Austerity 2-8-0 query

The SR civil engineer must have been more switched on, which is why the first five Merchant Navies are all different from each other, as they tried to shave off weight! (Even to the extent of changing cast brass numerals to painted numbers!)

Tom

 

Perhaps the LMS inherited wisdom from the Highland Railway and F.O. Smith's 'River' Class 4-6-0s!

 

The loading gauge does not look very GWR
Was it drawn in Swindon?
or just rubberstamped and signed there?

 

That's definitely the GWR loading gauge, and its drawn in the Swindon style.

 

Scrapping dates are not relevant to the question of a locomotives ability to do a job or perceived performance values.

Particularly as scrapping decisions are largely on the hands of financial decision makers, not shop, shed and engineering staff.

 

But that could have been due to wartime needs when metal scarcity meant sacrifycing metal needs to benefit military weapon production. I believe that wartime needs meant that Bulleid had a major problem in getting his MN plans accepted and finally gained acceptance by claiming the benefits of the new over the old.

 

Given Bulleid's well documented issues with his designs coming out above the design weight, I'm pretty sure this was about operability rather than shaving marginal weight off for the war effort.

 

I stand corrected.

 

Remember the story about the introduction of the Kings? When the CCE was quizzed about going to a higher axle load it transpired that they had for some years been rebuilding bridges etc for the higher load, but not told the CME and only 4 bridges were left to be dealt with. I suspect that the CCE dept always allowed a considerable margin precisely because they knew that the CME dept might be rather liberal in the interpretation of the limits.

 

I am sure that the Civil Engineer was aware of the tricks that the Loco. Engineers tried.
In Dugald Drummond's time at Nine Elms / Eastleigh the weight diagrams were noted as being with 4" of water in the glass and a light fire. As I happen to be a custodian of Bob Urie's selection of weight diagrams I can quote the diagram for 'The Bug'.
Engine weighed with 4" water in glass and light fire. Tanks full and 10cwt coal.
Followed by: capacity of tanks 1000 gallons; capacity of bunker 1 ton.
Is 4" of water and a light fire 'working order'? Tender engines were worse, I believe.
Pat

 

The Late Mike Romans AKA The Stationmaster on RM Web stated that he was asked to look at a 'strategic reserve' hence the large number of Black 5's and 8F's that survived until 1968.

Rather unsuprisingly he advised that it was an idea that would not work

 

Just as well they did, because isn’t the actual (rather than diagrammed) axle loading on a King about 25 tons?

Tom

 

I think the WD 2-8-0 became a near failure due to LMS 8Fs inbreeding.
It has been stated that hard slogging,unbraked chain-coupled freigth work could be done at lower cost by a 0-8-0 of LNWR parentage than a 8F .
Cox complained that LMS 8Fs were never tested scientific but black fives were and they were very alike in boiler and machinery.
Neither black fives or 8Fs had been evaluated on lousy coal before war2.
WD ordered all four groups to build 8Fs for european continental use because it was the only british design able to pass all british loading gauges.
After fall of France there was time to reconsidder.
Riddles had been under command of Stannier and it is not un-human to think that he would try to do better than his old master.
He schemed a between frame, long and narrow copper firebox as on 8F.
This was the fatal choise
The grate of a WD 2-8-0 dips around 100mm down under top of drivers and this forces
the frame plates to be very close to inner side of drivers.
Lifting boiler 100mm would have allowed a square grate that could have been fired with coconut by monkeys.
He then made a virtue of saving balance weigth in same drivers.Thruth is that there were not space for sufficient countermass.
S160 showed the fallacy of this thinking.
It also spoiled the WD 2-10-0 as the frame width was the same and that was not nessecary with a wide firebox.
With frame plates a little closer it could have had more axial freedom on some drivers and not needed funny flangeless wheels.
To judge value of designs I still think scrap rate anaylsis can be interesing.
In 1948 there was ca 600 F8s,700 WD 2-8-0,plus 2000 S160 and ca 4000 BR 52 worlwide.
All built to do same job,at same period and fully payed for.The 52s by the way could and did run 80 kmph forward and backward.

 

I'm not sure I followed most of that. The 8Fs were probably cheaper to run than Super Ds, which were good traffic movers but terrible for crews to work on, when maintenance and repair costs were taken into account but their superheaters were not really adequate and this impinged on coal and, especially, water consumption. The WDs were much better with 28 elements. The firebox of the 2-8-0s had to fit between the frames which limited width to about 4' 1", gave or take an inch, and as far as I know was the same as the 8F, O1, O4, 28xx and all the others.

And by the way, an 8F has been recorded at 72 m.p.h., or 115 k.p.h. The engine would do it backwards too, and a Stanier Crab was clocked at 74 m.p.h. tender first so it isn't beyond the bounds of possibility.

 

I was told by someone with knowledge of the 3 preserved kings that the prescribed weights from the gwr loco office were fiction and you’re 25 tons is more near the truth. The rear springs on a king are a sight to behold. Makes a bulleid spring look like it’s off an industrial

 

I seldom find myself disagreeing with your well informed views, so I think I must be misunderstanding you on that one. Whoever made the decision to scrap locos A, B and C but keep locos X, Y and Z in service surely would have taken account of various considerations in reaching their decision, but it would be strange if the ability to do the job was not one of those considerations.

For the particular case of scrapping dates of the 8Fs and WDs, however, I think this is more to the point.

 

It’s more likely though that the main consideration as to what got scrapped was about which sheds or areas had their allocation of new diesels and had trained enough people. Also it might depend on how the locos were wearing out. I am not saying this is the case here, but I can imagine that there could be cases where the more useful and therefore more used locos got withdrawn first having got to the point where they needed overhaul sooner than the less used locos of another less useful type. In the case of the WD built at lowest cost I expect they simply wore out faster.

incidently I was told by the person responsible, that the last of the BR class 45 diesels were withdrawn simply because they were overdue an exam ( “B” I think - nothing major) and whilst the locos were still otherwise serviceable and trains would be cancelled, RES wouldn’t spend the money, and he the local CM&EE wouldn’t sign off a third 30 day extension. So they stopped them and that was that. I relate this because I think it shows that the reasoning is often financial and not particularly logical….just no budget.

 

There is little point looking for valid reasons for the withdrawal of steam engines in the 1960s. Basically, each region, district, and individual shed was given a target date to eliminate its steam stock so there had to be reduction in numbers, and it would seem that the basic reason for an engine's withdrawal was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As late as towards the end of 1966 steam was being overhauled at Crewe Works. Usually, the engines on release, instead of going into service were stored serviceable and reactivated weeks or months later. I have heard, but cannot verify, that some of these newly overhauled engines never did return to traffic and went for scrap without ever having turned a wheel.

Many an engine, sometimes almost the whole allocation, were withdrawn for no better reason than their shed had closed to steam traction.

 

I once saw a picture in a book showing a loco withdrawn due to a broken tender spring (replacement would have exceeded the cost limit). Of course, it needed a new spring to make it fit to be towed to the breaker's yard.
Pat

 

No, it was definitely financial by the time we get to the end of steam.

For sure, engineering and running departments had more of a say during the steam era. Some classes were obviously so poor that they were scrapped outright, but in the grand scheme of things, those classes are - really - small in number compared to the ragtag bag of assets most of the big four (not GWR) inherited at the grouping in 1923 and then kept going ad infinitum.

You don’t think of, say, a J25 as being a particularly good or world beating locomotive but these were overhauled during the Second World War and sent to the GWR to work, despite their age and obsolescence.

Yes, that was what I was getting at. By the end of steam, smallest classes generally disappear first as the largest classes are kept together with spares and kept running. It’s why you see on the ex-LNER lines Thompson and Peppercorn machines disappearing before Gresley and Robinson designs - there’s safety in numbers, as they say.

And if scrapping dates really did show us how poor locomotive classes were for performance, then the Rolls Royce of LNER locos, the Gresley V4s, would be less well thought of than they are.