'Sensible' New Builds

House!

Tom

 

House?

 

Nobody’s mentioned Leader yet!

 

All NP tropes have been crossed off my bingo card, I was just waiting on the 2P being mentioned …

Tom

 

You just did …

Tom

 

What you had 'someone says new build 2P tank' on a bingo card? I suspect I'm the first to ever mention it that can't been something expected surely? As I said it not something thats popular.

 

Do a search on this forum for “2P new build” - I get ten pages of search results …

Tom

 

The 2P used the same boiler s the 4F - G7S, the S standing for Superheated. I think the 2P cylinders were unique to that class and in typical Midland fashion, had the piston valves below the cylinder bores giving very restricted steam passages past them. There were two types: the Midland engines had 7' 0.5" wheels while the LMS engines had 6' 9" wheels; this change allowed smaller cylinders and eased the steam passages slightly.

The 4Fs were mediocre steamers but there were no problems with the 2Ps. This was because the boiler could make more steam than could work its way past the cylinders so it could provide more than the cylinders could accept, not so with the 4F.

 

Really. I was only being 10% serious as I was trying to think of sensible ideas

 

Hang on i think there some confusion here I meant the 0-4-4T tank engine not the b#####d express 4-4-0.

I don't even like the 4-4-0

 

Ahh, that makes more sense, although the term 2P is universally, if improperly, applied to the 4-4-0s.

 

I did wonder what you and James were on about. I had visions of a poor top heavy 0-4-4T looking like it had eaten too many pies...

 

That'd be the LBSCR D3x rebuilds (Marsh 1909 ... not one of his better ones!), Nos.396/7.

 

The Ivatt tanks (and their tender engine counterparts) have always impressed me in their ability to punch above their weight. Damned useful engines. I guess the Fowler, and particularly the Stanier 3MT Tanks were kept going simply to justify their expense, not being old locos.

Richard.

 

Talking of the D3, would they be considered sensible? Shares parts with the E4s, fills a gap in the LBSCR story. Reasonably popular.

 

I think this matter of Stanier's task on the LMS deserves some further discussion, though this may not be the right thread for it.

Crewe was very well organised and produced cheap and cheerful locos that could be worked hard for short lives. Derby liked small locos, perfectly well designed in some respects but with a few silly weaknesses that could have been put right if only someone had had a more open mind. Horwich produced good robust locos, but seems to have been the poor relation in LMS design after Hughes' brief tenure. And what about St Rollox?

Anyway the LMS needed an organiser to establish a new design school, preferably with good management skills, though that was perhaps less necessary in those days, when the boss's word was law, than might be looked for now. A right-hand man with a drawing office background, but not from one of the LMS's works, would surely have helped. Did they bring any such person in?

 

No, they didn't. Herbert Chambers (Midland) was Stanier's first Personal Assistant (or whatever the title) but Tom Coleman (North Staffs) soon took on that role, and very successfully.

 

Yes - Tom Coleman, who came from Kerr Stuart's. It was Tom Coleman's design flair which was very much in evidence in the fine detailing of Stanier's locomotives.
There's an excellent book on the life of Tom Coleman - LMS Locomotive Design & Development by Tim Hillier-Graves. Well worth a read.

Edit - Jim beat me to it!

Richard.

 

I thought that too, but believe there's the same issue as the K, which is that all the drawings went missing many moons ago.

 

...

I hope the drawing room staff who did this had a whole flock of birds s##t on him.

But surely its not that critical how did beamish create the steam elephant casue those drawings can't have survived either...

The P2 had to have certain re-engineering so new drawings must have been created too...