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Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by S.A.C. Martin, May 2, 2012.

  1. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    I agree that facts matter. But, by the same token, the persistence of the L1s for as long as that may reflect a range of factors which say nothing about the L1s themselves - not least, at that time, scarcity of materials and capital to replace or cascade the L1s.
     
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  2. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    I’m not trawling through my book collection to quote what is already well known, they were not up to the job they were designed to do. They literally shook themselves to pieces on the demanding outer suburban work on the GC. Excessive axle box wear was why some Neasden locos had liners fitted to the cylinders and boiler pressure reduced to 200psi. I think Townend actually made the remark in a Trains Illustrated article, if you read his comments in Top Shed P120 onwards they are not exactly complementary.
    There have been a lot of unsuccessful locomotive types that have done the job giving those who had to operate and maintain them considerable difficulty, the LMS Austin 7s and Garratts come to mind.
    I don’t think you will find anyone who had to work with them lamented the demise of the L1s
     
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  3. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    Not a lot directly but any divisional motive power superintendent doing his job properly would take note of excessive stoppages for maintenance and complaints from shed management
     
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  4. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    And I've seen serious comment that suggest the Austin 7s at least weren't as bad as painted at the time. Good research tests conventional wisdom, sometimes reinforcing it, and sometimes refuting it.
     
  5. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    Probably not from those who got lumbered with them
     
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  6. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    For reference - everyone - I'm at the point in the overall cycle of my research that I am not entertaining seriously the "it's well known" commentary anymore. If this thread has done one thing well: it's about looking for sources of data, evidence (primary and secondary) to back up your views.

    Reference your claims, provide evidence, debate well. That's the bottom line. Good research and evidence is its own reward.

    See above.
     
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  7. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Those decisions would have been taken based on statistical evidence arising from things such as the Use of Engine Power document the LNER recorded.
     
  8. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    I was going to say similar, Simon.

    Suppose the purpose of Book 2 is to assess the post-war performance of the Thompson designs. I could imagine the main chapters would be the A2s, the B1s, the L1s and the freight rebuilds.

    For each of those, you would need some criteria like first cost, whole life cost, maintenance cycles, running repairs/stopped time, fitness for purpose/overall assessment. Issues like time from the drawing board to production would be discussed.

    I think that in some of those dimensions, you are bound to be reliant on what professionals, the likes of Harvey, Hardy, Townend and Beavor say. That is more than apocryphal. Then you say, now. looking at the running cards, what do we see? Does what I bring to the party change the assessment? Where do we end up?

    Stats is one form of evidence, witness statements is another.
     
  9. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Trying to draw conclusions from any withdrawal date after about 1955 seems an exercise in futility.

    After about the grouping there was surely no excuse for designing a seriously flawed class and putting it into production (experimental prototypes are another matter) and in point of fact very few were - off hand I can only think of three that were so flawed as to require major rebuilding or cancelation of further construction.
    If the L1s were truly knocking themselves to bits then that suggests major design or manufacturing problems, which is why it would be very interesting to see annual mileages, mileages between overhauls and availability over time. It might also be instructive to compare the different builders, although really build related issues ought to be largely sorted at the first heavy general. As far as wheel size is concerned, the GWR produced high performance versions of their large Prairies with 5'3 wheels and increased boiler power, and I am aware of no particular claims they were problematic, although there weren't very many due to WW2.
    I'm with Simon, show us the numbers, because they are much less biased then the rumours.
     
  10. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    I think you'll find that Neasden got rid of its L1's because it became a London Midland shed. Just look at it s location in 1959 (source LNER Info)
    1959 : 5 B1, 8 LMS Black 5, 10 Std 4 Moguls
    3 N5, 19 LMS Fairburn 2-6-4T, 9 LMS Stanier 2-6-4T, 4 LMS Ivatt 2-6-2T, 10 Standard 2-6-4T.
     
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  11. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    No worries. I should have been clearer in the original post.
     
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  12. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    So why does Cox make reference to the modifications to try and reduce the high maintenance costs?
     
  13. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Without, seemingly, giving us any source for the "high maintenance costs" nor an indication of what those were and who sunk those costs. Was it at sheds? At works? How long out for repair? Mileages? I am yet to find a statistic for the Thompson L1s that shows them being so poor and costly to the LNER that warrants their reputation - and I have really, really tried to find a primary source showing this.

    At best, they had - some - availability issues in the first production batch in 1949: mostly down to manufacturing defects. The dataset I have been looking at shows that their overall mileages and availability suggest a a class of nearly 100 locos that were more than adequate for the work involved, and pretty reliable too. The Neasden claims are at best dubious - even the dates don't match up well.
     
  14. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Could you expand on this?

    I raised the question of issues of quality of work and its impact on availability during WW2 and afterwards. My assumptions being labour shortage of skilled staff, materials shortages/supply issues, maintenance backlog drawing resources away from new locos. In short, my question would be - what was the state of Doncaster, Darlington, NBL and RSH?
     
  15. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    So there are reports and evidence which show leaking tanks due to welding issues, and axleboxes overheating - these appear to be linked by way of the detritus from the tanks getting into the axleboxes (water ingress plus general grime/grit/soot/etc).

    I need more time to come back to you with an informed answer, if I may, but I reckon the book LNER Workshops (Peter Tuffrey I think) would answer your questions well.
     
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  16. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    It's easy, from this distance, to forget welding tech was still in it's infancy and understanding of stress and metal fatigue was a comparatively new field. Witness the issues associated with the Bulleid oil baths and (rather more seriously) the WWII era 'liberty ships'. We should be grateful generations of engineers strove to improve techniques, even if only to permit today's generations to take it all for granted!

    When it comes to abrasive crud being where abrasive crud had no right to be, spare a thought for the Egyptian State Railway's experimental mainline 'Sentinels'. The longer serving staff at Blodge might have a tale or two to relate regarding the effects of long term water ingress too.
     
  17. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I think if you look at almost any large class, you see numerous improvements and tweaks made, either at overhaul, or as successive batches are made. Few people would say that, for example, the Britannia’s were “not up to the job they were designed for” just because they had detail design tweaks to axles, coupling rods etc as time went on. If the L1s had problems with weld quality of the tanks, you diagnose the problem, assess how significant it is and design a modification to be implemented on new batches and maybe existing ones as they went through the works.

    Very few locos in the twentieth century could genuinely be said to not be up to the job. To fit that criterion, I’d suggest introduced and then very rapidly withdrawn, fundamentally rebuilt or demoted to secondary duties and the locos they replaced being bought back into the front line. The Drummond double singles and four cylinder 4-6-0s meet that definition; not many others. Of course that doesn’t mean all locos are a shining success straight off the drawing board, but there’s a lot of difference between that and “not up to the job”. If the L1s managed 15-20 years service and were only withdrawn short of the planned 25-30 year design life of similar locos because of policy changes (dieselisation) then I think they did what was asked of them.

    Tom
     
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  18. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    In spite of popular belief, it seems that the problems with liberty ships were not down to welding per se, but the low temperature properties of the steel used.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-015-1668-1
    The role of welding was simply that cracks will propagate much further in a all welded structure without edges.
    OK that's not the issue in this case, but it seemed reasonable to make the point for the memory of Wendy the Welder...

    And researching that got me to read about Constance Tipper. She must have saved a lot of lives with her advances in the science of metallurgy. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-constance-tipper-1526649.html
     
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  19. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Thanks for the links. My understanding of the issue was the positioning of a transverse (i.e.beam to beam) weld across the deck plating, continuing along the line on a 'designed weak point' viz the cut away for a hatch, meaning the weld (obviouly) only ran from beam to hatch, thence an unwelded edge across the width of the hatch, where the weld picked up, continuing to the other beam, rather than a fault specific to the welding process itself. The point I was (hamfistedly) driving at was the novel design considerations dictated by the new process.
     
  20. Fred Kerr

    Fred Kerr Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Taking a step back to the Neasden experience could this be due to the different locomotive maintenance policies of the LNER (as original operator) and the LMS (as BR operator) ? One presumes that each locomotive build would be accompanied by a maintenance regime that will be varied at individual depots based on experience of the work in hand hence Neasden's problems could arise from its failure to adapt - for whatever reason. The LMS / Standard locomotives could - on the other hand - prove more amenable to the maintenance regime give its dependence on both staff availability and experience.
     

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