TURKISH 8F'S & YANKIE TANK LOCOMOTIVES.

Believe it or not they did exist.

The chassis was a standard 8F one that the Egyptians were obviously very happy with.

On top they fitted a parallel boiler that they obviously preferred.

The UK batch was built by Vulcanm Foundry in 1952 and some were built in Western Europe.

Iraq Railways did fit some parallel boilers to their 8Fs.

 

I obviously did not make myself clear.

The Egyptian locomotives I refered to were built by Vulcan Foundry in 1952 and others were built in Western Europe.

They were parallel boilered 8Fs. The chassis was pure 8F except for single slide bars.

There is a chassis which is in theory available for use in this country so all that is required is a boiler.

No need to bring back a complete locomotive which will have the wrong type of boiler.

By all means bring back as many spares as you can get hold of.

 

From Vulcan Foundry Records 1952. 20 2-8-0 were supplied as an export order to Egypt. Their works Nos were 6126-6145. They were oil fired and the tenders carried 5500 galls of water. They were not Stanier 2-8-0s. You have stated they had parallel boilers and single slidebars. The chassis might have been similar to a Stanier 8F, but, for a start, with a parallel boiler being fitted, I would expect the smokebox saddle to be a different radius. Have you got a photo?

 

I take back what I said about the slide bars. In my memory I had muddled things up was a photo of an Iraqi 8F with a parallel boiler.

I attach a manufacturers photo. That has to be a 8F chassis

 

Well, it doesn't look much different, if at all. Very interesting.

 

IainDodd, I have been doing a bit of delving. Go to Vulcan Foundry Locomotive List with Photographs.

Find the Class and open article and brochure. This is very interesting. It is certainly not in the history books that further 8F chassis were made than what have been written about.
I wonder who made the rest, North British possibly? This is something to look into next time I go to the NRM.

 

Wow!

Slightly unrelated but it's hard to imagine this picture being taken in the UK for export!

http://www.enuii.org/vulcan_foundry/magazine/Vol2_no5_1952/page_21_s.jpg

 

Sorry, but it doesn't look a bit like an 8F chassis to me. The cylinders appear to slope out to the valve chest; The wheel diameter appears to be smaller than 4'-8.5" when compared to buffer height. The rods and valve gear bear no resemblance. About the only commonality is the wheel arrangement and the use of Walschaerts valve gear.

Edit: I've just been lookiing at the info supplied by STD Tank and have to take back the comment about the wheel diameter. I'm still sceptical about the chassis being essentially an 8F one, though.

 

I'd say it's lineage is apparent. The Vulcan magazine link references the 8f parentage, the wheels, ccylinders are the same dimensions, and the basic frames looks the same.
comparing the Vulcan specs, the boiler and firebox are different, but not by too much, I'd say this deserves 8f mark2 status...

Wonder why you'd want an enclosed cab in Egypt ?

You learn something new every day.

 

Acording to the book "Middle East Railways" by Hugh Hughes 80 locomotives were delivered between 1951 and 1953. I assume they are all of the same class as the wheel arrangement, size and cylionder dimentions match the 8Fs.

They are 701-40 built by Henschel & Sohn, Kassel.
741-60 built by Vulcan Foundry Ltd. Newton-le-Willows.
and 761-80 Magyar Allami Vas-, Acel- es Gepgyarak, Budapest.

 

A very interesting comparison. It reminds me of the genesis of the Hunslet Austerity class from the 3F tank; Hunslet built a batch of those and went on to build a a pair of side tanks with belpair fireboxes, 3F cylinders, motion and foundation rings. This design eventually evolved into the austerity. 3F tanks have been restored with austerity spares.

You can imagine the order coming in for a freight engine, and the design office thinking, we've got these plans and patterns in stock, and it works, so we'll adapt the frames for our own boiler design and...

Tim

 

Thats what I like about my job today in IT.. The IT industry is less than 50 years old commercially and a revolving world of invention, reinvention and application of knowledge to problems that exist today.

Most solutions are bespoke and custom using the standard tools of IT to build your solution. We genuinely have no idea the inventions of tomorrow or how our use of technology today will be viewed in 60-100 years time. Solutions made 20 years ago are considered out dated, 30 years ago positively old.

If I were alive 100 years ago, i'd be doing the same job.. Using railways and locomotives rather than servers and software.
imagine in 1912, developing the next modern loco, based off ideas of several before... To replace something built 20 years ago, and looking at locomotives built in 1870 as prehistoric, not knowing that in 20 years time there will be an industrial revolution, and in 60 years time the industry will be finished and replaced by newer technology, meanwhile sending your sales and design teams across the world to spread your product and ideas as part of a spreading revolution, tweaking as you go. Each new sale is based off the requirements bespoke to the customer based off the knowledge you already have believing it to be the latest and greatest, but yet out of date every 10 years for resale or overhaul.

Off topic.. If you want to know why Stanier dispatched the 2 broad gauge locomotives.. Well if you have an old pc in your home from 1986 and still have it taking space in 2006 ?.. Would you consider it historic or old junk ?

Technology and process is just a reinvention reincarnation, it's fascinating to see history such as this and understand how the world lived in then was much the same as now even if the Production line was a factory is now an office.

We as historians are rediscovering something considered natural and almost routine to the point of not being noteworthy beyond a small article in the 1950's. Yet in context it's actually a forgotten page of history noteworthy of its own today.

 

Equally if not more important is that Egyption Railways had experience of 8Fs during the Second World War and would know if there were any major problems with them in desert conditions.

I tend towards it being an Egyptian Railways design because of the numbers allocated to them. I can understand them replacing the type of boiler. This is exactly happened with the Austerities being built in place of the 8Fs because they were cheaper..

 

The analogy does not quite fit. The broad gauge loco taking up space in my house is not one of many machines owned by countless individuals around the world. In other words if I throw out an old PC, the world of computing has not lost a lot.

But if IBM had two of its original PCs kept aside as a record of what was achieved at that time, and these were the only two left in the world, their destruction would be significant.

I know that the GWR had a business to run, but it did seem an odd decision just to scrap the two historical relics. Thank goodness for the North Eastern Railway and their preservation policy.

 

I'd have been inclined to forgive Stanier but wasn't he then involved in the scrapping of a load of Midland railway relics in his time at the LMS.... damned shame.

Anyway onto today, it would be good to see some parts make their way back as I have a long held desire to see the LNER 8F return from the dead although I doubt it will ever happen.

 

You have got to remember that in all businesses assets become redundant and are sold, either for reuse or for scrap. I would be very surprised if the Chief Mechanical Engineer would have anything to do with that process. Do not blame Stanier, blame the accountants.

I think you can wave goodbye to the restoration of this locomotive. It probably will be no cheaper to repatriate a boiler than a complete(?) locomotive. So you would always have a spare chassis. Hence my suggestion of a different type of boiler that accurately represents a development of the class.

 

Problem is a rebuild of 48518, without sacrificing a Turkish 8F is going to be in the £3-5mn range.. after all apart from the original frames everything else is a new build...wheels, cylinders, boiler its all gone. If you went to that extreme of a new build 8F.. you may as well spend the £30-50k required on a new set of frames.

Apart from the frames, there should be a copper firebox still ? I believe the wheels have gone to 8233, the pony to the Patriot, not sure about the cylinders, was there any valve gear, motion etc forget cab fittings.

48518 has gone, only a Turkish Delight will bring it back, in any form.

Has anyone actually confirmed the frames of this 8F are actually from 48518, and not swapped somewhere in history with a class mate after all preservation has discovered that several locomotives are rolling round with pre-preservation parts from class mates.. some interesting (45596 with a claughton leading wheel, 60009 with the W1 tender, 6100 with 6399's motion, 4983 is well documented to actually be 4965 etc etc)... isn't one of the 8Fs in preservation actually using parts recovered from a sunken 8F ?

 

As soon as you have a class of more than one locomotive which use standard parts you will get interchange of parts. Locomotives can be returned to traffic quicker by replacing damaged parts with already refurbished parts. That is why boilers are replaced.

I must say I have not heard of 48518's wheels going to 8233. But you will still have a set of wheels spare.

I honestly doubt your last statement. Who is going to waste money recovering parts from a sunken 8F? As far as far as I know the only ones even remotely available are ones that were on a ship torpedoed in the Red Sea and that would not help their condition. Any such parts positively identified must have been put on the wrong locomotive during their building.

 

The wheels off 48518 have been bought as startegic spares for 8624 and delivered to Wirksworth. As for the copper box out of 48518, 8624 was selected for preservation over 48518 in 1981 owing to the damaged condition of the firebox.

Tim