Bulleid 'Leader'

Maybe after Stalingrad? When the possibility of the defeat of the Soviets is gone and so in turn the possibility of the Axis powers turning their attention West again is gone.

In the context of agricultural reconstruction for example, it is being argued from about 1942 onwards that post war Britain will not be able to compete with cheaper North and South American imports and will have to therefore British agriculture will have to do x,y,z, and then how to do it. (Others within the debate see the Soviets as dominating and so therefore a different set of problems and approaches have to be taken). Now, I wonder if there is ever a clear articulation of or debate about future post war loco policy by any of the companies. @S.A.C. Martin are there any discussions during the war about what to do in the short, medium and long term after the war within the L.N.E.R?

 

https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/pannier-tanks.802774/

For the why's and wherefores of Panniers

 

I've heard about post WWI standard designs as well, but never seen anything - does anyone have any info they could add?

 

I believe that the Ashford/Woolwich moguls were proposed as a standard design.

Much better than a lot of what was constructed after WW1!

 

What became the LNER O4 was that considered? I also have vague memory of something similar to the S&DJR 7f? Or have I got that the wrong way round?

 

There was a lot of work done in WW1 to propose a standard 2-6-0, and other classes following, with I think Churchward and Maunsell prominent. It never came to anything though. There were a number of proposals and weights diagrams and the like exist. A web search for ARLE 2-6-0 will produce a lot of material. The Woolwich moguls were built, AIUI, because they weren't so very different from the ARLE proposals and it saved a lot of design work. Try this as a starting point. http://www.steamindex.com/locotype/arle.htm

 

Surprisingly, the Americans went further with ideas for post-WW1 standard designs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USRA_standard

 

Phew? For a moment there it looked like we might be coming back to the subject of the thread, but thankfully we've sharply veered off again....
In these trying times we need a bit of idle speculation and whimsy to keep us all (relatively) sane.
So far, this thread has been highly satisfactory.

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I wonder why more designs didn’t have cabs at the front like this engine. It works On a auto train and the leader engine I wonder why it wasn’t used loads more when they built modern standards. There is space at the front of most engines if they wanted to add this feature

 

There is also asmokebox, which gets hot, and a door which opens to shovel the char out. Cooked drivers and ash everywhere don't make for an ergonomic environment.

The advantage of the cab in front is better visibility, much needed when driving road vehicles. With a train you drive on the signals, and with your route knowledge you know exactly where to look out for them. Good forward visibility can be a help, but it isn't the essential on rails that it is on the road.

 

This keeps being said and I rather think we need to challenge this. The BR Standards incorporated the use of all of the drawing offices and workshops that BR inherited. The Standard 5MT is a Doncaster product where the chassis is concerned, and indeed the prototype was built and displayed there.

The idea of a mixed traffic 5MT or 4MT was not unique to the LMS, and it could be said (because it is true) that the 5MT represents a lovely combination of the different technologies available from the grouping companies. The three component slide bar design and walschaerts valve gear is virtually that of the B1, and the choice of the standard LNER mixed traffic 6ft 2in wheelset is another nod to this.



Above the running plate, LMS. Below the running plate, LNER.

I am perfectly happy to accept - because it is true - that the boiler is more a midland product than anything else.

Yes - it was Thompson's standardization scheme - the main aim was to scrap all grouping and pre-grouping steam engines out side of new locomotive designs and those classified as "non standard, to be maintained". These slides show you the classes involved:





This would have reduced the LNER to 19 locomotive types with around 20 boiler types.

Taking stats from my excel spreadsheet's dashboard of the locomotives the LNER had in 1942 shows how sobering a task that was:



In the event, Thompson and Peppercorn introduced most of the standard types, and the LNER made inroads in the withdrawal of a few pre-grouping classes, but nationalisation set the agenda and the LNER remained a railway with a very high number of different locomotive classes and boilers, which had its clear disadvantages.

Under all three LNER C.M.E.s there were diesel types ordered, delivered, and used in small numbers but there does not appear to have been any desire to diesel-ise. Electrification, on the other hand, was very much discussed continuously and in passing by the LNER board but never acted on in a meaningful way.

There was no discussion of articulation at any time: I rather think the U1 Garratt probably blotted the copybook on Garratt types on the LNER (it was not much liked, despite its impressive power).

 

Simon

I agree with you, that is why I used the word "developed". I believe the boiler was very close to the design of the final version of the Black 5 boiler but the chassis was thorougly revised. The are obvious visible detail differences but I also wonder what was done to the steam circuit. The BR 5s seemed to perform a little better than the LMS type and I think that must have been down to cylinder and valve gear design.

The only BR designs that were really close copies of LMS designs were the class 2s; the class 4 2-6-0s were not chaged very much.

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Apologies Ray - not meant to come across grumpy on the LNER side of things! I think you are correct in your summation, it seems likely the steam circuit was better on the 5MT and that likely came from a straightening of the passages at the front end together with the draughting arrangement. I claim no specific knowledge on this, I stand to be corrected.

 

So at nationalisation the LNER had a standardisation scheme drawn up c. 1943, the LMS had one consolidated c. 1946 and the GWR... they persisted in sticking to one drawn up c. 1903. While Bullied on the Southern deprecated standardisation as a hindrance to technical progress.

 

Following the off topic drift, I recall reading that as steam was being wound down, the Black 5s were favoured over the Standards. That doesn't make huge sense if the Standards were technically better. What am I missing?

 

I go by what the men with whom I worked in 1973 had to say, when steam was still a topic among drivers. Few if any would have taken a Standard Five in preference to a Stanier version. Comparisons can be subjective, but most thought the Black Five to be a better engine. The only driver I can think of who did prefer the Standards is Terry Essery, and it must be said that he has some strange ideas far removed from those of all other drivers I knew!

 

You mean like this?



Or this



This might struggle with the UK loading gauge



There is a serious point here in that the German example at the top was used until the late 50s after WW2 so clearly the idea of a cab at the front is not a non starter, but perhaps it was other issues with the design that were the problem.

Thanks for this, when did the discussions start about the plan?

 

IIRC, weren't the pricipal U1 gripes were (a - by drivers) sighting, when approaching trains being banked, due to it's length - only partially obviated by habitually operating "cab end forward", (b - by firemen) 'two day's work, for one day's pay', due to its prodigeous grate size and (c - from an operational perspective) availability, which was understandable, given it was the solitary member of it's class, with all that implied for spare parts - and that huge, unique boiler.

The ex-MR 'Lickey Banker' had a significant "float of additional spare key components, specifically to reduce down time. Had the LNER adopted that approach, the availability of the U1 would doubtless have matched that of it's Midland counterpart. I've always understood the demise of both to be a combination of a hard working life and redundancy, with the advent of the 9Fs.

It's occasionally crossed my mind that the survival of either would've given the NYMR a loco equal to the task of those heavy dining services. Ho-hum!

 

One of the criticisms I've heard of the Standard 5s from a BR driver (and Britannias as well I think) was that the roller bearings gave a harsh ride, which you felt after a day on the footplate relative to locos with conventional axle boxes.

Tom

 

Yes that is the idea I was thinking but leader seams to be the only design with it here