T9 Info

Does anyone know where i can find any technical data for the T9s, especially the water cart tenders; weight, axle spacings?

Thanks

Matt

 

Have a look here.Drummond T9 "Greyhound" class 4-4-0

 

The standard reference work is D.L. Bradley, "An Illustrated History of LSWR Locomotives" - that's what the reference to "Bradley" on the page Horace links to is about. Originally written for the RCTS, Wild Swan published much-expanded editions, in 4 volumes, in the 1980s, full of wonderful photographs. The Drummond classes have a volume to themselves. Highly recommended.

 

Sketch attached might help.

 

I echo Steamage's comments re. Bradley, although I did pay over £100 to get the Wild Swan Publications set, and they are getting harder to find these days. But I feel it was an investment worth making as they are truly outstanding works, and aside from the odd error, should be the model for other locomotive histories. The back few pages also contain copies of the original works diagrams for the seminal classes of each period covered, whilst almost every detail change and modification has been included, as well as the operational history of each type.

One last thing; the 'water cart' tender design is not of fixed-frame type, but is actually a bogie tender. The fact that the wheels have inside bearings makes this difficult to discern.

 

Most interesting - I never knew that. As you say, unlike the 8-wheel tenders on the Maunsell engines where the bogies are pretty obvious, it isn't apparent that the "water cart" tender is a bogie tender. Thank you for enlightening me.

 

More trivia (from memory, I'm away from references):

- The first LSWR Watercarts had water scoops as the railway intended to fit water troughs. That plan didn't come off (primarily I believe as sufficient flat sites of suitable length couldn't be found in the right positions to make the scheme viable) and the water scoops were subsequently removed. Thereafter, the LSWR / SR always had to build very big tenders, particularly for water capacity - much larger than any other railway.

- I believe the tender fitted to the GWR pacific "The Great Bear" was a direct copy of the LSWR tenders; certainly Churchward was well aware of, and influenced by, what was going on with its great rival in the south west. Ultimately, however, the GW had much more scope for going down the route of water troughs.

- The name "water cart" apparently comes because the tanks tended to leak, spraying the track with a fine mist of water in much the same way as the contemporary water carts that sprayed city streets to keep the dust down.

I'd have to check Bradley to be sure, but I believe that actually there are several subtle variants of the Drummond water cart tender; it is not a completely straightforward subject. As usual on the SR and its predecessors, the issue of tenders, tender types and tender swaps is a bit of a minefield.

Tom

 

I'd say £100 isn't actually a bad price, especially if that was for all four volumes (Beattie, Adams, Drummond, Urie). I'm tremendously glad I bought my copies of all four volumes 25 years ago as a teenager (yeah, I had strange tastes!) even before I was really as interested in such things as now. Mind you, I ended up paying an arm and a leg to get the complete set of Gordon Wedell's books on LSWR carriages...

Tom

 

I've lost my copy of Urie , I have the other three though. Thoroughly recommended.

 

Guys,

Thanks for all your help. Much appreciated. The sketch is definitely useful!

Regards

Matt

 

Have a look at data for City of Truro and that's about 2 T9's.

I'm joking.

No, I'm not!

 

And what is the relevance of your most eloquent asseveration to the matter in hand?