Why weren't the Standards standard?

But again this was something the GWR already did. The Standard 3 boiler, for instance, was a shorter version of the Standard 2, and the Standard 2 and 4 were always a short parallel extension on a single tapered piece. Std 1 and 4 boilers used the same flanging blocks, as did 2,3 and 10. The Std 7 (4700) and King boilers used the flanging blocks from the 'Bear's boiler. The first studies for what became the Castle used the Std 7, but they couldn't make the limits so new flanging blocks were required. When Swindon needed to increase the Standard boiler range for absorbed locomotives at the grouping they did so by taking existing boiler designs and lengthening or shortening barrel or firebox. If they had to they would even make new flanging blocks. The Manor boiler, for instance, was intermediate in diameter between Std 1/4 and Standard 2/3 because neither a lengthened Std 2 or a shortened Std 1 was found satisfactory.

It would be interesting to know all the expenses and delays in designing a new locomotive - Holcroft tells us how the 4300 was quickly and readily introduced because so few new drawings were required, and all those drawings represent expense and resource. Obviously there are pros and cons in all aspects of design, and those design tradeoffs were doubtless different at different times, but sometimes criticisms of GWR practice verge on ludicrous. Cox, for instance, tells us that seeing the LMS 2-8-0s built at Swindon gave Hawksworth the idea of having continuous plate frames on the modfied Halls rather than the extension frames of the other standard 2 cylinder classes - as if the GWR guys hadn't been building all their 4 cylinder classes with continuous plate frames!

 

Surely the reason that Swindon had pursued standardisation more completely than the other Big Four companies is simple: They had a half-century of uninterrupted continuous development of the same school of locomotive design. In other words, they evolved gradually. Churchward was a visionary who took huge steps forward from what had gone before* but after him came CMEs largely content to make incremental improvements to keep up, not wholesale changes of approach. They had no issues combining multiple schools of thought, as others did. The absorbed companies were so minor in comparison to the GWR that any excellence in loco matters they may have enjoyed became merely a footnote in history, and the number of locos of non-Swindon design was so small that they posed bo hiccup to wholesale standardisation of parts.
One can't help thinking that on the LMS, it might have gone better at first if either Horwich or Derby had been *more* dominant, and simply steamrollered everything else.
Meanwhile both Gresley and Maunsell seem to have had less trouble partly because the LNER and SR simply couldn't afford to do anything wholesale anyway. Also, both were by all accounts true gentlemen (and trained by that gent of Inchicore and Horwich, Sir John Aspinall, as of course were Highes and Fowler).
*Churchward's considerable skills seem to have included learning from others gracefully and taking over from Dean diplomatically.

 

That is more or less what happened in the early years, particularly so from a Midland perspective. In reality, Midland ideas were good for the peculiar conditions pertaining on that Railway, but did not extend well to the rest of the system. L&YR influence was short lived due to George Hughes taking what we now call early retirement. It might have been more successful, as with the Horwich Crabs, or less so, as with the Dreadnoughts. The L&YR was a short haul line and its designs reflected this, and did not fare well on long, fast and, especially, non-stop runs. Crewe also had good things - and bad things - to contribute but never had the opportunity.

 

Out of interest, and as a complete LMS novice: what happened to the LNWR school of thought in the early years of the grouping? That company was the largest component of the LMS, almost the largest pre-grouping company in the country; Crewe works as a builder / repairer of locomotives had an enviable reputation for efficiency and the scale of its operations. So what happened to LNWR design practice? I'm curious as much as anything as to why @andrewshimmin framed his question as "if either Horwich or Derby had been *more* dominant," while failing to mention Crewe / LNWR practice at all?

Tom

 

It was down to the operating officers elected at the start of the LMS in 1923. The LNWR and L&YR had merged a year earlier on 1st January 1922, and the chief operating staff was chosen - as on most things railway - on the basis of seniority. George Hughes was senior to H.P.M. Beames (and Henry Fowler), so became CME. But many of the top men were ex-Midland and Midland practices were therefore adopted, so James Anderson became Motive Power Superintendent for the entire LMS. In theory he and the CME were independent, but Anderson was a strong personality and exerted far more influence for the adoption of Midland motive power than was his remit, in which he was aided and abetted by Henry Fowler, then Deputy CME. It is speculated that Hughes had had enough of fighting these two and bailed out, Henry Fowler then becoming CME and Midland domination was complete.

Due to the lower seniority of its officers, certainly on the locomotive side, the LNWR got barely a look in.

 

I bow to your superior knowledge on all things LMS! I was under the impression that, while Derby was dominant (especially in operational matters,meaning they could order locos and specify details such as axle boxes) both Crewe and (early on) Horwich continued to have a major role in loco matters. I was thinking that if Derby had been completely and undisputedly dominant in all matters, as Swindon was, they might have addressed the challenges more coherently. After all, there was much good in the Derby 'school'.
Mind you, I think the simplistic line of all being chaos in the LMS pre-Stanier is exaggerated to the point of being bunkum.

 

This is such a fundamental parameter of design and practice that I would say is very often not given its due. That, along with internal politics and finance.

 

I think that over-simplifies matters and is the old Crewe tale of betrayal!
Put bluntly, LNWR locomotive practice was at a low ebb anyway, and although I love all Crewe products, Whale and Bowen-Cooke's being fine and handsome machines, their school of engineering was essentially to build cheap powerful machines they could thrash to death. Of course this was partly a reaction against Webb. The long view of history might point to a middle ground being more wise.
Take a look at Robin Barnes' "Locomotives that Never Were": the Crewe proposals after grouping are hardly inspiring.
Meanwhile Hughes, while not being a colossus, had been at the forefront of developments such as superheating and equipped the L&Y with an excellent fleet for its needs. Fowler on the Midland was a different type, but when given his head and listening to the right people, he could produce (or lead the production of) superb locos (such as the 2-6-4T). Both Hughes and Fowler are given a rather unfair dismissal in my opinion.

 

I'll agree with the last sentence, certainly. George Hughes was a great engineer and working at the forefront of steam locomotive development. Henry Fowler's engineering prowess is often questioned, but he was at the very least a very capable engineer whose specialties were metallurgy and boilers. His problem was a lack of managerial ability: he was brought up in the Midland tradition where the motive power people ruled the roost and he accepted it; George Hughes fought it for a while before bowing to the inevitable. But Fowler failed to take charge of his own department; that was where he went wrong.

Don't underestimate the matter of seniority on the railways; it dominated every man's career from cleaner, Pway man, or whatever, all the way up the chain. Beames was the CME of the LNWR (until the LNWR / L&YR merger) but had held the post only since 1920. Hughes had been appointed in 1909 to the L&YR post and the joint LNWR / L&YR position in 1922. It was the basis of the appointments on the early LMS, and probably on the other three railways also (Gresley became CME of the LNER instead of Robinson because the latter declined the post, although it was his by right, as it were). Other LMS officers outside the loco departments were drawn from other constituents; Arthur Watson (General manager) and E.C. Trench (Chief Civil Engineer) were both LNWR.

There must be a pang of sympathy for Beames: he'd made it to the post of CME at Crewe, was downgraded to 'Divisional' in 1922, stayed in the same role when Fowler became CME in 1925 (he had become MR CME at the end of 1909, so was only slightly lower down the seniority ladder than Hughes), was passed over by Ernest J.H. Lemon in 1931, and again by Stanier in 1932. But he was in charge at Crewe all that time and did much good work in completely reorganising the Works, and offered several designs based on Crewe practice, only a few of which made it into production.

 

I quite agree, but one small point; in view of the shift of meaning over the years might I suggest that particular would be a better word for modern-day readers?

 

I can live with that! Of course, similar applied to the LNWR and L&YR; none would have been a complete answer to the new LMS's needs.

 

Is it fair to say that "we've always done it this way" attitudes that seemed to go with the Derby view, persisted until H.G. Ivatt insisted on producing modern small and medium small machines? This could have been done at least ten years earlier and by the time they did appear it was getting rather too late. The numbers actually made were really rather pitiful.

Paul H

 

Magnificent though they were, I can't help wondering why Mr Ivatt spent quite so much on his modifications to the final pair of Stanier pacifics.

 

Yes, although Stanier had by then broken the mould. I think it's in J.E. Chacksfield's biography of Stanier that Anderson sent him a memo requesting the building of a certain number of engines of an existing (ex-Midland) class. When he later asked Stanier why he had received no reply, that man said, "I am waiting for you to tell me the duties that these engines are to perform so that I can decide what type to give you," or some such wording. He thereby took back control of the CME department, something Fowler had ever failed to do. And thus was the way available for Charles Fairburn George Ivatt to do things THEIR way.

 

Something prompted me to look up "Master Builders of Steam" by H.A.V. Bulleid. H.A.V.B. (who must be as well connected as anyone who wrote on this topic) mentions this incident but puts a different slant on it. Messrs. Stanier and Anderson got on well on a personal level and there seems to have been no difficulty over this issue. It was when Anderson retired and was replaced by D.C. Urie, erstwhile C.M.E. of the Highland Railway, that co-operation difficulties began. Note that Urie was not "Midland" at all.

Impeccably "Midland" though was H. Rudgard, with whom H.G. Ivatt (H.A.V. Bulleid's uncle) had something of a re-run of the above incident. Rudgard was not the only person to have underestimated H.G. Ivatt. Railway enthusiasts tend to do so today.

PH

 

I wasn't there at the time(!) but Stanier's bringing Anderson to heel didn't seem to cause friction between them; I too have heard that the two men got on well together. Perhaps Anderson realised that he had got away with it for a long time, but now it was over. He retired at the end of 1932 (Stanier arrived on 1st January that year) when he would have been 61, a little early perhaps? We can't answer that one, of course.

And D.C. Urie was certainly a pain to Stanier following his appointment in Anderson's place, especially during the period when the 5XPs wouldn't steam and the answer had not yet been discovered.

George Ivatt was probably the most laid-back, to modernise the phrase, of all CMEs. Not only did he refuse to stay in the office after the normal working day, but insisted that his staff left too. He was not an academically gifted engineer but a thoroughly practical one, with the ability to see what was real and get it done.

 

Reading about the LMS does make you realise how the SR managed the transition to grouping with rather less friction in motive power affairs! A smaller, simpler railway of course, but no doubt it also reflects significant credit both to the outgoing Urie and Billinton, who retired with good grace to leave the way clear for Maunsell, but above all to the sound man-management of H. A. Walker in enabling the railway to hit its stride as a single railway, rather than a disparate collection of parts, so rapidly.

Tom

 

This thread is a fascinating read! It sums up everything that is good about Nat Pres! Thank you to those who are sharing their considerable knowledge and informed opinion.

 

E.S. Cox has an amusing line on the Anderson to Urie transition (Locomotive Panorama v.1):

"He, like his predecessors, clave to the operating side of his dual responsibility and whereas Anderson used to chastise our department with whips, Urie was apt to chastise it with scorpions."

In fairness to the man, he occasionally seems to have had a good point; he strongly opposed a proposal for a light 4-6-0 to replace life-expired Scottish classes on the Oban route on the grounds that it wouldn't pull any greater load, with the end result that the Civil Engineer was persuaded to improve the bridges until eventually Black Fives could be used. On the other hand, goodness knows what R.W. Urie, a man with a thoroughly modern outlook on motive power, would have thought of his son requesting new saturated Class 2 and Class 3 o-6-0s into the war years.

 

Thank you, my man! You just can't beat a good debate, and no matter how much you thought you knew, someone always adds to your knowledge, as here.