Building an LNWR Prince of Wales

I came across this on the Prince George website and found it fascinating to watch. Apologies if it has been posted before.



I don’t fancy the job of being the person who monitors the coal wagons being tipped over. Person most likely to get lung disease and there are a fair few times in the film where I think, I am glad of health and safety. H and S appears to be a moustache and a flat cap. Interesting to see the people in charge of each stage as well.

 

Good catch ...... Cheers!

 

My pleasure. I wasn't sure if it was a very well known clip or not. Does anyone know what is going on in the first scene? (Casting the frames?)

On the subject of H & S, at around 6.45 during the tiring of the wheel there is a guy in the background who appears to have his head and one eye under a bandage

 

They were certainly casting something but not the frames they were plate steel.

 

What is the filming Year?
According to mr Cox,these engines were frame breakers extreme.
It can be clearly seen on video that frame sides are spliced from two pieces ,the worst possible place,that is between cylinder and driving wheel.
If splicing had been just behind driving wheel boxes,problem would have been much less and one could maybe have been preserved.

 

Remember also that these engines, as with most LNWR types, had an intermediate supplementary frame with a centre axlebox between the cranks. This distributed the piston forces over a larger area of the frames, so reducing the stresses. Derby decided it was unnecessary and had it removed, and so began the frame troubles.

Like the video!

 

The date given on the NW film archive website is 1911.

 

The vertical forces on crankshaft bearings have varied from 10 to 30 tons at speed according to bridge stress commity and my memory.
The middle bearing would thus have taken from 3 to 10 tons in very rough numbers and if the middle frame stay was very rigid vertically(hardly).
The middle arrangment stay and bearing can handle next to no horizontal force according to a drawing in a Nock book.
The combined piston thrust maximum was of the order of 30 tons so Derby could have done better than only removing the useles middle bearing.
The same amount of steel should have been reinforced the frames for much less cracking .
According to Cox and Adrian Tester crackins was a mileage/age thing.
The Derby removal and cracking was unrelated just happened at same time.

 

The inside bearing took no vertical forces as it wasn't sprung; it took up flexure in the crank axle and passed it and part of the piston thrusts to the stretchers fore and aft of it, and from there into the mainframe plates.

 

OK I did not imagine ,because it cannot have been very effective fore and aft wise.
Was it a F .Webb feature?
It could have worked if it had been anchored solidly between the cylinders but I cannot se that from the drawings I have.

 

I know what you're saying about attachment to the cylinder block but the supplementary frame ran between the motion bracket and a stretcher between the two middle axles on the eight-coupled locos; it would have been the same on the passenger types. The drawing shows this.

It was a F.W Webb feature. One main reason for the use of Joy's valve gear was the elimination of eccentrics and allowed bigger bearings and the supplementary frame. It should be remembered that LNWR engines were lightly built then thrashed unmercifully in service, not a recipe for a long life. But I've found no evidence of excessive frame problems prior to the middle bearing's removal.

 

same with the centre crankshaft bearing they were built with . the LMS had it removed which took away the crews' ability to thrash them due to overheating .

they couldn't have summat better than a Compound ,so they drew the Georges' teeth

 

What's all this about it being a 'Prince of Wales'? It's obviously a 'George the Fifth' class No. 956. 'Dachshund' completed April 1911. Renamed 'Bulldog' in 1915 for daft 'patriotic' reasons.

 

I forgot to say - I was looking at the North West Film archive where this film came from and found this. It doesn’t seem to be online - and i’ve no idea if it would be of any interest to people interested in carriages but I thought i’d pass it on.

https://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/viewVideo.php?token=3002agw1216Hq225804xZYm4734b49H

 

The Precursor/Experiment family was the best looking british locomotives for my eyes.
I have had the Nock book since 1968 and no bible.
I have also read Mr Cox describtion of how lousy they were frame cracking- wise.
The frame plates were spliced from two parts at the worst possible place,that is between cylinders and driving wheel axleboxes.
My advice will be to splice round the boxes, have no middle bearings and make the 4-6-0 version.
It was one of Ridless favourite locomotive and he knew a thing or two about steam .

 

Personally I've always had a soft spot for claughtons...

 

As had my Dad, who had seen them in action. Maybe in the fullness of time there will be a new-build one with the weaknesses eliminated without changing the appearance, but it won't be in my time. Meanwhile I do hope to live to see Prince George finished -- so I ought to be putting some money that way.

 

While I'm not a "supporter" (at least in cash terms) of any of the new build projects (my real interest lies more in Victorian industrial and the like), but I must admit I think of the current crop of new builds the George project is easy the most exciting choice of loco. It's the way it's from an almost lost company from an almost lost era (compared to general trend to build 1930/40/50s locos from one of the big 4 or BR).
I for one really hope that the project makes it to completion, if only so we can see how good (or bad) one actually is...!

 

It's an interesting 'take' on the whole newbuild subject .... and one I've got a lot of sympathy with. The 'fly in the ointment' is of course the ability to have suitable stock to couple up to your beautifully crafted Victorian or Edwardian loco once it's complete and rolling stock recreations (on standard gauge, at least) are a bit thin on the ground.

There are several perfectly valid reasons why this is the case, among which the lines of unrestored wrecks, rescued from underneath the egg-laying end of poultry etc., looms large .... more specifically, raising the funds to restore same. Having enough appropriately skilled hands on deck to achieve the desired outcome also helps and here, inspiration of any workforce is every bit as important as funding.

Should scarce resources be diverted from restoration to new construction? All the arguments which apply to newbuild locos while unrestored kit languishes for lack of funds apply equally to rolling stock, but the bottome line - that it's up to individuals to decide how and where to dispose of their own money [insert plug for gift aid here] - is the same for every project, from replacing a length of BR era chainmail with 'traditional' wooden picket fencing to a completely new railway.

None of the above makes a recreated train any more or less likely, but whether newbuild or restoration, rolling stock funding depends on catching the imagination of potential donors every bit as much as for locos. There's one factor which doesn't neccessarily affect locos and that's that the finished result almost certainly won't ever be 'mainline certifiable', which might well inform any decision by some to consider chucking their money such a project. So, which funding models apply? At least part of any answer has to take account of how a project is defined at the outset.

The NNR's Quad-Art set is a rare (and inspiring) example of what's effectively a complete passenger train restored as a discrete project (less choice in the matter with an articualted fixed-formation set of course) and the W&LLR's recreated Pickerings an equally rare example of a newbuild rake. As part of the WHR's overall reopening strategy, stock newly built (though on ex-SAR undergubbins) for that line has either had cost subsumed within the wider project, or added on an 'as and when' basis. The case of the WHR is different in any event, their new kit being, for the most part, their only kit. It's also stock designed, albeit with a nod to heritage styling, designed with the requirements of modern tourist traffic firmly in mind.

So just how does one define, let alone market a 'complete train' project? Several lines group restorations under a single heading (the Bluebell's rolling 'Victorian' restoration programme, the IWSR's 'Oldburys' and the Foxfield's close association with the Knotty Coach Trust spring to mind), on the mainline there's the 5BEL project (like the Quad-Art, a fixed formation .... the clue being in the '5' bit of the title!), but I'm not sure we're collectively that much closer to a 'working model' to enable train-length restorations to take place on a 'production line' basis, let alone strolling into (say) the East Lancashire's C&W department with the plans for a rake of Aspinall era L&Y mainline stock involving everything from new wheelsets and bogies up to roof-mounted ventilators. (Checking the VCT database, there's a bit of L&Y kit about ..... but all in the same place, it ain't!)

Although Tornado wasn't the first newbuild loco of the preservation era (take a bow Blodge!), the A1SLT achieved more than simply (simply? Yeah ... right!) building an entire mainline express loco, they created a template by means of which others may follow in their footsteps. To produce an entire train under the banner of a single project will need a similarly successful and inspirational fundraising model .... and we've not yet had any successful precedent for that AFAIK.

 

The IOWSR model is not exclusively confined to the Oldbury's, the model includes all of the coaching stock and all of the goods vehicles. The development of the bogie rake/s, 4-wheel rake/s and the Oldbury's is just a part of the railways Strategic vision. We do not have multiple owners who work to different methods and speeds, all of the work is funded by the C&W budget be it maintenance or a restoration. So much easier for the Railway as a whole, this is not to decry single owners or groups as some are doing incredible jobs.