Francis Webb,good or bad?

If I may add some more notes of caution, don't do the above in August! It became quite oppressive under the lights and I got a little light-headed going up and down the steps as often as I did. The sheer volume of drawings in some boxes was staggering! There was barely adequate time to photo all the drawings I had requested in time. The staff may also fail to find some of your requests although that is quite understandable given the size of the collection and very much the exception. Also, your hands will get quite dirty!

As said above, well worth the travel cost and I make no apology for sitting slack-jawed at lunch ogling Mallard!

 

[QUOTE="LMS2968, post: 2566212, member: 852"

Westinghouse seemed fond of making enemies. The Midland also looked at his brake and realised that, having compressed air on the engine, it could be utilised to operate the sanders. Westinghouse refused to allow this, so the Midland too went for the vacuum brake.[/QUOTE]

I tend to have doubts about stories of these sorts. In later years things such as air whistles and power firedoors were operated from the brake system. My suspicion is that with both Webb and his Chairman, Sir Richard Moon , being weapons grade penny pinchers, the automatic air brake was just too expensive for them. Similarly with the Midland when a cheaper form of automatic brake came along.

Incidentally, whether Westinghouse fluttered dollar bills around or not, he was an enlightened employer. During his period in charge of the business there was not one major labour (should it be "labor") dispute

 

Suit yourself, you can argue it out with Ted Talbot if you like. It's on Page 54 of the book 'The LNWR Recalled' (1987 OPC ISBN 0-86093-392-X) already cited by rlinkins and was told by the Chief Clerk, Mr Horabin to W. Noel Davies, one of Webb's last premium apprentices. It also gets a mention in 'Locomotive Engineers of the LMS' by Denis Griffiths (1991) PSL ISBN 1-85260-142-6

 

I always find it notable that of the companies - at least in the London Area - who standardised on air brakes, all had very intensive suburban passenger traffic and probably appreciated the extra precision in braking. (GER, LBSCR, LCDR - the last is particularly notable as being very cash-strapped, but still evidently considered the cost of the Westinghouse system to be worthwhile.

Tom

 

I am in no position to argue anything out here. However beware of the human tendency to invent things and then accept the surmise as fact. A ludicrous example of this was the supposed sighting of Russian soldiers in W.W.1, so identified "by the snow on their boots"!

 

Metropolitan?

I wonder if intensive services also influenced the Scottish companies that used it?

The NER?

Nock argues an element of parochialism/xenophobia. The air brake was an American invention and companies preferred to keep things in house. He cites the example of the GNR signalman who invented something and got in trouble for trying to patent it himself instead of giving it to the company. (I may be remembering wrong here).

 

The GER also had a combined air/screw reverse with half nuts on the screw; a bit like the lever/screw reverse on a RHDR Pacific, but air powered. The Clauds had air power on the water scoop and sanders too. The main reservoir for the system had two chambers linked by a non-return valve, so the ancillaries couldn't steal all the air from the braking system. Presumably the air reverse was used for full gear reversals and coarse movements, ideal for quick run rounds in stations and dropping to full gear for coasting, while the screw was used for fine adjustment on the run.

Certainly air-powered auxiliaries were very common in the US, air is a much better operating medium than steam for most power-operated applications because it doesn't condense on the job.

I tend to assume that the Scottish companies that adopted it and (to a lesser extent) NER were influenced by having a lot of bloody big hills.

 

As did L.B.S.C.R. "Gladstones" (1882)

 

In this case we have someone who was there at the time and the other person was there not long after. Both are identified, so it's a bit more than what some bloke in the pub said! As these things go, I'd say it's pretty reliable.

 

Best to look at the Thompson thread before coming to that conclusion. (On reflection better not!!)

 

according to Cook, who was on a committee to standardise brakes about the time of the grouping. the GER considered that it would be impossible to operate their intensive suburban service without the quick release of the Westinghouse.

 

I'll take your second piece of advice on that one. I'm not going there!

 

The Bayonne-Biarritz railway introduced two cylinder compounds in 1876.

In 1878 Webb produced his first compound. This was a rebuild of an old 2-2-2 and the left-hand cylinder was lined down to 9" diameter and the right-hand cylinder remained at 15" diameter with the boiler pressure remaining unchanged. Naturally the power was reduced but the results of testing this modest machine over a number of years were encouraging enough to persuade Webb to develop things further.

The first series were based on the Precedent class and had three cylinders, two H.P. cylinders originally 11.5" in diameter, later increased to 13", and these drove the rear axle. The single L.P. cylinder was 28" in diameter and all cylinders had a 24" stroke and the engines were introduced in 1882. The first engine produced had a very interesting first day or two of service, tested from Crewe assisting on a 19 coach train to London the next morning it worked the mail train to Holyhead followed by the return working as far as Crewe.

The first three cylinder dates to a design proposed by Jules Morandiere in 1866. This design had two L.P. outside cylinders which were in phase with each other and set at 90 degrees to the inside H.P. cylinder. This arrangement was tried out in Russia in 1882 unsurprisingly without success. Strange to say this concept did appear again in 1904 on a compound express passenger design. Only two of Wittfeld's 'furniture vans' were produced, go and check them out. In spite of their peculiarities they lasted until 1918.

Webb followed up the Experiments with the Dreadnought class which in turn gave rise to the Teutonics. Many will have heard of No. 1304 better known as 'Jeanie Deans' and its record of service on the 2.00pm Glasgow dining-car express.

At the period when Webb was working there were certain accepted views concerning locomotive design. Coupling rods were just one of them. These influenced the designs that he produced. As far as compounds were concerned he was a pioneer and some of these designs could perform very well. His simple expansion designs could as well.

Webb should be seen as a good engineer particularly in view of the times in which he worked and it should be noted that locomotives were only a part of his responsibilities, interests and achievements.

 

Do I understand Webb's policy on brakes correctly?

He first used the Clark and Webb Chain brake, which in terms of efficiency did well at the Newark brake trials, better than the current vacuum systems though the Westinghouse air brake was the best and his system was criticised for not being automatic. He then went on to adopt a non automatic vacuum brake of his invention which was used until pressure from the board of trade made the LNWR adopt an automatic system.

If I have the above correct why did he switch to a non automatic vacuum brake? Was it because the current automatic systems were less efficient while the chain brake needed excessive maintenance and was time consuming to connect up?

Apologies if I have got the above completely wrong.

 

I'm not sure of the entire sequence but he did adopt the simple vacuum brake until legislation, or threatened legislation, forced the adoption of the automatic brake. Thus locos had to be equipped to work both simple and automatic systems, the type being set by a push in / pull out lever under the driver's control. A passenger train with the automatic brake ran away down the gradient from Shap to Carlisle on 4 March 1890. The initial cause was said to be ice in the train pipe preventing the vacuum being destroyed(!), but the confused driver desperately reversed the brake handle, thereby applying vacuum and blowing off whatever braking effort was being made. Tom Rolt goes into detail in 'Red for Danger'.

 

The Board of Trade report into the accident makes fascinating reading.

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BoT_CarlisleNov1890.pdf

Rolt's account seems to agree with the conclusions of the BoT report. However Adrian Vaughan takes a very different view in his introduction to 'Obstruction Danger':

On 3 March 1890, an overnight express from Euston ran into Carlisle Citadel station behind one of Mr Webb's dreadful 'Dreadnought' Class 2-2-2-0 compounds, No 515, Niagra. It ran past the platform at about 40 mph, its wheels churning round backwards in a desperate effort to stop, and, being unable so to do, crashed into a Caledonian Railway engine, killing four people. The driver had been unable to apply his simple vacuum brake because a block of ice had formed in the manner I have just described. At the Inquest into the deaths, a jury heard the evidence and found that the driver was blameless while the LNWR 'incurred great responsibility in using a brake of such an uncertain and unreliable character'. This did not cheer the cold hearts of the LNWR management, but their spirits were raised when Captain Rich RE made public his report into the crash, having been commissioned to do so by the Board of Trade. His verdict was that the crash was the fault of the driver who 'mismanaged the brake'. The national press in general and the railway press in particular were outraged at this, and wrote stern articles on the subject, but all to no avail, for the Captain's verdict, reached by him alone in the very teeth of all the evidence, was never overturned. The hypocrisy of Rich and the LNWR becomes all the more disgusting when one learns that, on the same day as the Carlisle crash, three other LNWR passenger trains had passed signals at danger. These instances were reported to the Board of Trade as the law required, but as no one was hurt in the incidents, the occurrences were never made public. In each case the cause of the 'run past' was attributed, by the LNWR, to 'ice in brake pipe'. The Carlisle crash, a real cause celebre at the time, may well have been the genesis of that famous railway saying, 'when in doubt, blame the driver'.

Thoughts?

 

Horrible story.
It indicates that the wellbeing of LNWR shareholders was more important to UK goverment than
the corresponding cirkus around two Boing 737s recently.But only by a small margin.

 

I didn’t drive it when it visited, and can’t immediately lay my hands on the operational notes we got, but I seem to recall that there was some quirk of the brakes on the Coal Tank that was still some vestigial remnant of the non-automatic vacuum, having been converted to automatic vacuum.

Tom

 

At the same time, there was huge hostility to the use of continuous brakes when entering stations and that the handbrake only should be used, which to me seems an absurd situation that the inspectorate and the companies kept up as driver after driver was thrown under the bus when trains failed to stop where they should have done.

 

OK, a Google Search showed up that the problem with the chain brake was that although powerful it could only operate on about half a dozen vehicles so a long train might require about 4 brake vans with brakesmen. At least if a train became divided the seperate sections could be stopped bit it would appear that frugality lead to the adoption of the cheap and simple non automatic vacuum brake allowing the extra vans and men to be dispensed with. I find it a bit confusing as it appears that the vacuum brake was also described as a Clark and Webb system.