How about a V4?

Apologies if I'm going over what others have already said - I'm coming late to this thread.

The V4 was intended to be a "go-anywhere" loco in the way that the V2 was not. Hence the former was RA4. The problem was that materials like nickel steel (I think - could be wrong) had to be used to get the weight down. Whether that would have been used for the ten locos that were on the order book when Gresley passed - and which Thompson changed to the first ten B1s - I don't know.

There does seem to be some misunderstanding of just how much of a rebuild the Thompson "Great Northern" was. Very little of the original loco was re-used: for instance, the boiler was re-used on another A10. What emerged was effectively a new loco, with the idea of a rebuild being to get an express passenger loco constructed during wartime (remember all the guff the Southern used about the MNs being "mixed traffic" and having "air smoothed" casings, rather than streamlining). However, Thompson probably knew exactly what he was doing when he selected 4470 - after all, there were another ten A10s to choose from, including 4472.

I've seen all kinds of reasons why the P2s were rebuilt - and in that case it certainly was a rebuild - including that the Civil Engineer was about to bar them from at least north of Edinburgh. But they could have been re-deployed elsewhere. This was one of Thompson's three "rash acts", the other two being 4470 and the completion of the last four V2s as Pacifics.

OTOH Thompson produced a number of inexpensive upgrades and rebuilds, like the B12s and O1s. As with so much partisan debate, it's not that straightforward. Peter Grafton's book has been mentioned, and I'd recommend anyone less than well disposed towards Thompson to read it before making adverse comment.

 

My apologies, you are quite right.

RE S.A.C. - if only!

 

Thanks for the infomed comments. Richard Hardy thought Thompson was ok, but then he was one of Thompson's apprentices.
I'd still like to see a V4 though!

 

And from 50 Famous Railwaymen by Chris De Winter Hebron "...it was actually the imperatives of trying to run a railway during wartime (and during the post-war austerity that followed) that dictated Thompson's radical departures from Gresley's key practices."

I've read elswhere that some of Gresley's designs were a nightmare to maintain e.g. with a K2 to replace the vac cylinder rolling ring the loco and tender had to be separated, similarly on the V1/V3 the same job entailed taking the cab floorboards up, removing the injector feed and delivery pipes, uncoupling all the brake rigging and hoisting up the brake cylinders by means of a block and tackle dropped through the cab roof! Replacing a rear sander pipe on these tanks meant taking off the footstep, and dismantling the equalising pipe from front to rear tank, just to get at two bolts. Gresley locos had a spring on the reversing shaft to counter-balance the gear. If it broke the whole shaft had to be taken down and while replacing the spring itself took five minutes, the whole job took five hours. When Thompson came in he modified this arrangment so the whole job took just ten minutes.

Dave

 

I think i'm right in saying that Gresley used chrome steel in the rods of the original A1s , & that gave them a 'ring' to the motion that we later generation never heard, as obviously were all rebuilt with different rods.