Locomotives that should have been preserved, but weren’t.

Steam laundries are a bit of a sore subject for Brighton fans.

 

Can I swap a conventional 9F for a Crosti boilered version and then freak people out on the platform.

I think generally experimental locomotives that are successful tend to get made into classes and so aren't considered to be experimental anymore - they just become 'oh yeah, that was the prototype'. For example the Maunsell Shunters are an experiment which show quickly that while they are more expensive than a steam engine to build, they are cheaper to run, so they stop being an experiment and become the norm.

 

Second that!

 

I class the Crosti 9F as a sort of semi failure, a bit like the Fell diesel. They worked, but were supposed to be an improvement on the standard loco, but weren't. Also, the smaller boiler resulted in them being downgraded to 8F.

 

The idea worked well on older, less refined locos. Quite a few Italian 740 2-8-0s were fitted with either one or two preheaters, and not only did it make them more efficient, the power output seems to have increased by about 10-12% as well. But they were 40 year locos by the time they were converted, not brand new ones.

I wouldn't class the Crosti 9Fs as a failure, more just pointless!

 

The diagrams for the Std 9F, Crosti 9F and rebuilt Crosti 9F indicate that all were Class 9. All had the same tractive effort. Both Crosti type locos were fitted with the same BR 12 boiler which were smaller in diameter than the Std 9Fs, but 1'-2" longer between tubeplates. All had the same size grate area. Where this 8F stuff came from, I do not know, but I can find nothing in writing.

 

So here is my Kirtley choice as mentioned last Friday. I believe it is ok to post this photo just bought as it was advertised on ebay for all to see with a note ''copyright unknown''. Anyway this is the actual loco photographed in 1917 without rods, presumably to be towed on its way to France and eventual capture by the Germans. Apart from the additional cab side sheets this is identical to the sister loco 58110 which survived in service with B R until 1951. What a quaint, picturesque loss this is ! Perfectly capable of use on a preserved line and very likely to have been much in demand for film work.

 

To anyone who, even in jest, suggests a D Drummond 4-6-0 - first consider the poor fireman!
I have just found a snippet in the Railway Magazine of July 1909 which relates how the 330 Class, 335 and the 453 Class (known these days as the F13, E14 and G14) were put on coal trains between Sarum and Southampton. 6 trains - 10 engines (5 of them only a year old). With 6-ft driving wheels they were not strictly in the goods bracket, just a case of polishing a t**d.
Impractical as it would be, I'd love to see a Lough Swilly 4-8-0 (no surprise there!).
Pat

 

Many of the GS&WR(I) engines looked very Crewe-inspired. But Inchicore started using bogies well before Crewe.

The discussion of bogies reminds me that among the earliest British 4-4-0s were those built by William Cowan for the GNSR. Three of Cowan's Class K, built in 1866, survived to become the LNER's oldest locomotives at Grouping as Class D47/2. One of them was sent to the Stockton & Darlington 100 celebrations in 1925 and was subsequently retained for a few months while preservation was considered. Unfortunately, this didn't happen and the engine joined the ranks of those that almost made preservation but ended up being scrapped.

https://www.lner.info/locos/D/d47.php

 

Have to say Falcon to me is a rather interesting one that got away, although if it did survive would we be on 1000 less (1015)?

 

I'm rather starting to like the idea of a Mr D's lemon.
It would be so interesting to find out exactly what the issues were. I know you can tell a lot from drawings and these days with computer modelling, FEA and so on but there's nothing like having the parts in your hand, to this ex fitter anyway.
The interesting part of the story to me is how did the situation persist?
Did the LSWR management ever see a Swindon product at shared stations and say to themselves 'Hang on, what on earth are building this lot of duds for?'
Were the errors small and fixable like 71000's or totally intrinsic? Any good books on the subject?
You'd have to have one with all the gadgets on it as well. Same if you were building some of the Brighton stuff.
As for coal consumption on heritage lines, at the speeds we go it would be fine. I've fired a few coal eaters, but IMHO driving style has more of an effect on coal consumption.

If we are talking experimental here, we could try out sleeve valves if there was a Brighton Atlantic knocking around...

Lastly out of all the engines that should have been preserved, it can only be a Smellie Bogie.

Good Morning.

 

Presumably though the CME and his senior designers were convinced each successive new 4-6-0 design was going to be the answer and triumphantly put Swindon in the shade.

 

It is amazing that in all his years, he seems never to have ventured down the hill from Queen Street to St Davids, nor up the hill from Reading South to Reading Central ...

Tom

 

With firebox cross water tubes presumably, just for good measure?

I think I'd have the prototype double single No. 720, painted in Stroudley livery for good measure (to confuse the purists) and complete with tender water scoop despite no water troughs ...

Tom

 

On the Drummond 4-6-0s: My sense is that Drummond was a very good Victorian CME at the end of ideas by the Edwardian period. Back in the 1870s, his early 4-4-0s were excellent. For the next thirty years, CMEs could basically cope with increasing loads by a combination of gradually rising boiler pressure (going from about 140 - 175 psi over that time) and gradually increasing cylinder sizes, coupled with gradually increasing boiler sizes. That gets you so far, but by the early twentieth century you are pretty well hitting the limits of what is possible in a saturated 4-4-0 within then acceptable size and weight (the Drummond T9 and Wainwright D/E are pretty much the end of the road for that line of development). It took a revolution to further increase power, but Drummond by then was an old man, and wasn't the one for that revolution.

His 4-6-0s started [words removed for reasons of public decency] and ended up useable. The early ones were all rapidly rebuilt by Urie and then Maunsell, incorporating relatively little of the originals into what became the H15s and N15s. By the final pattern 4-6-0, the T14s, they had improved sufficiently to have lasted just into the BR era, with one intermediate Maunsell rebuild. Those last ones remained as 4 cylinder locos to the end though, unlike the earlier ones that were rebuilt more fundamentally. The late ones had four cylinders in a line and two sets of external valve gear with the inside valves driven by rocker levers. The early ones had the cylinders staggered and Walschaerts valve gear outside, Stephenson inside - plus the usual cross water tubes and other gizmos.

Tom

 

.... and the smoke deflectors? Might I suggest "bat wing"?

 

The Caledonian and GCR seemed to run into the same problems as Tom outlined when they tried to expand from 4-4-0s to 4-6-0s.

 

On the early 4-6-0s, the ones who seemed to get it right were Churchward and Urie. The GER B12s were decent too, and the NER B16s. The LNWR and Highland ones were passable.

 

I always regard the S69/1500/B12 in a category of their own. An amazingly neat design, which looked as good in either original form or as rebuilt. Eternal thanks to Bill Harvey for knowing when to render shunting it to be taken for scrap just too much trouble!

If it's a real 'how not to do a 4-6-0', I commend Mr Watson's Class 400 of 1916, ten locos built for the GS&W. Contrary to Churchward's principles - they were supposedly inspired by the GW 'Star' class - someone in Inchicore's D.O included short travel piston valves. In their original 4-cyl guise, the class were distinctly third rate, coal hungry beasties and undewhelming performers. Two were scrapped in that condition, one of the condemned locos was considered a 'good'un' and (quite unofficially) swapped identities with another!.

Rebuilds to 2-cyl machines produced three different flavours, the best IMO being 402, which fitted with smoke deflectors (unique in Ireland, but for the post-WWII VS on the GNRI) had a distinctly 'Maunsell' look, it was very successful, but expensive surgery. Remaining locos were rebuilt on a less comprehensive i.e. cheaper basis. One withdrawal in 1930 aside, the seven survivors served until the advent of diesels, the last going in 1961.

 

I think I may have said this before, but A glance at a Jones Goods (and its HR successore) shows avery different proportion to many succeeding designs. The Jones looks like a 4-4-0 with an extra pair of driving wheels shoehorned under a longer boiler barrel. The D Drummond version looks like a 4-4-0 with an extra pair of drivers tucked under the firebox. The Jones has a tried and tested relationship between grate, ashpan and axles, the Drummond does not.
The long flat grate allegedly caused problems for the unwary fireman; in 1919 Exmouth Junction Loco. had 2 turns to Salisbury for"4 cylinder engines". I bet the crews looked forward to those! (Actually, some probably did, as the were paid a bonus for the extra work!)
Pat