Locomotives that should have been preserved, but weren’t.

Agree on everyday preservation. A few years ago I renovated a Mark 2 Cortina which I sadly had to sell due to redundancy. Anyhow, it was a 1300 deluxe and I kept it to original spec and it was quite rare, as nearly all the other preserved ones were 1600Es, Lotuses and GTs, yet the basic versions sold in much bigger numbers

 

I remember when reading O S Nock's British Locomotives of the 20th Century, he mentioned that he'd been unable to find any contemporary accounts of how Drummond's F13 4-6-0s performed. Building a replica just to answer that question might just be a bit of a stretch, though.

I think the original Leader had too many issues to for it be a useful locomotive on a preserved railway (let alone the main line). Like the P2, it would be served better by a modern reconstruction with scope for a redesign, such as making it oil-fired and not having the boiler offset. But with the Paget, if modern materials science was able to make the valve gear reliable (a big if, undoubtedly) there wouldn't be any reason to limit it to high days and holidays. The same for if an F13 had survived -- they undoubtedly weren't up to the work they were built for, but 25mph on a preserved railway might be manageable.

 

Links to videos now on YouTube (I hope)

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Links to videos on YouTube (I hope)

 

Without going back on the posts, has anyone suggested a Thompson L1?
Lovely looking machines in my view.

The idea of reproducing something like the Leader, or other examples, would be useful to see if modern materials might alleviate some of the shortcomings, as already stated.
Human nature and curiosity go hand in hand!
Whether that is considered a waste of time or money is immaterial, if people want to spend theirs on said projects that is their prerogative surely.


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Yes (several times) and why? ..... in that order! I feel there's sufficient evidence that sleeve valves and the variable requirements of railway operation really aren't compatible, or any more desireable than tons of iron to balance a loco laterally, plus that lot being none too safe or easy to walk on at rest, never mind bouncing along at any speed. I suspect there might be the odd issue with sticking a fireman in asbestos clothing these days too!

We've Kevan Ayling's magnificently eccentric and successful 5in gauge edition of 36001 to enjoy (ye gods, can that thing shift some passengers!) and my own view is that and the historic context are the best place to leave it. With so many mods needed to turn Bulleid's vision into anything beyond a hugely expensive curio, any possible new build wouldn't and couldn't "follow the leader"

 

Perhaps our friends in Ireland could consider building a replica of the "Turf Burner", albeit oil fired now that peat is being consigned to the same fate as coal. This loco, after all, seems to have been a much better proposition.

 

So, a diesel then?

Richard.

 

I think that failures are a class in themselves with subclasses of failures.

You have things like Kitson-Still which is an attempt to bridge a technological gap which is superseded by other technology, things that were quixotic or wrong headed, things that didn't quite produce the intended result/savings, a few where the scheme was ahead of the technical capabilities of the time, and a few where there were fixable issues. Some that technically worked but were abandoned by management or personal whims. Of course, which examples from which sub-class of failures to save from the scrap yard is a different matter.

The F13 (or any Drummond 4-6-0) would be a good example - Drummond faced with increasing train weights realises that 4-6-0 not 4-4-0 is a necessary step forward. Makes the leap, falls flat on his face. In the end it is only with Urie that the LSWR gets its successful 4-6-0. If we look at the story of SR/LSWR loco development we have an Adams T3, a Drummond T9, and then a gap to the S15 and N15, then the LN and finally the Bulleids. In terms of telling the story of LSWR loco development going back in time and plucking a Drummond 4-6-0 would fill the gap and show that it was not a linear path but also involved several years of failure and several goes before abandoning it. It would show that it wasn't just a case of successful T9 and hey presto here is the successful S15. A get a richer story.

You could argue the same for some of Webb's designs in terms of the development of LNWR/LMS express loco design, or the Fell loco in terms of the development of diesel on British Railways. etc etc. And no different than adding an early LSWR unit or a 455 to the story of suburban electrics out of Waterloo.

I would add that there are already failures preserved but this has tended to be more by luck than judgement (as is also true with the preservation of conventional locos). So APT, Brown Boveri etc have survived, the P2 is being recreated in an improved form, 71000 deemed to be a failure in its lifetime but since restored with improvements. What this shows is that just because something was deemed to be failure in its lifetime does not mean that it can't be redeemed in preservation (and some failures spend their time stuffed and mounted in museums and yards just like some of their conventional contemporaries).

 

We manage to tell the story of locomotive development in the 19thC with an awful lot of classes missing. I really don't see that there's a need to inflict the world with a Drummond 4-6-0 'crawling round like a half dead fly' to quote Holcroft in order to demonstrate what a failure it was. Better to spend the time, money and resources on something useful.

 

Agreed. Illustrative examples are very powerful without needing completism.


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We have 20 surviving WCs & BBs - 10 rebuilt & 10 unrebuilt. I don't think we need any more.

As for the rest, you clearly like locomotives with unified drive on the first coupled axle. How about a C8?

https://www.lner.info/locos/C/c8.php

 

Maybe, but (leaving aside several candidates from the GNRI) there were many, far more deserving cases than the 'Turf Burner' in the south, among which, to my mind, these stand out (all numbers and class designations are from GSR days):

•GS&W Class 2 'Kerry Bogies', the first 4-4-0s in these islands with a proper leading bogie. Designed by McDonnell, these sturdy lightweight machines served between 1877-1953.

•GS&W Class 33. An Ivatt* designed 2-4-2T, of 1892 which lasted as long as the branch lines they served, the last (No.42) was in service until 1963.

•GS&W Class 257, A highly regarded 1913 Maunsell* 0-6-0 design, again serving to the bitter end in 1963. The 1948 CIÉ report commented "..... economic and with a long life. Axle load gives them a wide range. I would like to see half the 101 class scrapped and many other stray (sic.) goods classes and replaced by this design". Thirty five years from first introduction, that's high praise indeed!

•WL&WR. Either Class 275 (2-4-0) or 254 (4-4-0). Both Robinson* designs of the 1890s for the WL&WR, a railway which has no surviving representative in preservation. Amazingly, the slightly older 2-4-0 outlasted the 4-4-0 by five years, the last example not going until 1954.

•GS&W Any one of several elegant Coey 4-4-0 designs from the first decade of the 20th century. Displaced by dieselisation in the 1950s, the last hung on until 1959.

•D&SER Any one of many archaic 2-4-0Ts or 4-4-2Ts. The only surviving loco from this line, 2-6-0 No.461 is a truly magnificent beast from the closing years of the railway, but too large and modern to truly represent the company's loco lineage. The 1948 report lamented there only being two examples of the moguls.

•CB&SCR Class 463 4-6-0T. The iconic 'Bandon Tank', designed by Johnstone and built by BP. This design grew out of rebuilds of older 4-4-2Ts. In post-grouping days, they proved as successful on the difficult D&SER route as on their home line, albeit not quite butch enough for post-WWII traffic on the D&SE section. Had the GSR ordered an additional batch, it has to be suspected it would've been a better course of action than what did actually happen (..... i.e. the innovative Drumm battery units aside, a motley selection of second hand locos from elsewhere, plus a solitary 1928 built 2-6-2T, No.850). The last Bandon Tanks perished with CIÉ steam traction, in 1963.

•W&T Class 484. This pair of 2-2-2WTs, built by Fairbairn in 1855 lasted amazingly well on the fully detached W&T. The GSR actually had the last of the pair earmarked for preservation. Unfortunately, at the last minute in 1936, No.483 committed suicide by derailing and wrecking itself in the process.

•MGWR Class 551 0-6-0T. Often referred to as 'the Irish Terriers, the last of this 1891 class, designed by Atcock, served until the very end, in 1963. In independent days, nine of the twelve carried the names of flying things, from Stork all the way down to Gnat! Like the LNER B12s allocated to ambulance trains, the three locos shipped over the river to work the W&T had their steps altered to fit the restricted loading gauge.

•MGWR Class 650. I've mentioned this long lived (1893-1963) Atcock 2-4-0 class before. The eclectic selection of names, pre-1925, included Arrow, Speedy, Sylph and (for some unknown reason) Spencer. No ex-MGWR loco survives.

•GS&W Class 500. A mixed traffic 2-cyl 4-6-0 by Bazin. Proliferation of the Maunsell 2-6-0s, purchased from Woolwich Arsenal (a final fling by the cost conscious MGWR) limited this class to just three examples. I've included the 500 in preference to the earlier Watson 400 class, as the history of those (initially 4-cyl machines) was so convoluted, it's be impossible to represent them with a single loco. Well, that and my own preference for the workhorse over the thoroughbred!

Was I tempted to include a Maunsell mogul? Sort of, but with several still in harness here, the only real question needing answering is why the Irish edition managed four decades without smoke deflectors.

*yes, that Ivatt (H.A.), that Maunsell and that Robinson. Aspinall too had a stint in Ireland

 

Useful as defined by you. Lots of gaps for sure but all you'd end up with is a boys own linear narrative of successful stuff, I'd like a richer more varied and more realistic selection because failure was part of real life.

For the last time. I am not saying new build an F13 or any other 'failure' I am simply saying that if I had a blank canvas and a time machine I would go back and save some 'failures', and if it has to be at the expense of one in one out then I think the world will not miss a Hall or Castle or S15.

Yes, and you also need illustrative examples of failure, otherwise you end up with hagiography or you end up relying on mythologised narrative written by unreliable narrators.

You seem to think I am advocating preserving every single failure ever. I am not. As I said, in my OP, I'd pick one and it could be an F13 because it could tell a story, a Kitson Still could tell a story, a Fell or Paget could tell a story but which one would depend on where they fitted in my overall narrative of railway development (a narrative where I emphasized the more banal and mundane engines) after I'd picked my other 9. (Rather than the failures we do have that survived by luck ie 71000)

I am not quite sure why there is so much pearl clutching going on about this suggestion that a failure would be worth saving. I've never heard of serious historian say 'oh no you can't possibly work on that because we don't know enough about the bigger picture, or there are other bits of the story I think are more important.'

You want to save a 455, I want to save a failure. You want to look at x in the C19, I want to look at Luddite Croppers. Neither is an objective choice, they are subjective. We do what interests us. This is what interests me.

 

And the OP's question involved the word "should" - and that's the test I'm applying. If this had been asked in terms of WIBN, my answers would have been very different (though the 455 might remain).

 

This thread risks turning into a new build topic because we are talking about scrapped engines, but I don't think usefulness to modern heritage operation is at the top of the list of criteria.
However I do think that one of Mr D's Eastleigh shockers would at least earn its keep plodding around at 25 mph and they are all solidly built. The LSWR design of crown stays is a bit of a nuisance though. I have the 4-6-0s to mind, were any big tanks as nasty?
I was thinking about Webb compounds, it would be nice to see for real just what the good and bad points were. Then of course you'd need one the good ones and one of the bad ones.

 

I've heard it said of Dugald Drummomd's locos that they were built like battleships and that the only way to be certain of destroying one would be to systematically dismantle it into it's component parts, before breaking those up, one at a time!

Of those dead-ends of loco design, might I offer the "double singles" as being a rare case of full-scale testing of an engineering principal supported by the laws of physics.

 

The 'Should' is the result of the narrative you want to tell. You have your narrative, I have mine. Different emphasis means different shoulds. We've hopefully moved on from Von Ranke.

And to go back to Thompson, Making of the English Working Class isn't just Joanna Southcott and Luddite Croppers, but rather Thompson in his bigger narrative of the emergence of the English Working Class gave space for their stories (of failure) to be told. His 'should' for inclusion of 'failures' was to prevent them suffering the 'condescension of posterity'. That principle is what I am applying to my narrative and that is giving me my should. It might be different to the principles that inform your should but that doesn't make them wrong.

You've constructed a narrative into which your 455 fits. I can construct narrative(s) around an F13 or any other loco. The F13 (for example) fits a double narrative - part of a local story of loco development in the LSWR/SR and in the bigger picture of experimentation, development and that not all step changes were smooth and often resulted in failures.

If the choices didn't meet my own defined parameters for 'should' then I could understand the 'why do you want to save a failure'.

The sub-question (which hasn't been asked of anyone else) is could my should be of use in a heritage context. My response is I don't see why not, certainly no more or less so than your 455 or someone elses choice of an early design.

 

It is lovely but seven feet 2 drivers on a fourcylinder locomotive is waste of steel

 

Should the Fell locomotive be considered a failure? Were the intended virtues in its design not realised in practice? It did work and pull trains. It turned out to be a dead end, but was that inevitable or was it just unlucky that BR didn't keep going with the principles?

 

And why not?
If a smaller scale Leader can be made to work ( "and ye gods can that that thing shift some passengers") why not the full size version?
There are already examples of Locomotives with perceived faults being 'improved'! Duke of Gloucester, Clan Hengist ....and what was a Thompson A2/1 but an improved V2 without the flawed (only joking) conjugated valve gear.
I am aware Leader, and was only using that as an example, had big design faults but that is possibly the point - to educate, to show how designers don't get it always right and how those faults can be ironed out.
"Them that do nothing make no mistakes".

If we are talking about education what better than to take a pup reproduce it in the flesh and get it operating to be able to say Ta Dah!
I would even wager that a Leader, or if that is too radical what about the Turbomotive, would really draw the crowds on unveiling.

Hell if I win the Euro millions this week I would probably fund a rebuild myself - and I'm not even a Southern Fan.

And as this is a thread on what might have been I think there is a danger that some might be taking it a bit too seriosly

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