71000

For contractors to assess/quote on repairs. This is from the Duke's website:

 

In the latest Heritage railway the chairman of 71000 loco trust said they have approached LNWR, west coast and Tyseley for quotations for work on the Duke .As it has been a Bury based engine it seems strange they have not included Riley’s.

 

I am noticing the word May, operate on tourist lines during 2013.

That leaves me at a question mark. Does anyone else feel that way?

 

Suppose it depends what the contractors can do, when and for how much.

Richard

 

Which also begs the question - would a railway want to have it - Especially as there would probably be that element of doubt in the back of their minds, that it could fail again at anytime? (worst case scenario in section!)

Personally, I would keep her at the East Lancs as having Riley's on the doorstep is rather handy should it happen.

 

The consequenses of it failing on a preserved line are pretty insignificant compared to a major failure on the mainline.

I would expect any railway looking to hire it in would want some kind of protective clause written into the hire agreement protecting them from responsibility if it suffered a failure through some fault that wasn't anything to do with them.

 

Fair points Neil,

I wasn't thinking in terms of mainline (and she's already done that), but I wouldn't say that a stranded loco on a preserved line is insignificant to those affected by it! (think gala, think chaos!)

And yes, any line that took her on without a bullet proof clause would be mad - which may lead to her staying at the East Lancs until such time.........................

Just my thoughts.

 

Hi class8mikado,
Interesting and I am pleased you are taking an interest in 71000 and can understand the point you are making. As part of a ppm schedule, piston rings are changed at 7500 miles if the locomotive is worked hard and the cylinder bores are also checked for wear as part of a piston ring change. If found to be outside of the wear tolerance then new liners are fitted. Lubrication is not an issue as long as the oil used can withstand the high superheat temperature. The original grade of cylinder oil that was favored is no longer available as it was taken out of production, the equivalent used now is slightly thinner but the amount that is fed from the lubricator for atomizers and block feed is doubled to compensate. No carbon build up has been observed in ports or valve chests.

If you are talking about valves being stuck closed? Then there is a bit more to it then simply being "gunged" up and it is more likely for the valves to get stuck open, which can happen on occasion. This is usually caused by a minor problem on the actuating steam side and easily solved. The actuating steam supply is needed to hold the valves closed and against their respective tappets, the engine will not function otherwise. What you may also find interesting is this is also the reason why the locomotive does not have a Snifting valve, as once the actuating steam supply is cut off the valves default to the open position allowing full bypass. Along with roller bearings, coasting is very smooth and quiet because of this.

Back to the point...

For a valve or valves to be stuck closed is a very different set of circumstances and would mean something more serious. The reason being that if stuck closed that would mean effectively trying to lock the camshaft, as the cam followers would not be able to 'lift' once the leading edge of the raised cam profile has met its roller. The valve will open and if not then there will be damage or component failure within the valve gear/cam boxes, such as a broken tappet lever or follower for instance.
As you can imagine there is a large amount of momentum and torque transmitted through the valve gear drive line, due to the weight of the locomotive and the geared drive. So hypothetically speaking if a valve was stuck closed it would take more then carbon deposits forming in ports or on valve seats to achieve this.

I hope this answers your questions.

 

Especially as they have had differences with West Coast over engineering standards that have precluded its use on wcr jobs.

 

Very informative; thanks for taking the time to post this explanation.

Noel

 

Yes, ill have to dig out 'the book' again to understand it fully and come back to you
i was thinking oil film on plane surfaces ( with a bit of carbon thrown in)... any way whatever the sympton the cause will come to light before long fingers crossed...

 

Wonder if the varying steam temperatures of as much as 260F may cause the longer than conventional Caprotti travel valve to expand a wee bit- apparently on Gresleys shennanigans it could be by as much as 1/16" in the warmer middle cylinder(it wasn't just the 'melting Big End' causing problems). Would be great to revisit these ideas with more modern materials that didn't melt/expand! It could be that the 'Duke' is now better than the valve gear, rather than the other way around... or it's just due a thorough rebuild, apparently its the valve spindles that wear; at least it was in the Beardmore-Caprotti version...

 

not sure where you are coming from m&amp, Br caprotti has no piston valve and therefore there is no 'travel' as such. Valve events are independently programmable and work in such a way that increasing the temperature of the whole gear would not effect valve events (though uneven expansion of the valves and their spindles might...

 

Has anyone got any info on what's happening with 71000? Will we see the Duke return to the main line sometime next year?

Cheers

 

Anyone read the book (with recomendation or otherwise) ' Life and Times of a Duke ( McGinty, MJ) ?

I now have, an interesting book. its a bit of a meander and seems to label Derby drawing office as some some kind of ultra conservative steam 'Taliban' capable of radicalising even forward thinking LNER people ... quite.

 

Gents - I think in true NP tradition we may have deviated somewhat from the titular BR 8P and perhaps we ought to ask the mods to move this fascinating discussion to a home all of its own? Any thoughts for a suitable thread title? 'The Not the 71000 Thread"? or "Rare and exotic locos past, present and future"? ......... not sure even this covers the depth and breadth of what we has writ so far ...

 

Anyone else tried to access the 71000 website recently?

After a while of waiting for it to load my virus scanner flagged up two warnings:

(I have removed the beginning of the URLs so people don't click them)

URL: 71000trust.com/favicon.ico
Infection: HTML:HideMe-E [Trj]
Relax, your avast! just saved you from a virus.

URL: 71000trust.com/
Infection: HTML:HideMe-E [Trj]
Relax, your avast! just saved you from a virus.

 

Well I've just accessed the site, via a search engine, with no problems and my security software is up to date. The last update on the news section is 11th December 2013.