Who should have been in the BR design team?

POWER!!!!

Seriously though, while the decision to build the standard classes was (in hindsight) not good, the locos that the teams designed, IMO, were very good. The 9F in particular is an incredible machine.

 

You frequently assert that the overall traction costs are the same regardless of type, and that 40ihp per ton is possible from a steam locomotive.

So where is the evidence? What class of production locomotives anywhere in the world achieved 40ihp per ton? And where is the study that shows that steam locomotives are as cheap to run as electrics or diesels, especially given post-war labour shortages?

And in any case, 40hp per ton is still less than electric locos that were conceived and built in the 1950s could achieve. The Class 81 (3200hp, 79 tons) achieves that figure, and moreover could sustain it indefinitely, rather than just in peak bursts. Within about 15 years, that type had been developed to the class 87 which could achieve 60hp per ton: way in excess of anything achievable with steam.

Even in the 1950s, it must have been obvious that the future was diesel and electrification. So the maximum financial, design and management resource should have been put into that end, with the bare minimum done to just keep a steam fleet running until modernisation came on stream. My own view is that the various regional designs would have been sufficient (with perhaps the exception of needing something like the 9F) for that end without building any new designs. (After all, BR built everything from Peppercorn A1s, Castles and Merchant Navies right down to ex-NER J72s and GWR Pannier tanks). To think that steam had any long-term future in Britain after World War II, against the evidence of every other developed country in the world, is delusional.

Tom

 

What you really needed was Beeching to come first, then decide how much and what type of motive power was required.

 

The hindsight that is now used ignores the politics and finances of the time. Britain was an island built of coal (still is!) and that resource was generally available at no balance of payment cost, whereas oil generally had to be imported at considerable cost. When you are virtually bankrupt you don't go on a spending spree, you use what you have. Diesels also cost considerably more to build; three times as much. So, the economics and politics of the time dictated steam instead of diesel for the majority. Electrification was high in capital cost and took time, a lot of time. 1500V was the agreed standard so any thoughts of the 25kV system was still a long way off.
BR actually built more non-BR Standard locos than Standard locos. Whether some of the standards should have been built is debatable but there was a definite need for some, such as the Britannias on the Great Eastern. Only the Bulleid light pacifics fulfilled that role and no one with any sense would suggest perpetuating these in unrebuilt form. As I've said above, politics dictated the use of steam and any designer is going to strive to improve on what has gone before, even if the changes were minimal. I think that the Standards did this. For example, how long would you keep building Black 5's without a design improvement? It had to come at some time and the basic design was well over twenty years old. The Standard 5's were an improvement in many ways. I bet that, if these had been tagged on to the Black 5 number series and referred to as a Black 5, everyone would have seen them as what they actually were, just like the various roller bearing/steel firebox/Caprotti valve gear variations that were built as Black 5's. Perhaps the biggest mistake was the creation of a new number series!

 

I'd agree with your latter point. Incidentally, the transfer of the Fairburn 2-6-4T's to the Southern demonstrated that there was a lot of nonsense about people refusing to use 'foreign' locos - as long, of course, as the 'foreigners' could actually do the job. I can't see the BR standard designs as anything other than a load of wasted effort - except of course insofar as it gave pleasure to people like me watching Britannias being thrashed to Clacton in the rush hour!

 

There were those pannier tanks that went to Scotland, too

 

And the Panniers we had on the Southern Region.

I don't agree that the Standard classes were a waste of space, as some people would have it. In many area's they replaced older machines well past their sell by date and were very useful machines generally. Just ask men who crewed and maintained the likes of M7's and many other pre-nationalisation classes which types they would rather work on. The other aspect is of course the pleasure we got as 'Trainspotters' watching these new machines working. Somehow it would never have been the same if we had had to watch 'more' Black 5's, A1's and so on, all of which we had seen plenty of before.

 

G. J. Churchward.

 

Indeed - I have never heard, either first hand or through reading, of any significant complaints from Southern enginemen about the Ivatt and Fairburn tank engines that came to BR(S) in large numbers in the early 1950s. Whereas by all accounts when there were widespread purges of ex-LBSCR tank engines on the Central Section, those sheds that got ex-SECR H classes in replacement tended to feel quite pleased with the deal, whereas those sheds that got ex-LSWR M7s felt pretty hard done by at getting such lumbering lumps!

I suspect setting a motive power policy for the benefit of gricers was even lower on Riddles' agenda than David Smiths'!

Tom

 

One thing I have never understood about the standards is why the decision was taken to not fit any form of lighting to the cabs (Gauge frames, shovel plate lighting, reverser lights etc) Much earlier Southern and LNER locos had these fitted and seems like a back wards step, I don't even think the steam generators need that much maintenance.

 

I think that being dead may have limited his input a tad.

 

Without naming names ( as i dont know any) the one factor missing from the BR design team we're people from the likes of North British. i also think that the GWR drawing offices would have been able to produce
a standard range of locomotives as good as the LMS biased team did, but they would not have been any more forward thinking or 'exciting'.
The over reaching purpose of the BR Standards was maximum utilisation and inter regional operability and in this respect they we're as good as anything else produced or available
To have an insight into the 'design' of steam locomotives as it was in the big 4 and then perpetuated post war one must absolouutely read Under 10 cme's by the late Mr Langridge.
Bulleid seems to have been quite a rare bird in that he actually micro managed what his draughtsmen we're producing.
At the point where the decision was made to keep on producing steam locomotives and to ' New' designs he was precisely the wrong man for the job.
.

 

Probably less of a disadvantage, though, than being French, as other nominees that have been suggested were!

Tom

 

I wonder what we would have seen if the design bureaux had been answerable to their political masters such as Beeching and Marples, then i dont think you would have got any new designs, Marples would have most likely wanted to move finance to road building.

 

Freddie Harrison, Kenneth Cook, Teddy Windle and Clifford Cocks

 

Who we're all involved in some shape or form anyway. Riddles had a reasonably clear vision of what was required, but if any of the above had been chair of the design team instead of Cox, yes that might have been interesting. The Go anywhere pacific would have been much closer to the Bulleid West country, almost certainly a three cylinder machine.
The comments about the Standards being a waste of effort.... how much effort do you think they took ? At the most they kept the diminishing number of draughtsmen, pattern makers and tool makers on the payroll for a little longer... The only one that needed a significant Design effort, the 9F, is the one that gets the Plaudits as a significant contribution to our Stable of noteworthy locomotives.

 

Post of the thread so far.

 

It is quite telling from many of the contributions to the various threads here, that very, very few have any understanding of how things were managed in one of the railway companies drawing offices. I can only concur, if you REALLY want to know how it was, the 2 volumes of "Under 10 CMEs" will bring you from the platform end to total enlightenment of how your "Best Looking Loco" - to pick up on another thread - came into tangible fact. However, if any of you unfamiliar with Langridge's books do read them, threads such as "Best Looking Loco" could become extinct on this site.

Cheers

Alan

 

Accounts that I have read suggest that many crews did think that they were a little better. I'm sure that you know better than me Tom, but I believe that they did very well on the Southern when called on to handle a duty normally done by a light pacific. Perhaps it was that their 6'2" wheels were equal to the Bullieds although their stroke resulted in the pistons thrashing about a lot more. I'd love to see the remaining Caprotti version let loose on the main line to see what it could do against the individual Black 5s used on charters.