Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

No need to defend yourself. I'd gathered your course at Isis Polytechnic wasn't Home Economics.

 

OK thanks, I don't always bother to log in, so missed this one.

 

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has taken part in the discussion this year, bought the book or added to the Thompson story.

I think we are now at the stage where we’ve had a good run on this thread - ten years worth of debate and research! - and it’s now time to let it lie for the time being.

I’m proud of the fact that we’ve covered so much ground in this thread. From where we started in 2012 to ending 2022 with the book out, reviewed (mostly well!) and finally putting to rest so many of the myths around Thompson’s life.

So on that note, Merry Christmas one and all.

Thank you for taking part in the longest online debate on railway matters to date!

 

And thank you, Sir, for making it possible.

 

Happy Christmas Simon - And to everyone on Nat Pres!

Richard.

 

Looking at the mongrel Pacific V2/A2, has any wise sage ever calculated what boiler pressure they would have needed to be adequately boilered?

 

They were adequately boilered.

 

I don't think that's correct, see lner info and first hand accounts, however they weren't so bad as Great Northern, which was kept as a spare at the end of a station. It may be this reputation arose as they became wore out, leaked and lost boiler pressure.

 

Clearly you haven’t read Simon’s book yet , or caught up with this thread since 2019.

 

The claims they were "under boilered" are, putting it bluntly, wrong.

The V2 boiler they had was pressed to 225lb, 5lb higher than the V2s were and 5lb higher than the Gresley A3s. They had the klychap double chimney from new.

I have found no first hand evidence that they suffered from being "under boilered". They were not shy of steam with the setup they had.

It was a pilot engine once whilst it was being checked for its driving wheels potentially having shifted on the axles.

I think it exists only in the heads of the apocryphal storytellers, to be honest! All steam locomotives when they get run down might lose performance but all of the LNER Pacifics had excellent boilers which could raise steam well and, perhaps more importantly, keep making steam efficiently.

 

When worn they may use more steam than when fresh out of works but steam locos don't leak significantly and don't lose boiler pressure. As for being kept as a spare at the end of the station, 60113 was always a Doncaster loco and it was the practice to keep an A1 pacific as a standing pilot at Doncaster, ready to take over from any ailing loco at any time. As Doncaster only usually had about 6 A1's on its books, it stands to reason that it would spend a lot of time on this duty for a significant part of its life.

When spotting at Doncaster it was always a bit annoying that you could see the loco in the sidings at the south end of the station but you couldn't get its number because of the angle and distance away. The only consolation was that you knew that you would almost certainly have already crossed it off in your combined volume.

 

It pleases me Steve that you put 60113 in the A1 category

One of the things which has always puzzled me are the references from some quarters that, where they speak positively of Great Northern, they refer it to being just another of the Peppercorn A1s - quite an accolade, but the Thompson A1 strictly speaking is the post-war A4 Pacific development. It does seem to indicate that it was thought of as being as capable as a Peppercorn A1.

 

Well, if Ian Allan lumped them all together, who am I to disagree?

 

Delighted to announce I will be giving a lecture on Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. on Tuesday 13 February 2024 at the Hitchin branch of the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS). Details attached.

https://rcts.org.uk/event/edward-thompson-wartime-cme/

 

So, we have new things to talk about.

Last year, Tom James very kindly let me know of a very important bit of Edward Thompson’s history coming up for sale at the Bluebell Railway and held onto it for me.

I’ve been studying it for a little while now and cross referencing it with other sources.

And, frankly, I’m a bit bemused because I think I was sort of “right” in my book on Thompson that the D49 rebuild wasn’t originally intended to be a prototype for a standard class…but this document has a few things in that suggest Thompson had changed his mind by its publication and now I need to correct the record somewhat.



So here is the document in question, which outlines the plan for the standardisation plan (and yes, when I go to update the Thompson book there are things from this document that will need to be mentioned.



At the point of publication, Great Northern does not exist yet but the design is virtually complete (note the small smoke deflectors which didn’t make it, and a streamlined non corridor tender) the Thompson L1 has not been finalised (the photograph is an edited Gresley V3 photograph).



So. Diagram No.4. The erstwhile “D Class”.



I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question to ask: what is it exactly?

It looks like a GCR J11 rearranged, including the GCR belpaire boiler, but the frames and running plate echo the D49 rebuild and the GER D15s/D16s. It’s pressed to 200lbs.

The large cab is very GER style for the side sheets but the front spectacles have shades of GCR and NER style over the belpaire firebox.

The tender appears to be a variation on the Gresley V4’s tender, including the unusual wheel spacing.




So what of the original D49s? Well, this document contradicts the board minutes and the locomotive committee minutes and states the D49s were to be rebuilt to D class spec. Boiler pressure here is 225lb, however…!




This seems to confirm the mystery at last: Thompson had in mind a new standard 4-4-0 that was lighter, replacing the whole stud of older D class engines.



So, what does that ultimately mean for The Morpeth?

• It wasn’t initially a prototype for a new 4-4-0
• It definitely became a template for future planned D49 rebuilds, which were definitely not “cancelled” so much as “parked indefinitely”
• Thompson’s team had been working on a new 4-4-0 that seemed to share some standard parts with the GCR J11/3s being built.
• This final design never saw the light of day for a variety of reasons.

Another reason to update the Thompson book! I hope this was of interest.

This will be included in my slides at the Hitchin RCTS lecture in a few weeks time.

 

Interesting. I'd not previously heard of this apparent Thompson design for a mid-sized 4-4-0, rather smaller than the D49 "The Morpeth" rebuild that eventually materialized. As you suggest, it appears to have the standard J11 boiler. Compared with the ex-GCR 4-4-0 types, the boiler barrel looks to be the same as for the D9, but with the shorter grate of the D5 & D6.

It was presumably one of those many designs that a CME pondered for a while, but faded in favour of alternative options.

I notice that the K1 2-6-0 is missing from the designs shown on the chart above. Was it on shown on another page, or had it yet to be conceived? Given that later versions of Thompson's standard range had both the B1 4-6-0 and K1 2-6-0 for general purpose duties, would these two classes have covered all the longer-distance secondary passenger duties, without the need for a mid-power 4-4-0 in addition?

According to RCTS, Thompson had authority to rebuild 4 further D49s in addition to "The Morpeth", but did not proceed. Maybe that was because there were higher priorities, or maybe Thompson himself had cooled on that plan?

 

it could simply be cost / benefit analysis at play. "The Morpeth" would be costed and then any benefits accruing would be costed to see if it was worth the expenditure; if no immediate benefit could be shown the scheme would be dropped.
Consider Peter Townend whose trials of Kychap blast pipes and Double chimney gave savings in both coal and water consumption; the savings made justified the costs of implementing the changes.

 

The K1 is missing in its enteriety, which suggests to me given the dates that the K1/1 had not been selected yet as a standard class (note that K5 is also missing).

RCTS’s statement for further D49 rebuilds isn’t backed up by the board minutes, but a discussion of further potential rebuilds is in the locomotive committee minutes.

I think you are likely correct that Thompson envisaged the B and K classes doing the majority of the work - when you look at this document, the obvious stand out point is that Thompson and the LNER wanted 1000-1500 B1s to cover the work of around 3000 pre grouping locomotives. Huge investment in the locomotive stock.

 

By the end of WW2 were there any roles that needed a D49 rather than a B1?

 

A fair question and my answer to that would be "no", not in my view.