Francis Webb,good or bad?

London commuters are not always the most tolerant of passengers, so you really don't want to upset them with an engine that has difficulty starting, only to then toss them to-and-fro. I believe that Webb gave up on these tanks and scrapped them without waiting for Whale to arrive.

Even on railways that liked compounds, they tended to be avoided on short distance services with lots of stops. For example, if you look at the loco fleet of the CF du Nord, you see lots of 4-cylinder de Glehn compounds for the main-line long-distance passenger and freight traffic, but the commuter trains were mostly in the hands of 2-cylinder simples (latterly 4-6-4 and 2-8-2 tanks).

One of Mr Webb's simple 2-4-2 tanks might do useful work on one of our smaller heritage lines. But a certain microscopic life-form has probably pushed most of our fantasy new-build projects way back over the horizon.

 

I think that you have to be very careful when looking at French locomotive designs. There were so many influences and you have to stir personal politics into the mix. Not every French locomotive engineer was a Sauvage, a du Bousquet, or a de Glehn (yes I know he was born in England). Neither were they a Henry, a Chapelon or a de Casso.

The Ouest, later Etat, had 120 of a small 2-6-2 tank locomotive. They had 5' diameter wheels and were 4 cylinder compounds with unified drive and with duplicate controls at the back of the cab and these engines worked most of the Paris suburban services. They entered service in 1907 sustained 1000 cylinder hp and handled trains of heavy steel built stock. The Ceinture used 4-6-0T tandem compounds (4 cylinder) designed by Gaston du Bousquet and built in 1904. These engines, of which there were fifteen, had automatic starting gear and worked trains requiring 29 stops in a little over 19 miles within a 65 minute schedule, they needed rapid acceleration.

If you want something a little larger try the 4-8-4T of PLM design. There were 281 of these, the first coming into service in 1927 and weighing 116 metric tons in working order. They were 4 cylinder compounds with duplicated controls and handled heavy passenger trains with frequent stops.

It was in 1896 that a group of American engineers reported that compounds were superior to simples in four types of service. In reverse order these were express working, third was freight service, second came suburban service and first was on urban services. The American elevated railways had very frequent stops, every few hundred yards and the engines used operated as a compound after the first revolution of the driving wheels due to automatic starting valves. They displayed vigorous acceleration and with the more even turning moment they were much preferred by passengers.

The compounds mentioned did not give difficulty starting and delivered a smooth power output. But concerning Webb, look at the dates. The groundwork might have been done by D.K. Clark (see Railway Machinery of 1855), Professor Hirn provided scientific demonstrations of steam-jacketing cylinders in the same year. The thermodynamic theory of the steam locomotive, as accepted, was finally formulated in 1878, formulated by D. Dery and attributed to the work of Clark and Hirn. In terms of the understanding of the steam locomotive Webb had no choice other than to be a pioneer if he wanted to develop beyond the ideas that were in place before the thermodynamic theory was, shall we say, finalised.

 

Around Wienna WW1 there was a lot of two cylinder compounds of class kkSTb 229 designed by Golsdorf so the americans can have been rigth
http://www.bundesbahnzeit.de/dso/HS/70-79/b48-75_756.jpg

 

Building started in 1904 and the last was withdrawn in 1967 so far as I can make out. Built in reasonable numbers too, 270 including the rebuilt kkStB129. Karl Golsdorf another locomotive designer who produced a fascinating and largely outstanding series of of machines and probably needs to be more widely known about and respected for his achievements.

 

the reason for that is Moon and Webb had an aversion to paying royalties on the use of a system already in existence . Webb would take an idea and modify it , then place his own patent on the modified device .
he did the same with his interlocking frame for signalling , which , to be fair worked , and lasted well into the 20th C

 

due in part to the mistrust by the engine crews and guards of continuous brakes , fearing the train would part under heavy application .

it was new so it was regarded with suspicion

 

Is there any evidence Webb was "penny pinching"? He invested (or the department he headed) heavily in many of the latest developments throughout his period of office, and he developed Crewe into one of the greatest manufacturies in the world.

Richard Moon may have been "penny pinching" (although the shareholders probably called it something else) and he was the boss, to if Moon and the board decided something (e.g. on brakes) that would have been their decision, albeit on assumes Webb would have given them the technical advice to enable them to make their decisions.

The decision to adopt the non automatic was a bad one, granted.

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I've often thought one of the problems for Webb passenger compounds in particular (and compounds in Britain in general) was that they were in low numbers. Webb's compounds weren't even the majority of the LNWR express passenger fleet, but were made up of seven classes at least.
If Webb had moved to the Benbow system earlier, and built them in greater numbers, they might have become familiar enough to enginemen to get consistent good performance from them, and numerous enough that sweeping them aside as Whale did so quickly with the three cylinder passenger locos wasn't a sensible option.
Something similar could be said for the Wordsell compounds on the NER.
Having said which, I believe personally that the Smith system was by far the best suited to British conditions. All the examples seem to have been good to superb locos.
Nevertheless, it was the belief that superheating could bring all the advantages of compounding with fewer complications which sealed the fate of compounding in Britain (and the LMS motive power department decision to cancel Fowler's pacific). Of course, as French and other designers showed, the two were not mutually exclusive.
Imagine if the GWR had adopted the de Glehn system, the LMS had pursued the Smith system, and the LNER had evolved the Wordsell system....


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Re uncoupled driving wheels on the three cylinder compound express locos, which with hindsight seems bonkers, it's worth noting that Webb wasn't alone in this idiosyncracy.
It was a reasonably widespread belief that coupling rods of that length would be problematic. Note that the compounds had very large grates for 1882 (it was one of the supposed advantages of Webb's setup) at 20.5 sq ft: doing a quick search, I couldn't find any other comparable British loco with this size grate for at least a decade (Adams' T3 on the LSWR in 1892 had 19.8 sq ft).
The first de Glehn compound also started with uncoupled wheels. This was quickly changed on that loco. On the Webb compounds, coupling couldn't be retrofitted because of the valve gear/connecting rod arrangements.
What's always been a mystery to me is why, if the disadvantages of not being coupled were obvious from the start with the Experiment class, why Webb continued to build uncoupled locos until the 2-2-2-2s sixteen years later. I can only suppose that the problems weren't as severe as is sometimes implied, and that Webb was perseverent with his concept (or stubborn, the words often mean the same!). Sometimes it is suggested that feedback didn't reach him because he was a tyrant, but this doesn't seem to fit the available evidence at all (see the many book references on the SteamIndex site).
Given that the coupled three cylinder 0-8-0s were very successful, this is a bit of a mystery, however.
Eventually Webb did couple the drivers, in that the Jubilee is essentially a coupled Teutonic (albeit with different cylinder arrangement and a double radial truck).
It's also slightly baffling that Webb, having persevered so long with the three cylinder arrangement, through various modifications to improve performance, then abandoned it for four cylinders without independent control: this he later modified, but too late for his reputation.
He also tried some silly things in the middle with the 2-2-2-2s, e.g. their boilers.
The Benbow arrangement was the culmination of all this, and a good one, but his reputation was already damaged (for posterity, anyway), and the older types couldn't be retrofitted.
All of which is easy to see with hindsight, but of course...

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While I'm bombarding this thread, a query: was Whale's rebuilding of the compound 0-8-0s at all justified? I've never heard a bad word against them, either the three or four cylinder type (in contrast to the express locos).

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Some of the 0-8-0s were apparently coming up for cylinder renewal, and fitting a pair of inside cylinders in lieu of one or two inside and two outside was obviously cheaper, and also brought a certain amount of standardisation. The four cylinder engines needed only the removal of the outside cylinders and rerouting of the live steam supply.

As to the three cylinder 0-8-0s being coupled, there wasn't really much choice there as cylinders driving each wheelset was out of the question. Even with six driving wheels (No. 777 2-2-4-0T) the trailing wheelsets were coupled.

 

The last sentence is not valid.
I should have read Talbot more carefully.
Cauliflowers or 19 inch goods were the first with Joy valve gears and central bearing.
Jumbos had Allen valve gear and no space for mid bearing on crankshaft.
Whales Precursors being a happy union of vegetables and elephants is Nock noise.

 

That all makes perfect sense!
It suggests that these coupled goods engines worked perfectly well as compounds, but not superlative enough to make it worth keeping them as such later (at least not against the prevailing prejudice).
Of course in later Super D form they were excellent engines in many ways.

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Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt 1858-1924, sometimes known as Hot Steam Schmidt, developed the technology of superheated steam to the point where it could be put to use in a practical manner. He was not the first to work with superheated steam but Schmidt aimed for much higher temperatures, 350 rather than 250 Celsius. One of Schmidt's beliefs was that superheating allowed for a reduction in working pressure and the employment of simple expansion. This belief was very influential and was tested out in numerous countries and in nearly all cases this belief was disproved. Some existing classes of simple expansion locomotives were fitted with superheaters and had their boiler pressure reduced and the boilers of these engines became unbalanced in terms of their heating surfaces and many of these converted engines suffered from a reduced steaming capacity and would not steam well.

Robert Garbe became the principal disciple and exponent of Schmidt's ideas. The KPEV (the Prussian rail system) was well served by 237 small compound saturated Atlantics by both von Borries and de Glehn however as time went on loads increased and there was a demand for engines with a greater haulage capacity. The Hanover Locomotive Works built 99 enlarged Atlantics between 1908 and 1910 which became Class S9. The Hanover Works had wanted to fit these engines with superheaters but Garbe insisted that superheaters were of no benefit to compound locomotives and so prevented this from happening. The result was an engine of 77 tons weight, 33 tons of adhesion and 44 sq.ft. of grate area. Thankfully the Prussian system was rather level and so these locomotives would run fast with trains of 500 tons, starting and acceleration would present present significant challenges. Taking a look at the Ivatt large Atlantics dating from 1902 here we have a locomotive weighing 69 tons 12 cwt having 40 tons of adhesive weight and a grate area of 31 sq. ft. originally something of a disappointment a batch were fitted with Schmidt superheaters in 1910 and had their boiler pressure reduced from 175 psi to 150. Bad ideas do travel frequently without questions being asked. Gresley did carried out some work on these engines with satisfactory results and these locomotives could handle loads well in excess of 500 tons should the need arise, but the adhesion made starting a skilled task and the acceleration was limited by this factor also. With up to 568 sq, ft of superheater surface they proved very capable for their size and appeared to thrive on being worked very hard. The last one was withdrawn in 1950 whereas the S9s were in the main sent as war reparations to France and Belgium after 1918. Some continued to be found in Belgium after WW2.

In fairly general terms it was being found that a superheated simple 4-4-0 would equal the power of a saturated Atlantic. This was found to be the case in England and Garbe designed the S6, a 4-4-0 which was found to equal the power of the small Atlantics. This is pretty well the end of Garbe's story, he designed the P8 mixed traffic 4-6-0 but these were not the engine that we might know. The design type had to be redesigned by H Lubken and this was substantial work resulting in a 10 ton weight gain, yes Garbe's version really was that bad. The Prussian S10/1 was a 4 cylinder superheated compound and these became the best express locomotive on that system, built by Henschel originally designed by Georg Heise with a partial redesign by Lubken for the second batch. This design owed its inspiration to the French 4 cylinder compounds and some were supplied to the Alsace-Lorraine Railway. They also provided some trials of compound vs simple versions of what were essentially the same engine.

It took a long time for sufficient variables to be tried and tested. In the late C18 James Watt claimed a patent infringement. Ever heard of Jonathan Hornblower? Please look him up. In fact please look up compounding, you will find McNaught, Adamson, Kirk and others. Progress took many years.

Hornblower's patent attempt dates from 1781, the first patent for a compound steam locomotive is believed to be 1846. The ideas for a divided drive compound were worked out before Webb but were not tried out. The Experiments came out in 1882 and Nord 701 in 1885. Du Bousquet built the 4-6-0s later known as SNCF 2-230D in 1910 Chapelon started his famous rebuilds in 1929.

Superheating is post Webb and lubrication and metallurgy still exercise the minds of those who remain interested in this aspect of locomotive design and I dare say it would have interested Webb too.

The more that you dig into the steam locomotive the more you realise that you are going to need to put together a very big book to cover it all. Of the locomotive engineers their were the good, the bad and the outstanding just as in so many areas of human endeavour. Some were influential and drove progress and others took many down a cul-de-sac, the road to some pretty poor locomotives was paved with frequently misguided intentions but these are often only discovered in hind sight.

 

David Wardale pointed out that within the restricted UK loading gauge Compounding isnt the way to go. Also of course a good supply of domestic coal unlike most of the rest of Europe means that there re fewer advantages with compounding

 

To return to carriages as part of a desire to get to a fuller picture of Webb rather than just getting hung up on arguments about compounds.

How much of developments in carriage design on the LNWR is down to Webb?

How does the LNWR stand up in comparison to its contemporary rivals (Midland, GNR, GWR) in terms of design and development?

Thinking about safety - the Midland is often attacked for its use of gas light in its carriages. When did the LNWR make the move towards electricity and who was the driving force behind it? Was the LNWR as tardy and cheap over gaslighting as it was about brakes?

 

The Chapelon 4-8-0 had two outsideHP cylinders of roughly 18 inch diameter.
Britanias drove 20 inch cylinders through UK loading gauge.Wheel diameter and rail gauge was the same.

 

You can also fit a pair of inside L.P. cylinders 24 7/16" (maybe more) in diameter between unjoggled frame plates. If you are unable to get the cylinder volume that you want initially think that you might need you can increase boiler pressure or reduce driving wheel diameter. Six cylinder, small wheeled compounds worked rather well. Worried about your boiler maintenance costs? TIA worked very well for the French and allowed them to close many boiler shops.

 

We shouldn't be seen to be arguing over compounds and compounding but I believe that it is important to understand his position in the timeline of development, understand the factors of the time influencing what he tried to do, to stop being so critical of one particular area of his work, and to move on to explore other areas of his work.

 

I think one of the earlier comments was that the issue of Webb and compounding tends to obscure his other work.

I’d suggest that exploring the development of coaching stock might give us some insight into the changing traffic demands that Webb faced as CME and how his designs were to a response to that. A London to Scotland train in 1873 is made up of 25+ 4 wheel vehicles, (chain brakes (?)). A regional express in 1907 is 15 vehicles long, made up of bogie and six wheel stock, automatic vacuum brake.

I’d argue that is huge leap. Now, when we look at locomotive technology are we not at risk at looking at the tail and not at the dog? If there is no development in coaching stock, safety etc, then train loads and speeds cannot increase. Coaching stock has to get bigger, hold more people because that is where the demand is. The old locos can not cope so hence the need to develop (not always successfully) solutions.

Did the locos not keep up with the coaches?