Victor & vulcan .

Where are the ex - West Somerset Railway's Victor and Vulcan now based? Are both engines out of service awaiting overhaul?

 

Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway, and Stephenson Railway Museum respectively, I believe. And yes, unfortunately

 

isnt/ wasnt one at tysley?

 

Bagnall 0-6-0ST nos 2994-6 built 1951 for Steel Company of Wales, Port Talbot who named them "Vulcan", "Valiant" and "Victor". By 1957, "Valiant" was out of use with boiler/firebox problems (and scrapped in 1961), and "Vulcan" and "Victor" sold to the Austin Motor Company and used at their Longbridge works ( a few pics at http://www.wsr.org.uk/baggies.htm ) before being sold to the WSR Company in 1973. "Vulcan" headed the "Blizzard Specials" in February 1978 (see http://www.wsr.org.uk/snow1978.htm , bashing its way through chimney-high snowdrifts (proper snow unlike that seen recently!). "Victor" left the WSR in May 1988, "Vulcan" having left a year earlier. Nos 2994 and 2996 hold high affection amongst the older WSR folks and some hope one day to see both return for a brief VIP guest appearance, just for old times sake (but preferably not on passenger services!).

Happy Christmas, folks.

Steve
(WSW)

 

What makes them so unsuitable for WSR services ?, i was under the impression the pair had more power and a smoother rider then yoru average Industrial.

Last time i saw Victor was at the GCR(N) toying with 3 coaches.

 

Powerful - yes. Stamina - no. Frequent blow-ups essential. And a lovely jerky motion - resulting in passengers imitating "Norman Collier" at the end of the trip.

Nice locos on shorter lines, maybe. But not the WSR.

Steve
(WSW)

 

No problem, just design and install a new exhaust system. That solves the stamina problem. As for the balancing issues these can be attended to too. Info about exhausts is more obviously in the public domain so use this information first. It is surprising how much can be forgiven if an engine steams freely.

 

As someone who was 'blooded' on Victor and Vulcan they most certainly had their drawbacks and were not suited to long runs with bigish loads particullarly if timekeeping was important, however if you started the day right and kept on top of the job they performed reasonably well, but once you lost control of the fire then they were definately 'not good'. As for the osscilation, there are a few 8 coupled locos around that can give an equally unconfortable ride especially in the first couple of coaches, but alot of it is/was down to the competance of the driver. Overall I would say a 5/4 coach loco on 8/10 undulating miles would be a reasonable task. When you have nothing else they're fine locos, but don't stand up to a large or small prairie on a daily basis, but sadly the WSR lacked either in 1976.

Cheers,
John

 

"I DO NOT KNOW OF ANY PEOPLE WITH 'NO.6' IN THEIR NAME" says 50044

Obviously you never watched that 60s TV series "The Prisoner". The hero was "Number 6" who had the catch phrase "I am not a number, I am a free man"!

 

We collected" Victor" last year from Birmingham where it had been dismantled for boiler overhaul. We had it" remantled" before delivery to the North. Recently we lifted the boiler for inspection and development of a repair plan.
Given the nature of our line, it would be interesting to hear from previous operators of this locomotive. A smaller sister Bagnall has worked at Haverthwaite for many years and can cope with the duties placed upon it. The locomotives on our line are required to steam reliably for the 3.5 mile outward journey and then have the downhill run to prepare for the next assault.
Information on steaming, or lack of, would be useful, as would anything on the repair or refurbishment of components, ie. regulator, injectors, braking arrangements, sanding apparatus etc.
Also, what was used to lubricate the roller bearings, and at what regularity?
It would be good to have your experiences before we undertake the repair on "Victor".

With thanks

Graham

 

In simple terms, I shouldn't think you'll have anything to worry about - you'll barely need to look at the regulator for it to walk up your banks! I should think the LHR's slack timetable would also help with this - as has been said above, great for power, less so for speed...

 

Agreed - very minimalistic driving required on the LHR - very doubtful that Victor will struggle.

 

From my memory of these engines many years ago now.
Draughting, as built they did not have a petticote pipe, Harry Lee had 2 made up and when they were fitted it made a big difference to the steam production.
The brake ejector was from an LNER B1, 61264 at Woodhams perhaps?
The lube for the roller bearings was Lithium EP2 grease, axleboxes weekly with 50 shots each from a bucket type grease gun. Pro rata for the smaller bearings.
I dont know what regulator is still fitted but we fitted a GWR regulator in the smokebox due to a miss hap with the original and then there was a problem with some priming when opening the regulator, my guess is that as the main steam pipe was under constant boiler pressure water used to collect and with the reg opened it got carried thro, with the original dome regulator the pipe would have been under low or no pressure so any water in the pipe would boil away from the higher heat in the boiler, GWR main steam pipes slope down to the smokebox and IIRC the Bagnalls are horizontal.
Although i was not a driver i do have a reasonable knowledge of steam and i now own(and built) my own 1/3rd scale traction engine. I feel that the shuttling was down to the drivers trying to drive as though they were on the mainline with an express superheated engine at high speed as they used to pull the reverser up a long way, it would have been interesting to see how they performed with a longer cut off and more control via regulator position. Dont forget that the Dorset 7's had to be driven downhill to 'keep out of the way of the train' according to Peter Smith so the passengers had a more comfortable ride and again they had little wheels with big balance weights.

 

Any news of overhaul progress?

Cheers

John

 

Victor moved from the West Somerset Railway to The Strathspey Railway, I remember it was the only engine there that required the regulator to be open to keep moving downhill otherwise you came to a gentle stop. I seem to remember that snifting valves were fitted to try and overcome this, However this was only partially successful . It was proposed to alter the valves and pistons but the then owner decided against this and subsequently moved the engine to another site.

 

Would that owner have been 'Warwick', i dont know if that was his christian name or surname. When Victor was based on the Battlefield line and he owned it one of his rules was no fire irons were to be used when in steam, realy usefull if you have a clinkered or caked fire, as the petticote pipe was not original he had it removed and the ejector exhaust no longer was aimed up the chimney but across the smokebox plus there were holes in the smokebox, the result was an engine that would not steam and was a struggle to just limp from station to station needing frequent stops to blow up, apparently when turning the ejector on the fire tried to come out of the firedoors!. A friend of mine who was a driver at the Battlefield line who told me the tale of woe added that one day the owner was not present when Victor was in steam so the smokebox holes were stuffed up and the ejector exhaust aim was modified to go up the chimney with the result that it now steamed and was like a different engine. The owner was not impressed when he found out.:wacko:

 

According to the IRS Dec 79 newsletter in the artical on the SCoW trio they only had the running numbers 401 > 403 when at Margam and this is shown in various photo's, 2995 whan it went to the NCB had the running number NCB402 as also shown in a photo. When 2994 & 2995 went to Longbridge they were then named. There is no mention of 2995 ever being named.