Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

Please quote the titles as I must have missed these. There is also a world of difference between enjoying a tipple or three and being a raging alcoholic.

 

Gresley's biography by Geoffrey Hughes for one. I will go back to my notes tonight to find the other (very minor) mentions.

I should point out that I said as much on the previous page and also defended that portion of character described.

You write as if I was trying to describe Gresley as an alcoholic, which I did not at any point.

 

Yes indeed, or even a alcoholic raging.

Cheers

Alan

 

I don't know about Thompson, but Gresley seems to have been quite a down to earth person. Some years ago, when the LNERCA were restoring Gresley Buffet 641, we were visited by two former Doncaster coachbuilders - Les Browning and Albert Storr. Les was a senior foreman and had been responsible for building the Beavertail observation cars, and described how they started work on them before the drawings were issued, and told how Gresley used to come along and chat to them over a mug of tea as they progressed with the work. Sadly neither is with us any more but we were privileged to know them, and we received much helpful information from them.

 

Evening all,

Just a note that I am continuing with the development of my book, and I am also helping as best I can with another written by other interested parties.

One of the things I wanted to ask was whether the developments discovered by the P2 Trust - i.e. the broken crank axle file and photographs, have in any way changed people's thinking regarding the P2 to A2/2 rebuilding.

I ask out of curiosity as it was pointed out to me recently that these files and photographs, not being available to anyone researching the rebuilds, might have lent some gravitas to the view that Thompson may have had no choice but to rebuild the P2s as a result of this specific problem.

 

You're a brave man to resurrect this thread

 

I am so weary of people pre-empting antagonism on this thread. Can we not discuss new information as it arises as adults?

 

Sorry if it pre-empts anything. I'm kind of on your side actually and have found the thread generally very informative

 

It's not really about sides but thank you anyway. I'm glad it's proved informative.

 

The LNER encyclopedia suggests the crankshaft breakages could have been a "major contributory factor" to the rebuilds, but then goes on to point out that the pony trucks were part of the reason for the breakages and that they could have been changed more easily than rebuilding the whole class. There's also the point that the P2s could have been moved to the ECML and some A3/A4s moved to the Aberdeen route. Given the wartime loads and slow speeds, the P2s would have been of great help on the ECML, where the curves were far less.

I suggest that Thompson had choices, some of them a lot cheaper than rebuilding a class of locos, but since he wanted to get on with his new locos, the P2s were the most "convenient " for rebuilding, having faults that were causing failures on the road.

 

RE sending the P2s south, you say that, but all of the crank axle failures happened at slow speeds, near starting speed.

It has been suggested that the higher adhesion of the eight coupled wheelbase and the tractive effort needed to start a train was what caused the crank axle failure - this not being recorded as happening in quite the same manner as on the A3 Pacifics which shared the same crank axle design.

If the problem is the stress on the crank axle on starting, simply moving the locos away from the route isn't going to prevent reoccurrence - in fact it might cause it, given the wartime loads the ECML was experiencing.

 

Given the weight of the wartime trains worked by the Gresley six couple locos without crank axle failure, it's arguable that it's not the train weight that's the problem. Lplus has already posted one suggested cause regarding the P2s. I've read in more than one book that a transfer to the less sinuous GN would have made good use of the P2s without the problems that beset them on the NB.

 

The photograph of the crank axle failure showed a fatigue crack spreading from one side of the axle culminating in breakage when the remaining metal was unable to take the torque. Since starting is the point at which the highest torque is applied, it is logical that the failure itself should occur at that point, that doesn't mean the start and propagation of the fatigue crack was caused by pure torque. Flexing is a more likely culprit, which could be due to frame flexing, side loads, all sorts of forces, including torque. Use on the ECML would have reduced side loads and frame flexing.

I'm not aware that the A3s suffered from crank axle failure, nor the A4s, which probably both had the same layout of crankshaft as the P2. There is some possible evidence of the axle flexing - the uneven wear on the right hand driving wheel bearings on the A4s (that is also attributed to frame flexing) - but I don't recall seeing anything written about axle failure being prevalent in either A class.

 

Please write the book. I'm a GWR fan, SVR shareholder and ex-volunteer. I've just found this forum, and waded through all 25 pages of this thread. If ever there was a man deserving of having something nice said about him and his life.....

 

There are plenty of people who say nice things about Thompson, Richard Hardy for one. Too many people try to turn it into a black and white, good or evil thing. As I said earlier in the conversation , he made mistakes - show me a CME who didn't.

Even the whining over Great Northern - well, even if Thompson hadn't rebuilt it, it would still, by withdrawal, have had no more original parts in it than Flying Scotsman - not even the nameplates.

Had Thompson not rebuilt the P2's they would still have been early withdrawals after the was as the train loads reduced - they'd have been white elephants in 50's conditions. As was the W1. Lighter faster trains became the norm and the Pacifics and V2's were perfectly able to handle them.

 

I think it's somewhat disingenuous to refer to the W1 as a white elephant: It was a bold experiment (and only intended as such) that proved once-and-for-all, for the benefit of all CMEs, that (marine) water-tube boilers do not work well on conventional railway locomotive chassis. After re-boilering with a conventional boiler (thought to have been a prototype for further development of the A4) it earned its keep on daily King's Cross - Leeds expresses until, in 1959, its unique boiler was no longer repairable, whence the loco was withdrawn. Incidentally, it survived a serious derailment at Peterborough. The official report makes interesting reading, particularly in that the crew, only a few hours later, commandeered a stand-by loco, and hauled those coaches which had not derailed to their destination. What would H&S etc make of that today?

 

Most railway historians that I have read tend to subscribe to the 'Great Man' theory of history which is much reputed these days. The theory, simply put, is that history is changed by great individuals and their actions, rather than contextualising their actions in the time they lived and the impact and influence of other people on them. You end up with, as you said, very black and white histories of individuals rather than a more considered and rounded argument.

 

Those people who still cling to the Great Man school should listen to the dramatisation of War and Peace on BBC iPlayer radio...