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Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by S.A.C. Martin, May 2, 2012.

  1. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    OS Nock being a published author does not mean he is infallible gents. Remember that.
     
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  2. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Re OS Nock: My sense is that his output is patchy. In particular, his later output has the feel a bit of just being "turning the handle" to get a certain volume out, without much consideration.

    He's at his best when discussing signalling, and related issues such as safety, as might be expected given his career. By contrast, some of his discussion of loco practice always feels a bit one dimensional: he's keen on performance logs, without giving much insight into why they might be as they were. I find that surprising given that he must have travelled thousands of miles on the footplate. He'll be quick to label a particular run as poor, without saying anything about the circumstances on the footplate (what was the coal like? Lots of slack? Was the loco priming and due a washout? Was the blast pipe misaligned?).

    Given that, it's easy to imagine that he may not have had a very nuanced view of Thompson, but instead seen things entirely through the eyes of scintillating runs of other engines he had known, all the while remaining oblivious to issues such as availability, maintenance standards and so on. Scintillating runs make the headlines, but reliability pays the bills; Thompson's curse is that his career has been almost universally judged through the wrong lens.

    Tom
     
  3. sir gilbert claughton

    sir gilbert claughton Well-Known Member

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    I totally agree - but in this instance I believe him .
     
  4. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    I'm not saying it should be dismissed as inaccurate, without proof; rather, it should not be unhesitatingly be accepted as accurate, without some sort of confirmation.

    If you think that's an uncharitable attitude, I had a wonderful example why it's not land in my mailbox just yesterday (and apologies for the off-topic, but it's just too apropos, and the timing is... ironic.) It was a copy of "How to Build a Car", by the noted F1 designer, Adrian Newey - it's an excellent book, one I can recommend most highly. I sat down and read it cover-to-cover (totally upsetting my schedule; it just sucked me in).

    In doing so, I ran across this (on page 83): "A few days before the [1986] Indy 500, Jim Trueman, the owner of [the] Truesports [team] ... lost his battle with cancer. Very fittingly, [his driver] Bobby [Rahal] went on to win the 500 [that year]."

    One problem.

    That's incorrect. Trueman died eleven days after the victory (June 11, 1986). I recall the timing as there's an incredible picture I remember (although I couldn't find it online) that show Jim posing with the team and car on the famous finish line, and he's clearly on his last legs. Also, it's almost like a movie script - except one which one would dismiss as unrealistic. But it really happened.

    Now, Newey's an amazingly sharp person - how could he forget that Jim lasted just long enough to see the win (not the other way around - which although it would be an equally incredible story, is totally different in mood). These were people he knew (in Rahal's case, he'd worked with him).

    And the book is physically very fine - printed on heavy paper, beautifully designed, etc. So clearly they took some care with it - so how did this slip through?

    Just because something's in a book by someone notable, doesn't mean it's neccessarily correct. :-(

    Noel
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2018
  5. paullad1984

    paullad1984 Member

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    I always find nock too dry and over rated tbh.
     
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  6. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Put simply, why?

    Here’s the cons, IMO.

    - The information given is at odds with Thompson’s career up to being CME
    - I have a full set of notes relating to rebuilding the P2s including notes on Thane of Fife’s testing and this is not mentioned anywhere
    - RCTS Green book 2A makes no mention of this and includes all the variations of the potential Pacific designs in the back - all had walschaerts throughout
    - No other LNER author has ever mentioned this
    - ES Cox would definitely have mentioned if this was the case given his views and closeness of working relationship with Thompson
    - OS Nock is not a wholly reliable source on Thompson’s life and career and made several errors in several other publications
    - Nock is the only source for this

    Struggling with this fellas. On almost every level the balance of probability says “didn’t happen” to me based on what I know to be true of Thompson, the context of the Pacific rebuilding and what was happening at the time to push Thompson towards rebuilding (availability).
     
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  7. sir gilbert claughton

    sir gilbert claughton Well-Known Member

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  8. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    But what confirmation is there to back up that belief? Are his papers in a library somewhere, along with his schedule, which could show that it was his habit to take extensive notes during all his interviews (just as an possible example of the kind of thing that would be solid backup for that position)?

    Again, I'm not saying he's wrong; I just don't know.

    Noel
     
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  9. sir gilbert claughton

    sir gilbert claughton Well-Known Member

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    put simply , I do not believe it was said in a formal situation , nor do I believe it was meant to be taken seriously . I think it may have been intended to be funny.

    the serious part , I think , is Staniers' exasperation with the 956 class , which ET probably already knew ,prompting a teasing remark . Stanier bit on it .

    ----------------------as have many others it would appear
     
  10. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    It’s funny because so many authors have questioned whether Thompson had a sense of humour...at all.

    :rolleyes:
     
  11. sir gilbert claughton

    sir gilbert claughton Well-Known Member

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    of course he did -----------may have been a bit dry for some tastes tho'
     
  12. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    With respect, and noting also Jim's comments, as a fellow author of books on locos I would deal with this with a straight bat e.g. something along the lines: "One source asserts that Thompson considered Stephenson valve gear for the middle cylinder, but I have found no other references to confirm this." (and then footnote the source). That way you avoid having to set out somewhat subjective pros and cons.
     
  13. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    I don’t disagree for the purposes of the book or similar but we’re having an open discussion here.

    I feel somewhat held to a higher standard than anyone else...!!! :)
     
  14. Hermod

    Hermod Member

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    It would have been a very good solution to the Gresly inside cylinder problem to put Stephenson , Goch or Allan valve gear on.
    Everybody in England knew how and the LMS black five/GWR Hall could have had Stephenson on one side and Walscharts on the other .
    The problem was that it would have indicated that the CME could not make decisions and this must never come through to the lower working classes.

    Instead of this

    https://i.imgur.com/ZQjgKpG.jpg

    Thompson made this

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_...acific_geograph-2827807-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg

    His main claim to fame is having made a lot of B1s that look very much as a Prussian P8 anno 1914.Six narrow piston rings on valve heads etc.
     
  15. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    That's because you are attempting an evidence-based reassessment of the guy. So you should set yourself high standards and aspire to balanced judgements. Not all railway books have these goals! Your task is made more difficult by the need to persuade some readers to drop emotional baggage on the way.
     
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  16. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    I’m trying, but it is also useful to discuss my own feelings on the matter...
     
  17. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    To my mind its footnote material, but I like footnotes (and my editor hated them!). Without any more evidence, like drawings, I think you have to downplay it strongly.
    I was just glancing through Nock's "Star's Castles and Kings" in which he states that the LNER Pacifics received GWR style inside big ends, whereas Cook says that although he tried them they were had no advantage over the Gresley type with the lubrication and machining sorted out. Nock also makes a lot of the "Hawksworth" pacific which actually had nothing to so with Hawksworth at all. All that says to me that its wise not to put too much faith in Nock for uncorroborated detail.
     
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  18. 8126

    8126 Member

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    The improvement to the big end was a two-stage process really. Harvey and Spencer proposed the stiffened big end cap to reduce the working of the brasses when they were asked to look at improving the reliability of the Gresley three-cylinder classes in (I think) the late war or immediate post war period (the original design is like an IC connecting rod, which sees much greater compression forces than tension, so the cap doesn't have to be stiff). Their other recommendation was to temporarily replace the scarce grease lubricated roller bearings in the main pivot of the 2:1 gear with a big plain bearing, making lubrication the driver's responsibility so it wasn't missed. Cook's work on improving the design of the bearing surface would probably have been in vain with the original cap.

    I'm sure @S.A.C. Martin has read Bill Harvey's book (60 years in steam), but I'd recommend it to anyone else with an interest in the operational side of things. His observations on such painful experiences as maintaining the N2 superheaters and keeping the B1's fit for high-speed service certainly bring home just how labour intensive keeping steam running was. He's fairly neutral on personalities (apart from the inevitable L.P. Parker anecdotes), but there's a lot about locomotives...
     
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  19. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    I was thinking on this overnight Jim and your views echo my own on Nock's quite strongly. I have found many contradictions in his body of work, in particular to Edward Thompson, and the pattern throughout the development of his books was a less and less sympathetic view of the one time CME. Nock was given a loco pass during WW2 by Thompson on which he occasionally reported back his views on locomotives but Nock remained vague on why he would pick certain runs over others.

    The thing which bothers me most about Nock is that there's very much an element of the anecdotal about him without substance. The Stephenson's valve gear point is a prime example of this. I am certain that if it had ever been considered to fit such gear on the Pacifics there would be a record of it somewhere in the usual places. Or even the unusual places, like the national archives at Kew where I've gone through the emergency committee notes with a fine tooth comb, and from reading it would appear that a third set of walschaerts was decided on almost immediately after the Cox/Stanier report was given to the LNER board.

    This sort of story is the type of thing which stands out, would be used as a stick to beat Thompson with - introducing additional complexity when he was looking to simplify maintenance and increase availability - but even his most harsh of critics remains silent on this.

    One can only surmise that Nock was on that occasion misremembering the conversation.

    In the course of collating the writings for my book, I have quoted using the Harvard referencing method a number of sections from Nock's books and simply asked the question "does this tally up with what is known to be factual?"

    If the answer is no, the next question to be asked is "why" - and I don't think we can always answer that. Sometimes we err, we are human. Nock was no different. There is merit in reading his work, but only at the level of understanding and appreciating his passion for the steam locomotive. On other matters, a pinch of salt is required I feel.
     
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  20. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    As you say, it is very noticeable that the major factors which have driven my desire for a wider discussion on Thompson - availability, maintenance standards, etc - are left virtually unsaid by Nock. If you were to read Nock as a source for LNER locomotive performance you would not be aware of the availability issues the Gresley locomotives, in particular the P2s and Pacifics suffered during WW2.

    (For those unaware, you can find the stats for this around pages 105-110 of this thread).

    Possibly the best summing up of Edward Thompson to date. Well said Tom. I will try and not plagiarise that wording...!!! ;)
     
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