LNWR locomotives

I've been reading, with some interest, a few books by O S Nock about the LMS and various locomotives. He refers (he appears to have been a big fan) to the LNWR quite a lot, obviously, in both books. In particular he seems to be very impressed with the 'George the Fifth', 'Prince of Wales' and 'Claughton' classes.

How close did any of these come to preservation? Did any make it into BR stock?

It seems a shame that the LNWR, one of the biggest and advanced railway companies before the grouping, doesn't get much attention compared to some lesser lights in the preservation era.

 

Into B.R. stock.
Claughton 4-6-0 46004.
Prince of Wales 4-6-0s 58000 (25648) Queen of the Belgians, 58001 (25673) Lusitania, 58002 (25752)
I would think that they were withdrawn fairly quickly.

 

Interesting when compared to some contemporary designs that lasted in greater numbers into BR stock.

One thing that the LNWR used was a superheater damper which interests me. Did this allow the driver to cut the steam supply to the superheater header and turn the engine into a saturated steam boiler?

There's an account by Nock of a driver departing Euston closing the damper until the engine had ascended Camden bank to maintain boiler pressure as using the superheater would have been ineffective as it wouldn't have warmed up before the climb.

 

In 1948, without receiving their BR numbers.

Surprisingly, the three were brought together for a final photo call before scrapping. It is a shame that a Prince of Wales in particular didn't make it into preservation; it would have made a useful mixed traffic / passenger engine on many preserved lines.

 

The Claughton would have been interesting. Nock compares them very favourably, if not better, than the GW Stars.

 

Just had a quick read of the Wild Swan book "Claughtons and Patriot 4-6-0s". 46004's boiler lived on after the loco was withdrawn. The boiler was used for the unrebuilt Patriots. It would be interesting to find out how long it lasted in BR days. An excuse to visit the NRM I think.

 

I've always been surprised by the way Nock, a very experienced engineer, allowed himself to be carried away by enthusiasms. Also he shows great enthusiasm for the subject of any of his books; a bit of a whore!

At their very best, a Claughton could do what a Star could do, but that level of performance didn't last through the overhaul cycle. The Stars were very much better because the detail design was a lot better.

 

There is no denying that the Claughton's weren't a patch on the Stars, really. Victorian Engineering stretched to the limit, whilst the Stars were the first of a new breed.

A George V would be a nice addition to the New-build projects, apparently very strong hill climbers.

 

Superheater dampers were quite common in the early days of superheating. It was thought that the superheater tubes would burn away if steam wasn't flowing through them to keep them relatively cool. The damper stopped hot gases passing through the flue tubes, not steam flowing through the elements. The driver was supposed to close them when coasting or stood. I think some were automatic, opening when steam was applied.
Can't see the logic of keeping them closed when departing from Euston.

 

Discussion on the WSR Operations thread recently drifted onto the subject of loading gauges, with cab roof edge clearances being mentioned.

When the LMS moved some of the LNWR Claughton class to the Midland Division, cab roof edges required adjustment for the Midland's tighter edge clearances. This can be seen in the attached pair of photos, taken from the book on LMS Locomotives by Essery & Jenkinson. The change was subtle but is noticeable if you look carefully at the shape of the cab front spectacle. The upper photo shows a loco with the modification, while the lower photo has the cab (albeit not the valve gear) in its original LNWR state.

 

Thread resurrection ...

I think I can understand the logic, or at least how it might be seen to be logical.

As I see it, for a loco departing Euston, it will have mostly a long cut off, slow start, for the climb up Camden Bank. In that situation, the advantages of high steam temperature - allowing a greater steam expansion - don't really exist. By contrast, with the fire only providing a fixed output, any heat that goes into superheating by definition isn't available to evaporate water.

In that circumstance, I can understand why it might be the case - or at least be perceived to be the case - that closing the superheater dampers so as to bias the firebox gases to flow through the tubes would help maximise steam prodution at the point when there was maximum demand for steam. Then, as speed built up and you opened the dampers, you would progressively start to gain the advantage of superheating in lower overall steam consumption.

Tom

 

This is one of those issues which no-one alive can do more than speculate about. I have read assertions that superheating could affect steaming adversely (citing the N.E.R. "R" class) or positively (L.S.W.R. "T9") Who knows!

 

Stanier soon showed what he thought of LNWR locos!

 

Not really. Stanier's mandate was 'scrap and build', and this meant the withdrawal of many pre-Grouping classes from most of those former companies; the LNWR fared about the same as an sometimes better than some others. The decisions regarding the Claughtons' (and L&YR Dreadnoughts') replacement (by Baby Scots) was made before Stanier's appointment. Once the initial plan to reboiler pre-Grouping locos with new tapered boilers was found to be non-cost effective, other pre-Grouping types' fates were sealed: it was cheaper to withdraw them and replace with modern types with lower repair costs and reduced coal consumption. Midland types had already become 'standard' so largely avoided the holocaust, but many LNWR, L&YR, NSR, FR, Caley, GSWR and HR types were all doomed.

 

According to Cox ,LNWR passenger locomotives were extreme frame breakers.
LMS compounds very much less.
Cannot have been cheap to repair a broken frame.

 

If one could re-write history, I would definitely have a Tishy preserved. The standardisation on Midland designs was most unfortunate from a preservation perspective.

 

Cox wasn't a fan of the LNWR and you need to treat his opinions with caution. Francis Webb used Joy's valve gear and a major reason for this was that it eliminated eccentrics on the crank axle. This gave space for a centre bearing between the cranks supported on a supplementary longitudinal frame to feed the piston thrusts into the main frame at several positions and not concentrated in the driving horn gap. Fowler considered this as simply more maintenance and had the brasses removed, so the diving horns were then the only input point and over-stressed, and cracking began.

The frame issues with the LNWR locos is well known, but that aspect tends not to be mentioned. It's important to have all the facts before passing judgement.

 

The same charge has often been made concerning Beyer Peacock's 19th century output ... though the GS&W/GSR/CIÉ '101' class 0-6-0 (by far the most numerous Irish class and initially very similar to the LNW's DX class) enjoyed a fair old innings, first built 1866, last withdrawal 1962, with two surviving in preservation.

According to a comment (by Maycock & Silsbury IIRC) the Adams 02 class "major spares stores list" included mainframes, with the decision to stop producing any for stock seeming to define the point at which these locos were officialy classified them 'obsolete', in the 1930s. I'd assume the same consideration applied to other LSW classes and would be interested to know if the same was true for other pre-grouping classes.

 

Hmm... I'm not sure that I go along with that theory although I can accept that LNWR drivers might subscribe to it if someone in authority came up with it. (A bit like crews on the Gettysburg Railroad believing that you produced more steam if you had less water in the boiler.*) The heat transfer from the flue gases to the firebox is largely going to be related to the surface area that will provide that heat transfer. If you effectively close of the flues and only utilise the small tubes, you have significantly reduced the surface area available for heat transfer and thus, the ability to make steam. The heat transfer of the small tubes will also be less because the flow velocity of the flue gases will be increased, giving less time for heat transfer.

* The boiler explosion of 1278 on the Gettysburg Railroad in 1995. Well worth reading the report if you are interested in such things. The original report report seems to have gone from the NSTB website but a copy can be found here.
http://www.athra.asn.au/library/Loco_1278_Boiler_Explosion.pdf

 

Perhaps we should have adopted bar frames. The retention of the original 1878 frames by W11, despite her lightweight construction shows that some people were noticeably "better at frames" than others.