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

Hopefully, we'll all live long enough to see an actual V4-B1 comparison, but equally interesting to see would be a new build proposed Gresley 4-8-2 vs the P2 - would there be much difference in practical terms?

 

Gorton is in Manchester, where all the best things come from!

I slightly get the impression that the LNER didn't quite know the best way to go. They were always in a poor way financially, saddled with a lot of debt from the GC London extension, and what money they had they seemed to chuck at prestige services on the East coast main line. Gresleys locos were quality machines, but they were heavy on maintenance and they had a policy of small batches of locos for specific duties, K4s for example, with no real attempt at standardisation. Thompson realised this and tried to go down a different route late on.

 

Another rule of Nat Pres. Every mention of New builds quickly veers into LNER big stuff!

 

Looking at both the GNRI's and IMR's very fine locomotives, I can but concur.

 

Of the other three, the LMS started with a policy of Midland is best and imposed unsatisfactory Derby types on the whole system. When they realised that this wasn't working they brought in an outsider, Stanier, to do a proper job.

The GWR had sorted themselves out in the early 1900s with an excellent range of Churchward standard types and established a huge lead, so didn't need to do anything new, and the Southern seemed to be winding steam down and focussing on electric traction until Bulleid came in and went a bit mad on new ideas

 

Of course all roads lead to Gresley's big engines, they were what he was best at. Even Thompson recognised that the V2s were pretty well perfect when he added a bogie in place of a pony truck to the last few. Is that what was being done with the proposed 4-8-2 vs the P2, effectively?

 

Another 3ft 6in gauge example was the JNR Class C53 Pacific, which I think was the most numerous class outside of the LNER to have 3 cylinders with Gresley conjugated valve gear. 97 built in 1928-9.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JNR_Class_C53

I don't know how well these engines performed. But it seems significant that subsequent Japanese Pacific designs reverted to having only 2 cylinders.

 

That's a completely new one to me .... and there I was thinking the Japanese were a sensible people. Perhaps they took Thomas Beecham's advice: "Try everything once....... " I'll leave you good folks to look up the rest of that quote!

 

A more mundane question. LNER encyclopedia makes mention of the Armstrong Whitworth shunter that was trialled in 1932. The LMS followed up and bought some diesel shunters the LNER did not. Just thinking about the savings in using diesel and the financial position of the LNER it strikes me as interesting that the LNER did not follow up on them. Whose decision would that have been?

 

The LMS did not "follow up" , they were 1st in the field . a Midland steam 0-6-0 was converted to diesel using the steam loco frames and wheels . scrapped in 1939 .
not especially successful in itself it persuaded them it was the WTG and others were ordered from various manufacturers.

 

I seem to be disagreeing with everyone ATM . sorry ..............but when the drawings for Collet's King class the axle weight came out at 22.5 T .
Collet asked what was causing the problem , which turned out to be bridges .
he went away and established which bridges were concerned which turned out to be not many .
the offending bridges were attended to and the Kings went into production.

 

That is not what I am saying. In 1932 the LNER trialled a shunter from AW, they did not follow it up with an order. The LMS also trialled it and followed up with an order which became 7058 and then 7059-7068.

So my point is not who did it first but rather given the direction of travel and the fact that the AW shunter was successful enough to prompt an order from the LMS, why did those in charge of the LNER not do the same?

 

The Southern also introduced a diesel shunter with English Electric traction motors in 1937; they became BR 15201 - 15203. EE's salesman must have been on a decent bonus in the late 1930s because AFAIK, all four of teh companies bought equipment from which they constructed substantially similar shunters.

Tom

 

A King may have had a 22.5T axle load on paper - but on a set of scales, its was apparently nearer 25 tons ...

Tom

 

The LMS also built no more steam shunters after the successful introduction of the diesel shunters in the 1930s. Their later ones were the basis of the 08s.

 

I understand that Lord Stamp had started to look at costs. In particular this revealed the massive costs associated with shunting.

There were quite a lot of locations where shunters were required 24 hours a day, something that could not be done with a single steam loco due to watering/coaling/general maintenance but a diesel loco could manage and it only needed a driver.

Stamp realised the savings that could be made despite the much higher initial cost, I suspect that other companies didnt.

 

That's not quite the story as related in Pole's Book and in Cook. The GWR's 19.5 ton red route limit was quite low, but it seems that about the turn of the century the then chief civil engineer got the board to agree that new bridges would be built to a 22 ton limit.
Then it seems in 1926 there was some discussion about the Castles not being quite up to the heaviest work, so, according to Pole, Collett had said that with a 22.5 ton limit he could design a very fine locomotive. Pole then enquired of the chief civil engineer what the situation was, and was astonished to be told new bridges were being built to 22 tons. So at that point the enquiry was made about how many bridges on the main routes were left at 19.5 tons, and as you say there weren't too many, so the board gave orders to upgrade them, an allowance of 22.5 tons was made for 4 cyl locomotives and Collett was given the go ahead to get the King designed.

Most of us put a bit of weight on as we get older!

 

So isn't this an example of the interwar LNER board being asleep at the wheel? Here is a company that has no money and yet when the opportunity to save money presents itself they do nothing with it.

 

Point of info - D&E shunters ordered and delivered under Thompson, after Gresley had initiated the original interest. It is clear he was waiting to see the outcome of the shunters work on other railways, which seems sensible to me, given the costs of petrol/oil generally.

 

Note also that the LNER Board were also looking at ordering 25 10000-type locomotives for its ECML services but this was postponed pending the imminent Nationalisation. How far along the Consideration / Authorisation / Ordering process the Board had reached I presume will be in the relevant minutes that Simon has seen; of interest is which steam locomotive type(s) would have been replaced.