given Geddes' ruthlessness, would he have taken his axe to the many unprofitable bits of the company - would we have seen earlier adoption of standardisation and not the embracing of small groups of engines for specific tasks? Would Geddes or Thornton have looked to electrification earlier, or more innovation in suburban services?

And of course the reverse, Thornton's innovations at CN in terms of passenger comfort, shows that Whitelaw's approach at the LNER is hardly leading edge and improving passenger comfort would have been a feature no matter who was in charge, so rather undermines that as evidence of Whitelaw as the man to run the LNER.

The LNER and Gresley would still have been dealt the same broad hand, but the way in which the cards were played could have been different under different men.

 

If Gresley had lived but WWII had proceeded as in our world, he would have had to cut his coat to suit the cloth. In particular he would have had to confront the availability problem. Exactly what that would have meant for new locomotive designs or further production of existing designs is a possible subject for speculation. It does seem unlikely that more V4s would have been built according to the original design, and redesign to suit wartime circumstances would have been difficult, so perhaps there would have been a cheap and cheerful new design.

However some of us are also speculating about the alternative universe where Gresley lived longer and WWII did not happen. In that universe, more V4s seem very likely, with the advantages and disadvantages of three cylinders, the conjugated gear and their wide fireboxes. And did they have better RA than the B1s?

 

According to the internet - V4 max axle load 17 tons. B1 max axle load 17 tons 15 cwt. So I presume the V4 would have a somewhat wider RA.

 

I feel it's worth pointing out that it is only when you remove those two "stumbling blocks" (if you like) that a universe where the V4 becomes propagated becomes possible. It feels like this line of speculation is only possible by modifying history to an extreme degree, which doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose other than to perhaps bemoan that more V4s weren't built.

On that basis you might as well throw in the Gresley 4-8-2 and Gresley 4-8-4 never wuzzas and anything else you think could have been achieved had Gresley lived and one of the biggest, deadliest conflicts in history somehow not happened.

 

The bodge, as it was, was only applied to a small number of the A4 class in any event. An experiment which proved exactly what you say: it was the bearings that were the biggest issue. The mystifying thing for me is having read the Cox report, and the board minutes, and the loco committee minutes, the fact there were at one time no more than six different middle big end designs being trialled suggests they took it very seriously, and yet it took until Cook took over to make real headway on solving it (in the process, actually going a step further and through the changes to workshop practice, improving - all - of the locomotives that went through the ex-LNER works by way of better repairs).

 

Actually, understanding the “what if” of no WWII against the reality is educative. In this instance, it draws out how much policies based on one particular environment become unsustainable in another, and how discussions about “good” and “bad” need to be thought through in the light of the factors actually influencing decisions.


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That's a very fair point.