The Ugliest Loco? Ex-SVR Loco Newsy News / discussions

Spoken by a man with his cheeky Northern humour who can rile the Southern lot in seconds.

You think your S15 is good, but a B16 is better.
Greyhounds maybe, but its a Whippet up here mate. I'd stick with a D17 too.

Gets coat, finds door....

 

You're either trolling or making real fighting talk.

And are you old enough to have known a B16 and D17?
I don't mind defending the Southern lot, either. After all, they are at a disadvantage from being so. Only marginally worse off than being a Geordie or a Cuddy and on a par with a Mackem! You have to have a sense of humour if you're one of them!

 

I'm an LNER man first and foremost sunshine so it's not "my" S15 at all
As for "your" B16, let's run a trial with one against an S15. Hang on a minute.............

 

Many of these engines you have listed are plain looking engines, but there were very few ugly engines about yes the Krugers class were ugly and so was the LNER W1. The P2 Cook of the North as built didn't have the looks either.

 

Yes, the W1 as built was a bit of an oddity but I'll have to disagree about the P2 but that's just my opinion.

 

At last a steam loco you can realistically model using Lego...

 

Were the 42/52XX and 56XX already capable of that ?, not disputing what you say, but seems odd to choose panniers in that case, the 94XX's can't go where 57XX's did and the extra axle of the 42/52 would have been more useful for braking and hauling heavy freight, seems like the 94XX was a jack of all trades and master of none.

 

Re "the 94xx couldn't go where the 57xx could": in a sense that is irrelevant. What matters is "could the 94xx go where they were intended to go?" Presumably the answer to that question was yes.

Tom

 

Oh riiiiight... There's some pretty 'normal' looking locomotives that you consider 'ugly' in that list, although I seem to recall your S15 monologue from a while back. No pleasing some people, but horses for courses dictates that whilst an NER machine might work well in NER territory, but would probably be pretty useless down south, and I presume vice-versa for a Southern machine. However, speaking to an NYMR driver on the footplate of 825, he seemed quite happy with his lot in life.

 

How about a Smoggie or a Monkey Hanger?

 

consider when the 94xx were built. There were quite few life-expired pre-group 0-6-2ts around and the 56xx were getting quite elderly too. They obviously thought there would be enough braking power without the trailing axle on a 0-6-2t and the 94xx could also replace the many older panniers still around at that time.

 

That's a bit daft. How about the Black 5s? Were the southern, northern or in between? They could be found from Thurso to Bournemouth doing the job wonderfully well.

 

We're not talking about Black Fives, though. We're talking about NER and SR stuff, so daft it ain't. If we do bring Black Fives into the equation, then they were probably the exception that proves the rule in that it takes a special sort of design to cover all bases on a large and varied railway network such as the LMS. In that case, any design that could combine near-universal route availability with pulling-power on a network like the LMS deserves to do well elsewhere. However, it remains the case that the majority of designs were horses for courses and devised to meet specific problems in geographically restricted locations/routes.

 

Amazing how what was supposed to be a light hearted pre-Christmas thread has gone the way of so many others.....

 

Christmas? What's that?

 

Well, I'm an LMS man, through and through, but I'd pit our S15 (825) against a Black 5 any day, and win! It'll pull more and steam better. Just ignore the cab, though, unless it's summer!

 

I think that the only time a trailing axle on a 56XX would contribute to the braking effort would be if it ran a hot box.