Greatest Mileage in Service

Does that mean that they were the Victorian version of a Pacer then?

 

A Pacer does, at least, work and do a job(came back from Stockport on one yesterday) Sounds like these LCDR Crampton things didn't do anything much at all

 

Very ,very interesting
The design had the same faults as Thompson pacifics and Hawthorn was a firm of ill repute.
Mr Crampton had four Cramptons built by Tulk and Ley in 1849 and they impressed nobody in Europe and was sent back to England.
Hawthorn put new factory plates on in 1854 claiming being new builds and sold them to Denmark.
They were no end of misery and was scrapped without having done much work.
Borsig of Berlin copyed them more or less and these ran and ran for years.
Hawthorn also sold some 2-4-0s to Denmark 1874 that were lousy as well.
The contempory locomotives from Stephensons (1868) almost made it to end of steam.

 

Oh come on, that's ridiculous - and deliberately inflammatory.

 

WP_20191003_001[1] by Hermod posted Oct 3, 2019 at 8:52 PM

The Sondes objections from Goch were made again 100 years later by mr Nock ,Colonel Rogers etc against Thompson Pacifics.
Cylinders in the middle of nowhere and long ,unstable steamconnections.

 

Yes, what precedents were there that a configuration like that might work...

 

Other Cramptons had those same features without quite such devastating criticism so perhaps the problem was with a coupled loco of such light build. Gooch might not have been the best to consult as he may well have held a grudge against his former assistant who had set out to deliberately design narrow gauge locos to match the broad gauge ones of Gooch.

 

Fowler's Ghost never got very far with only a couple of short unsuccessful runs.

 

So how, incidentally, in that context, would you describe a Beyer Garratt?

 

Not steam, but the NER built an electric loco for the proposed east coast line electrification in 1922. The electrification never happened and it just did a few trials on Newport to Shildon and was placed in store. It was still there in 1948. It could have been tried out on Woodhead but I think it was scrapped before that scheme was opened. I think the number was 26600.

 

I hadn't thought about that connection between Gooch and Crampton.

<speculative wibble alert>

OTOH, Gooch might have been an excellent choice of consultant for someone who wished to see Crampton (and his ally Cubitt) put in their place. It's conceivable that some on the board were beginning to realise that in backing their contractor Crampton against the Loco Superintendent Martley in the manner of motive power policy, they had backed the wrong horse. Within a couple of years of his appointment, Martley's stock was clearly rising as he made inroads into restoring order from the somewhat chaotic motive power he had inherited (shades of Gooch himself 20 years earlier!) By that period, Gooch's own reputation was unimpeachable, so it would have been hard for a board to entirely go against what he recommended. It's also quite likely that Gooch already had a favourable opinion of Martley, who prior to the LCDR, had been district locomotive superintendent on the South Wales Division of the GWR. In that circumstance, the choice of Gooch may have been an astute one for the anti-Crampton / Cubitt faction

</speculative wibble alert/>

Or I may be way off beam! But it's not as if the embryonic LCDR was a model of restraint from political factionalism...

Tom

 

Playing devils advocate on this subject, if this turn was the norm, it would also involve light engine movements so would be a bit more than the simple out and back mileage. Allowing 4 hours for each journey and 4 hours for servicing, the loco could easily be available for fill in turns during the night. The quoted service would be six days/week but the loco could also be used on Sundays when available. Thus, 400 miles/day on average is easily possible. If we assume the loco works 250 days/year, that leaves 115 days/year for maintenance. Lets say one works visit of 45 days and 70 days for shed maintenance. On a 28 days in steam washout cycle, that is going to be about nine washouts/year of (say) four days each, during which repairs would be carried out. That's 36 days, leaving 34 days for non-routine stoppages. All these figures are realistic. Putting all these figures together over 20 years would give 2 million miles.
I'm not saying this is what happened. All I'm saying is that it is possible, especially if there was a will to do it. The LNWR worked its locos and crews very hard.

 

Appropriate to consider a perspective from someone who was around at the time of these events. Here are the thoughts of Mr EL Ahrons on the subject:

"Brief mention must be made of the "Charles Dickens", the most celebrated of the "Precedent" class. Built in February 1882, it ran daily from Manchester to Euston and back, and in 1902 was stated to have completed 2 million miles on this service, after which it was relegated to lighter work. As it was broken up in 1912, the total mileage must have been about 2¼ million. It would be interesting to learn how much of the original engine remained in it at the termination of its career. The other "Precedents" of 1874-82 had been practically completely renewed and very little, if anything, of the original engines remained. The crucial question is whether the original frames of the "Charles Dickens" lasted throughout, bearing in mind that they were only 7/8-in thick. Much may be done with a knife, if it be provided with three or four new blades, and a similar number of new handles."

Quoted from "The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825-1925".

 

Reinforcing my suspicion that it was the nameplates and not a lot else that did all those runs - not a lot of time to be out of traffic for all those blade replacements!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Indeed. This beastie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_EE1

https://www.lner.info/locos/Electric/ee1.php

 

I really am yet to be convinced its credible. In Cox' 'Chronicles of Steam', he reports average annual mileages on the LMS in 1927/9 of 31K for passenger tender, 20K for freight tender, 25K for passenger tank, and 17K for freight tank. He also reports 10 year annual mileage for various types 1927-1936, with no LNWR type reported above 38K and the majority under 30K (28K rebuilt Precursor, 24K George V) and even 20K. The LNWR types do not stand out especially above the rest. Three times or more the mileage of the average of what was being achieved thirty years later with better materials, tools, facilities and design?

 

To be fair, Ahrons is stating an opinion, as are we all, rather than a fact, and despite his meticulous research at the time, new information has since proved him wrong on occasion (although he is still the authority on early locomotive; I treasure my copy of his book!).

Really we're getting back to the old argument, 'How much of Flying Scotsman (or any other engine) rolled out of Doncaster Plant in 1923?' Which bits of it travelled at 100mph? The nameplates? We've just gone back further in time.

 

I don't know if this was the situation on the LNWR, but on many railways the loco was allocated to only one driver, so could only be used during his working shift. At that period I'd hazard a guess that the maximum working day would be 12 hours, possibly less. This being before the days of 'Common User' or two or three crews sharing a loco. Obviously this would cut into the time the loco was available and the mileage it could achieve.

 

Again, not steam, but the conversion of the WR gas turbine 18100 to a 25kv electric, which was renumbered E2001. I don't think it did any revenue earning work and was just used for training and testing on the Manchester to Crewe section just after electrification and as soon as the E3001s were delivered it was put into store

 

I have seen it written that one of the Ionics achieved 2M miles .

given their short life I think it must be incorrect .

what is beyond dispute is that LNWR express engines were double manned and a lot of "hot work" was done by the sheds which kept a loco in traffic instead of being "stopped" as was the case in later years