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Loco developement ex Tornado thread

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by Spamcan81, Dec 9, 2012.

  1. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Didn't stop the noisy 141R outlasting the quite French compounds though.
     
  2. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Re: Tornado

    Most of the compounds were older and certainly none of them belonged to such a large class as the 141R. Quite a few steam reversers from early scrapped examples of the latter were fitted to some of the newest of the compounds, the 2-4-1 A1. M. Chapelon thought the 141Rs steam circuit was capable of considerable improvement which, if carried out, would have cut the racket down.

    We can still see one of the last completed of the compounds, the utterly magnificent 2-3-2 U1 at Mulhouse. Roller bearings throughout, mechanical stoker, two sets of valve gear placed accessibly outside (pace G.W.R!) to operate four cylinders and around 4600ihp developed. Rather puts Tornado into perspective I am sorry to say.
     
  3. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Re: Tornado

    What weighed in favour of the 141R was its rugged simplicity. The French compounds were magnificent but their complexity in the end was their Achilles Heel. Comparisons are so often invidious. 232U1 and Tornado were built in different countries to different specs. The driving force for compounding in France IIRC was due largely to the cost of coal and the efficiencies gained more than outweighed the increased maintenance costs whereas in the UK an almost inexhaustible supply of cheap, good quality steam coal made compounding a much less attractive proposition.
     
  4. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Re: Tornado

    Certainly I agree with the second sentence above. Whether as a cause of the use of compounding or a consequence thereof, technical education at all levels in French railways seems also to have been at a higher level than here, from those who designed the machines to those who operated them.

    National characteristics also play a part. Flair plays a great part in French engineering but is a capricious thing not always present. My present, French built, motor car has this quality in abundance and thus is a joy to own but it was far less present in some of its predecessors! For every superb design such as the 2-3-1 E or 2-3-2 U1 there was one very much less superb one such as the original P.O. or P.L.M. Pacifics.

    One key decision which was made correctly in France was to decide at an early date that steam had had its day. Thus new construction ceased after 1952 but the full economic life was gained from the existing fleet.
     
  5. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Re: Tornado

    Certainly the training of footplate crew in France was on a more formal basis than in the UK and probably needed to be to get the best out of more complex designs. As an aside, I have read that although Wardale's "Red Devil" was capable of magnificent work, very few footplate crew could get the best out of it due to its complexity. One wonders if this would have changed had the Class 26 gone into series production.
     
  6. Yorkshire Exile

    Yorkshire Exile Member

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    Re: Tornado

    All this French stuff is nowt to do with Tornado!
     
  7. 242A1

    242A1 Well-Known Member

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    Re: Tornado

    If Tornado included a good measure of this "French Stuff" and more it would be capable of a far higher standard of performance. It produces 40ihp per ton of locomotive weight? Continuously? Boiler pressure and water level maintained? No, it most certainly does not. This standard was set pre WW2.

    Chapelon went to America to experience and learn more about the design pactise of the US railroads and locomotive builders. Mechanical only. His aim was to combine best thermodynamic practise with what he discovered abroad. He put together a range of designs that did this though sadly none were ever completed. He knew he had a problem at home with established drawing office doing things. A trip to Mulhouse would make matters plain. The classic 4 cylinder design (De Glehn) was quite robust with the large steel stretcher between the h.p. cylinders. It needed to be, but the obsession with adjustments being available everwhere on the mehanical side did mean that the engines required the kind of on shed and crew involvement that was not possible post war.

    The class 26 was not particularly complicated. Different in a number of details but it was still a simple expansion 2 cylinder design. The crews accepting and learning how to use different, that was a large problem.
     
  8. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Re: Tornado

    Agreed. As Kipling put it "What know they of England that only England know"

    PH
     
  9. Yorkshire Exile

    Yorkshire Exile Member

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    Re: Tornado

    The point is that the people who were behind Tornado and, more importantly, the people who funded her construction, wished to create a Peppcorn A1 pacific and not a locomotive modernised as you suggest.
     
  10. 242A1

    242A1 Well-Known Member

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    Re: Tornado

    True enough but that is not the point being made. Enthusiasts in the main are obsessed with noise and exhaust blackening carry-over. But these are no evidence for a well designed locomotive. Quite the reverse.

    Tornado as the newest toy we have to play with is a worthy achievement but as far as representing the best that can be achieved with steam traction within the limits of the UK loading gauge goes, it doesn't pass first base.

    Relevance? Quite simple, if steam is going to have access to the national network as a whole beyond being restricted to a handful of routes it will need better locomotives. While for many the understanding of what makes an outstanding locomotive remains deafened by high back pressure exhaust systems and blinded by volcanic eruptions of clag the clock continues to tick. I hope we do not reach a point of no return.
     
  11. Yorkshire Exile

    Yorkshire Exile Member

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    Re: Tornado

    Is anyone saying that Tornado is the best that can be acheived? - certainly nobody connected with the engine is saying that.
    Your point is a good one but should that debate not take place on another thread - Tornado is what she is and we have no plans to rebuild her!
     
  12. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Re: Tornado

    Hear, hear.
     
  13. Foxhunter

    Foxhunter Member

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    Re: Tornado

    I've not heard of Tornado struggling to make steam against one or both injectors. With the right fuel it seems able to boil water pretty efficiently. Let's see what the A1SLT does with the P2, including as it will British Caprotti valve gear and a Gresley front end - a design influenced by and tested in France, mon brave!

    Foxy (Le Chasseur)
     
  14. Sheff

    Sheff Resident of Nat Pres

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    Re: Tornado

    Bring it on.
     
  15. 34007

    34007 Part of the furniture

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    Re: Tornado

    Going slightly off Topic, does anyone know what the trust is doing with regards to a P2? It all seems to have gone rather quiet.

    Ta in advance

    Andy
     
  16. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    Re: Tornado

    Theres no right or wrong here, just a couple of different points of view. Tornado is as close to a one off production of a 1940's steam locomotive as it is feasable to produce.
    By 1940' standards Tornados exhaust system is state- of- the- art and even so one or two people have commented that she has a 'soft chuff'
    She is what the people who built her wanted to build, thats what all the people who liked that idea contributed towards

    If they had liked the idea of 5-AT Better then thats what they would have signed up for - some i know are keen on both ideas

    The time will come when, sooner or later, one of the Standard gauge restoration / newbuild projects will experiment with a Lempor/ similar exhaust, after all its not an expensive or complex Modification and the results and character will find favour/ or not...
     
  17. Sheff

    Sheff Resident of Nat Pres

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    Re: Tornado

    Not at all - the computer modelling of the chassis continues ......

    That'll be me :)
     
  18. 242A1

    242A1 Well-Known Member

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    Re: Tornado

    Not saying it does not steam but rather that it does not make the most of what it does produce and possibly should produce more. The A1 weighs in excess of 100 tons, so in light of what had been achieved years before the design even first came off the drawing board an output of some 4000ihp would be a reasonable expectation. And a sustained output at that. Tornado is a new build of a 1940s UK design. UK design has, to date, not equalled the standards of power and efficiency achieved in the 1930s elsewhere.

    As to the P2, you will get higher tractive effort and improved adhesive weight. But there are no records of them achieving record power outputs. More interestingly it proved quite difficult on test to obtain high steaming rates and also to maintain boiler pressure. This can be dealt with. In order to improve route availability I believe the trust intends to use smaller cylinders and a higher working pressure than the originals - looks suspiciously like a "Mikado" version of an A2 is in the offering. Then there is the British Caprotti valve gear which has given the 71000 people a very interesting time. It is over complicated and not particularly robust. It also shows no performance benefit over a modern piston valve fitted design. This will require a thorough re-design of the cylinder block, valves, pistons, liners, lubrication and more if it was decided to go down this route. No point in going there. The Trust want to build an acceptable replica and I wish them luck. Record setting will be for others - well, maybe. It might well never happen.
     
  19. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Re: Tornado

    You seem to miss the point of why Tornado was built in the first place and why the P2 may be built in the future. As for building a highly complicated, albeit very efficient loco in post war UK, the switch to simple two cylinder designs was already under way with Ivatt and continued by Riddles. I suspect that had the UK had the equivalent of a 231K, it would not have lasted long under the conditions largely prevalent in BR days.
     
  20. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Re: Tornado

    The 2-3-1K was a 1930's rebuild of a pre WW1 PLM Pacific and would not have been considered for new construction after WW2. The pre-rebuild design exemplified the thermodynamic inadequacies of pre-Chapelon practice and was also just a bit too lightweight in build. Allowable axleloading in much of France was less than in the UK and, interestingly, is the principal reason why 232U1 and her half sisters were withdrawn early. There was only one route they could run on and it was electrified in the early sixties.

    I quite appreciate why Tornado was built and have no quarrel with this but do wish British enthusiasts had a broader outlook and a bit of intellectual curiosity about how others did things.

    One of the reasons for the weight of 2-3-2U1 was to ensure durability and as for being highly complicated she actually has one set of valve gear less than Tornado!

    PH
     

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