Gresley 10000 'Hush Hush'

Evening All

I have been given a photo of the experimental Gresley W1 No. 10000 "Hush-Hush" was the only 4-6-4 tender locomotive to run in Britain. It included a number of experimental features including a marine type water-tube boiler working at 450psi. Although this original design is usually dismissed as a failure due to the revolutionary water-tube boiler, No. 10000 did successfully work a number of high profile trains. No. 10000 was completely rebuilt and re-entered service in 1937 with a conventional boiler and A4-style streamlining. Both before and after rebuilding, No. 10000 never carried a name, although it was often referred to as the "Hush-Hush" due to the initial secrecy of the project.(info courtesy of LNER Encyclopedia)

The photo is not good but i have included it for historical content

10000 'Hush Hush' Just after passing Tweedmouth on a Edinburgh-Newcastle relief (Photographer unknown courtesy of the facebook site Railways of Berwick and the Eastern Borders)
B2 B17 K2 K3 & W1 Class - Railway-Photography's Photos | SmugMug

Here is the photo i have of the rebuilt 60700

60700 Kings Cross (Gresley 3-cylinder conventional locomotive rebuild of experimental high-pressure four cylinder compound with marine type water-tube boiler introduced in 1929 Hush Hush) August 1957 Kings Cross
B2 B17 K2 K3 & W1 Class - Railway-Photography's Photos | SmugMug

Neil

 

Apparently it was going to be named 'Pegasus' on rebuilding - to the extent that the nameplates were cast, but they were never fitted. It would be wonderful to discover that one or both still existed.

 

Or use them to start a new build *runs for cover*!

 

I finished reading a book on 10000 a few days ago - Hush Hush, the story of LNER 10000 by William Brown - which is an interesting read about the locomotive. The author suggested that it was a front runner to what Andre Chapelon achieved although Gresley made some fundamental mistakes regarding compounding. Worth a read to anyone who is interested. I'm not engineering or technically minded but I found it an interesting history and well presented.

 

That's a very good book having bought it some time ago....

 

With you on that Neil. It's a fantastic book. The photographs of the W1 under construction in its original form are breathtaking, as are the recorded back and forths between Gresley and his subordinates through its testing stage. One thing surprised me - I had always (wrongly) assumed it had a kylchap from the start, but William Brown's book shows it had a single chimney and was fitted with a kylchap later.

A great read, wholly reccommended.

 

I was quite surprised to see that it had a single chimney from the start too. Like a lot of other British CME, Bulleid being another, Gresley had the right idea in mind but not quite got the details correct. One suggestion that the author briefly makes is that the success of Silver Link ultimately put an end to any further development of the 10000. An interesting thought.

 

I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think there's an argument for saying that that every locomotive CME has his achilles heel in one way or another in terms of their engineering ideology.

A very interesting thought. One thing which I think is a shame is that 10000 in its rebuilt form was not propagated. My late grandfather always spoke very highly of it, and it seems to be recorded in railway history as an undervalued locomotive by way of being a one off. It was on a technical level, the most powerful express locomotive in the whole of the UK and the only Baltic. 41,000lb or thereabouts tractive effort off the top of my head, more than a Stanier Duchess.

I wonder how good the W1 would have been with three separate sets of valve gear, ala the A1s, and the fitting of the standard Peppercorn 118 boiler. The W1 had a unique boiler in both forms I seem to recall.

Would make a very interesting and powerful new build, though whether or not the coal consumption would come down with similar alterations to the design made as with Tornado, is a matter for conjecture.

A shame it wasn't preserved. I know you can't preserve them all, but it would have made such a brilliant case study to compare with today's A4s, the Duchess and Tornado.

 

Seem to recall a 4-6-4 was on the drawing board?............will get ref books out.......

 

Technically, it was a 4-6-2-2.

 

Fair point. It was a cartazzi and a bissel (? Correct spelling?) truck arrangement, I think?

Unique from the wheel arrangement to its final development. It seems to have been one of the few one-offs that saw extended regular service, albeit in its final form.

 

A friend of mine has built a working model of 10000 in 3.5 inch gauge and steams it a few times a year. It has a conventional boiler under the casing, but is still a 4 cylinder compound with two sets of valve gear. His engine had the British Enterprise name plates intended for the orignal and the Kalchap double exhaulst. It sounds and performs superbly. 10000 was most certainly not a failure not far too ahead of it's time and suffered from advances in the A4s and it's uniqueness, not from an inability to do the job.

Here is the model at speed, more are in my Fliker set: PICT5213 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

That is absolutely stunning! Thanks for sharing.

I've started a 3.5in gauge project myself. If I can attain half the quality of that level of finish I will be happy.

 

Did it not suffer from leakage at the joints where the water tubes interfaced with the feed water drums?

 

I seem to recall reading that after initial steaming problems Gresley asked for the dimensions of the Stirling Single's chimney etc., and made modifications based on them. The reasoning being that if a Striling Single with its small boiler could steam well then 10000 should be able to do likewise.

 

Was capable of developing high cylinder horsepower but due to having only 8" piston valves it was not as fleet of foot as an A4. Tended to get given the heavier rather than the faster trains.

 

My understanding was that the frames of the W1 were subject to cracking and when scrapped it was partly because frame repairs were felt to be uneconomic. In the case of the A4's success the reason for that success was held by Gresley to be due to the fact that the A4 was simply an improved A3 (which had already proved successful) with a streamlined casing and not the totally new design that many thought it to be.

 

The book covers an interesting topic but actually I found it rather disappointing because the author appears to have come from one perspective and fitted limited evidence around his theory that the idea was good but errors of execution resulted in the failure. I have had the benefit of speaking to some real experts in SNGLPT who have found much more data in the NRM archives than Mr Brown including many records of the dynamometer car runs undertaken by 10000. Their view is much more balanced and they are critical of the partial nature of the book and the lack of rigor in the research.

The 10000 experiment came to an end when 2509 demonstrated what could be done with a simple expansion engine and conventional ‘Stephenson’ boiler by clocking 55 min 2 seconds London to Peterborough with 40 miles at an average of 100 mph on 27th September 1935. 10000 never got anywhere close to such a performance, nor the efficiency later measured from the Kylchap fitted A4’s.

 

It certainly seems that 10000 would never have been an A4 but the author does state that Gresley only wanted it to be the equivalent of an A1 - any attempts to make it bigger were rejected and the additional set of wheels were only added reluctantly. The author also states that it was capable of performing as the same as a good A1 - perhaps it was successful depending what you measure it against.

 

Perhaps it would be an interesting alternative to the P2 as a follow on for Tornado if the P2 proves to be impractical. Following on from the logic of making it the next in class rather than a replica, I imagine the same A1 boiler and cylinders could be used, making it more of a "super A4" ; now there's an engine to think about if the Americans do succeed in beating Mallard's record!