Tender Austerity at Ribble Steam Railway

I think it would look best in a rich shade of blue/brown/grey/dark red (choose your preferred one) with elaborate lining and a monogrammed AB or ABR surrounded by a garter on the tender and a large brass Numberplate (choose your preferred number) on the cab side.

Steve

 

there are not that many pre grouping look alike 0-6-0 engines around and as many share a very simular outline round topped boiler, non superheated boiler an unwanted Austerity tank could become a base for a suitable looking engine for some railways historic coaches.

 

I think you are over-egging the issue of coaling etc. Thinking of three different heritage railways that run routinely with small engines: On the Tanfield, they had a coaling stage on the platform and took coal in a layover between every round trip. On the Isle of Wight, there is often a break in the timetable around lunchtime to allow a loco to go on shed for coal. On the Bluebell, the core timetable has about 40 minutes at Sheffield Park which is sufficient time to get on shed and back out again after taking coal.

I'm not saying one arrangement is better than any other; simply that in each case, coal capacity isn't a limiting factor in operations. The precise answer would obviously depend on the geography of the line and therefore how the timetable gets arranged, relative to where coal is obtained from, but there is generally a way that can be found without a serious impact on operations.

The other big issue you have ignored is fire cleaning. On the Bluebell, it is normal practice for a small engine to go on shed after two round trips (44 miles) for the ashpan to be emptied and any other fire cleaning - we've found it necessary as the ashpans on the smaller locos fill up over a full day (especially with some types of coal) with a consequent adverse impact on e.g. firebars. (Our daily loco diagrams can be anywhere between 22 and 110 miles). That happens regardless of whether it is a tender or tank engine: for example, the H (tank engine) and O1 (tender engine) both require the same servicing, having the same boiler and more or less identical ashpan capacity. So if you are going on shed for that anyway, coaling hardly uses any extra time. Indeed, we tend to coal the O1 anyway after two trips, as the tender capacity is quite low, and taking fresh coal saves dragging lots of coal forward during the day. So it is quite likely that your putative tender conversion of an Austerity is likely to need servicing on shed at the same intervals as it would have done as a tank engine, removing one of the perceived operational advantages of the conversion.

As for training: assuming you are a line operating a mix of locos, as a fireman you need training on that same mixture. Firing a Bulleid is a completely different skill from firing a P tank, so if you have both on the line, you have to have cleaners getting experience on both types, which in turn means doing trips with three in the cab of the small engines. In my experience, the mid-size tank engines (H, E4 etc) are no real problem with three. A P or a Terrier is a squeeze, but you have to put up with it if you want to give your cleaners proper experience and training of firing those types.

Tom

 

But the Assam-Bengal Railway was metre gauge....?

 

Not everything is in black you know and there are still plenty of locomotives in green, maroon and blue. All the locomotives in black are mixed traffic, heavy freight and tank engines. Most of these did wear black during Pre-Grouping and Big Four. Black is not boring and BR lined black looks very smart on mixed traffic locomotives.

 

With the {significant) proviso that I am not a member of the IOWSR locomotive department I can confirm that I have never seen W8 or W11 refuelled during the mid-day "pause". It is a pause to re-fuel the crew rather than the locomotive!

Both have Isle of Wight pattern bunkers which have plenty of capacity for a days service. In deference to their age rather than their capacity, they are limited to 80 tons tare ( up 1 in 68) but with suitably lightweight stock this represents a good paying load. Next year is the 140th anniversary of W11s gold medal winning trip to Paris.

PH

 

Building a tender from scratch is an expensive proposition which probably limits the prospect for any other conversions.
In a money no object fantasy world though, how about RSH No. 31 Meteor rebuilt as a tender loco resembling one of the Lambton system engines?

 

Only if you make it look dirty too, to be truly 'authentic'. ;-)

I actually think it has a wee bit of a North British look to it especially with the tender numerals.
Chris

 

There are other ways of increasing the coal capacity and cab space. rebuild as an 0-6-2 or 0-8-0 ?

 

God no. The only one of its type to be preserved, to my knowledge the only surviving purpose built NCB passenger locomotive, and an extremely capable machine. It's one thing to modify an example of a type of which there are many survivors, but to do so with a unique engine is nothing short of vandalism. And besides which, the result wouldn't look anything like any of the Lambton tender engines.

 

Whilst I do agree with your reasoning it is a purely hypothetical suggestion and if it were proposed I would probably be as outraged as you. My basis for suggesting it as a candidate is the reason you identify, is larger in the wheel than most industrial designs and has a larger thanusual boiler too. Those components would be a good basis for a tender loco but probably used with new frames for a longer wheelbase.
Incidentally, was it a capable performer in heritage traffic? I have never seen any comments about it and it seems to be languishing at SDR unless I am mistaken so little prospect of finding out soon how good it is.

 

Keep your little mits of 31. A fantastic loco that deserves a good future. Hopefully, it will find its way back to the NYMR where it is well capable of 6 coach trains and 7 in an emergency.

 

This is an excellent point : the RPSI have fitted - certainly to their inside cylinder 2-6-0 - a hopper ashpan.
As in the late 1980s they appeared to be capable of cleaning the fire every 50 miles running on CIE one can understand why.
Instead of raking it out they could just dump it down - in France I have seen it done on metal sheets in a siding where there was no pit.
Has anybody else done this? It makes what can be can be a real chore far easier and could save steaming another
engine and improve either the timetable or the timekeeping. People may even have no option but to run a large
engine because the ashpan will hold out longer than the one on a smaller loco.

 

Thanks for the first hand experience Steve. Did 31 ride well and how did it cope for water?

 

Some Austerities have been retro fitted with rocking grates i dont recall one with a hopper ashpan, but its certainly possible to do it, i know Thomas has a rocking grate, and most people would clean the fire when they could before departure each trip, its not always possible to return to shed in between duties either , But thats missing my point, which is, at many railways you will find an Austerity that has not worked for many years since the arrival of former BR engines, glamour locos, you could say, and in come cases using a tank engine means you have to amend the passenger timetable, add additional waiting times, to enable watering, so an otherwise perfectly suitable engine becomes a too much trouble operationally engine, where by if even if you allow for a lighter trailing load, a tender conversion may turn it into a more usefull engine, What looks better on an vintage rake, a clearly modern 0-6-0 Saddletank, or what to the eye looks like an early pre grouping 0-6-0 Tender loco ?take the former Douglass what looks better as she is now, or as it was and how does its new look, look when coupled to a freight, or a vintage rake?

 

Rocking or drop grates do indeed go very well with a hopper ashcan and there are some useful pointers - the best grade of metal to use -
for making them in Wardale's " The Red Devil".

 

Forgive me Martin but what is it about railway enthusiasts that they want to turn the reasonably authentic into the utterly contrived? An Austerity is perfectly capable of running ten miles on a tankful of water and if a given example is incapable of this it is likely to need its piston rings replacing. Ten miles is long enough for any tourist railway anyway.

Examples were used on military railways for passenger work, I remember riding behind one at Longmoor, and they are just the thing Col. Stevens would have been acquiring for his lines had he lived to beyond 1945. No more silly snobberies about tank locomotives please.

Paul H

 

Take it the proposed bell and cow-catcher isn't going to find favour in some quarters....

 

The diamond stack and massive headlamp would look rather odd without them!

 

KESR often used to include the district 4 wheeled coach in the rake