Bulleid Pacifics - Past or Present

Thanks Bulleid Pacific
:smt023

 

In "Mendips Engineman" Pete Smith describes how he & Don Beale had such a fire one day. They stopped the train and using extinguishers from the carriages, put the fire out themselves and were all set to continue the journey when the Fire Brigade arrived and refused them permission to leave until they (the Fire Brigade) had officially put out the fire! It may have been alarming to see smoke and flames emerging from beneath the air smoothed casing, but wasn't too disastous if a few hand held extinguishers could solve the problem.

Has any preserved unrebuilt WC or BofB suffered this occurrance?

 

Oil bath fire may be a bit of a misnomer. Most of the fires, including the one related by Pete Smith, were fires in the boiler lagging which gets soaked in oil when the oil bath leaks at the joints in the inspection hatches. So actually no problem to continue to drive the loco afterwards as long as the fire in the lagging is out.

 

If anything, the fact the fire brigade insisted on putting out the fire did more harm than good, as putting cold water on a hot boiler causes no end of stresses, resulting in an inspection by the boiler team, and possibly lengthy repairs. That's what I call "Superheating", though!

 

Here's another Bulleid query that I would be intrigued to know the answer to:-

The St John's crash took place in 1957, involving No.34066 Spitfire. The engine was subsequently repaired and lasted until 1966. What puzzles me is why, considering firstly the rebuilding programme was under wayfor the light pacifics and secondly how 34066 had been knocked about a bit why it was repaired in unrebuilt form rather than rebuilt.

Anyone any ideas?

 

Not all Bulleids were part of the rebuild programme. It may just be a coincidence, but without delving deep I couldn't say if 34066 was going to be part of the rebuild scheme. I think it was down to which Bulleids operating on which lines.

 

Without going up to the National Railway Museum archives, I believe that there was a shortlist of Bulleids that were candidates for rebuilding. Now this is only speculation due to the lack of evidence to hand, but I think that because far more Bulleids were built than were actually needed, just over half of them were rebuilt, therefore representing an intended "core" fleet of light pacifics. The remaining unrebuilts were to be maintained on a motive power requirement basis (they had a lighter axle-loading than the rebuilts), meaning that as long as work could be found for them, they would be kept in service. Remember, even though the writing was on the wall for steam in principle by 1957, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that it would end completely on the Southern in 1967, which is probably why the rebuilding programme went ahead so late.

When this idea is taken into consideration, it was probably cheaper to outshop 34066 as an unrebuilt than as a rebuilt, and as dieselisation was still a relatively recent concept with the Modernisation Plan, they decided to fix her up anyway. However, another derailment conundrum occurs up with 34084 253 Squadron, which came to grief by rolling down a bank at Hither Green in 1961. Once again, rather than withdrawal, this locomotive was repaired and pressed back into service. As such, I believe that the powers at be were still planning for a phased introduction of diesels in 1961, not the headlong rush that occured from 1964. It is only with hindsight that the sheer waste of resources inrebuilding the Bulleids becomes apparent.

 

DISCLAIMER: The incorrect post that used to reside here was due to a quick glance at rebuilt Bulleid date tables, which had resulted in what seems to have been gross factual error. Now I have had the opportunity to sit down five minutes and absorb the information on the tables, I have realised the error, and have now taken steps to correct it.

 

Does anyone know what is to become of 35025 Brocklebank Line? I've seen her down at Sellinge last year but since then the owning group's website seems to have disappeared.

Nigel

 

It's not profound. It's wrong.

Two of the BB's were converted in 1958, and another two in 1959. Likewise seven of the WC's were done in 1961, and only one BB.

Please get your facts right before you make sweeping statements like that. We all make the odd mistake, but what you wrote is so grossly incorrect that you obviously made no attempt to verify it.

Concerning 34066. It was less than six weeks from it's last works repair, and it wasn't so badly damaged as to require a general repair. In any case the works was already full of conversion work at that time.

 

From reading the press on the matter, they still intend to restore it, though its a more long-term restoration now. Not sure whether Sellindge is where they are going to do do it, though.

 

I've been told it's going to be restored at Sellinge when time and manpower allows. There are other projects to complete first.

Also heard that their main protagonist at the GCR is apparently now off work with a nervous breakdown.

 

Oops, I wasn't looking at those Southern-constructed ones. It was all the BR-constructed locos that came after 1960. So I wasn't a million miles away, if only on a technicality! :smt003.

As for the tell-off, please choose your words more carefully in future. As you said, anyone can make a mistake, and I used Wikipedia's list of locos, which is separated into Southern and BR constructed engines (which means that it's easy to forget to look at one list).

And if you are referring to the theory above, did I not say that what I had to say was ONLY speculation? It's not as though I was saying it was gospel truth, only an interpretation of the facts which is harmless in itself. So there is no need to shoot people down like that. No wonder this forum is renowned for it's poor manners.

 

Oops, I wasn't looking at those Southern-constructed ones. It was all the BR-constructed locos that came after 1960. So I wasn't a million miles away, if only on a technicality! :smt003.

As for the tell-off, please choose your words more carefully in future. As you said, anyone can make a mistake, and I used Wikipedia's list of locos, which is separated into Southern and BR constructed engines (which means that it's easy to forget to look at one list).

And if you are referring to the theory above, did I not say that what I had to say was ONLY speculation? It's not as though I was saying it was gospel truth, only an interpretation of the facts which is harmless in itself. So there is no need to shoot people down like that. No wonder this forum is renowned for it's poor manners.[/quote:hd0jnkdj]

Oh come on now - who are you trying to kid?

Less than 40% of the class were BR built. So what's all that about a million miles(?), you were wildly inaccurate. That's the fact. Incidentally, five of those WC's converted in 1961 were BR built originally, so you're still wildly wrong on that.

What "theory" are you referring to? Your statement read as though you were proposing it to be factual.

And, where is the word speculation in the following line that you wrote?
Another interesting note is the fact that all the rebuilt BBs were done between 1960 and 61, whereas the WCs were done between 1957 and 60. Quite profound, I know!
I can't see it ...

I happen to think it's bad manners to post misleading rubbish masquarading as fact. A lot of people read these postings and tend to rely on them being reasonably accurate when they are supposedly factual. I'm not trying to shoot you down, but am trying to apply some correction for you, and others who may not be able to check the facts, and maybe you'll be a bit more careful in future.

 

Have any of the preserved un-rebuilts suffered from these laggin fires since restoration, or have they all be modified to prevent these fires occurring?

 

Fair enough, Bongo, I'm not going to argue with you because life's too short, and there are far too many grudges on here. Anyway, from reading the railway press over the last few years, I don't recall any Bulleid lagging fires, but I may stand to be corrected on that.

 

Not aware of any mods done to avert lagging fires. We didn't do anything to 34081 and I can't recall any such mods being discussed at BPOA meetings. Also unaware of any lagging fires in preservation
and I'm sure such a high profile event would have been plastered all over the railway press.

 

Steel sheet was fitted underneath the boiler barrel on some locos, I believe. Preserved examples don't suffer the fires because they don't suffer the neglect of BR days.

 

For the fire issue, its worth having a look at http://www.semgonline.com/steam/blp50.html

That should explain a few things, certainly better maintenance and cleaning of preserved locoomotives, pressumably combined with steel sheeting under the boiler prevent the occurance of the problem.

Daniel

 

This is probably the subject of an earlier topic, but is there still a problem with leaking oilbaths in preservation, or has modern welding techniques helped solve the problem on the unrebuilts?

Regarding lagging fires, there's a feature in the current issue of the periodical Southern Way (Ian Allan) with pictures of 34057 covered in foam and several firemen surrounding the locomotive. However the publication is a bit steep at £11.95, or something along those lines.