35018 British India Line

The Carnforth people who worked on her must be gutted, and my heart does go out to them, They have done a very good job to restore her, and to turn her out in such a good condition, As the above post illustrates engines do fail, and at least BIL is somewhere that has the facilities to repair her, its telling that the bearing did not fail on any of the previous tests, and that the engine appears to run well, it kept to the timings and bettered them, even when not 100 per cent right, Once she is sorted out, i think a lot of people are going to be surprised just how good Merchant navies are Next years GB we have just got to have her show what a proper engine does to Devon Banks ( oh and arrange for it to co incide with Clan line on the torbays, passing at Dawlish )

 

The sections from Hellifield to York probably presented the first opportunity for a decent length of high speed running compared to two separate short bursts between Preston and Carnforth on the loaded test runs. Clearly that was part of the purpose in using the Lune trip as a debut.

 

What makes you think Mr Smith is gonna let her go down south?

 

or just E plus POB...
also, no need for a preserved line when you have Carnforth to Hellifield!

 

There are two very basic repairs to undertake, repair to the middle big end and, as I see it (I may be wrong on this ) re seating of the main steampipe flange (and conical seat ?) it may be more than that, but 'fine tuning' ! the valve events sounded absolutely fine to me,
(two hearing aids are rarely wrong ) Why incur extra cost, WCR employ people to do exectly what you are proposing, no need IMO.

 

As a 1940s design rebuilt in the 1950s the Merchant Navies *ought* to be the best express locomotives in Britain, whatever best is. If they are not then either/both Bulleid/Jarvis got it wrong. I doubt, however, that enthusiasts' 'best' is the same as original operators 'best', especially when it comes to things like cost of ownership.

 

Forgive me Pete, I don't know how much involvement Bulleid had - but he was Gresleys no.2 and he would have been party to its development (so a natural addition to his own locomotives).

Edit: did not know it wasn't on the original Bulleid engines. Interesting. So it's a Jarvis addition?

 

They're up there - but objectively speaking the Peppercorn A1 was by a country mile "the best express locomotive in Britain" if you go by reliability and classified repairs.

If you go by tractive effort, Gresleys rebuilt W1 was top dog.

If you go by IHP, it's Stanier Duchess I believe.

Moral of story: lots of different ways to interpret stats.

 

Indeed. But however you interpret them, the answer never spells "GWR"

Tom

 

Is that despite the designer of the Duchesses admitting on retirement that he always had GWR sewn into the seat of his trousers?

 

I think it would be fair to say that whatever the faults of the oil bath arrangement, the lubrication to the big end was not one of them. Either that, or with the pervasive smell of hot oil, nobody was going to be able to smell garlic anyway. I don't believe hot inside big ends were ever a serious problem on either version, but perhaps less so on the originals. It should be noted that Bulleid did not use the Gresley marine-type big end; the successful modifications to that design hadn't been made when he left the LNER. There is a possibly apocryphal tale that Bulleid heard that BR were having trouble with hot big ends on the rebuilds, leading to the fitting of the stink bombs, and considered writing to suggest immersing the inside big end in an oil bath....

On the vexed question of best, I don't believe Martin was ever suggesting that MNs were best, but maybe that their performance is slightly underrated, not considered quite in the top rank of the best LNER and LMS Pacifics. Perhaps their low tractive effort (less than a LN after the boiler pressure was reduced) doesn't score well in the game of top trumps, but I think Clan Line has been showing of late that an MN can put up performances that would still be considered an excellent showing if delivered by any other class 8. I think it's best to leave it at that.

 

Au contraire. When the Castle and King were designed, they were undoubtedly the best express locomotives in the country, and the Castle especially was so by a considerable margin. And they were good enough not to require more than development until the end of steam. But it would be quite astonishing if there were no improvements to be made in the next 25 years. Think of the motor cars of 1990 compared to now. The fact that the GWR saw no business case to design a new express passenger class after the King is surely something to deserve praise, not censure.

 

I rather think you're over egging the castle there.

An excellent locomotive to be sure, but the Gresley A1 compared with it had more scope for development and - if we are looking at reliability from the word go against mileage, average speed and economy - developed into one of the greatest locomotive classes in the world, whose speed record as we know still stands today.

Silver Links achievements in the first few weeks of the silver jubilee express should not be overlooked either - an individual locomotive, doing the entire service on its own without failure until the second A4 was brought into service.

One could cogently argue that the GWR wanted to develop more express locos - what of the county and never built Hawksworth Pacific?

But I am dragging us off topic again

 

I believe it was a Swindon man that finally sorted out and got the A4s inside con rod big ends reliable..........
Also setting them up and applying Swindon engineering practises and tolerences greatly improved the locos performance and mileage between shopping to a level that the GWR would have just about accepted as reasonable.

 

I dont believe he is over egging the castle at all!
There are records that prove performances and economy are comparable if not better than the A1, it would have been interesting to have seen an original A1 on a 500 ton Red dragon train out of Swansea.

Development of the castle to their ultimate form can still be demonstrated against the ultimate development of the Gresley A1 today and their doesnt appear to be much in it.....

 

Basically a myth. Like the compound Castle that the drawing office roughed out in Collett's day, as soon as the CME heard about it he put a stop to all work on it.

Well, of course it had more scope for development The short travel valve gear was an obvious improvement for example. Even the A3 valve gear has inferior events to the Castle.

The trials at the time are all the evidence needed. Both locomotives could do each others work, (and the Castle at least had plenty in hand as was demonstrated) the Castle could out drag the A1 out of Kings Cross and use less fuel doing it, and weighed about 30 tons less as well.

 

I think it's the Peppercorn A1 they are talking about. The inferior performance of Gresley's A1 is well documented but he quickly took on the benefits of long travel valves and high degree of superheat which the GW didn't

 

Absolutely - KJ Cook, great logical mind.

 

Wonderful though the comparison of LNER and GWR is, what the hell has any of it to do with 35018?