4464 Bittern to do 90mph on ECML - 29 June & 27 July 2013

No, I'm suggesting that reminiscences made a quarter of a century after the event need to be treated with a pinch of salt, whether the person doing the reminiscing was a passed cleaner at New Cross or the CME of the GWR...

The more you think about the Saint story, the less credible it seems. Part of the story - that bit about signal box passing times - is clearly bosh of the highest order. But even the comment about timing quarter mile posts is hardly credible. At 120mph, and without a train to steady the tender, I'd have thought that anyone on the footplate would be hanging on for dear life. They certainly wouldn't have been concentrating on recording passing times of barely glanced posts every 7.5seconds. Doing that sitting in a smooth-riding carriage with your paper and watches laid out before you, isolated from the wind and noise is one thing. Doing it while standing on a bucking footplate, without even the steadying influence of a train behind, is quite another.

I don't believe Collett was a stupid man, so I am sure he must have known the story - at least if what he said is as written in the magazine - was barely credible. I suspect he was having joke at someone's expense. What the magazine editor thought he was doing is anyone's guess - probably making a good story… plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

Tom

 

You learn a new thing every day… Thank you!

I thought (had been told) they were solely using wireless transmitter triangulation, but apparently not.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1159528/how_iphone_location_works.html

That said, still pretty hopeless on the move… ;-)

Simon

 

The footplate can be a very lively place even with a train to steady things so yes, on a light engine I think they'd have been too busy praying to do much else.

 

My old Blackberry was pretty accurate using the inbuilt GPS. My current phone isn't. I clocked a single 317 doing an apparent 118mph the other week across Stilton Fen. A solo 317 can barely do 90 on the level!

 

I believe that type of phone was standard footplate issue for the GWR...

Tom

 

That would have been a lively ride if true.

 

Some early models relied on triangulation. My 1st generation iPhone certainly did.

 

But beyond that, the story doesn't ring true to me for a more fundamental reason. In the 1930s, the LMS and LNER were battling for supremacy in speed and non-stop distance.

Non-stop distance yes, speed no - not in April 1932. There was only one railway making the headlines for speed that year and it was the GWR. (Northern lines competition for speed started in late 1934 with Flying Scotsman's run) I'm sure the GWR PR people did want something more to talk about - and I'm sure they did ask the running dept for something new - and they got Tregenna Castle's record run in June 1932. There was no need to make up stories.

instead a story concocted of a quiet Sunday afternoon run a quarter of a century before, impossible at that remove to verify.

And risk contradiction by Stanier - already at the LMS? Everything we hear about Collett points to him being a very private person - who didn't seek the limelight. To misquote Roy from the IT Crowd: Why would he lie? And if he was going to lie, why would he use this one?

At 120mph, and without a train to steady the tender, I'd have thought that anyone on the footplate would be hanging on for dear life. They certainly wouldn't have been concentrating on recording passing times of barely glanced posts every 7.5seconds

Well, probably timing over whole miles every 30 sec - but yes it would have been challenging to time and I wouldn't hang my hat on "120" - just something in excess of 100. Even before the First World War Saints were being timed at 90 mph with 300 tons behind the tender - so 100+ light engine is quite credible. I think if they had been 100% convinced about the stopwatch timing themselves they wouldn't have checked the signal box records for confirmation.

 

Most smart phones have a full blown SiRF (or clone) GPS receiver, and DO NOT rely on triangulation from cell towers.

 

I can vouch for dodgy phone readings, either that or a DRS 37 should be named "USS Enterprise" for having functioning warp drive.

 

But the RM article is very clear. "[…] the clocking between the signal-boxes of Little Somerford and Hullavington was booked as two minutes for the 4½ miles." gives an apparent speed of 135mph, sustained for four and a half miles. "The timing for some distance by the mileposts with a stop watch was given as 120 miles per hour," gives a sustained average (not a fleeting peak, but sustained "for some distance", however far that is) of 120mph. So already the story as reported is pretty inconsistent. The inconsistencies simply make the whole story unbelievable. I simply don't believe it can have happened as described. I'm sure a Saint could be made to run fast downhill if pushed, though it is quite a risk for a newly outshopped loco being run-in. I'm sure Collett "cabbed" a few fast runs in his time at Swindon. But that story, as written, is fantasy.

I don't believe Collett deliberately set out to lie. Instead, I simply think he was having a sly joke and made up a story that he thought was sufficiently incredible that no-one would believe it. Only to have the RM fall for it hook, line and sinker. In any case, as a good traffic man, surely he must have known that running a regular service train at a 70mph+ start to stop average, day-in, day-out was far more impressive - not least for bragging rights with Stanier! - than a half-baked story from a generation before of thrashing a light engine downhill at over 100mph.

Tom

 

Since this topic seems to of drifted substantially offtopic already. Did the LMS ever try a double chimney streamlined duchess for high speed, or did they respect the agreement not to set new records before ww2 interfered?

 

I think finding a suitable stretch for record breaking was the LMS's biggest issue than the loco's outright top speed, hence Coronation being touch and go as to whether it arrived in Crewe platform vertical or horizontal.

 

I too was told several times in my youth by former drivers that a Duchess could/would out pace an A4 by a wide margin if only they could double up on people firing it, but the lack of an LNER style parade ground prevented it.

When I win my Euromillions I'll build a new 46256 (or maybe go further with the modifications and make a 46258??) and take it to Velim and test the theory…, maybe join it with a new A4 to compare

Anyone care to join me ?

 

And no doubt there were drivers from other regions who would say that their steed would outpace those of railway x, y and z. There's more to running fast than simply have two people to fire the loco. If is a small word with a big meaning.

 

Not so sure Ralph. Mallard topped Stoke at 75 and to get that speed up Shap from a standing start would require a fair old effort and maybe not the best preparation for the loco.

 

RalphW said: ↑

And this is what the MemoryMap system as used by pjhliners and myself does, a dedicated GPS unit, bluetooth connection to Netbook/Laptop, showing on a moving map the precise location, with readout of speed and height together with gradient and speed profile as required. This data saved for further analysis later. So looking at a copy of Peters log from the first trip, I can tell you that going under the road bridge at the south end of Thirsk station the speed was 90.4mph.​

Big Al said:

And I had three separate readings of 90.7 at between MP 22.5 and 22 - ie Thirsk - and this illustrates the error margin even with seemingly precise measurements.

I am daring to stick my three pennorth in between Big Al and RalphW on the issue of GPS accuracy, because it is my tracklog which formed the basis of Ralph's speed profile.

I accept the risk of fluctuations in readings and for this reason I many years ago adopted the following simple rules for recording and posting the speeds I measure.

1. Never quote decimals because there is no hope of accuracy below whole numbers of mph
2. Never 'round up' a reading to the next whole number - always use the whole number showing, and ignore what is after the decimal point
3. Never accept that x mph has been reached until you have at least 4 or 5 readings, with no wobbling back to x-1
3. If there has been a major wobble, eg tunnel, long bridge etc, leave it for ten readings or so to settle

I use these rules in my reports on here, and I hope this will give you some idea of the accuracy you can attach to the speeds in my reports. When I compare my notes with the logs of the incomparable Mike Notley, I am almost always within one whole number of his quoted figures.

As an illustration, my written notes, read from the MemoryMap app on my iPad as we ran through Thirsk, recorded 10 readings, all of exactly 90, on the approximately five miles between the villages of Newsham (see the screengrab at http://pjhtransportpix.zenfolio.com/p779589209/h241e2be0#h241e2be0) and Dalton.

So let us accept that GPS readings provide a fascinating hobby, and give a good general idea of speed, as long as you do not rely on anything beyond the decimal point!

Peter, on another grey damp Manchester morning
http://pjhtransportpix.zenfolio.com

 

I'm not disagreeing with you, but it should be remembered the LMS took the records months before Mallard, and not by that much margin either.... so it IF isn't necessarily a small word… indeed the Coronation ran out of track.. not steam and Mallard by all accounts was "all in" when it did it.