'The Capital Christmas Express'. 23rd November

That's not true. As long as that side of the engine is all secure the other two cylinders will work perficly fine. Looking at the first clip it looks like the regulator is cracked open to assist in lubrication as is the normal way when being hauled.

 

From memory 60532 Blue Peter had one of its connecting rods removed on the main line and still carried on ok.

 

In chester it had all of its connecting rods removed.......

 

Buseng, you should not allow anything written on NP to ruin your Sunday or any other day!

 

Baggies' photo uploaded at 15.27 today seems, to me, to show the con-rod little end split pin correctly in place. Someone fitter's got to be pleased at that evidence. Is it really the little end that's let go, I was on that train yesterday & consider that we got away very lightly indeed, with just a delayed return to Weymouth, if it was actually the little end that dropped. As another blogger previously mentioned, that's an awful lot of "pole vaulting" derailment opportunities between crew realisation & stopping.

Presumably, the little end pin is cottered into the sliding block, to stop any back & forth partial rotation of the pin, if lubrication becomes starved.

Out of Southampton Central, I spent around 2 hrs on the up run with my head at the open window at the front door of carriage B on the fireman's side. I thought she sounded remarkably clearance clank free over the whole power & over-run range.

For info, I've attached a close up of the drivers side taken before last years run.

 

The whole train is still standing on Acton LANE reception outside Willesden Euroterminal (on the West Coast); I am guessing that there was a possession preventing it getting to Southall last night. It should be fairly easy to do a shunt into the Euroterminal for road access if required but as "Tangmere" has made it back that far I would think that it should be OK to drag the rest of the way back to Southall.

 

I forgot to mention previously that, in the morning, I heard no such clanking sounds as are in Knowwun's Winchfield video. To me, that definitely doesn't such sound like her normal clanking.

Hats off to SWT & NR for working with RTC to get the Weymouth contingent, of which I an one, home & to the good nature of the last SWT service travellers who we invaded so comprehensively.

 

In case it's of any help I've several taken at Waterloo (and Earlsfield) from yesterday (which don't at face value show anything obviously wrong) - there's a few more on my Flickr stream (and one or two I've not uploaded).


131123-1214-723C3900.jpg by David J Pearson, on Flickr

 

Its been pointed out to me that in some cases engines have been worked with one cylinder isolated, whilst this is a get you home fix, the engine should be failed at the first opertunity the regulator has to be cracked anyway to cushion the valves and piston stroke , i should have made it clearer but you would only work an engine if there was no other option to clear the section .

 

I saw it both ways at Walton on thames. The clank on the way to London was quite distinct. I'm not an expert though. Before people go mad things can go wrong in life. Humans can make mistakes and equipment can play up. Steam galvanises the railway....the staff.....the passengers and the punters and particularly my twin 2 yr old boys who marvelled at this ugly green thing whoosh past in the night....I'm sure things will be diagnosed and any lessons learned- us speculating on line will not help the cause

 

I'm not sure sound is the best indicator as to a problem, to my mind 42968 clanked like mad when coasting despite having no issue.

 

They say steam engines are named as women because of their temperament, and the solution was to ensure you always had a supply of them in case the other had a bit if a hissey fit.
Now here we are in 2013 looking at one having a tantrum and were all behaving like first timers...

Tangmere has been an absolute stalwart of the mainline this century, for a big un, its in a league of its own, but it's not been without its major repairs. WCRC must be gutted and of course someone has to get their wallet out one more time to bring it back to health.

I feel for Buseng who's had a bad Sunday but, I can imagine a few others who had a bad night last night, the staff, the passengers, the footplate crew, the support crew, the owners and of course those on call who had to work through Saturday night to make a railway on Sunday.

 

General noise, no - means nothing. A different noise to normal indicates something. Applies to any mechanical device.

Edit, And women.

 

So sorry to hear of this incident with Tangmere.
I do feel for everyone involved, West Coast, The Railway Touring Company, the passengers (of course) and the support crew, the crew, and everybody involved....................I do hope the damage isn't too serious and that 34067 is back gracing our rails very soon!!

 

There's a bit more to this than the locomotive itself (I have not read all this thread so it may have been covered before) considering bits of it have been deposited on the track and the third rail has been damaged. Issues such as elderly steam locomotives in third rails areas, maximum allowable speeds, "who pays", "did it really happen without warning" come to mind and they make quite a long list.

The person who told me about this incident, quite independently of NP, is strongly of the opinion that maximum permitted speeds for old steam locomotives have been allowed to creep up unwisely. I don't know whether I agree with him or not but awkward questions will be asked and will have to be answered without bluster or wishful thinking.

PH

 

There is a distinct difference between cause and consequence which it is important to keep in mind. The cause was whatever caused the connecting rod to become detached and that will be the main direction of any enquiries and the consequences will be the potential for harm and the action taken to reduce it.

No doubt the RAIB will be involved because of potential consequences but they will be looking for causes to ensure that any potential risk is advised to "interested parties". In that context I am reminded of a fire in a WCRC Class 47 which identified a potential risk but noted that "WCRC were not at fault because the fault was a process of locomotive age - and as the operator of the locomotive WCRC could not be expected to identify a fault which had never occurred before"; the warning about the fault was, however, passed on to Class 47 operators /owners and future inspections and maintenance amended to cover the situation.

In the same way it has to be acknowledged that the steam locomotive is being operated at an older age than previously and in a different operating environment; this will surely be a point of investigation which could affect operators of main-line steam locomotives and hence needs comments on websites such as this to be both measured and expert.

 

Measured and expert comments, a bit like this from post 88?

 

Makes you wonder who on this forum works with steam and who looks at steam?

 

The maximum speed for old steam locos has not been allowed to "creep up." Back in '71 it was set at 60 with a lower limit for locos with smaller wheels such as GWR 0-6-0PT and S&D 2-8-0. Circa 1989 locos with 6' 2" and larger drivers were allowed to go at 75 and there it's stayed with the exception of 4464's special dispensation for 90. As for the age of the loco, many of the components on a number of locos are newer than the loco itself. Without knowing the cause of 34067's problem it is impossible to comment with any degree of accuracy but IF the cause was something in the area of the little end/cross head failing, there is a good chance that these components were renewed during its restoration from Barry condition. Many locos emerged from there without any motion whatsoever and had new components manufactured to enable them to run again.