70000 - Cumbrian Fells Express - 30/05/2015

Mixing up my Brits.... Was en route to Wakefield where Prince of Wales renamed her. Given my self a kick up the ****

 

There has been much praise for Britannia on this trip. It may be worth a muse over the respective abilities of British Pacific locomotives. Like many, no doubt, I was brought up to look on those from the 1930s as the elite whereas the Brits were regarded as journeyman locomotives, a product of the times of austerity rather than the optimism of the pre-war days. Amongst class 7 pacifics the Bullieds in their rebuilt form must have the edge with remarkable performances from a machine with a notional tractive effort well below the Brits. They, and the rebuilt MNs, are also the best looking in my view. With the benefit of historic perspective we are now better able to appreciate that the specifications of Riddles and his team were absolutely right in the circumstances of the time, given the strategic decision to persevere with steam for a period. To me, the interesting comparison is with the rebuilt Royal Scots, which have the same pressure but a significantly bigger cylinder capacity and a higher adhesive weight. I could see a Scot with 6' 2" wheels storming the hills.

 

Or a Brit might have been better with three cylinders ... A Clan would have been better with 250psi,

 

71000 is pretty close to a 3 pot Brit.

 

Hi Shireman

Please could you contact me off group

Thanks

Don

 

71000 is a 3 pot brit on steroids.
If only the roller bearing middle big end had worked out then BR would have perhaps been less reticent about middle engines...

 

I'd have to disagree with you. The rebuilt MN's and WC's look awkward on many counts - the oval smokebox door, dustbin chimney, asymmetrical boiler feeds, manifold shut off valve and box-pox wheels just for starters!

 

It was more simple than that. Just a desire to have all serviceable motion on the outside.

 

But they don't look as angular as the Brits, Clans and DoG and have rather less plumbing on show. I rather like the oval smokebox door and the box-pok wheels. Spokes are false if they are just part of the casting but fine in cart wheels where they are individual components

 

Just before “Thread Drift” enforces the closure of further posts on this topic, I think it’s worth recording a big, big vote of thanks to all who made the Cumbrian Fells Express such a memorable tour.

The headline act here definitely has to be the crews who delivered so many memorable moments of notable Main Line Steam performance over the course of the day. And in that respect, I would judge that the individual parts were every bit as good as the sum of the whole. I’m sure that we will see much more of this story in the enthusiast periodicals over the coming weeks. In a year that has so far been pretty much devoid of notable performances and stand-out benchmarks, this tour must surely go down as truly outstanding.

Likewise much recognition and respect must go to LSL for providing such a magnificent stand-in for Tornado at such relatively short notice – clearly 70000 is a machine that is now performing at the top of its game. And, if truth be told, in the end I didn’t really care that my third attempt to travel with Tornado had once again been thwarted.

But maybe most of all, a word of thanks to Pathfinder and its staff and volunteers who crewed this excursion is definitely in order. It will never get into the Top 20 most popular videos of this trip, but there is one clip on YouTube of 67005 arriving back at a very deserted-looking Bristol Temple Meads at around 23.15 that provides a salutary reminder of just how long the day had been for the hard-working on-board staff, from some time earlier than its initial 05.40 departure to its return seventeen-and-a-half hours later.

Pathfinder provided some really thoughtful touches – like the shuttle-bus from Appleby Station for the short distance down into the town centre – a facility that I’m sure will have been greatly appreciated by some. After the disappointment of the Marches Castle tour with Nunney Castle that didn’t happen as intended last November, I think it was really important that the operator really put its stamp on the success of this tour.

And it did. They may not do many steam trips, but what the Cumbrian Fells Express proved to me is that the quality of what they do manage to achieve in this realm (their previous ventures being the Tyne-Tees Streak with Bittern and the Z48 Anniversary Limited with Nunney, I believe) more than makes up for the infrequency of their ventures into the Main Line Steam tour sector

So, this may not be in keeping with the best (or should that be worst?) adversarial traditions that seem to dominate the contemporary style of so many NatPres posts, but someone has to say it. Well done to you all!!!