35018 British India Line

but he did build untried locos whereas Stanier built tried and superb locos . Bulleid was a maverick with a smooth tongue when it came to persuasion imo. I bet he would be great selling snake oil

 

some of Bulleids ideas were not so far of the mark, he was lumbered by the realities of the war, had the materials been available who knows if the valve gear would have worked? The boilers using thermic sythons was a move away from uk practice, but they added to the steam rate, the ideas, such as reduced maintaince in service by use of an oil bath had better materials been availible would have worked, crew comforts such as electric lighting, and illuminaated points under the casing to make servicing easier to me made sence, the idea was on the road, the crew didnt have so much prep, the majority being done on works visits, an engine with rocking, or drop grate meanss you dont need to be over a pit, so you could say, compared with what else was availible the MN actually made a certain amount of sense.

 

i think the oil bath was made necessary due to the chain driven valves wasn't it? The realities of war should have meant building conventional locos.

That all the railways were guilty of not updating their locos with these features and others pre and post war is another discussion altogether. What killed steam really was it became an unglamorous , hard, dirty job that no one wanted or had to take.

 

Not really comparing like with like though Tom?

The Duchesses were a pre-existing design for which all design work and tooling had been completed, with spares and workshops already well acquainted with the class. Several railways continued to build designs for which they were already proven - the V2 readily springs to mind, Thompson completing all but four of the V2 batch ordered under his tenure and a batch of O2s as well.

The issue for me isn't building class 8 Pacifics - it's building a series of experimental locomotives during the war and then during austerity when - like the Q1 - a more practical, straightforward machine was what was really required. The expense of building and maintaining the Bulleid Pacifics coupled with en masse rebuilding only a few years after being built against the backdrop of austerity has always amazed me.

Maybe this would be better served in a Bulleid discussion thread. I don't want to take anything away from the excellent work done on British India Line, which I am sure we are all looking forward to seeing on the mainline in due course.

 

You can argue about the relative effectiveness of a Duchess vs a Merchant Navy; I was simply pointing out that the statement "Stanier/ wasn't really allowed to build new either" was not true: Stanier was building 8P pacifics (included streamlined ones!) in the dark days of the war as fast as Bulleid was.

You can argue about the effectiveness of the design, but I think the policy was entirely justifiable in the context of the needed motive power.

Tom

 

That's a tad disingenuous there Tom - no new designs. Stanier was completing an already ordered batch of a Pacific type which was not an all new design. Bulleid built 10 to an all new design.

I agree new motive power was required: whether it really required experimental chain driven valve gear and thermic siphons, both of which required specialist engineering (again, during a war) is another matter entirely.

 

I think you are changing your definition a bit - it's frequently asserted that Bulleid pulled the wool over people's eyes to build an express passenger loco during wartime, but he was clearly not alone in doing so. In any case, the LMS built a series of new batches of Coronations through the war; it was not just case of completing already-ordered locos. (A batch of five in 1943 - streamlined, which used more steel than the conventional ones - and another batch of four in 1944). So surely a criticism of Bulleid should include Stanier in the same breath?

As for the design itself - remember that the most controversial bit, the valve gear, was forced on Bulleid by lack of availability of the gears he required for his initial design. I'm not aware that the thermic syphons were a major issue, and the steel fireboxes - although they required welding - reduced the need for expensive copper.

Tom

 

Fact: Original Bulleids are like Marmite, you love them or hate them.

As to the Southern Railway's ability to "pull the wool over the eyes"; the SR was in the forefront of military transport to all of the Channel Ports, it was a private company employed by the Government to transport troops and equipment to and from the Ports, owned by the Southern Railway - it must have been (relatively) rolling in cash! For it to back its CME with his new designs.

 

I think you need to read up on how the railways were paid for their war work, let alone war damage. Let's just say that they weren't rolling in cash.


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If it's correct that it was Stanier who decided to build the 1938 Duchesses unstreamlined to reduce weight and make maintenance easier, I wonder who decided that the 1943 batch should be streamlined?

 

Compared with what was built elsewhere in the world Stanier was responsible for engines that were far removed from superb.

 

I believe the railways were guaranteed the same money as before they went under the wartime executive, with the fares etc going to the executive, which was wholly inadequate considering the extra traffic, and were paid compo after WW2 which didn't nearly cover the arrears of maintenance and renewals. Hence they were on their knees and the outcome was Nationalisation, without which probably 2 or 3 of the big 4 wold have gone under.

 

Meanwhile...back at Carnforth, the enthusiast fraternity eagerly await the appearance of 35018 on a test run.

 

I have to take my hat off to you. In a thread about 35018 you have managed to introduce posts praising Thompson. Anyone would think you're writing a book.

 

Good luck in your attempts to convince the unbelievers.

 

Now now - I was focusing on Bulleid I thought The cynicism is noted and I'll respectfully retire.

 

I know the differences between different batches of proper Bulleids but can someone please point out how 35018 differs from the rest of the rebuilds? The detuned ones all look the same to me.

 

It's been painted black ...

Tom

 

Not a Bulleid expert, but the pipe work along the left hand side of the boiler has a double bend in it. On Clan Line it is straight.