Gresley 10000 'Hush Hush'

But if a design was any good it didn't remain a one-off: more were built.

 

Only if the Traffic Department perceived a need for it, and the east coast route was hardly short of top flight traction.

 

May I add to that Neil - was not the whole point of the Hush-Hush project to produce a more economical locomotive that could do the same work of a Gresley A1?

William Brown intimates it was all about coal and water consumption whilst producing a locomotive equivalent in power to the A1s. That being the case, it seems the W1 in its original form never quite fulfilled that brief, even at the end with the fitting of the kylchap.

Do the SNGLPT have in mind a more fully detailed counter-argument to the book? I'd be very interested to read both sides of the debate and try to understand the engineering more fully. Most fascinating.

 

Was reading an on line article that agrees broadly with the A1 being the benchmark but at the time it would have been the "short travel valve" A1 and these were very heavy on coal. Once the A1s were modified the coal savings of the W1 were not as great and didn't justify the extra maintenance required.

 

So was the W1 more or less a case of overcomplicating the solution to a problem?

 

I have tried to twist arms previously to get something into print but the key gentleman is now well into his 80’s and although still actively researching stuff isn’t keen to go into print, which is a shame. SNGLPT as a whole is focused on 60007 but obviously has a lot of people who are interested in all matters Gresley so the topic has been discussed, to some extent in ‘Chime’ magazine, but not in the specific context of a response to the book.

I totally agree with the comments about the A1, Gresley wanted to keep things equivalent so a direct comparison could be made been 10000 and an A1. The whole exercise would have been pointless if the objective was just the same efficiency as an A1. As an aside I’m not sure figures for thermo dynamic efficiency are much different between A3 and A4 although A4 has more TE with the 250 psi boiler.

I have said before on this forum that I don’t believe the A4 design has ever been shown to have been bettered in UK practice as far as efficiency was (is) concerned. It would be extremely interesting however to compare an A4 vs. 71000 as modified in preservation, but only of academic interest now of course!

 

Given that 71000 was "designed" by J F Harrison as BR CME based on his LNER Doncaster expertise it would more interesting to compare the performance statistics of an improved A4 with both 71000 (as improved by the preservation group based on the thought that the group has only made improvements which might have been made by BR had more effort gone into into its performance ) and Tornado based on Peppercorn's work as the last LNER CME.

Given that all 3 designs have been timed over both Shap and the S&C does anyone have the timing / load figures available to make an initial comparison for discussion ?

 

Unless you have the coal and water consumption figures, you won't be able to compare efficiencies. All you will know is which had the highest tractive effort and which could maintain the highest steaming rate.

On that basis I would expect 71000 to be best with the A1 next and an A4 third.

 

During the 1948 trials the A4s came out best on the coal and water consumption figures but of course neither the A1s nor 71000 were involved.

 

Spot on, using 71000, it was basically a replacement for 46202, if a fleet of Dukes was required to replace the LMS Pacifics, they would of persisted with 71000's development and got her right first time round.

 

Maybe so, but rational businesses don't generally indulge in big projects for the fun of it. A one off is only of value if you have a special task which requires a special design: certain dedicated bankers spring to mind. The costs of building the 4-6-4 one off must have been way above those of building another member of the ordinary class and can only be justified if there's a potential business advantage. Had this technology worked in business terms - reducing coal consumption presumably - then they would surely have built more, and A1s would presumably have been retired/reduced to produce at the next heavy general or wherever the cost/benefit analysis indicated. A big success in terms of reducing running costs would have generated the need for more.

There presumably broadly three options for an experimental loco - failure, in which case its probably quietly scrapped or rebuilt with as low a profile as possible, success, in which case its repeated, or a halfway house in which there's enough value in the hardware to make use of it until heavy maintenance requirements made it more expensive to fix than keep.

 

Yes, these one-offs would fall under what today is termed Research and Development, and some funding would be available over and above that for building for traffic purposes. The product then has to show considerable advantages to justify the building of a class which might be very different in operational and maintenance terms to a standard machine, so 'as good' isn't good enough.

I'm not certain that 10000 fitted into the 'as good' category, but it would have had to show major benefits to justify series production, and these certainly weren't present. LMS 6202 was in a similar situation.

 

Do you think that the development of 6202 was thwarted by WW2?

 

It's a thought, although it was in traffic four yearsbefore WWII.

 

It was BR who decided to rebuild it as a conventional loco after its forward turbine failed in 1949 so I'm not sure what bearing WW2 had on this decision.

 

What I am saying is, would 6202 have been developed if WW2 had not occured? It was hardly used during this period, being the only loco in the country that had a three man crew. A specialist fitter was always on the footplate with the driver and fireman.

 

It may well still have been too late. The big four ( and the US were considering electric and diesels) before the war, had the war not happened LMS 10000 and 10001 may well have been off the production line in the early 1940's and a fleet of them by the early 1950's.
The LNER could well have seen the GCR electrified in the 40's and ecml electrified at 1500v DC by the early 50's.
by the 1930's it would be comparing LNER 10001 against assumptions of the designs of 26000 Tommy's potential.
WW2 probably elongated the need for steam for 10 years in the UK, some countries in Europe was already way ahead of the UK at this point...
That knowledge would invariably have been noticed and learned in the late 1930's in the UK.

Don't forget, Germany excepted, much steam in Europe dated from WW1, it was German reconstruction in the 30's and war construction that led much steam in Europe post war being German WW2 designs in almost every European country until electrification was either restored or expanded.

 

Thanks for sharing the photos Neil.
I found this link which I am sure will interest many [apologies if I am repeating elsewhere.]
L.N.E.R.'S [LNER] HUSH - HUSH ENGINE - British Pathé

 

Just come across these. Some very interesting shots, including the cylinders and the single chimney as built.

The Hush Hush W1 4-6-4 - a set on Flickr