If you register, you can do a lot more. And become an active part of our growing community. You'll have access to hidden forums, and enjoy the ability of replying and starting conversations.

Who should have been in the BR design team?

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by Jimc, Feb 18, 2015.

  1. Corbs

    Corbs Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2008
    Messages:
    1,714
    Likes Received:
    727
    POWER!!!!

    Seriously though, while the decision to build the standard classes was (in hindsight) not good, the locos that the teams designed, IMO, were very good. The 9F in particular is an incredible machine.
     
  2. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,106
    Likes Received:
    57,443
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    You frequently assert that the overall traction costs are the same regardless of type, and that 40ihp per ton is possible from a steam locomotive.

    So where is the evidence? What class of production locomotives anywhere in the world achieved 40ihp per ton? And where is the study that shows that steam locomotives are as cheap to run as electrics or diesels, especially given post-war labour shortages?

    And in any case, 40hp per ton is still less than electric locos that were conceived and built in the 1950s could achieve. The Class 81 (3200hp, 79 tons) achieves that figure, and moreover could sustain it indefinitely, rather than just in peak bursts. Within about 15 years, that type had been developed to the class 87 which could achieve 60hp per ton: way in excess of anything achievable with steam.

    Even in the 1950s, it must have been obvious that the future was diesel and electrification. So the maximum financial, design and management resource should have been put into that end, with the bare minimum done to just keep a steam fleet running until modernisation came on stream. My own view is that the various regional designs would have been sufficient (with perhaps the exception of needing something like the 9F) for that end without building any new designs. (After all, BR built everything from Peppercorn A1s, Castles and Merchant Navies right down to ex-NER J72s and GWR Pannier tanks). To think that steam had any long-term future in Britain after World War II, against the evidence of every other developed country in the world, is delusional.

    Tom
     
    Martin Perry and paulhitch like this.
  3. mrKnowwun

    mrKnowwun Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2011
    Messages:
    4,333
    Likes Received:
    2,758
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    West Byfleet
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    What you really needed was Beeching to come first, then decide how much and what type of motive power was required.
     
    paulhitch likes this.
  4. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2006
    Messages:
    11,930
    Likes Received:
    10,088
    Occupation:
    Gentleman of leisure, nowadays
    Location:
    Near Leeds
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    The hindsight that is now used ignores the politics and finances of the time. Britain was an island built of coal (still is!) and that resource was generally available at no balance of payment cost, whereas oil generally had to be imported at considerable cost. When you are virtually bankrupt you don't go on a spending spree, you use what you have. Diesels also cost considerably more to build; three times as much. So, the economics and politics of the time dictated steam instead of diesel for the majority. Electrification was high in capital cost and took time, a lot of time. 1500V was the agreed standard so any thoughts of the 25kV system was still a long way off.
    BR actually built more non-BR Standard locos than Standard locos. Whether some of the standards should have been built is debatable but there was a definite need for some, such as the Britannias on the Great Eastern. Only the Bulleid light pacifics fulfilled that role and no one with any sense would suggest perpetuating these in unrebuilt form. As I've said above, politics dictated the use of steam and any designer is going to strive to improve on what has gone before, even if the changes were minimal. I think that the Standards did this. For example, how long would you keep building Black 5's without a design improvement? It had to come at some time and the basic design was well over twenty years old. The Standard 5's were an improvement in many ways. I bet that, if these had been tagged on to the Black 5 number series and referred to as a Black 5, everyone would have seen them as what they actually were, just like the various roller bearing/steel firebox/Caprotti valve gear variations that were built as Black 5's. Perhaps the biggest mistake was the creation of a new number series!
     
  5. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

    Joined:
    May 30, 2009
    Messages:
    21,072
    Likes Received:
    20,781
    Location:
    1016
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    These seem to be the right questions to ask, as must have always been the case. One would like to think that what was designed took the knowledge and experience from the past and applied it to post war times. It's pretty obvious that ease of maintenance was one key factor - hence two cylinders on Class 7 locos and easily accessible lubrication points plus valve gear factors. A little more thought was also given to fire management, ash disposal etc. That said, if all that was needed was a pro-tem arrangement ahead of modernisation then it is interesting to discuss what was really gained by building Standard 5s given the capable Stanier 5s, apart from the extra 2 inches (wheels).
     
  6. pete2hogs

    pete2hogs Member

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2007
    Messages:
    721
    Likes Received:
    418
    I'd agree with your latter point. Incidentally, the transfer of the Fairburn 2-6-4T's to the Southern demonstrated that there was a lot of nonsense about people refusing to use 'foreign' locos - as long, of course, as the 'foreigners' could actually do the job. I can't see the BR standard designs as anything other than a load of wasted effort - except of course insofar as it gave pleasure to people like me watching Britannias being thrashed to Clacton in the rush hour!
     
  7. Corbs

    Corbs Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2008
    Messages:
    1,714
    Likes Received:
    727
  8. 34014

    34014 Member

    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2006
    Messages:
    430
    Likes Received:
    30
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Thailand, The Land Of Smiles.
    And the Panniers we had on the Southern Region.

    I don't agree that the Standard classes were a waste of space, as some people would have it. In many area's they replaced older machines well past their sell by date and were very useful machines generally. Just ask men who crewed and maintained the likes of M7's and many other pre-nationalisation classes which types they would rather work on. The other aspect is of course the pleasure we got as 'Trainspotters' watching these new machines working. Somehow it would never have been the same if we had had to watch 'more' Black 5's, A1's and so on, all of which we had seen plenty of before.
     
  9. NOTFORME_99

    NOTFORME_99 New Member

    Joined:
    May 10, 2013
    Messages:
    110
    Likes Received:
    94
    Gender:
    Male
    G. J. Churchward.
     
  10. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,106
    Likes Received:
    57,443
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Indeed - I have never heard, either first hand or through reading, of any significant complaints from Southern enginemen about the Ivatt and Fairburn tank engines that came to BR(S) in large numbers in the early 1950s. Whereas by all accounts when there were widespread purges of ex-LBSCR tank engines on the Central Section, those sheds that got ex-SECR H classes in replacement tended to feel quite pleased with the deal, whereas those sheds that got ex-LSWR M7s felt pretty hard done by at getting such lumbering lumps!

    I suspect setting a motive power policy for the benefit of gricers was even lower on Riddles' agenda than David Smiths'!

    Tom
     
  11. Hurricane

    Hurricane Member

    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2013
    Messages:
    823
    Likes Received:
    307
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    71A
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    One thing I have never understood about the standards is why the decision was taken to not fit any form of lighting to the cabs (Gauge frames, shovel plate lighting, reverser lights etc) Much earlier Southern and LNER locos had these fitted and seems like a back wards step, I don't even think the steam generators need that much maintenance.
     
    Jamessquared likes this.
  12. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2007
    Messages:
    35,121
    Likes Received:
    20,773
    Occupation:
    Training moles
    Location:
    The back of beyond
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I think that being dead may have limited his input a tad.
     
  13. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2009
    Messages:
    3,610
    Likes Received:
    1,439
    Occupation:
    Print Estimator/ Repository of Useless Informatio.
    Location:
    Bingley W.Yorks.
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Without naming names ( as i dont know any) the one factor missing from the BR design team we're people from the likes of North British. i also think that the GWR drawing offices would have been able to produce
    a standard range of locomotives as good as the LMS biased team did, but they would not have been any more forward thinking or 'exciting'.
    The over reaching purpose of the BR Standards was maximum utilisation and inter regional operability and in this respect they we're as good as anything else produced or available
    To have an insight into the 'design' of steam locomotives as it was in the big 4 and then perpetuated post war one must absolouutely read Under 10 cme's by the late Mr Langridge.
    Bulleid seems to have been quite a rare bird in that he actually micro managed what his draughtsmen we're producing.
    At the point where the decision was made to keep on producing steam locomotives and to ' New' designs he was precisely the wrong man for the job.
    .
     
  14. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,106
    Likes Received:
    57,443
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Probably less of a disadvantage, though, than being French, as other nominees that have been suggested were!

    Tom
     
    Spamcan81 likes this.
  15. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2014
    Messages:
    17,611
    Likes Received:
    11,225
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    St Leonards
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    I wonder what we would have seen if the design bureaux had been answerable to their political masters such as Beeching and Marples, then i dont think you would have got any new designs, Marples would have most likely wanted to move finance to road building.
     
  16. 60525

    60525 Member

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2006
    Messages:
    432
    Likes Received:
    111
    Gender:
    Male
    Freddie Harrison, Kenneth Cook, Teddy Windle and Clifford Cocks
     
  17. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2009
    Messages:
    3,610
    Likes Received:
    1,439
    Occupation:
    Print Estimator/ Repository of Useless Informatio.
    Location:
    Bingley W.Yorks.
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Who we're all involved in some shape or form anyway. Riddles had a reasonably clear vision of what was required, but if any of the above had been chair of the design team instead of Cox, yes that might have been interesting. The Go anywhere pacific would have been much closer to the Bulleid West country, almost certainly a three cylinder machine.
    The comments about the Standards being a waste of effort.... how much effort do you think they took ? At the most they kept the diminishing number of draughtsmen, pattern makers and tool makers on the payroll for a little longer... The only one that needed a significant Design effort, the 9F, is the one that gets the Plaudits as a significant contribution to our Stable of noteworthy locomotives.
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2015
  18. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2007
    Messages:
    35,121
    Likes Received:
    20,773
    Occupation:
    Training moles
    Location:
    The back of beyond
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Post of the thread so far. :)
     
  19. ragl

    ragl Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 3, 2010
    Messages:
    1,749
    Likes Received:
    1,637
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Consultant Engineer
    Location:
    Shropshire
    It is quite telling from many of the contributions to the various threads here, that very, very few have any understanding of how things were managed in one of the railway companies drawing offices. I can only concur, if you REALLY want to know how it was, the 2 volumes of "Under 10 CMEs" will bring you from the platform end to total enlightenment of how your "Best Looking Loco" - to pick up on another thread - came into tangible fact. However, if any of you unfamiliar with Langridge's books do read them, threads such as "Best Looking Loco" could become extinct on this site.

    Cheers

    Alan
     
  20. John Stewart

    John Stewart Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2011
    Messages:
    4,206
    Likes Received:
    2,072
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Hilton, Derby
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Accounts that I have read suggest that many crews did think that they were a little better. I'm sure that you know better than me Tom, but I believe that they did very well on the Southern when called on to handle a duty normally done by a light pacific. Perhaps it was that their 6'2" wheels were equal to the Bullieds although their stroke resulted in the pistons thrashing about a lot more. I'd love to see the remaining Caprotti version let loose on the main line to see what it could do against the individual Black 5s used on charters.
     

Share This Page