Latest pre grouping liveries

Certainly does not look like what would have come out of a railway works in those days let alone Crewe! It gives the impression someone at some point over the years has decided to retouch it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue-diesels/25365944612

 

This photo on the Foxfield Facebook page ( you do not have to sign in to see it ) looks like the back of Crewe works to me and in view of how fresh the livery looks is possibly just after they had restored it?

https://www.facebook.com/FoxfieldRa...szFWzM9RbNYUAUwYMskcmOqgRhXnCA5VdLBlAAB4jfa8g

 

It's definitely seen at least some paint since then:



Someone's been round with a tin of black on the front splasher and running plate side, and the step is totally different.

 

I think that the vast majority of the paint on it is definitely Crewe - we know well enough where it has been since. It's not particularly good close up (as you say, some of the lining is very wobbly), but I think that's probably typical of Crewe in that era - just because in preservation we tend to spend days lining engines out to near perfection now doesn't mean they always did.

 

Some posters on another thread have made some strong remarks about "Frankenstein" locos. Going by the second link above, this loco is a prime example.

 

Not really. Most railways saw their locos as a collection of standard parts so a loco going back into traffic after a heavy general is likely to have a different boiler, wheels, motion, tender and, in extreme cases, mainframes.
Ray.

 

I seem to remember reading from someone who worked at Horwich (? or Crewe perhaps?) that basically what happened was one loco came in, and was dismantled, then frames shunted forward, and the already refurbished bits from a classmate (or, where there were common parts, perhaps the boiler, cylinders or or motion from an engine of another but compatible class) were put on the frames, and the now complete loco was sent out for painting. Sometimes the frames were swapped too. Some bits (the cab for example, with the number on) might stay with the frames, or might not.
If you're running an efficient engineering business (which is what big railway works were) that's of course how you'd do it. It wasn't hand crafting like we have to do now. It was effectively mass production and high throughput maintenance (of its time).

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

And then there was Brighton ...

Tom

 

I don't think so. Before an engine was dismantled for overhaul at Horwich (and Crewe) many parts had the engine number stencilled on them to make sure they were returned to the correct engine. Having been involved with the current - and very thorough - overhaul of 2968, which received all its overhaul at Horwich, I can confirm that most parts are stamped 13268 and a few stamped 2968. We have yet to find the number of a different engine on any part.

 

London Transport had a similar system for overhauling their buses, bodies and chassis units were separated and went through Aldenham works seperately, and the first available body would be fitted to an overhauled chassis

 

..... and after the semi-unsuccessful SRT episode, bodies and chassis even came from the same model of bus.

Never heard of the SRT? Potted history herewith:
http://www.countrybus.org/STL/SRT.htm

 

STL chassis with an RT body. Body was much heavier than the original ones they had so they wouldn't go, and more crucially, wouldn't stop either

 

Aye, but only an issue in heavy traffic of on steep hills. It's not as is you find too much of either in ........ Oh!

I grew up on Shooters' Hill and running between the flatish shoulder on which Plumstead Common sits and Woolwich (on the Thames flood plane), Sandy Hill Road (at around 1:7, adjudged too steep to go up) was moderately terrifying in an RT. Pre-WWII, the old route 53 (which went back to LGOC days) must have involved a change of underwear on a few of those hills. Never mind an SRT, I'm glad I never experienced it riding an NS (I've seen old photos of those on the 53).

 

Hard to generalise I think. Steam Locomotives were at best batch produced, and if parts were individually finished for the locomotive then best to keep them together or else it's starting again. Conversely if parts were highly standardised...

For example it's recorded that when the GWR assembled their Frankenstein Dukedogs the two donors were placed on adjacent roads in the shop and disassembled and parts sent off to be refurbished as normal, then the new locomotive was assembled on the frames they wanted to keep and the other set discarded. However it's also stated that the cab and boiler that the Bluebell's Dukedog received were not those of the theoretical donor. Unsurprising in the case of the boiler at least because a boiler change would be routine at a heavy general. It would be fun to know what numbers exist on 9017...

Now I think of it it would be interesting to know why GW standard parts were number stamped. If they were going off to be refurbished for use on whatever next required them it was at best pointless. But perhaps, speculating wildly, with on shed and casual repairs it was useful to ensure parts were kept together.

 

Most of Fenchurch's motion is engraved with 72 (the LBSCR number) but one valve spindle is stamped 734, which was the number the LSWR gave to one of the Terriers they purchased. Presumably they had cause to replace one or both valve spindles, but for that to have subsequently ended up on Fenchurch could most likely only have occurred if both entered the works more or less simultaneously. Probably if you checked works records, you could take a plausible guess at when that might have happened.

Tom

 

2984 at Horwich in September 1963 with parts stencilled up. Despite this, the repair didn't go ahead and the engine was withdrawn and scrapped.

But the intention was there!



Thanks to Dave Cousins for the photo.

 

Hmmm, I thought it was Horwich but maybe my memory is faulty.
Besides, what was the good of having boiler, motion, cylinders, etc standardised if you never exchanged them? Obviously easier to batch produce.
Arguably by the Stanier stage the LMS was less standardised between classes (even within classes there were several types of boiler for example) but the main classes were produced in such large numbers it didn't matter so much.
In Aspinall's day I seem to remember there were about four or five boiler types, cylinders, motion across all his standard classes.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

There's more to standardisation than being able to exchange between locos - for example, it saves drawing office expense, pattern making, jigs etc. Why design two slightly different axle boxes or cylinder castings or wheel centres if you don't need to?

Tom

 

I'd expect too that the more 'handed' patterns you can eliminate, the better.

 

Two colour photos of the NSR liveried tank at Walkden in August 1964.

https://plumbloco.smugmug.com/Trains/British-Industrial-Systems/i-CHQhWbB/A

https://photos.smugmug.com/Trains/B...ollectSlide1051_NSR2_AstleyMoss_030864-XL.jpg