Royal Duchy series 2014

But the question is why was there insufficient coal available?


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Yes Maureen agreed though as I said it was a good run anyway . I wondered at the time why it didn't have the usual Churchill verve. Now I know it makes the performance even more valued. He is a driver in the same class as Fred Hoare, a true engineman and gentleman.

By the way I may have a shot if you talking to Ray at Plymouth. Will send off group

Don

 

That should have been enough. Was there sufficient coal loaded at the start?

Don

 

Tangers has been in that neck of the woods enough times for WC to know how much coal she requires. She did recently hold one of the records on the Devon Banks and had enough to complete the journey so capacity is not a problem. However, I feel not to have available or not load enough coal for the trip with contingency is very poor planning

 

How do we know there wasn't a complication with a coal supplier or similar ?, I agree deliberately going with barely enough coal would be foolish, but I suspect it's more likely circumstances forced this to be the case than any planned move,

 

Pretty sure wcr supplies it's own coal given the Chairman/MD has coal merchant within the trading empire.

 

Could just be as simple as a delivery lorry broke down ?, I'm as in the dark as you, but I have difficulty believing such a thing was allowed to deliberately happen.

 

We don't but there are some people who would rather accuse somebody of incompetence than assume a more logical reason.

 

We don't know if there was a problem with a supplier or not but if there was, sufficient supplies should have been easily to hand to fully load the engine. Bristol is after all is a base for steam operations throughout the summer. We have been caught out at work before when one of our suppliers stopped making a grade of plastic. It caused much panic, a solution was found and we now make sure that there is a buffer stock of raw materials. Was it not Tangers that ran light on coal on the DCE a couple of weeks ago and had to be pushed home?

 

deleted. point already made. But 5 Tonnes is fine as long as someone doesn't have a moment and think its seven so there isnt 3 I/2 tonnes you thought for the way back... At least the load gets turned over and there isn't a tonne of damp sludge at the bottom...

 

A consequence of the Southern not having water troughs though. On the LNER and LMS, with very long non-stop runs, coal capacity was at a premium but water could be picked up frequently. So you had tenders that carried maybe 9 - 10 tons of coal, but only about 4000 gal of water, to ensure you could get to e.g. Edinburgh non-stop. On the Southern, without water troughs, the longest non-stop runs were limited by water capacity, so in effect the tenders were designed to optimise water capacity, and there wasn't much point carrying significantly more coal than was needed to evaporate all the water. If you work (finger in the air) on about 1000 gallons of water for one ton of coal, then a 5000 gallon tender doesn't need to carry much more than 5 tons of coal. The various Bulleid tenders varied quite a bit in design and capacity, but they were all roughly in that sort of order, which was sufficient for Waterloo - Salisbury; Salisbury - Exeter or Waterloo - Bournemouth non-stop with a bit in hand. Engine changes were frequent at such stations.

(And the earlier Drummond and Maunsell tenders, though sometimes smaller, also all confirmed to roughly the 1 ton per 1000 gallon ratio).

Tom

 

A4 5000 gallons/8 tons coal. Duchess 4000 gallons/ 10 tons coal. King 4000 gallons/6 tons coal. MN 5000 galls/5 tons coal - there were varieties on the water capacity I believe but not by great margin.

 

That's exactly my point. The GWR, LNER and (most extreme, on those figures) LMS all prioritised coal over water because they could pick up water on the way, and needed the coal for a long non-stop run. The SR couldn't, so the coal and water capacity had to be roughly in proportion - if you deviated too far from the one ton / 1000 gallon ratio, you would either be carrying useless coal when you ran out of water, or useless water when you ran out of coal... Of course, the impact was that effectively non-stop runs were limited: the GWR could run non-stop from London to Plymouth. Meanwhile, the Southern provided a socially useful service by stopping at Salisbury and Exeter along the way

Tom

 

Thanks Tom, thought I'd deleted that post.
As todays operating conditions are now all 'Southern' ie no troughs the Southern ratio is possibly a better model. Most locos on the mainline would prefer to have more water than the 1.5 - 2.0 tons coal/ thousand gallons that approximates the norm on other regions However its still the case that its probably easier to get a top up with a few thousand gallons of water from a hose than it is to top up a couple of tonnes of coal (only a hose required). If you were designing a tender for a newbuild loco what would you consider to be the optimum 1.25 tonnes/ thousand gallons ?

 

On the other hand Will City of Wells derive much benefit from having 5500 Gallons capacity if the 5 Tonnes of coal runs out before a second water stop?

 

Not just 6233 - I believe Tornado's tender is "non-standard" relative to the LNER original(*).

(*) Edit: Peppercorn A1 as designed - 9 tons coal / 5,000 gallons water. Tornado as built - 7.5 tons coal / 6,200 gallons of water.

It's an interesting question in modern conditions. Somewhere round 1 ton of coal for every 1000 gallons is basically in proportion, but as class8mikado says, even without water troughs, it is easier to take on a couple of thousand gallons of water than a couple of tons of coal, which suggests prioritising coal over water. On the other hand ... if you have a coal capacity that regularly leaves 2 - 3 tons unburnt after every trip, pretty soon you end up with two to three tonnes of solidified dust, which hardly promotes good performance if you do at some point need to use it.

What calculations / research did the A1 Trust go into, with regard "average" and "maximum" coal consumption needed for the length of duties likely to be required for a loco in modern charter service?

Tom

 

I sometimes wonder about tenders on preserved light pacifics, there seem to be an awful lot of 5500 and 5250 gallon bodies about, considering that a large proportion of the class was built with 4500 gallon tenders. 5250 gallon bodies were a BR replacement, but I don't think that many were actually built in BR days.

Later MNs had 5 ton/6000 (edit) gallon tenders, so presumably the extra water was considered useful. Said tenders were then scattered around the class at random. An MN could do Waterloo-Exeter on the ACE without coaling, but with a water stop at Salisbury. I believe at various times there were loco swaps at Salisbury, presumably to reduce the risk of messing it up.

I can't remember where I read it, but I recall seeing that the generous coal capacity of the standard Stanier tender was a bit of a problem on something like a Black 5 that wouldn't be doing a lot of long turns, where the coal in the back half of the bunker would steadily degrade, until one day you tried to use it....

There's also a great piece somewhere on the web by an SAR fireman about a trip on the last class 25 condenser in service, which had been sitting outside Kimberly shed for months with a full 18 ton bunker. Got rather a lot of clinker.

 

I'm still going to say phew. I'm glad that Tangmere did a good job this weekend. It is going to take me a few more runs before being convinced. The right hands need to be at the regulater in my opinion. Lets hope that things coninue to go well for the rest of 2014 and beyond.