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

Probably your best bet for these questions is found here: https://www.lner.info/locos/IC/kitson.php

 

Wish I'd written down about the Still engine. No mention was adequate of noise but was pretty reliable on a daily.freight I think to Hull and back. The problem was starting it, iirc was blowlamps to heat up the dieael cylinders I assume the cylinder head or a warm semi diesel type glow area but memory is very hazy.. There may be some footage on YouTube of a boat one, sounds like an old diesel

 

This week coming, I am giving a lecture on Gresley at the MRC of London.

I will be discussing some of the research I have undertaken for my upcoming Gresley book together with a closer look at the data of each of Gresley's individual locomotive designs for the G.N.R. and L.N.E.R. eras. There will be some interesting comparisons made and some new revelations. I am also showcasing some new images that will make it into the book.

https://www.themodelrailwayclub.org/events/sir-nigel-gresley-simon-martin/

It is quite loco-centric, so understandably won't be for everyone! But I hope it will generate some thoughtful debate.

 

Full video will be shared by the MRC in due course. I think it was well received! For those able to watch and attend, thank you for all the interesting questions, answers and support of my research.

 

A friendly word............a shade more modesty wouldn't go amiss.

 

I was asked to share these photographs on the thread, I didn't take them.

I was happy to put them out there, one of the shots shows Ian McCabe's excellent colourisations and the other is a good shot of the way I was showing the primary evidence for the use of Engine Power statistics.

Hope that clarifies this for you.

 

Please make sure to post a link to the video when shared, much prefer to watch recordings than live!

And this is your thread on your research, you should be proud to post yourself and your hard work. As someone who only started looking more deeply into the hows, whys and history of steam engines in the last couple of years, this thread and the Thompson one before it, has led to a great deal of discussion that has greatly expanded my knowledge and understanding. So thanks for being the catalyst for that.

 

It has also benefitted IMHO from allowing the experiences of men "on the footplate / at the coal face" to provide further flesh to the skeleton of statistics

 

Question for the audience...

What was Britain's first streamlined express passenger locomotive?

I know what I think it was, but I would be interested to see the general consensus.

 

6014?

 

This? Outshopped in 1935?



source: https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/mpdwk1/the_great_western_railways_laughable_and_short/

My answer would be "no". On two points: it doesn't predate the Gresley W1, and secondly - with the greatest of respect to Swindon - but arguing that what they've fitted is streamlined is an engineering stretch, IMO.

 

Was the W1 streamlined or just an odd shape?

 

Streamlined, with draughting of the chimney the major factor. The shape was modified repeatedly based on wind tunnel tests. It was highly scientific. So yes, it was streamlined.

 

It may well have been scientific but wasn’t the key factor clearing exhaust from the cab rather than streamlining as such?

 

A French “coupe vente” (“wind cutter”) loco from the 1880s. Note the wedge front and cab; in-fill between chimney and dome; and wooden segments filling in the wheels (rather like a cyclist’s disc wheel to reduce drag from the spokes).



More early streamlined locos here: http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/bec/bec.htm

Whether or not they were objectively successful in reducing wind resistance, they were designed with that intention.

Tom

 

As I said earlier, it was the principal reason, but the actual shape of the casing across the locomotive was aerodynamically driven, hence it was indeed, streamlined.





Top locomotive, designed through wind tunnel experimentation, has four years of development work, comes out in 1929.

Bottom loco, no scientific basis for the streamlining whatsoever, comes out in 1935.

Lovely, but not British Tom.

 

Why go to all that trouble with wind tunnel tests instead of just investing in some plasticine? (Not a serious comment.)

 

It does make the point though, I think!

 

10000 was not streamlined nor ever intended to be. In William Brown's book on the locomotive he mentions a reference from September 1928 to the front end and contained in the file held in the NRM. He states that the front end was designed essentially to duct primary air to the firegrate, around the boiler casing and down the backhead to the ashpan rear. The front end, as built would have created an air dam between those smoke delflectors (or whatever you want to call them) forcing the air to both where it was wanted and to lift any drifting smoke. The lack of a bottom plate to the smokebox front(as provided on the A4's) was another indication that streamlining was far from the design teams mind. The shape of the casing essentially followed the shape of the boiler and was not designed to be air smoothed. Any attempt at even the slightest streamlining certainly didn't reach to the cab which was flat fronted. Even the GWR realised that a wedge shaped cab front was better than a flat one in this respect.

With regard to wind tunnel experiments, without going back and reading Browns book again, after a quick trawl through, I can find no mention of wind tunnel experiments regarding this loco. Indeed, the original proposal of 1928 had a conventional A1 front end with the Yarrow boiler simply substituting for the conventional boiler.

 

Given that he boiler was water tube rather than fire tube the shape was bound to be different.