Heritage Line Loco Power Requirements

But does it make enough of a difference that the smaller locomotive becomes as or more expensive to overhaul than the Bigger one? I Doubt That allot.

 

Yes it does

 

Assuming you mean Bulleids, you obviously didn't listen hard enough, went to the wrong event or had a disinterested crew. I've heard various members of the class make plenty of noise on KWVR, NYMR, SVR, NNR, Bluebell, ELR, MHR and Swanage. Never going to be as loud as a Hall or a Manor but far from quiet. Given the gradients on the WSR, I'm surprised you didn't hear more.

 

I agree with Ross to be fair, I find big engines at 25 mph very dull

 

Aye... I recall one particularly memorable trip behind a rebuilt Bulleid. I thought the clickety clacks were rather closer together than usual, so I started looking out for mileage posts. I made it 43mph... so did the gentleman sitting a couple of seats away. Even after over 30 years, it's probably best not to mention the line in question, as I hear the odd rumour that trains occasionally still approach 25mph from the other side!

 

Any evidence to back it up? Too much assertion and not enough data on this discussion!

 

I don't have figures to hand but it is exactly the reason that two of our locos are in such a poor condition and are way down the overhaul queue. It is also the reason that 46443 and 4566 were limited to 6 coaches, in order to prevent further damage. Towards the end of her ticket 6443 was so worn as a result of continually being used on 8 coach train, that a day on her was a noisy and knee jarring affair

 

Quite so. Some definite figures would assist and inform those of us who don't own both, say, a working 3MT and 6MT (Diplomatic, Eh?). Right now, all I have is a firmly held belief that I haven't a clue!

 

I could count the bruises that I gained from my last turn on such a well worn engine if that helps. Lol.

 

And I think that's as good as you'll get, as it's very difficult to quantify such things, taking out of account things like work done during last overhaul, complexity of different engines, steaming days etc. Ideally you'd need 2 locos as similar as possible so maybe a BR standard 2 and 4 tank engine, and run them both from new for a few years with exactly the same loadings and see what happens at the end, but we can't do that.

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There are all kinds of variables such as how good the last overhaul was (such things varied even "back in the day"), the standard of day to day maintenance and the skill of the handling.


PH

 

Indeed, so you absolutely can't rule it out as a good reason for using locos slightly larger than *absolutely* necessary, as Olly has said above, it will affect maintenance costs to *some* extent, and the SVR has decided they're significant enough to limit loadings on some locos, using larger ones where required.

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They have also, it seems, decided to minimise the use of heavy motive power on account of its effect on the civil engineering. Relatively few lines have platforms which can cope with more than six vehicles anyway.

PH

 

In the road haulage industry, which has access to more modern record keeping and data analysis and management, many hauliers believe it is more economical to have a big 400bhp Scania working well within its capabilities than a much less costly 230bhp machine. The fuel economy is marginally inferior on the bigger unit, but wear and tear is less, and depreciation is also more favourable due to higher resale values. Driver/employee morale benefits from driving a "top link" machine. Above all else, reliability is where the big units score. Lorries have lost their ability to "limp home" as the very complex electrical systems which give the fuel economy and improved emissions shut down the whole lot in the event of a small failure.

In farming, a larger tractor seems to have no better longevity than a small machine constantly working at or near its limit for more of the time . A good servicing routine seems to keep the evils away, fuel consumption seems to be commensurate with the work done, rather than the size of the tractor. As the tractor is more aged by the environment it works in, getting covered in cowsh!t and not washed etc. When many tractors on livestock farms only work 400 hrs a year it seems better economy to buy a 85hp Valtra for £16k than a 300hp Claas for £45k. Failures tend to be things like alternators getting filled with dust during haymaking, and a £30 repair bill on my Chinese tractor stands well against a £450 callout for my neighbour(Claas).

Agricultural contractors tend to follow the same line as the road haulage guys,-BIG machines which can work 12hrs a day, 7 days a week through the season with minimal downtime for maintenance and no breakdowns.

Thing is, an overpowered machine working quietly doesn't impress anyone except the accountant, and that is working and earning 330 days a year.

Many steam locos are working and earning less than 100 days a year. Divide that 10 year overhaul by 1000 working days, plus servicing and repair costs during that 10 year period, and suddenly things like coal consumption per mile will pale in significance against the big tickets. I suspect that the gut instinct of the guys actually running the locos is probably right, and overworked small locomotives do suffer for it, but I wonder if that actually makes them less economic than the big engines over all.

 

It is a balance, the bigger the loco the higher the fuel consumption and you have to balance the wear and tear costs vs the fuel costs along with a multitude or other factors

 

And how Many Miles had they run since last overhaul? You comment "...towards the end of her Ticket..." indicates to me this figure would be significant.

 

I think even that would be difficult. The whole issue of running costs is fraught with difficulty to measure (and figures obtained by BR are not a direct guide, as the heritage line cost model is vastly different, not least because certain tasks can be done using volunteer labour). However, some pointers to why it might be complex:

1) What constitutes an "overhaul"? To get proper costs, you'd have to work how over how long to amortise new components. For example, on the Bluebell, the C class will get new cylinders at its next repair (they have already been cast, so just awaiting when it goes into the works, though that may not be a for a few years). New cylinders are fairly expensive, but I suspect that I won't see another pair cast and fitted to that locomotive in my lifetime. Something like 200-250,000 miles between cylinder replacement was common in pre-grouping days, which at the rate that loco has been accruing miles in heritage line service might see the new set last over a hundred years. How do you realistically account for that cost?

2) Mileage between overhauls. Again, taking the C class, it ran about 40,000 miles on its last overhaul, and now needs a complete overhaul. "Camelot" may well run somewhere around 80,000 miles in ten years. So one C class may be cheaper, but you'd need two of them in traffic to do the same work, even ignoring the fact that Camelot can take heavier trains if required as well. The Maunsell engines are probably somewhere in between those figures in the likely mileage run (1638 ran about 55,000 miles last time I think - I'm away from figures).

Taking the Isle of Wight as an example, the Ivatts would - relative to load - count as "big engines", i.e. they would need to be worked fairly easily to haul the traffic on offer. It's early days, but I am pretty certain that when the accounting is done, they will work out cheaper to operate than the Victorian engines, but that will be primarily on account of being able to run high annual mileages reliably, rather than any marginal coal saving from a super-heater - i.e. the cost saving will be largely high mileage between overhauls rather than on the grate.

Which then raises the question of how do you get reliable high mileage between overhauls? One answer is to use modern engines; the other is to use engines that are somewhat too big for the traffic, rather than thrash locos that are somewhat too small. (Note I am not advocating locos that are massively too big; just somewhat too big). The NYMR seems an exception in generally rostering engines above the loads that were standard on the line in BR days - most other lines seem to set load limits somewhat conservatively, a major part of which is to avoid causing unnecessary wear and tear by regularly working a loco to its limit. As an example, on test, our Maunsell U worked 7 coach trains to East Grinstead, but it was customarily limited to five (or six vintage) in day-to-day service; whereas Camelot or the S15 will cope with 6 or 7 quite easily.

3) Balance of paid and volunteer time in overhauls also makes getting a cash figure for the cost difficult. In general, volunteers can do many things, but there is a bit more certainty in timescale with having more of the work done by paid staff. That in turn becomes important if you are needing to keep a certain number of locos in traffic to run a published service.

Ultimately, we are working in an environment that has many disadvantages in workshop capacity relative to the past (notably in small facilities, relatively limited gains from standardisation of spares etc); and a few advantages (notably a cost base that can use significant volunteer labour; and also benefits from fund-raising ability of many groups to supplement revenue income, but with the significant proviso that those fundraising benefits do not accrue evenly across all motive power).

The big challenges:

- Improve overhaul capacity (space, money, people, machinery)
- Improve availability (because doing so means you could reliably run a service with fewer engines nominally in traffic)
- Improve mileage between overhauls (which probably means using more modern locos, which is not necessarily within the power of railways to control; and working locos more easily, which is).

Tom

 

They were around the 60,000 Mark from memory. Pretty low for our locos.

 

I am told that the economy in fuel from the superheater is more than marginal. Everyone I have talked to about tank and tender variants of these machines or has written about them vouches for their remarkable economy. They also come from an era when attention given to materials for things such as hornguides was producing results.

Otherwise nothing to add.

Paul H

 

With the loads and the length of the line on the Island, the super heater probably isn't getting hot enough to have quite the same savings as they would if the locos were pitted against class 2 and 3 locos on the lines that have them on the main land, however the Ivatt 2s of all three varieties (the 64's and 65's are a little different) are very free steaming efficient little locos