6023

And there's a 20 mph restriction on Falling Sands Viaduct.

 

You really have to work the loco if you're going to get close to fifty before you exit the tunnel !

 

I totally agree Mike. The reduced height chimney and safety valve bonnet look just fine. It wouldn't be a five minute job to change the chimney over, they might as well leave the loco as it is, for the time being. As you say, they should just take the electrification flashes off.

6023 looks bigger, more like a "super King"......which it is!

It appears that Jos Koopmans' brilliant four-jet blast pipe is working very well indeed, I wonder if 6023 will produce more power and even better performance than the double chimney 6024?

It makes you wonder how a Jos Koopman blast pipe might enhance 6201 Princess Elizabeth, although I doubt that would ever happen.

 

Or a Hall, Black 5, Jubilee, B1, Britannia , Clan ? Patriot, V4 !...and so on and so forth...

 

Hi all, I attended the tests on Tuesday, a very pleasant but cold day. The train consisted out of 7 carriages plus the class 50 diesel, a total of 385 tons. The diesel pulled us to Highley from where the King pulled us back to Bridgnorth. Apart from being on the footplate inspecting the fire and the pressure gauge I sat in the first carriage, steam heated and comfortable, to listen to the beats an inspect the chimney flow. Because of the cold one drain cock did not want to close which caused some steam leaks. Apart from that no other problems. After 6 runs it was concluded that further test were unnecessary, so it remained a single day.
The crew and the GWS representatives were satisfied with the King performance. I was told that the original single orifice and single chimney, the Ell reconstruction, gave problems with the high coal consumption. That was cured at once when the new 4-orifice blastpipe was used. There is no hesitancy on using the King at Didcot because it is economical, period! Grinning widely I was told that they had representatives of other organisations along predicting seriously that the 4-orifice solution was not going to work! So there is future work for me to do explaining why and how it works!
Kind regards
Jos

 

Delighted that the naysayers were proved wrong Jos, it sounds and looks great! Also glad the steam leak was nothing more than a stuck drain cock too. I haven't fully followed the discussion (a bit high brow for me most of it!) so was interested in "it is economical, period!" Very pleasing to hear, but what smaller loco is its coal consumption comparable too then out of interest? Are we talking small prairie, manor, hall etc.?

 

I am afraid "economical" is used in the qualitative instead of the quantative manner. They have some options for locomotive usage at the open days at Didcot and are not afraid anymore to use the King. Since we are contemplating some articles for the GW Echo, it might be useful to dig a little deeper into this, but then there should be some sort of coal allowance system at Didcot to look for numbers.

 

Huge congratulations to Jos Koopmans! This has been a fascinating process. Most of us who have followed the progress of 6023 since the four orifice blast pipe was fitted were only expecting a successful result. The SVR test runs have proved this beyond any doubt.

It's also great to hear that 6023 still has a terrific bark. It certainly sounded very healthy on Tuesday's runs.

Surely this should only be the first part of the story? There must be another or other loco owner(s) who would like to have their loco fitted with one of Jos's blast pipes? How about a Bulleid pacific or (dare I suggest this) a single chimney Castle?

 

Nice one Jos! If I was wearing a hat I'd doff it to you sir! Well done!

 

Congratulations on an excellent result. I hope to see 6023 in action soon

 

Certainly not 5051 as she has a fantastic bark

 

Why is there this insistence that a barking exhaust means a healthy and efficient loco? A bark is the sign of excess backpressure and tends to produce a draught that tears the fire to bits and wastes coal. All this "super bark" stuff sounds like the sort of rubbish spouted by kids who took the insides out of their moped exhausts and crowed about the abysmal noise they then made, despite screwing up the cylinder scavenging and reducing the power.

6023 doesn't sound that loud actually - a tribute to the design and the designer.

 

Equally, why is there an insistence to re invent the wheel all the time??

5051 has proved itself on many occasions, and indeed still has the same blast pipe arrangement that BR fitted to it in the 1950's for hauling up to 500 ton trains in every day service. If this arrangement was not up to the job and badly inefficient, I'm sure it would have been changed fairly quickly, there were certainly people working for BR back then who were just as capable of designing and re draughting steam locos as anybody is today......

 

I'm sure it isn't badly inefficient, and it can do the job, but that's no reason to glory in the evidence of inefficiency like some kid with a 6" exhaust on his honda civic. Btw, this is not aimed at you or 5051 specifically - or even western engines in particular.

 

Sorry, I beg to disagree. I myself am still amazed that the available information was not used at the time. Buckinghams text on scaling is from 1913, Youngs 4-orifice model test is from 1933 and S.O. Ell was known with the text as he used it in an argument with Tuplin. My contribution is only to prove why it works this way!
Kind regards
Jos

 

I enquired about the possibility of running above 25 mph on the SVR because I was wondering whether the low speed tests provide all the information. Can the performance of the drafting system be extrapolated to running at 75 mph? (Even though the GWS has shelved the plans for main line running for the time being, we can still hope that it will happen one day.)

 

Yes and no! 200 years of experience with exhaust systems have shown that it mostly works over the total range of velocities if it works correctly at lower outputs. That is just a matter of fluid dynamics principles. Please note that working at 25 mph with say 75% cut-off is about equal to 75 mph at 25% c.o. as far as the mass flow is concerned. Train heating, leaking whistle valve seating, open drain cock and exhaust injector all took steam which was not used for the exhaust so there is some spare!
Kind regards
Jos

 

I am of the impression that a loud bark, doesn't necessarily mean excessive back pressure and wasteful use of coal. If that was the case, all GWR 4-6-0's would be hopelessly inefficient and as we know, that isn't the case. It also doesn't necessarily mean wasted energy. I believe the amount of energy lost from a very loud exhaust is minimal.

I don't know how hard 6023 was being worked when I saw it in action on Tuesday, but it did sound quite loud. I think if it was really opened out on say the South Devon banks, it would still have a very loud bark.

I see nothing wrong in enjoying the sound of a steam locomotive working very hard with the resultant loud barking exhaust. I think the vast majority of steam enthusiasts would agree with this.

 

...but the authorities had already lost interest in steam. It's a wonder that Peter Townend obtained the finance to equip the A3s with double Kylchaps.

 

Not hopelessly inefficient, just not as efficient as they could be.

And there we must agree to disagree.