LMS Black 5 5025

Can’t you tell the difference by counting the washout plugs or something like that? How does that work at speed when your dazzled by that Luminous green colour? We really should get back to 5025 though

 

Back in the day (except where the MNA got to work) you'd be hard put to distinguish one from another by the paint colour, most locos wore a livery of Northern grime. The only immaculate Jub I recall was 45632 'Tonga' passing the back of our house in Warrington heading east away from Arpley. I guess she must have only just been outshopped, you could read the nameplate at 100yd.

 

The Blackuns were always ....err........................black

 

Wasn’t there a shade called Willesden Grey? in modelling terms Airfix no27

 

There are many differences between Jubilees and Black 5's apart from the colour. From the front, the chimney is obvious, as is the third cylinder, well the valve rod cover, at least. From the side/threequarters, driving wheel splashers are the obvious ones, along with the chimney. More subtle, but still there and easily spotted, are the handrail positions and the mechanical lubricators; Black 5's have two on the left and none on the right whilst Jubilees have one either side. Latterly, the cabside yellow stripe added to the identifying features of a Jubilee.

There's something about a Jubilee, though, that gives it a special aura that no other loco has. That's the best way to tell one from every other loco.

 

Takes all sorts, I suppose

Tom

 

Jubilees were superb locos, one of the best ever.

 

You people brought up on a mix of SR and GW will never understand. ​

 

I can't say I agree. The steaming issues from their earliest days were never really cured; if the engine was in good nick, the coal of good quality, a driver and fireman knew there job, then they were truly great machines, but if any one of those was down, they would and did struggle.

As a driver told me in April 1968 at Liverpool Exchange station, "Unless it's an express working, I'd rather have a Black 'un than a 5X any day."

 

Didn't the increase of the degree of superheating and changes to the chimney and blast pipe arrangement to improve the draughting improve them?

 

Yes, they did, but the main and most effective changes were to the number and diameters of the tubes. The ratios were all over the place when introduced. The low degree superheat wasn't the cause of the problems - it worked fine on the GWR - but it did require that the engine ran at near full boiler pressure, which at first the 5Xs couldn't do. The low superheat temperature then exacerbated the problems.

The real cure was applied to 5735 and 5736 by fitting the Class 2A boiler, but they were the only two of the class so fitted; other such boilers went to seventy Royal Scots and eighteen Baby Scots. It wasn't that the 5Xs were poor engines, just a bit finicky.

 

I don’t get it.

191 locos, 10 boiler types, two major rebuilds, indifferent steaming at start, very much not standard within the class, just like the 5MTs.

410 locos, 1 boiler type, no rebuilds of any kind, good steamer, relatively speaking, very much standardised parts and got on with the job.

One class gets accolades and the other gets overlooked. Very odd!

I will say this - Bahamas is always beautifully turned out by comparison.

5025 is a bonny job too and I am looking forward to seeing how she's turned out when painted and finished.

 

[Heresy alert] I can't get my head round Stanier as a locomotive designer. It seems from the outside that a lot of his early LMS designs were somewhat hit-and-miss, particularly in boiler design; and they then seemed rather to stumble towards better proportions, seemingly in a slightly haphazard fashion. I believe I read somewhere that when first introduced, the Princess Royal Pacifics had a cross sectional area through the superheater that was smaller than the cross sectional area through the regulator, such that if you tried to run with full regulator, there would inevitably be a significant pressure drop before the cylinders, i.e. wire drawn.

I realise it is an outside perspective and maybe there is something I'm missing, but having grown up seeing the full flourishing of the Churchward designs; and then been senior under Collett when the latter introduced workshop practices to get consistent mileages out of locos, when Stanier moved to the LMS it feels like he somehow did not understand what the little nuances were that made Swindon locos successful for their time. (By contrast, when Holcroft moved to the SECR he helped Maunsell nail it with pretty much his first design).

Tom

 

I think you need to read up on the history of Stanier's 5MTs.

 

There's a lot in that, Tom. Stanier had been a GWR engineer all his working life. There's someone on here whose tag line is something like," There's the Great Western way of doing things, and there's the wrong way." Undoubtedly, Stanier believed this. The tag line is true, but only on the GWR; it didn't always travel well. Conditions on the LMS were very different to those on the GWR and some of Stanier's absolute faiths proved not to work under these new conditions. But it took time and experience to find this out, and the 5Xs were the greatest exponents of the problems. If you read 'Under 10 CME's', the combined writings of Eric Langridge, a Derby draughtsman, it becomes obvious that the D.Os. weren't at all happy with some of these ideas but, as ever, Swindon - or its former son - knew best. It didn't help that Derby was using a 'low resistance' formula for tube ratios with large diameters and reduced numbers; this had nothing to do with Stanier.

Some of Swindon's wisdom did work and improved things, especially axleboxes. But it took several years to integrate the Swindon principles which were beneficial to the LMS and discover those where LMS practice was superior, and revert to them.

 

I was surprised that people mentioned so many other differences before anyone mentioned the spashers. They're not very deep, so you can miss them at first glance, but to me they are more obvious than the other differences.

 

The 842 Black Fives were built over a period of sixteen years. Conditions changed and advances made in that period. The choice: stay with the original design and build engines which were now outdated; or incorporate the advances and modify to meet the changed conditions, including those brought on by WWII. Which was the better policy?

 

Not to forget 172 British Railways Standard 5's built up to 1957: which ''were in essence the L.M.S. Class 5, and their ability and capacity was much the same, give or take a small percentage up and down for local preferences.'' ( E.S. Cox Locomotive Panorama volume 2 )

 

I took it that @S.A.C. Martin's comment "191 locos, 10 boiler types, two major rebuilds, indifferent steaming at start, very much not standard within the class" was referring to the Jubilees, not the 5MTs.

Tom

 

Yes, but 'just like the 5MTs.'

The point's the same, if you can make improvements, do so.