The Ugliest Loco? Ex-SVR Loco Newsy News / discussions

I suppose the secondary role for this would be to act as a battering ram or a missile launcher in the event of war ?

 

Picture?

 

via http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/locoloco.htm

Should be lots to mull over on that site!

For example, this was - originally - a Maunsell U (full story in Holcroft's book):



http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/holcroft/holcroft.htm

Tom

 

re the GWR 4-6-0. What you forget is that you can't compare that to the locos of the other Big Three as it came from the era when many small companies had all sorts of bizarre locos in operation. It does at least have a half-decent bolier and can be regarded as a precurser to Churchwards designs with outside frames. ( I like it ...of course)

 

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/kitson/kitsonst.htm

 

Erm? Stretching it a bit...

The Kruger was built in 1899. Pretty much contemporary with the Billinton B4, Wainwright D and Drummond T9, just to mention those being built at the same time from "small companies" south of the Thames. Would be hard to describe any of those as "bizarre" - nor ugly!

Face it, the Kruger is ugly!

Tom

 

Very influential loco though the Kruger, but in a negative sense. It gave a whole list of features *not* to try again, and most of those were valid. I dunno about half decent boiler, my understanding is that was where a number of problems lay, although the boilers were useful as stationary boilers at appreciable reduced pressure.
Trouble with long stroke crank axles -> outside cylinders
Trouble with flat firebox shape -> curved surfaces on classic standard boiler
Trouble with combustion chamber - > no combustion chamber on the narrow firebox standard boilers, which was finr, but also on the Bear which as it turned out was *not* a good idea
I think there were quite a few other things, but in many ways the Saint/2800 design was a complete antithesis to the Kruger, and all the better for it.

 

But the only criteria on this thread is is it ugly?

 

all express Passenger types whilst the Kruger is a heavy freight Loco.

 

Of course this engine has the advantage that it even admits to being ugly

http://simonwhittinghamphotography.zenfolio.com/p243500107/h9e19197#h9e19197

 

Surely N class No. 816 with the Anderson steam conservation equipment attached? Q1 is a thing of honest beauty- a 'brutalist' approach to steam locomotive design.

 

True some engines are, how can I put it, aesthetically challenged. But I just cannot dismiss them out of hand.
When I was quite a few years younger locomotives that did not fit the pattern of traditional British appearance, all that external plumbing, well, enough said. You start to ask questions about what lay behind these strange machines, the ideas that brought them into being - well, I did. I still do. It was about performance, on the one hand thermodynamic on the other mechanical.
So many experiments produce machines that have an unfortunate appearance, though some (stand up No. 10,000) do not - all in the eye of the beholder though, I do admit.
What is an ugly engine (don't answer a RSH 0-6-0st)? One that does not steam? One that does not deliver a satisfactory mechanical performance?
You have to admire someone bold enough to try out a new idea, Paget for example, and risk failure and embarrassment. Learning how not to do things given the technological limits of the times can prove beneficial. An idea may work in a static application but not on a locomotive. Not this year, but next? One man's ugly is another man's experiment. You can build a better locomotive not only by building a larger one. You can grasp the theory but producing a practical machine that demonstrates the application of the same? You can end up producing an engine of unfortunate appearance. This does not mean that the lessons learned are of no value. So ugly engines remain ugly but pay attention, you could learn something.

 

Ah yes, my error, N not U ...

Tom

 

All true, but this is a lighted hearted thread on aesthetics.

 

Ugly? How dare you! Like most things from Essex, it's a thing of beauty.
Of course, it was never designed to run on rails, but had it been it would have been very handy for loosening ballast!

 

And the driver's teeth!

 

On mans Ugly is another mans Super Model... I think they must have looked quite magnificent in the flesh. New build anyone?

 

The footplate crews at the time obviously didn't think so, as nicknaming it Kruger was roughly the equivalent of nicknaming one Osama Bin Laden today...

 

I'm not sure that's a great analogy. Interesting reading on wiki about Kruger though, an area I knew little of.