The next newbuild

If that is true it is very very sad. There is (still to this day) great admiration for Churchward, for bringing together the best design ideas of his day. The fact that none of the last CMEs of the Big Four, nor Riddles, were so daring* can be seen as a criticism of them, though it can equally be argued that they produced the designs that were wanted at the time. A truly modern design would indeed eclipse theirs, but only a very narrow-minded "enthusiast" would resent it for that reason. And there would be no cause for any resentment by those whose favourite designs date from the 30s or earlier, when the state of the art was of course less advanced.

*Edit: Bulleid was of course very daring, but in a different way.

 

What's the point? Suppose the next new build was indeed a mid-nineteenth century engine, as has been postulated here. Would you suggest roller bearings, piston valves, a superheater, enhanced drafting, in the interests of operational efficiency? What's the point of that? You'd build such a loco to find out about the past, not to improve on it. (In some fields, such things are called "experimental archaeology").

No steam engine - even the most souped-up, Porta-ised beast, is going to beat a modern electric unit for efficiency and running costs. Steam locomotives - whether mainline or heritage line - are there to meet a demand for nostalgia, not to run an efficient transport service. So just accept them for that - an exercise in nostalgia. If you want to get somewhere fast, travel on the regular service trains.

(And incidentally - as has been widely rehearsed on this site - even if you are talking about mainline use, what will kill that market is charter operators consistently failing to deliver what they promise, coupled with the fact that any single-ended locomotive is always going to have difficulties shunting its own stock, needing to turn round in the absence of suitable infrastructure etc. Those aren't problems that will be solved by a more efficient steam locomotive).

Tom

 

Lots of interesting ideas, but to put the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons...

How much work is needed on the bloomer? I'm assuming that it's heritage line only?

 

Funnily enough, I believe the L&B Lyn replica currently under construction includes "roller bearings, piston valves, a superheater (and) enhanced drafting," no doubt in the interests of operational efficiency. It raises the question of what you're trying to do with the build; in the case of Lyn clearly the idea is to produce a reliable, efficient and capable a piece of motive power for the L&B, that is still a steam engine and still looks like the original. This site is quite interesting: http://www.machineconcepts.co.uk/baldwin242/baldwin2.htm#latest

The Lyn design seems to me to be a very practical approach but there seems to be a difference in attitude between the standard gauge and narrow gauge movements on this. Look at the amount of reconstruction Merddin Emrys has been through in a nominally preserved existence; less aimed at improved performance than the Lyn design maybe, but considerably changed from the date of preservation. Imagine the uproar if somebody put a roundtop boiler on a Castle, just because it was easier to make.

There's an obvious solution to the last part of your post, by the way. Souped-up, Porta-ised Leader. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe a Garratt would be a safer starting point...

I like the idea of the really trying to see what can be done with a relatively clean-sheet design that still looks and functions like a traditional steam locomotive, as with the 5AT. I don't see it as being particularly different to the Reno air races, with their mutant Sea Furies and Mustangs. Half of them don't even have the same model of engine anymore, and there are considerable airframe mods. If you wanted to make the fastest possible pylon racer, you wouldn't start from there. But it's fun to do it with an old warbird. If I had more money than I knew what to do with, it would be a much better waste of it than some other things I can think of...

 

Are they really building new ones now? I know that people have been restoring the most awful wrecks (many involve replacing every last rivet in the entire airplane), but I didn't think the supply of rebuildable ones had quite run dry yet.

Noel

 

Some have only the data plate from the original wreck so whilst they may claim to be rebuilds, they are to all intents and purposes new builds. It's a bit like calling 60163 a rebuild as it has an original A1 whistle.

 

About 20 or so Focke Wulf 190s have been built new with various types of engine, there are also some new build Me 262 jet aircraft.


Steam enthusiasts would be quite happy if an individual paid for the construction of a 5AT - it would at last stop the whining that steam wasn't being given a chance to compete with electric traction etc etc etc..... You know who you are. I reckon there'd be more interest in the 5AT if it looked like a steam era 4 6 0 instead of someones idea of what the 30's americans would have done to a Royal Scot.

 

Both the Fw-190 and Me-262 new builds have to rely on modern day power plants of course. With the Fw-190 they've gone for an alternative to the original but very rare BMW 801 14-cyl radial but at least it's a very close match so it sounds and performs much like the original.

 

I believe there is a company in the USA offering entirely new-build Spitfires, but with an Allison engine (which is more common, and therefore cheaper, and also less powerful, so making the machine easier to fly for less experienced pilots).

There are also 3/4 scale flying Mustangs.

The company in New Zealand that restored the Mosquito that is now in the USA is effectively building new ones now, as it has the appropriate moulds to make the fuselages.

It's certainly a bit of a grey area between new build and rebuild in the aeroplane world; some of the Flugwek 190s (Fw 190, as opposed to the Focke Wulf FW 190) incorporate a small amount of original material.

Tom

 

There wouldn't be that much difference between an Allison powered "Spitfire" and a Merlin powered one in the handling stakes. You'd need quite a bit of tail dragger experience and high performance handling experience before you could take on one of those safely.
Whilst there will always be diverging opinions, the majority opinion seems to be if it is built using the original drawings and the same material, it's a late production model and not a replica. Recently I had the immense pleasure of seeing a pair of new build WW1 BE2e biplanes. Built to original drawings, using original spec material and a new build RAF1 V8 engine. There is also an original BE2f with an original RAF1 engine that has been restored to flight. Given how much new material will have gone into its restoration, how much more "original" is it when compared to the new built BE2e. They will be indistinguishable from each other. I reckon if it looks like a duck and sounds lick a duck, it's a duck.

 

I guess we've failed to define our terms

There are at least five somewhat separate reasons for a newbuild :

'Experimental Archaelogy' - Build some loco from beyond living memory and see how it performs. Should be as original as possible, and may get some derogations as I believe the 'ancient' replicas have. Existing examples - some less original than maybe they should be - are the Rainhill replicas, the Steam Elephant, the Bloomer, and the Iron Duke. My suggested addition - Stirling 0-4-2 . Built as far as possible to 19th century standards. Definitly not mainline, but should be capable of revenue earning on a preserved line. There are numerous other missing links from the mid-19th century - Cramptons, passenger long-boiler engines, early tank types such as the LCDR/GNR ones. Could also be a type that exists but is quite properly in museum condition, e.g. Columbine.

'Missing Modern class' - Usually 'big engines' beloved of trainspotters . Usually with improvements to suit modern conditions or other adjustment. Examples, Tornado, P2, Patriot. I'd have a V4 built. Should be able to perform comparably to a Britannia and already had many 'modern' features - steel firebox etc.

'Practical + economical' - The BR 3MT tank, the G5 project, the F4 project. All intended to be an economic and useful loco for the typical preserved railway. Very sensible.

'Filling in the gaps' from existing components. Basically a Great Western activity. Star, various Counties, the hybrid mogul, etc. etc. No suggestions because the GW guys have already covered them all!

'Modern Steam' - Possibilities too broad to discuss sensibly! I'd go for something like the Algerian Garratts with all mod cons - could work in either direction, has large coal and water capacity, looks fabulous.

I suspect only the middle three categories are capable of obtaining funding. And not any of my suggestions except maybe the V4. Notice that none of these categories is likely to result in a new-build freight engine (apart from the Night Owl - fabulous loco but hardly typical) - which is why I hate to lose any.

The possibilities are endless, I could list a dozen I'd like to have built off the top of my head - but sadly the funding is limited. Perhaps we should have a vote!

 

An interesting post. The only thing I'd take issue with is that you sem to discount the possibility that the "experimental archaeology" class can attract funding - despite the historical fact that the experimental archaeology locos as a group represent the largest single collection of "new build" steam!

Tom

 

I guess I was thinking of voluntary funding in the Tornado/Clan/3MT way . Most of the 'Experimental Archaeology' examples have I believe been funded direct by museums and the like. There are a surprising number of them when you look into it.

 

In terms of overall running costs, the result of a full analysis shows that there is nothing to choose between the three options. You can of course manipulate the figures as has been done previously by comparing new built diesel and/or electric units with steam designs that were already 40 and more years old and even further out of date due to the fairly abysmal ability of the designers responsible.

Locomotives on the mainline face a very different problem not faced by those on preserved lines. They have to be able to co-exist with far newer, less restricted machines and hence deliver, by the very nature of the work in hand, an ever increasing level of performance. If this increased performance is not available one outcome is some very tedious pathing. Or, put another way, various factors prohibit steam from delivering the level of performance that this traction type is capable of. This makes it harder to find time and space for the type amongst modern schedules. If you believe that something needs to be changed in order to extend the life of steam as a mainline experience then a true new build may well be viewed as a good option.

 

I think this misses the point. The reason for making selective improvements when constructing a new build addition to a lost class, would not be to try and compete with modern electric traction, but to make it as mainline friendly as possible. This would include performance, as per 242A1 above, but also economy, range and, most importantly, reliability. If I was in the fortunate position of creating a new build I would certainly consider roller bearings, as well as any sensible and practical performance improvements which didn't compromise the external appearance.

Out of interest, does anyone know if the Clan, Patriot and Night Owl projects (for example) are planning to use roller bearings

 

I'm always amazed by the number of people who dismiss the 5AT project simply on the basis of the slightly "Yankee" looks in the drawings! It happened again in this thread a few days ago. I wonder what the reaction would be if exactly the same mechanicals were re-drawn in the style of Collet (Hall/Castle), Stanier (Jubilee or re-built Scot), Gresley (B17), Riddles (Std 5) or Bulleid ("air-smoothed" 4-6-0!)? Is there anyone here with the necessary drawing skills to have a go? The biggest difficulty is probably the large tender (bigger than and A4 or a MN) or, in the case of a Gresley-style appearance, a Belpaire fire-box rather than round-topped

 

Of course one thing about the early stuff is that they are intrinsically small simple locomotives built with rather less engineering infrastructure than was available in the 1930s - or even today... I bet you could build at least two maybe even three mid Victorian six wheeled engines for the cost of the P2.

I think we can be very confident the 47 won't be using roller bearings since that would require them to design and build new components rather than refurbish existing components which by the looks of 5227 they've already sourced...

 

Sorry but to me new build is new build.
No ifs not buts.

j72s were new build to BR in 1951. The design went back to 1898 and 3 railway companies before.. No one called them replicas, mock ups, copies, new production models, late production models nor any other blarney.

They were new builds of a new batch of an existing design, and if it differed, it was a sub class.
That engineering principle applies to all forms if transport technology "in the real world".

 

In which case you are at odds with the late, great Sir Tommy Sopwith. When asked what he made of a "new build" Sopwith Triplane that had been built some 70 years after the original examples he had built in WW1, he said it was a late production model. Now we're probably playing semantics but if the term was good enough for Sir Tommy, it's more than good enough for me.

 

I think that is only partly true - constructionally they may be simple and be able to be built with fairly primitive tooling, but the issue is what level of compromise and redesign do modern conditions and regulations impose?

As an example - an LBSCR "Jenny Lind" 2-2-2 would be a highly significant "missing link", essentially one of the earliest, if not the earliest, standardised designs. But in construction, the inside frames that support the front two axles are riveted to the firebox, and only the outside frames continue the whole length of the loco. That was a deliberate design feature to get the widest possible firebox (and thus biggest possible heating surface) in the available space, and was in part responsible for the success of the design. But it does mean that boiler and frames are essentially one component, not two. You could probably design your way out of that situation, but only by making such significant changes to both frames and boiler that essentially what you got would no longer be a Jenny Lind - defeating the point.

Tom