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Locomotive Front End Designs

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by ragl, Feb 19, 2016.

  1. pete2hogs

    pete2hogs Member

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    Yes indeed! But the Kylchap still moved them on to another level. I wonder what Ell could have done with out the SC gubbins.

    I've checked 'The LNER 2-8-2 and 2-6-2 classes' by J.F.Clay and J. Cliffe. The same quote regarding work on the GCR is there but it is still not clear whether they are comparing the Ell modifications with an unmodified V2 or a modified SC one .

    There is now information available to cross reference some of the logs they supply with what state the locos were officially in, but of course we cannot now know whether the SC gear was actually fitted at any given time - on a loco just out of shops it would be more likely to be there than one that had been in service for months, which might explain the poor performance they experienced with units 'just out of shops'. compared some fine performances from 'dirty old warriors' .

    Page 85 of the above book has some interesting comments which suggest that the original engines on pre-war coal would have been able to achieve the same performance as the Ell modified ones. So it is likely that the Ell modified ones with SC gear would have been better even than an unmodified loco on post war coal. We still have no direct comparison, however. According to their calculations the Kylchap increased the output by a further 15% or so above the original performance and the Ell modifications.

    One criticism made of the V2's was that they were relatively poor at slow speed slogging - of course they were never designed for such, they were intended to handle fast fitted freights. A stud of Kylchap ones with air brakes would probably have done very well with the early Freightliner services had they lived long enough.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2016
  2. Courier

    Courier New Member

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    In the attached extract Carling mentions that the Dean Goods front end was changed when the locomotive was superheated.

    Worth noting that some locos (such as City class) were updated with jumper blastpipes - but not the Dean Goods.
     

    Attached Files:

  3. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    I liked it when he said "superheated much more recently" - yes, only about 30 years before!

    Presumably the Dean Goods hadn't experienced the same level of problems with the blast disturbing the fire as the larger engines that received the jumper top.
     
  4. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

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    I am very grateful to Courier for his further contribution and extract from Dennis Carling's paper.

    Carling was at Rugby on the Test station.

    He was not at Swindon when the Dean Goods was tested against the Ivatt 2 class. This was Sam Ell's province and domain.

    I do not think any changes were made to the Dean Goods draughting after the earlier 1919 changes except that superheated locos had the chimney moved forwards. Internally the draughting remained the same to those fitted with the cast iron tapered chimney from and post 1919. Not all surviving examples received this chimney post 1919.

    There was a lot of friction between Swindon and Rugby at the time. There was also a suggestion the Rugby drawbar arrangement on the Test station was defective or at least not as accurate as Swindon.

    The Dean Goods on test at Swindon is one of those stories beloved of GWR fans of which I am unashamedly one.

    Thanks to Jos I have the BR publication on the tests of the Dean Goods against the Ivatt 2.

    However stirring for GWR fans, the results must be seen in the context of some 10 years of testing, and the Dean Goods not taken out of context or allowed to overshadow Ell's greater work on other more important locos. The fact that 2 Dean Goods chimneys were used as the basis for the Duke of Gloucester alterations should not suggest Ell based everything on the Dean Goods. Any careful analysis of Ell's work and of all the BR test results shows this was far from the case.

    However the Dean Goods outperforming the Ivatt 2 is still a great story!

    Cheers,
    Julian
     
  5. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    Thanks Courier for bringing the Clay book to my attention, copy ordered.
    Although I can think of a couple of reasons (perceived cost and or risk) why, it still puzzles me that given the wealth of research and analysis into the subject that has been done by Ell and many others since, when Locomotives are restored or even built from new very few consider having the original geometry looked at before having the components made to the original dimensions.
    No- one for instance has acted on the Hints of ES Cox that the Standard 5 dimensions we're tweaked with good results and therefore Black 5's would benefit from the same treatment - Sure BR were not going spend money on a small improvement on hundreds of locomotives that did their jobs quite well enough, but how many of these engines have since been restored without any thought to this.
    Far as I know the Kylchap dimensions for the A4 we're replicated on the A3, A1(P), A2, V2 - and therefore Tornado and therefore 2007 are using the same - and whilst these have proved suitable what room for improvement might there be ?
     
  6. JJG Koopmans

    JJG Koopmans Member

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    I can answer some of this, most people are not aware of the research and have the perception it is "unproven". I myself have even offered to pay for a proper front-end in a certain case but was briskly refused with the argument that the VAB would not approve. In case of the 6023 the VAB was delighted with the results so far! As for the case of the Standard 5, even in the tests of Young of 1933, long before the Standard 5 existed, the graphs show the 2 digit figure the front-end could be improved with. As far as I am concerned one does not need a Kylchap, double chimney or whatever if it is not available yet, another cheap blastcap could do the magic!
    Kind regards
    Jos Koopmans
     
  7. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    Pleased to say that the Clan Project at least have looked at this, they may go for a single Lempor or may not but they are conscious that the original was wrong and though the BR quick fix gave acceptable results, better than acceptable is now available.
     
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  8. JJG Koopmans

    JJG Koopmans Member

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    Let's hope that the Clan Project crew realizes that a jet carries an induced flow all around itself, so that they take a second look at those hideous inclinations of the Lempor orifices.
    Kind regards
    Jos Koopmans
     
  9. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    The design work for such apparatus would have to be subcontracted by them.
    Not going to argue but I do note that the exact inclination of the orifices seems to be constantly under review
     
  10. Courier

    Courier New Member

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    In 1949 there was nothing inevitable about S O Ell and Swindon taking the lead on front end design - with BR locomotive design led by a cabal of LMS engineers.

    At that time the WR had 2MT which steamed poorly and Dean Goods which steamed well. Over in the East they had V2 with S/C plates that steamed poorly and Kylchap A4 etc which steamed well. Why did Swindon and not Doncaster take the lead?

    - Better communication between designers and operators. Swindon heard there was a problem and were motivated to look into it. (of course until 1948 the drivers and inspectors reported up to the CME - so they still felt they were in the same team)

    - Better test equipment (thanks to Churchward and Collett)

    - Better tradition of testing - with an ability to convert experimental data to knowledge and wisdom. Late 40's testing of A1, A2 and A4 only got as far as saying at such a speed and c/off you get such and such a power - nothing else, data without knowledge. They couldn't relate power and speed to steam consumption and they couldn't say what max steam rate was. The very clever thing done at Swindon was to understand that while you can accurately measure instantaneous power and speed, you can't measure instantaneous coal or steam consumption (though Swindon even managed to approximately measure instantaneous steam rate). Therefore hold the hard to measure things constant for each test - and then you have the means of determining performance curves for different steam rates (which can be used by the operating dept in creating timetables and by engineers to compare locomotives) and you can determine max steaming rate - and compare these between engines. Likewise they had a methodology of comparing front ends and reporting it in simple graphs.

    If Doncaster had had a similar culture they could have put a Kylchap onto a V2 in 1948, tested and reported it and then that might have become the std BR front end. (Not sure when patent ran out on Kylchap - ie when need to pay royalty fees ended)
     
  11. Courier

    Courier New Member

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    In the paper Carling does state that the work he is describing was not done by him and that it took place at Swindon and he states that the philosophy of constant speed testing and timetabling was created by the GWR.
     
  12. maddog

    maddog New Member

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    Wasn't that the advantage of the Thompson long smoke box, allowing the reduction in manpower of the self cleaning smoke box, offset by the improvement in steaming by the kylchap...
    The self cleaning properties being presumably the greatest asset in the war and post war era. The peppercorns fitted with the self cleaning apparatus seem to of suffered greatly.
     
  13. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

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    Self cleaning smokeboxes were exactly that. They created problems for smokebox draughting, and deposited smokebox ash all over the lineside and onto the coaches. I am not aware that Thompson had any magic answer to this. His B1 didnt have a long smokebox.

    Cheers,
    Julian
     
  14. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    I do wonder if the self cleaning smokebox contributed to the rapid demise of steam by increasing the general association of steam power with dirt and mess.

    Even in the 1950s I would have thought it should have been possible to create something like an oversized vacuum cleaner, plumbed into a covered wagon in the ash road, which could have been used to extract cinders from the smokebox and ash from the ash pan with far greater speed and less mess than doing everything by shovel.
     
  15. JJG Koopmans

    JJG Koopmans Member

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    I remember reading a book where it was stated that women wanted to wear light summer frocks in the days when these became available after the war but hated to see them spoiled when traveling by steamtrain!
    kind regards
    Jos Koopmans
     
  16. Courier

    Courier New Member

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    Question to Ell recorded in his paper on locomotive testing....
    ell 2.JPG



    Ell's reply...

    ell 1.JPG
     
  17. JJG Koopmans

    JJG Koopmans Member

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    Thanks, I should have known having the paper myself! However, he does not mention why and how the 1:14 taper was
    associated with the highest efficiency. Still the Young paper with its systematic tapers?
    Kind regards
    Jos Koopmans
     
  18. 8126

    8126 Member

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    I believe when the rebuilt Bulleids first emerged there was some concern that the very long smokebox would make it awkward to shovel out ash, but in practice it was discovered that the ash tended to pile up against the door. This implies that they didn't have self-cleaning smokeboxes, even at that late stage, but I believe they still had a reputation for getting a fair proportion of fire out the chimney.

    Jos, does your book contain anything regarding the Adams 'Vortex' blastpipe, as used extensively by the man himself on his designs for the LSWR? It was claimed to give noticeably improved economy, and Chapelon wrote positively about it in passing, but when Dugald Drummond took over he had a rare attack of aversion to complexity and they were all removed, with new chimneys fitted as well. Supposedly there was an issue with carbon build up in the annular nozzle, which I can see would probably be worse than with a plain nozzle.
     
  19. JJG Koopmans

    JJG Koopmans Member

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    Yes, page 66 with drawing and description. Looking around for the best description at the time I found it in Pettigrews "A manual of Locomotive Engineering". If regarded as two blastpipes exhausting in a single chimney its better functionality could be explained.
    Kind regards
    Jos Koopmans
     
  20. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

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    By the late 1940s Sam Ell was able to apply his thoughts into practice. I think it would be fair to say that after the early experiments in Churchward's term of office in the 1900 - 1910 period things then stagnated. The standard GWR draughting arrangements worked out during this period worked well until the Manors didnt fit any of these arrangements.

    (I have explained earlier how I think this process was arrived at, and how it did not follow the sort of design process and formulae used by Ell later).

    Ell recognised that some of these arrangements were better than others. He then started delving deeper. I am quite sure he knew of Young's work from the 1930s in Illinous, and he quotes Young in a blistering attack on Tuplin at one point. However no re-appraisal of GWR smokebox draughting was carried out post Young until the late 1940s with Sam Ell.

    There is a parallel here with the King valve gear. In the late 1930s Sam Ell submitted to Collett a paper on valve gear modifications. Collett would have none of it - what Willie Pearce had designed was quite good enough. Anyone who can work out the complexities of the King valve gear in the pre -computer simulator age must have been very clever - as both Pearce and Ell undoubtably were!

    Stanier is often criticised for the poor draughting of the original Jubilees etc. Why was the draughting deficient when supposedly all these things had been experimented and worked out at Swindon when he was there as Works Manager? I think the answer is quite simple - none of the GWR standard Churchward draughting arrangements fitted, especially as 3 cylinders. Neither did these standard arrangements suit the GWR Manors.

    JimC may have to help me here, but although Holcroft wasnt directly involved in those early GWR experiments I believe he did the drawing of the standard draughting arrangements. Holcroft knew what these arrangements were as did G. Pearson when they both moved to the SECR and SR under Maunsell. Whether they understood them is quite another matter. There is quite a lot of evidence in 'Locomotive Adventure' by Holcroft that he did not. I ran my ruler over the SECR E1 class smokebox draughting earlier today assuming it would be ok - in fact it is far from it and does not comply with the proportions of the GWR 'standards' which Holcroft put down on paper a few years earlier!

    To allow the chimney and petticoat pipe to work properly the length of the chimney/petticoat pipe above the 'choke' must be a minimum of 2 x 'choke'. The Churchward standard smokebox arrangements all meet this criteria - or at least I have yet to find one that did not. This is but one factor in the equation, but if this is wrong, no other 'perfect' elements of the proportioning will correct the above error or compensate. If you get the choke diameter ok and distance from correct size single blast nozzle to choke ok, it will all be to no avail if the chimney isnt long enough above the choke.

    What Holcroft's later writings show is that the Churchward standard draughting arrangements were not worked out to any particular formulae but were done empirically and as a result of tests. One could argue that in this respect they did get pretty close to later ideals under Ell. The original King draughting (Collett) did not and was always iffy and why the Kings in original form always lacked something they ought to have had performance wise. Like the Manors, it did not fit in with the Churchward standard draughting arrangements.

    Cheers,
    Julian
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2016

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