Bulleid Pacifics - Past or Present

No, but unless a change of ownership happens i cannot see a bright future for 35018 anytime soon.

 

No, but unless a change of ownership happens i cannot see a bright future for 35018 anytime soon.[/quote:1mqnkcv6]

Me neither - Maybe we should speak with the MHRPS and advice them to somehow get the loco back seeing as the MHR did do the major work in the first place.

 

If you get my drift, wouldn't you say a potential three Bulleid Pacifics (not counting 34016) are enough to be getting on with for the time being before starting another restoration? If I were the chairman of the MHRPS, I'd only take on another MN only when I've got 35005 back in steam, as it means you can start off-setting the cost of overhauls with the funds raised by a similar locomotive. The same would be true regarding the eventual situation with 34007 and 34105. I for one would love to see more MNs in steam, but if it forces a preservation society to start going too far beyond its means to secure their future, we end up with too much stock and too little money to do anything with it (and without stirring up old arguments, I think we all know where that situation potentially leads). Southern Locomotives Ltd. are in the almost ideal situation in that they have a stud of similar locomotives, and can rely on economies of scale to churn them out, whilst those already operational are earning a crust for the next overhaul. But until that happens, even the most well-established organisation still needs think small before thinking big.

 

I am sorry to hear that O. V. S. Bulleid's son H. A. V. Bulleid died at the age of 96 earlier on 5 May 2009. Another direct link with the Southern Railway's past ceases to exist. I thought his biography of his father was pretty good, and he was also trained as a locomotive engineer, so one can only imagine what might have been...

 

There's a letter in June's 'Steam Railway' magazine about a Bulleid Pacific that ran at 120mph between Salisbury and Waterloo with Driver Woofham and Fireman Bird- is there any truth in this?

 

Yes, it's quite a well known story amongst enginemen on the LSW lines, but it probably shouldn't have appeared in print even this long after the event. There are other stories, particularly about high speeds down Micheldever bank, but the difference with that one is that the authorities were certain that 120 mph had been exceeded, otherwise it wouldn't have been mentioned when the driver was charged. There are lots of examples of 100+ running, but that incident was so exceptional that the driver was taken off the main line immediately and permanently. Plus of course it served as a lesson to others. My understanding is that the engine involved was 21c160, which was almost new at the time, and had already established a reputation for being a particularly good performer.

 

45mph+ over the speed limit in a Bulleid carriage over jointed rails - must have been a seat of the pants experience!

 

Or even Future...
34092 City of Wells, anyone know how things are shaping up here ? the Tender is still outside as is the Geisl Chimney... will it be next year now ? is the Geisl going on again ? :-k

If only my wife was good at DIY i might actually be able to get down there and do something...

 

I suspect this may may have come form the era of "speed trapping" the Bulleids when the driver started to see how fast these wonderful machines could go.

Most of the "high speeds" were actually "recorded" on the long downhill stretch through Axminster.

I strongly suspect that the speed trapping was done by recording times passing two or more signal boxes, from within the signal boxes themselves. Making the results somewhat suspect to say the least.

Doesn't mean that high speeds were not reached. Gordon Hooper, driver at Nine Elms, came from Exmouth Junction with stories of the very high speed Merchant Navy runs on the Axminster stretch when he was fireman. Up to 115 mph was quoted. Probably guessed from looking at the speedo!

Anyway he did put his regulator where his mouth was on 15th May 1965 with the 105 mph run with 35005. Restarting from Basingstoke that speed was reached just before Winchester Junction, where he braked heavily for the Winchester stop. We were still accelerating fast just before then. With a fast train not stopping at either Basingstoke or Winchester I strongly believe we could have gone above 110 mph. We would have started the descent of the bank down past Micheldever with around a 10 mph advantage, and could have held off braking for another couple of miles. Indeed my footplate experience with Fred Burridge and the 106 mph run with 35003 showed how easily a MN in pretty bad condition could get some way past 100 mph, albeit with a very light load.

An original condition MN would of course have had the benefit of an extra 30 psi in the boiler!

Hopefully Gordon will be at this years Nine Elms re-union so I can ask him about his Exmouth Junction days.

My personal view, more of a gut feeling I suppose, is that a MN would probably really struggle to get to 115mph. Don't ask me to prove that, I can't. Just a gut feeling from many many miles timed behind them as well as being on a number of their authentic 100 mph runs towards the end of steam.

Incidentally. 120 mph between Salisbury and Waterloo really does push the bounds of reality! Not enough distance down Grateley Bank to get anywhwere near that. Then the mainly uphill section to Battledown and then relatively gentle down grades with some level sections after that.

On the email round robin group I am in, we are currently discussing Gordon Porters 103/104 mph run with 35028 on an up Bournemouth 2 hour express. Albeit with the slowing over Worting to contend with, one calculation shows it was the only time a MN has been recorded at over 3,000 ihp where it reached the maximum near Fleet. (One other calculation from someone known to be very cautious with his ihp results showed it fractionally under 3,000 ihp). But the point is that a MN on a decent length train on those easy/level grades was just about flat out at 104 mph.

OK. Proved to myself that 120 mph could not have been done between Salisbury and Waterloo!

Unless it was only a six car train............................

 

You seem to use the word proof rather loosly.

No one knows the speed profile of that particular train. The passing times will probably still be on the record somewhere, but that's not going to be retrievable by people on this forum.

What is not in dispute however, is that the driver was put on a specific charge of reckless driving, including exceeding 120 mph. That would not have happened if there had not been compelling evidence that this was the case. He was put to a displinery hearing, properly represented, and everyone present accepted that he was guilty as charged. He was lucky not to lose his employment on the railway completely, and would have done had it not been for strong representations from his union. There was also a witness on the footplate, namely the fireman, and many discussions have taken place over the years about that particular incident amongst enginemen at Nine Elms and elsewhere. I don't know of anyone - who having heard about what happened first hand - that has any doubts about the general accuracy of the story.

There are lots of incidents that have taken place on the railway but not reached the public domain. This is not an isolated example.

 

I have used the word proof loosely indeed!

Look, I am not trying to undermine what may have happened here. Clearly something very fast indeed. I have been a fanatical fan of Bulleids since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I am known in various areas as the bloke who says the only steam locos worth thinking about are those whose numbers are five digits long and start with a 3. Preferably a 34 or a 35!

But no matter what the authorities thought happened that day, a light pacific could not have reached 120 mph on that route. Indeed I very much doubt a light pacific could ever reach 120 mph, short of a very light train on a straight and downward grade of say 1/80 for a good number of miles. I know of no location where that exists on the old SR. Or even elsewhere.

The rebuilts proved themselves over many years as stronger locos than the original condition light pacifics. Indeed the most astounding light pacific performance was in 2000, when 34027 output an amazing 2589 ihp topping Shap. That was unique, as far as I am aware, in the history of that class, rebuilt and unrebuilt. And as I have already said, it needed circa 3,000 ihp for a MN on a normal size train to reach 104 mph on one of the favourable sections of the line up from Basingstoke to Waterloo. Albeit with slightly lower starting speed that a train on the Salisbury line would have had at Worting Junction.

The most likely scenario is that when the speed trapping started after the SR drivers suddenly found themselves at the controls of quite superb machines, some sort of basic timing, (almost certainly done from the stations or signal boxes passed), estimated a speed in excess of 100 mph. On a normal length up train, (most unlikely to be a short local train), where a driver decided to push very hard down through Basingstoke to the foot of the slight incline that ends just west of Fleet. Or, if he had thrown safety totally out of the window, down the next stretch of downhill after milepost 31 to Byfleet Junction. Getting through Woking unchecked would be the big risk in that section.

Who knows what the real actual speed was. But with 2,600 ihp to play with, (and I would be very, very surprised if an unrebuilt ever quite got to that level), we are taking of not much more than 100 mph on a normal length train. Much beyond that and you are talking about enormous increases in ihp.

The driver was caught and dealt with. And the stories no doubt started circulating. Rumour, half fact? Who knows. But it doesn't take much to see how the "legend" can soon grow and end with a claimed 120 mph.

I have seen that so many times in my research for high speed steam data. Claims so far beyond the bounds of possibility I am astonished people even consider them as possible.

 

A fascinating post. I wish I understood the formulae that convert, speed, load and gradient into horsepower.

 

It is possible that a reply may be sent to the magazine concerned by someone whose name begins with a V or an L. Two of the most respected analysts of steam loco performance in the UK. If not wider afield. Both in the same class as O S Nock and C J Allen. But with far better analytical tools than those two great men had. They will no doubt give plenty of information on ihp calculations. If they feel the story is worthy of any sensible response.

PS. The calculations these days even take into account whether or not the train was on welded track or jointed. That makes a difference. Clan Line got to 104 mph on welded track. On jointed track the same ihp would have got a lesser top speed.

 

PPS. I've just looked at the final stage of the ihp calculations for 35028, (in a form that makes them difficult to re-present here in a meaningful way). But at 104 mph circa 45% of the ihp was needed just for Clan Line and tender. And from memory of the research works I used when examining high speed steam elsewhere I do know that at that sort of speed there is a very sharp increase in ihp needed just to propel the loco for every mph increase. It very quickly reaches the point where, short of a very long, very steep downhill section, that the loco being examined could not have reached the claimed speed even running light engine.

 

I will not even dare to question much of what you have posted, as I have nowhere near the knowledge of high speed running as you. But were the originals (not unrebuilt; a personal bugbear I'm afraid!) not always regarded by the enginemen that worked them as paticularly free-running machines?

While this particular reference is to the Merchant Navy's (of which he was regular Bournemouth man on 35027 when built), to quote Stan Symes in his book '55 Years on the Footplate', "In their original form they would coast for miles with little loss of speed, but this feature was lost when they were re-built".

 

You have every right to question anything I write! And there are others much, much more expert in the field than me. I just talk a lot about it, and write about about it!

But free running or not, and to me one of the greatest classes of steam loco ever built, once you get up into those very high speeds you need vast amounts of horsepower! You cannot beat the laws of physics.

I shall never, ever forget the tremendous effort needed by "Boy" "The New Cross Lip" Gaffney and 34102 to get to 100 mph on the "racing stretch" between Basingstoke and Woking towards the end of steam. With a lightweight train, an albeit fairly worn steam loco and a start from Basingstoke. At the same place where similar condition rebuilt MNs had almost effortlessly gone past the ton with the same start and the same light load.

Because 34102 could not generate the same ihp as a MN. Free running or not.

 

This thread is worth a book in itself
The most fascinating thing about steam locomotives is how such variation in character and performance seems to result from the changing of a few key components, and how the expected performances on Paper are often not borne out by the experiences on the footplate
At least in terms of The BB/WC'S there are excellent preserved and well maintained examples of both rebuilt and unrebuilt around to fuel and substantiate the debate on which is 'Best' For some years to come. Scots Guardsman has thrown down a worthy challenge indeed

 

I have to agree, as a younger one who missed steam in BR days, I think i'd find it interesting if a line were to put on an event using a couple of Bullieds and performing differnt firing / driving techniques on measured loads and performing this under scientific conditions, then publishing the results.
There could be a good lessons learned here for future use in the industry and maybe show some old / new interesting theories.

I know if I were a trainee, I could learn one technique from 1 person, but it may be completely different to that of another old hand.. and in the future where does that lead me ?, without a day to day hands on experience from the 60's but a bunch of weekends over many years..isnt quite the same level of experience.
I think a Bullied of a Black 5 would be ideal candidates for this.

 

Not that I want to start a 'my railway is better than yours' scenario, but hear, hear!