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

Where on the LMS? Whitmore was unsuitable. If Stanier had felt able to try it southbound down Beattock or Shap, surely he would have done. I'd have thought somewhere on Brunel's railway (Hullavington?) would have been more likely.

I am broadly with you, but I question the last statement. You are trying to produce a well rounded assessment of Gresley the CME. This is a multi-dimensional task. Obviously the assessment has to cover all dimensions of a long career, many of them not glamorous.

A legitimate question is within that-- to what extent does Gresley owe his public reputation, which might be distinguished from his professional reputation, to the record breaking exploits? That is one of the dimensions. I think it is quite legitimate to concede that Gresley was operating with a favourable set of circumstances while saying that nevertheless it took design excellence to exploit them. It had to be done.

And he placed weight on catching the public imagination. I hope you are going to show an illustration of Blur's 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'. What loco did they choose to illustrate the proposition that visual design excellence was a thing of the past?

 

Maybe within their field, but we have two locos which both did lifetime mileages of less than 100,000 miles between them. Is that a good return on investment? What, ultimately, did those two locomotives achieve? Yes, they were capable of high performance. How did they benefit the railways they were designed for? Not much, would be my argument.

I'm less questioning his credentials (trust me, the Kylchap alone is a worthy accolade in itself and we find ourselves in agreement here), but what hasn't sat right with me is where we have certain writers making the comparison between Gresley and Chapelon and elevating the latter over the former.

They're not both CMEs - Chapelon never achieved the high status Gresley did - and, I would argue strongly, Gresley achieved far more in his career as a locomotive engineer. If it comes down to it, I think the HP/efficiency argument falls flat when you look at the basic crux of the matter: who provided better motive power for their railways? Gresley did.

 

How much of Gresley's work was down to him personally? He was a CME, not a designer, so would have had others doing, at least, some of the design work.

Before WW2 electrification of lines in France was prevented for strategic reasons. I didn't give any mileage figure for the 240P; you are confusing the figure for that of the 160P. After WW2 SNCF policy changed for electrification, so the prototypes consequently had a short life but I'm not sure why that detracts from Chapelon's achievements. The redundant 240Ps were requested by other regions but these requests were rejected by SNCF (ex-PLM) management.

But it's undeniable that there was a happy geographical contribution.

 

Possibly but does it have a helpful incline? One of the LMS's attempted record runs ended with flange marks on the top of the rail!

 

And that difference in role is what makes comparison so difficult.

Perhaps the frame needs to be changed away from excellence, which is subjective, to something like significance, which is more measurable. The reality is that, for all the flaws in Gresley's work, it was significant in it's effect. It provided the basis for much of the LNER's fleet, and set the parameters for what was possible with inter city steam at fleet level. It also, unlike most engineers' work, had genuine popular name recognition. Chapelon, like many others, did not. Whether that was due to politics, time, or simply luck doesn't matter - the impact of his work was constrained. That puts him with a number of engineers (Holcroft comes to mind) who were important, but of the 2nd tier.

 

That's because you're English, not French. Ask the same question in France, or even the USA!

 

Considering that statement from outside the world of locomotive design, designing a record breaker and designing a reliable workhorse are two very different tasks. I would argue that it is the second of those tasks that presents the greater challenge to the engineer/designer as they have to balance and compromise on many more factors to build something useable, useful and reliable. In my automotive world, our company museum hosts two world speed record breakers. Both are remarkable pieces of engineering, but they excel in one thing, by every other metric they're useless. The responsible engineers aren't restrained by product planners, or stylists, or the purchasers and accountants. They don't need to worry about how long it needs to take in each stage of assembly or how hard it is to change the oil or that it has to be changed every day. Not to boil it down to one achievement, but to build a record breaker, that could also then be relied upon to drive you to work every day for 30 years, would be remarkable.

Sticking with the automotive theme; Alex Issigonis and Ross Brawn are both automotive designers/engineers worthy of the recognition they both get. Both have made significant contributions to the field but I don't think there is really an argument as to which had the greater impact on the greater number of people's daily lives?

I'll duck back down behind the parapet now...

 

Could you consider Gresley's locomotives reliable in record breaking mode or in everyday service? The inner big end had to be finally sorted out by someone from the GWR.

Personally, I would put Churchward ahead of either Chapelon or Gresley; who else's locomotives served for over sixty years on a national network, virtually without modification until the end of steam?

You mean a VW Lupo 3L?

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

Record breaking low fuel consumption, not speed!

 

I agree with your summation entirely.

 

I'm part French - I've always had a question mark over Chapelon's "genius".

And, knowing quite a few French enthusiasts as I do, and some French writers, Chapelon is not that well regarded historically. For the very specific reason, his influence was not widespread and his contribution to French railways is not as great, as, say, De Glehn.

 

Fair question, I am sure that there is someone here who can supply actual figures but at broad strokes, even if Gresley's design's might have been less reliable (or more maintenance heavy) than his contemporaries or his successors, that doesn't necessarily make them unreliable. Were there any of his classes that didn't make it through the abuse of the war and into the 60's?

On the second point, to drag the ball back into my court, the Morris Oxford Mk III was built from 1956 until 2014 in some part of the world. I wouldn't argue that the longevity alone translates directly into its greatness though.

 

According to Bert Spencer, sufficient that we credit him with the locomotive designs.

My apologies for confusing the 240P and 160P.

I still maintain: What achievement? He designed two good prototypes.

So what?

What did they do? What work did they do? What was their value to the railway company and the passengers/freight operators? What was derived from their expenditure?

Very little, it seems, with less than 100,000 miles between them.

 

Just the Gresley P1s and arguably this was because they had been worked hard and were life expired, and the Gresley P2s, which were rebuilt to Thompson A2/2 spec, notably removing the Gresley conjugated gear but retaining virtually everything else.

 

The Gresley/Chapelon, ‘Chalk and Cheese” debate continues. Some time past there was a post to
the effect that they were not comparable.

Recently whilst penning a few notes on the Southern Railway L1s I was minded to say “Mr Maunsell was
more an engineering manager than a locomotive designer ‘ I could have added “compared with Sir
Nigel Gresley who was both.” From what I have read over the years M. Chapelon was always primarily
a locomotive designer. I cannot think of a similar figure within the UK industry. Whilst for example
Messrs W.M.Smith and Paget come to mind as loco designers ‘who made a difference’ they both held
down major management rolls out with design. Mr R.Surtees is another.

Mr.Holcroft has been mentioned as a possible UK ‘‘Chapelon equivalent”. Whilst Mr.Cook in an
obituary to Holcroft stated “ He is one of the few engineers who can claim to have designed a
locomotive class “ I think Holcroft can hardly be compared to Chapelon. ( I, with others, met Holcroft
in the 60s, and whilst he was rightly proud of his achievements I doubt he would have compared
himself to Chapelon. )

IMHO I suggest that Gresley combined the role of overseeing the design of a very successful
motive power fleet with management of the overall mechanical engineering function, within
the constraints of a financially straitened organisation. Chapelon was not only a major ( if not
the pre-eminent ) influence on French Locomotive design from the late 1920s onwards but
Worldwide, including the UK.

Two major influencers who can be admired but cannot be compared.

Michael Rowe

 

Having French ancestry doesn't equate to being French! There are many on the south coast with French ancestry (dating from 1066).

Yet Gresley was influenced by Chapelon, for one. Was Chapelon influenced by Gresley?

 

The summit is at Badminton. Eastbound I think the ruling gradient is 1 in 300. On the record run of the Bristolian by 7018, the max speed of 100 was attained at Little Somerford, one station to the east of Hullavington. If SNG had been at Swindon, he might have been eyeing that stretch. Error message--not built by Brunel!

 

Little Somerford was always identified as the spot for the highest speeds eastbound. My father who worked inside at the time went out there in the company of various Swindon drivers/Inspectors to see 5054 through on the evening of 9/5/1964 in the hope that she would be doing the ton.

 

Not quite as favourable as Stoke Bank! But it's where 2903 supposedly achieved 120mph.

 

But was he paid for his valve gear patent, he was after all a Great Northern man when invented. Curious as to how much if he was too...

 

Si vous en saviez ne serait-ce qu'un peu sur moi, vous sauriez que ce n'est pas seulement "l'ascendance".

Who cares if he was or not? His legacy compared to Gresley's is minor.

This is the point I am making, somehow Gresley needs to be held to a higher standard than Chapelon, where the latter is on the pedestal, Gresley must somehow have influenced him to have had value - whereas I would challenge that and say it's the other way arounds. Gresley was the titan, Chapelon had great skill in eking out performance through design but ultimately had far less impact than Gresley did.