Loco musings ex the 71000 thread

No.

I'll go a Garratt - something along these lines ..... http://users.powernet.co.uk/hamilton/bgpix/Plmabt1_th.jpg

I should know the exact answer but it's evading me. Assume LMS though.

Edit - sorry, see the Druid has bagged the prize - email notifications a bit slow, as is the gin

 

Aww

I'd rather have a pint or two of decent ale!

And in regard to Maunsell, I'm completely guessing that it had something to do with the boat trains?...........................................

 

I would never bet against someone building an advanced steam design in the future. So long as we keep on bringing new young blood into the movement, and given that in that future main line steam will become increasing difficult to sustain due to ageing locos and increasing difficulties with track access due to technology and train speeds, then the desire to improve and keep steam alive is a latent force to be reckoned with.

If someone had told me as I crawled around Barry for spares back in 1970 that we'd build an A1, and likely a host more locos, I'd have laughed out loud.

 

Is that A4 style styling on the front?

Its a bit hard to tell from the angle....................................

 

Yes ...

Originally yes, but the Civil Engineer put paid to that idea, so it was suggested instead for working the entire mainline traffic between Basingstoke and Exeter. As designed, it was a 4-6-2+2-6-4, with 6'3" wheels, six 16" * 26" cylinders etc. there was evidently enough interest round about 1933 - 34 to get detailed costed proposals worked up with Beyer-Peacock, but after that everything went dead, presumably because the practical issues with train length etc showed that the proposal was unrealistic. Would have been a beast up Honiton bank though!

As Eightpot says, you can use more power to shift a heavy load at normal speeds, or shift a normal load faster. The first of those options tends to founder because the rest of the infrastructure (such as siding and platform lengths) can't deal with the longer trains implied by the heavy loads. (For example, the longest platform at Waterloo was only long enough for 13 carriages, and even then the loco was beyond the starting signal so had to be started by relaying the signal back to the driver). The latter option (shifting normal loads faster) founders unless you upgrade all of your motive power on a given line: no point having a 100mph-capable express loco if it has to share tracks with 60mph locals and 20mph freights, or if the stopping distance exceeds the distance between distant and home signals, as the LNER found to their cost.

Which is why I feel it isn't right to look at CMEs (especially in the traditional steam era, pre-1968) and ask "why were they so backward that they didn't build 4000ihp locos like in France / USA / take your pick?" I'm sure many of them would have been chomping at the bit to do just that, but you can't think about locomotive design in isolation from all the other operational constraints on the railway. Big increases in power (such as occurred from A4 to Deltic to IC125 to 25kv electric) only make sense when the system is looked at as an entire railway, not just motive power in isolation.

Tom

 

Interesting that, Tom - would have been an absolute Behemoth of a machine................... given that the Garrett's that the LNER employed weren't exactly tiddlers!

I'm now off to start a face ache page dedicated to building said "undesigned and unproven" machine...................................................... what colour should it be?

 

The reason I wasn't interested in the 5AT project was that it simply didn't go far enough: it's still basically Stephenson's 'Rocket' grown up. If you are going to design a new steam loco for the 21st Century, then start with a blank piece of paper. For example, why was the cab in the middle, restricting visibility in both directions, and requiring a crew of two? Why did it have a tender, essentially making it a one-way loco? Why are only six of its 16 wheels powered? Why does it use outside cylinders acting directly on the driving wheels, giving rise to reciprocating forces, the need for balancing and the hammerblow this brings?

One of the appeals of steam to the Great British Public is its olde-worlde look and ambience; the 5AT tried to look modern so lost out there, without actually being so.

 

That one worked in French North Africa IIRC.

 

DD. It's Garratt, not Garrett and the LNER only had the one. The LMS had them in the plural.

 

Looks like it - see the smoke deflector starts on the water tank too?

 

Ooops, fat finger syndrome...............................

 

Just!!

Shame the image isn't a bit bigger......................

 

It's Algerian and try this link
http://abpr.railfan.net/abprphoto.cgi?june06/06-20-06/AlgerianRys23H32atAlgiers5-4-39ScanColl.jpg

 

I'll add it to the January 2015 almanac.

 

Ye Gods, how the hell did you find that?

More to the point, when was the picture taken - would give some kind of clue as to the Bugatti/ A4 esque influence on the front end!

 

Go on then!

But first it needs a class name/number and a definitive paint scheme.................................

 

Is your middle name Bulleid, by any chance?

 

There is a website dedicated to the Garratt and I remember seeing a pic of this beast on it. Googled it and couldn't find the site I was after but found the one I linked to instead. The date on the page says, and there's a clue in the url, it's 5-4-39.

 

This one? http://users.powernet.co.uk/hamilton/source.html

Sadly no image of the Maunsell Garratt on that site, but there is a diagram in the appropriate DL Bradley RCTS History.

Tartan?

(Hat, coat etc…)

Tom

 

Some more info here too: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/peclegg/sncf/articles/article_2007_01.html