Webb locomotives of the LNWR : Webb 2-2-2-0 Teutonic class

The LNWR Teutonic class was a class of 10 passenger three-cylinder compound 2-2-2-0 locomotives designed by F. W. Webb for the London and North Western Railway, and manufactured by them in their Crewe Works between 1889 and 1890.
The design featured a boiler pressed to 175 lbf/in2 (1.21 MPa) delivering saturated steam to two outside 14-inch (356 mm) high-pressure cylinders, which exhausted to one 30-inch (762 mm) low-pressure cylinder inside the frames. All three cylinders had a stroke of 24 inches (610 mm); the high-pressure cylinders drove the rear wheels, while the low-pressure drove the leading driving wheels. As the two pairs of driving wheels were not connected, the locomotives were "duplex drive" or "double-singles".
They were a development of Webb's Dreadnought class; they larger driving and leading wheels, and the additions of cylinder tail rods (which were later removed). There were also further modifications to the Joy valve gear, but the seven locomotives built in 1890 had the inside cylinder worked by slip-eccentric valve gear instead from new.
Of the ten locomotives, nine were named after ships of the White Star Line, the exception was named after a character in a Walter Scott novel, as it was exhibited at the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1890
When George Whale become chief mechanical engineer of the LNWR in 1903, he started a programme of eliminating Webb's over-complicated duplex compound locomotives. Consequently, the class was scrapped between October 1905, and July 1907, having been replaced by Whale's Experiment class


1301 Teutonic


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Webb 2-2-2-0 & 2-2-2-2 locomotives - Railway-Photography
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railway photographs from the last 100 years
1304 Jeanie Deans

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Webb 2-2-2-0 & 2-2-2-2 locomotives - Railway-Photography
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railway photographs from the last 100 years
1304 Jeanie Deans

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1304 Jennie Deans Webb Teutonic class 2-2-2-0
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railway photographs from the last 100 years
1306 Ionic

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Webb 2-2-2-0 & 2-2-2-2 locomotives - Railway-Photography
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1309 Adriatic

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Webb 2-2-2-0 & 2-2-2-2 locomotives - Railway-Photography
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railway photographs from the last 100 years

Neil

 

Webb's compounding system fascinates me. Can anyone please recommend any balanced appraisals of his work? As neither Webb nor the LNWR Board were chumps, much of what's been published (mostly by non-railway engineers and years after the event), simply writing the whole episode off as an abberation, seems unduly simplistic and less than objective (i.e. a polite way of saying "a load of old cobblers").

Ideally, I'd like to get a grip on the theory and the differences between that and the practical application of his system. The reasons for Webb's use of slip-eccentic gear to actuate the LP steam valve is an aspect which has flummoxed me for years.

 

Were these the compounds whose wheels would rotate in opposite directions from time to time?

I was once told that this would only happen in a specific set of circumstances, one of which was when the gear was moved from reverse to forward, such as happened when a loco reversed onto it's train at a terminus such as Euston, and when each set of gear was in a specific orientation.

Can anyone shed any light on whether this is correct?

 

Backtrack magazine has published a number of articles in recent years trying to give a more balanced view of Webb.
The SteamIndex website has a page giving all useful publications about Webb and a flavour of what they say.

 

It is true that this could happen. A loco reversing onto a train would of course be in reverse gear, and as the inside cylinder was on a slip eccentric, it would still be in reverse when the train started forwards.
Since Webb was not an idiot, he understood this could happen, and so provided a valve to bypass the middle (low pressure) cylinder on starting.
If drivers didn't use this valve (i.e. didn't control their loco properly) the slipping was a possibility.
It cannot have happened often. I've never seen an account of anyone actually witnessing it, and I think a lot of the people mentioning it as something which happened are really just reporting the theoretical possibility.