Sir Nigel Gresley - The L.N.E.R.’s First C.M.E.

I'll be quick.

1. Great Northern - never officially earmarked for preservation, the scandal has been overplayed/overblown/has little basis in fact/the rebuilt GN was a good locomotive as it built on the basis of Gresley's best design, the A4 Pacific.
2. The LNER was always broke - "broke" is not the same as not having enough capital to make sweeping capital investment in rolling stock, particularly locomotives. There is also the difference of vision and strategy with Gresley as CME compared to others.
3. Great locos inherited from Holden/Robinson/Worsdell and NBR -



Here's the breakdown of locomotives the LNER inherited at the grouping.



Here's the breakdown of locomotives the LNER had in 1945 after Thompson took over, and excluding his, at the time, small proportion of locomotives built at this point.

Nearly 5000 locomotives of at least twenty years old and some between forty and eighty years old still in traffic.

They were not "great" for the LNER in many respects and we need to very firmly disassociate what we perceive to be "great" locomotives based on perceived performance and instead focus on actual, documented, everyday performance (mileages and availability).

In short the plethora of pre-grouping locomotives was not great for the LNER and needed replacing by the 1940s.

4. B16 rebuilds among his finest designs.

Except it wasn't. Thompson rightly replaced it with one with three sets of walschaerts valve gear, and the original B16/1s continued to run alongside the /2s and /3s until near the end of steam. 7 B16/2s against 17 B16/3s. The B16s occupied a small part of the LNER and were part of the problem, not the solution, by way of rebuilding. Gresley and Thompson rebuilt some of them but the impact was negligible on the railway's operations and in fact on the class which mostly remained as built with stephenson's valve gear.

5. Electric EM1 - A Gresley design, and mechanically his; but we should not forget that he had an electrical engineer, Richards, who became the C.M.E.E. of the LNER after Gresley's death, and his role in the development of the EM1 and its classmates has remained largely ignored by historians.

6. His interest in diesels

A handful of diesel shunters that were ordered one meeting of the Emergency Board prior to his death, and all other diesel locomotives ordered thereafter by Thompson, Peppercorn and British Railways.

There is no way we can say that Gresley had anything other than a passing interest in diesel traction. The "Flying Hamburger" of Germany that influenced him, influenced him by pushing him towards designing an articulated streamlined train and a steam locomotive to pull it.

Look, I love Sir Nigel Gresley. That's never been in doubt. However I cannot abide factually inaccurate reporting. Let Gresley's true legacy stand on its own two feet without denigrating his successor, making things up or over emphasising his contributions: it's not necessary.

 

Only a third of the 70 B16-class were rebuilt to B16/2 and B16/3, so this rebuild programme could not have had a great impact. More important would have been the rebuilding of 54 (out of 80) B12-class with larger boilers and long-travel valves, significantly upgrading the stock of express engines on the GE section. And one should not overlook Gresley's upgrading of the Ivatt Large Atlantics with 32-element superheaters, boosting their power and enabling them to remain in front-line express service into the 1930s.

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of consistency in how Gresley improved the stock of engines inherited from the Pre-Grouping companies, which suggests to me that initiatives were sometimes coming from the Area Locomotive Engineers. For example, many of the GE Claud Hamiltons were upgraded with larger boilers and (in some cases) larger piston valves, but the NB Scotts and Glens were left unchanged.

 

Of interest, did the B12/3 rebuild cause any of the frame issues which led to the early demise of the D16/3 (Claud Hamilton)? Tempted to ask 'if not, why not?'.

 

Is it fair to ask if Gresley was the LNER's version of Churchward in that he began a locomotive policy which his successors built on rather than replaced. Some may argue that Gresley's consistency with adopting conjugated valve gear but the reply that the later reversion to Walshaerts individual gear per cylinder was as much an "improvement" as the earlier adoption of superheat was to boiler design. Like Simon I am a Gresley aficionado but that does not blind me to the problems he created for locomotive maintenance or to the delegation he granted in areas where he was less experienced (e.g. allowing Raven to continue representing the LNER in matters related to electrification and electric traction). From the outside it seems that both Churchward and Gresley were the watersheds in the future locomotive designs of their respective companies.

 

One D16/3 is not like another, which adds to the confusion. The last survivors of the Claud family were D16/3s. But unlike some other LNER classes, which were subclassified to extremes, a D16/3 was any Claud with the round-top firebox equivalent to the D16/2 boiler. It may have originally been a D14, D15 or D16/2. Most of them kept slide valves under the cylinders, but some received 8" and others 9.5" piston valves, all above the cylinders as the B12s had always had. These were the ones that had trouble and were withdrawn earlier than the rest, since they basically had the power of a B12/1 in the frames of a D15.

The B12/3, on the other hand, was certainly more powerful than the original, but perhaps more in sustaining power outputs with indifferent coal and efficient running at short cut-offs. Compare that to the Clauds, with the change from slide valves underneath to piston valves above, in a basic design that had already had the boiler power increased twice, first with the bigger boiler and then by superheating.

 

Sorry Fred to pull you up on this, but Thompson's intention to replace virtually everything pre-grouping on the LNER with 19 non-standard to be maintained and standard types (reducing the number of loco classes by 170!) indicates that he wasn't looking to build on Gresley's approach, which was very much a design specific to routes and tasks required rather than standard types covering a wider variety of work and virtually common user.

I don't think that's an unfair thing to say, I agree with you Fred.

I think it's interesting because I remain convinced at this point in my research was that Gresley was very old school, looking at the railway he was CME for as requiring specific answers to specific problems, rather than a more broad brush approach that standardisation of locomotive types would have achieved. It is notable that pre-grouping in 1923 there was a push towards a more common, nationalised collection of locomotive types across the country and he eventually voted against it, his policies of engineering on the LNER thereafter very much pushing back on standardisation of a few types and more standardising on certain components shared between them.

 

S'pose that would have been too easy, wouldn't it!

The particular flavour I was thinking of were those given 9½in piston valves during the 19933-36 "Gresley Rebuilds", which the LNER encyclopedia suggests were too powerful for their frames, being among the first withdrawals.

Leaving aside the small boilered Scottish allocation (B12/1 and B12/4), the B12/3 were withdrawn over a fairly protracted period. I was wondering whether the kind of issues caused by the more powerful 'Claud' rebuilds played any part in the story of their 6 coupled siblings?

For some reason, I've always found the S69/1500/B12 a fascinating design. Possibly due to their being so notably adaptable and successful when so many other (non-Churchward) 4-6-0 designs from that era were such complete dogs.

 

That presumes a question of what is meant by "standardisation". Is it the Bulleid approach with his BB / WC class undertaking the range of duties from 4MT passenger duty to 7P passenger with a bit of fitted freight thrown in for good measure (i.e. one class covering all) or (IIRC) the Stanier approach of his "Crab" 2-6-0, 5MT 4-6-0, Jubilee 6P5F or 8F 2-8-0 looking similar because of common parts hence interchangeability. In that context which avenue did Gresley pursue - and as an aside - what influence did it play on Bulleid's later practice on the Southern Railway ?

 

I think you can add the Dean-Churchward "Kruger"-class 4-6-0 (later 2-6-0) to the list of "complete dogs". They were scrapped after about 3 years. No Gresley design was that bad.

There don't seem to be any reports of frame problems with the B12. Presumably the frames had enough "spare strength" to absorb the impacts of a larger B12/3 boiler and long-travel valves. The RCTS green book does mention that the first batch of B12s in 1911 had early problems with wear in the driving axleboxes. Surprisingly, this was resolved by adopting the Stroudley arrangement of inside cylinders and valves moving in phase rather than at 180 degrees.

 

That is a very good question to ask Fred. Perhaps that in itself needs to be further defined.

I note you didn't mention the GWR standardisation: different wheel arrangements with the same boilers, and standard parts between them ranging from driving wheels to cylinders, cabs, and everything else in-between including ferrous and non ferrous fittings.

This is a question that definitely needs to be explored and defined.

 

Very much looking forward to the book. With Gresley's early (GNR) work, the engines do seem to be very much GNR "house style" - how much did they share components with preceding Ivatt engines?

Is there any evidence as to why he wasn't interested in diesel? If he was simply thinking in terms of electrification as a superior option, it's very different to him simply not liking/understanding it.

 

Can't think of any pre-war British diesel loco bigger than a shunter and the only railcars built to a concept which featured in BR's modernisation grew out of the AEC family supplied to the GW and GNRI.

Looking at the British-made plant later, in 1st gen BR diesels, plus the earlier example of the Kitson-Still, I'm tempted to wonder if HNG was abreast of the state of play in 'home manufacturing' 15 years before Crossley committed their 2-stroke design to the rails?

He certainly viewed the DR's Flying Hamburger units as far too small for LNER operations. Perhaps the key here lies with MU capabilities? No clue as to the design history of operating diesels in multiple.

 

Judging by your reply to my last post, it's going to be as opiniated a book a la OS Nock.
I think every CME post grouping, including the much maligned Thompson, were great, accomplished engineers, every which contributed to our heritage.
Certainly not a book for me but try not to destroy great engineers. Remember it was OVS Bulleid and many others who did a lot of the design work. Tarnish the main man, and all those who worked to get the steam record out of the Nazis clutches, and made locos that won the last World War. Do that and it kind of makes you a traitor

 

I will do my best to not ape OS Nock.

Nobody here has suggested otherwise.

I haven't finished writing it yet...

Yes, that is true for every CME that there were other people who did work on their behalf.

I can't believe I actually have to defend myself on this, but I am not tarnishing Gresley's reputation in any way, shape or form.

The suggestion I am a "traitor" for what I am doing is by far the most ludicrous thing I have read in relation to my research and writing.

 

I have been referred to page 235 of Tim Hillier-Graves book on Sir Nigel Gresley, which states the following on EM1:

Always something new to learn and it passed me by that Edward Thompson worked on the EM1.

 

I believe that both North British and Armstrong Whitworth built diesel locos for export in the 1930s which the LNER trialled / provided running facilities hence the LNER Board would be familiar with diesel traction. This experience may explain why the Board was looking to order 25 10000-type diesels in the interim between the end of WWII and Nationalisation to trial as A3/ A4 replacements on its prestige services. That said Gresley's A4s demolished the value of the Flying Hamburger especially when train lengths - and changes to same - were taken into consideration

 

I'd be very interested in learning more about those. Oddly, both an early (1906) Drewry, bound for Barsi Light Railway (India) and much later (1932) an Armstrong-Whitworth diesel-electric railcar unit built for the Gaekwar's Baroda State Railway (India) were trialled on the L&MVLR of all places. On the 2'-6" gauge, I'd have expected trials somewhere like the C&U, where weird and wonderful was par for the course!

The Drewy was a Stevens engined 7-8 hp (sic) PMR (could be petrol or paraffin!) with one of it's two axles driven, I'm going to guess by a chain, built at the short lived Berne Hill Works and demonstrated on the L&M on 3rd Oct 1906 (surprisingly precise info!!). Can't find any image, but much else from then had the appearance of a child's park bench attempting 'coupling' with a lawnmower engine, atop a light frame, the whole assemblage being carried on cast wheels with no separate tyres. For some peculiar reason, my source felt it necessary to state it had manual transmission. Not so sure there were many options back then!

The AW unit was a far more advanced piece of kit, with a full width bonnet, tested devoid of bodywork, temporary waist height railings provided a degree of protection, with the only thing above that level being the exhaust, mounted on a fairly crude lash-up, with a (what would presumably be) roof level horizontal baffle.

Given the strong connections of L&M Engineer Everard Calthrop to several Indian lines, I suppose we ougjtn't to be so surprised by the Drewry, but I'd love to know what connection then owners, the LMS had with Armstrong Whitworth. Clearly, any indication of operational savings wasn't enough to interest the LMS and we know all too well what followed for the L&M in 1934.

 

I would be interested to know where you found that in the LNER board minutes.

 

I have some info on Gresley and diesels but am unwilling to divest this at this stage

 

Begs the question why you are posting here, other than to make some sweeping statements (and one very unpleasant accusation towards me)?

The point of this thread is to share research notes and discuss. If you're not willing to do that, perhaps you should look elsewhere.

I'm always up for sharing my research but its rather exasperating to have a discussion thread derailed by talk of being a traitor...