George England locos: questions about their frames

I'm scribbling a little book about the Ffestiniog Railway's George England locomotives, for Flexiscale. I was wondering if anyone could help me with a few questions about their frames:

1. The main frames of the Englands have horizontal "arms" which carry the outer frame. What should these horizontal arms be called?
2. I've seen the term "valance" used for the outer, non-load bearing frame - is that the right term?
3. The valance doesn't carry the drawbar weight, but most of the superstructure is set on it, correct?
4. I know there are frame extensions connecting the back of the firebox to the rear drawbar. At the front, it looks like there are frame extensions that connect the front of the main frame to the front drawbar/buffer beam. Is that correct?

Prince's framing arrangements are a little different from the rest, so I'm mainly enquiring about Princess and Palmerston.

Many thanks for any help you can give me, answering any of these questions.

Dan

 

I'll try my best with this
1. I would just call them brackets. One set also form the motion brackets.
2. Yes it seems to be referred to as that particularly by Boyd but has also been called a sub frame.
3. Sort of. The brackets mentioned in 1 also help to support the superstructure as well. Drawbar force is primarily transmitted through the main frames -> firebox -> rear dragbox, but I believe the valance also helps to transmit the load.
4. Where the frames fork to fit the cylinders/steam chest, the top fork extends right up to the buffer beam to connect with the buffer beam/valence. Between them is a U shaped bracket to which the drawbar is attached.

There is a picture on page 80 of "An Illustrated history of the Festiniog railway by Peter Johnson" that shows Prince minus boiler, valence, cab etc. You might find it useful to see the design of the main frames.

Hope this helps.

Tim

 

There is a recent view of the rear of Prince's frames at (last picture):
Prince - Festipedia

 

There is also a picture of a very dismantled Prince in 1960 on page 31 of "Narrow Gauge Steam out of Portmadoc" which provides an interesting comparison to the festipedia entry referred to above. In this you can see the frames attach to the front of the firebox with a further extension to the rear. This meant that the drawbar loads went through the firebox. Later rebuilds provided frames around the firebox.

Does Palmerston retain the original arrangement?

Steve B

 

Thank you all for the discussions - very useful. I'm trying to establish what Palmerston's framing arrangement is. From photographs, he certainly still has the rear frame extensions between firebox and drawbar, but some maintain that there is also a modern extra frame running underneath the firebox and taking the drawbar weight off from the firebox. I'm still trying to establish for sure if this is true or not.

Dan

 

Yes there is an extension of the drawbar under the firebox to the main frames. This was added during restoration. The firebox still takes most of the strain though as was originally intended.

Prince is vastly modified so the firebox no longer takes any of the drawbar weight.

Tim

 

Thanks, Tim, that's very useful.

Dan