A GC station in Northamptonshire with a MPD sounds very, very like Woodford. Will it include an extra platform and a spur to the SMJ?
Not sure about your point on signal box colours. Some ex LNER ones were still showing green and yellow paint well on into the fifties, though that was especially in East Anglia. And if you're allowing yourself two B17s, that could almost justify a very grubby B7. They were replaced virtually on a one for one basis between 1948 and 1950 by B1s. Otherwise, although I see your point, for balance I'd say there could be more B1s and 07s than anything else.
Going a bit later, I agree about the Standard 5s, and eventually the GC had quite a lot of 9Fs which worked unfitted coal trains at disturbing speeds.
Our club layout is Woodford Halse - and includes the spur as far as Byfield. While my MPD is going to be based on Woodford (minus the turning triangle, which I don't have space for), the station is going to be a classic London Extension island, taking inspiration from a combination of Culworth and Helmdon for Sulgrave. But moved north to more like where Woodford is, to allow for the Western Region stock coming in from Banbury. I can see both the GC and the SMJ from my window as I type. Or would do, were they still there.
On the colours, it's a really picky point I suppose. I'd want one in full GCR livery to do it justice and GC buildings green and cream isn't the same as LNER green and cream. However, the other fly in the ointment is that to have one that far south plausibly it would need to be in LNER livery, and until 1937 LNER building were brown and cream... From the late 30s the Jersey Lilies were displaced from the GC mainline - largely by B17s, and stopped being common south of Nottingham IIRC.
I've already got a Clan sticking out like a sore thumb, and the closest I can get that to the GC is a photo of one going under the birdcage bridge at Rugby!
Agree rationally it should be B1s and O7s but thankfully there's a list of postwar allocations at Woodford from the 1940s up to closure available online and that's what I'm basing what I've got on.
The A5 isn't as much of an anomaly as it might be thought (given they were never allocated to Woodford) - though they were mostly based at Neasden for the London suburban traffic as far as Aylesbury. My Woodford connections point out that they still had to get to and from Gorton for deep maintenance, and while staging through Woodford would be pressed into service on the Banbury Motor. The L3 is the big remaining gap, as Woodford had loads of them. I could also find room for a 28XX. There should have been an Ivatt 4MT on the first list -as they seem to have got them at Woodford long before the London Midland region takeover. Presumably BR(E) drafted some in from the M&GN lines.
Incidentally, this is a rare example of enthusiast and railwayman terminology diverging (unusual in a hobby which can be slavish in adopting the slang of the grease-topped gods of the footplate.
To the spotters they were 'windcutters', to the crews they were 'runners'
... I've already got a Clan sticking out like a sore thumb, and the closest I can get that to the GC is a photo of one going under the birdcage bridge at Rugby! ...
I never saw a Clan. They were very rare on the WCML south of Preston, and unknown on the Midland Division. So even going under the bridge at Rugby rather than over it is pretty unusual.
I've heard they weren't all that popular with the crews, but I think that was mainly because they looked like Brits and so crews assumed they should have the same pulling power as a Brit, not realising that they weren't meant to.
@betjemaniac wrote: Incidentally, this is a rare example of enthusiast and railwayman terminology diverging (unusual in a hobby which can be slavish in adopting the slang of the grease-topped gods of the footplate.
To the spotters they were 'windcutters', to the crews they were 'runners'.
Not the only instance. Spotters in some places used to refer to Stanier class 5s as 'Mickeys'. As far as I know, that was unknown among railway personnel. Another is 'frog' which is used by modellers, but for track engineers is 'crossing'. Then there is 'Lobster' now used to refer to Stanier 2-6-0s. The derivation is pretty obvious but the term was unknown in steam days.
I've a sort of belief, but can't remember its source, that BR may have used 'windcutter' as part of its sale's pitch to the NCB and others.
... I've already got a Clan sticking out like a sore thumb, and the closest I can get that to the GC is a photo of one going under the birdcage bridge at Rugby! ...
I never saw a Clan. They were very rare on the WCML south of Preston, and unknown on the Midland Division. So even going under the bridge at Rugby rather than over it is pretty unusual.
I've heard they weren't all that popular with the crews, but I think that was mainly because they looked like Brits and so crews assumed they should have the same pulling power as a Brit, not realising that they weren't meant to.
I think that's fair - apparently the crews that had them routinely liked them, but as you say, some got them and assumed they were just another Brit. BR(E) experimented with them out of Liverpool Street for a couple of months and apparently rostered them routinely for Class 7 turns. Although the conspiracy minded might suggest that's because they were trying to make the case for Brits, which they did then get...
Re the Clan at Rugby - special working taking Wigan fans to London for the Challenge Cup final IIRC.
[Then there is 'Lobster' now used to refer to Stanier 2-6-0s. The derivation is pretty obvious but the term was unknown in steam days.
That's a new one on me - and yes, I can see how they got there from Crab! In my boyhood volunteering on the SVR the sole survivor was always just 'the Stanier Mogul'
Then there is 'Lobster' now used to refer to Stanier 2-6-0s. The derivation is pretty obvious but the term was unknown in steam days.
That's a new one on me - and yes, I can see how they got there from Crab! In my boyhood volunteering on the SVR the sole survivor was always just 'the Stanier Mogul'
It's quite recent I think. They were also a bit scarce, though not completely south of Crewe or on the Midland Division.
By all repute, O7s weren't generally that appreciated at ex LMS sheds. They had plenty of experience of both Austerities and 8Fs and didn't regard an Austerity as being either as effective or as pleasant to drive or fire as their own design. I've sometimes wondered what ex LNER sheds thought when they had to swap their O6s for O7s in 1946-7. Or perhaps O7s were less unpopular at ex LNER sheds.
By all repute, O7s weren't generally that appreciated at ex LMS sheds. They had plenty of experience of both Austerities and 8Fs and didn't regard an Austerity as being either as effective or as pleasant to drive or fire as their own design. I've sometimes wondered what ex LNER sheds thought when they had to swap their O6s for O7s in 1946-7. Or perhaps O7s were less unpopular at ex LNER sheds.
I'll ask my tame LNER/BR fireman who started at Woodford Halse in 1944 and report back.
Not the only instance. Spotters in some places used to refer to Stanier class 5s as 'Mickeys'. As far as I know, that was unknown among railway personnel. Another is 'frog' which is used by modellers, but for track engineers is 'crossing'. Then there is 'Lobster' now used to refer to Stanier 2-6-0s. The derivation is pretty obvious but the term was unknown in steam days.
I had to check this, but according to the Andrew Dow book on track (mentioned above) the term 'frog' was in fact used from early times, apparently due to its resemblance to the bottom of a horse's hoof, also known as a frog. (Modellers can get into animated discussions about live and dead frogs).
I suspect that some locomotive nicknames are quite recent inventions - I keep hearing ones that I never heard as a teenage train watcher. Some are certainly regional: for instance, the Black 5 was commonly known as a 'Hiker' in the Highlands.
BR(E) experimented with them out of Liverpool Street for a couple of months and apparently rostered them routinely for Class 7 turns. Although the conspiracy minded might suggest that's because they were trying to make the case for Brits, which they did then get...
That sounds dubious to me. Didn't Gerry Fiennes lobby for the very first Brits, although some folk didn't think he should get them for the GE "tramroad"? Yet soon they were running some of the fastest schedules in Britain. Also, the Clans came out a bit later.
BR(E) experimented with them out of Liverpool Street for a couple of months and apparently rostered them routinely for Class 7 turns. Although the conspiracy minded might suggest that's because they were trying to make the case for Brits, which they did then get...
That sounds dubious to me. Didn't Gerry Fiennes lobby for the very first Brits, although some folk didn't think he should get them for the GE "tramroad"? Yet soon they were running some of the fastest schedules in Britain. Also, the Clans came out a bit later.
But I stand to be corrected ...
Not at all - you're correcting me! As soon as you wrote that I thought I must have got it wrong, but I'd half remembered what happened. BR(E) were given Clans to play with in the hope that they could give the Brits back (shades, exactly as you say, of the 'tramroad'). BR(E) then treated the Clans as Class 7 to show them up, and got to keep their Brits.
So, apologies, they were trying to make the case to keep the Brits rather than get them.
I've never been quite clear what the Clans were built for. The best one could say was that they were designed for lines that Brits couldn't run on but which needed something more powerful than class 5. But were there many of those? The routes they usually worked weren't among them. As the London Extension could take A3s and V2s, and I assume Brits, what need would it have had for Clans?
They were only class 6, and so, I suppose, could have been tried out on the Midland Division to Manchester and south of Leeds, but the problem there wasn't route availability. It was that the LMS hadn't built enough engines of class 7 capability. The Jubilees were class 6 already. In about 1957 some Brits were drafted in from other regions and the Western Division was ordered to release them some Scots. The Brits were fine but I suspect the Scots did better. As the Brits were longer, they suffered more wear on their frames and bearings from the curves on the line through the Peak. The same would have applied if Clans had ever been sent there.
A trailing axle may allow a wider firebox, but a powerful 4-6-0 does better on hills. I've heard that drivers on the Waverley route when some Leeds Scots began to work through to Edinburgh were mighty impressed that they didn't slip up hill and down dale the way their familiar A3s did.
I've never been quite clear what the Clans were built for.
Yes, I was thinking that. Almost as if someone had said, "We're building Class 5s and we're building Class 7s so we'd better do Class 6s to complete the set".
I've never been quite clear what the Clans were built for.
Yes, I was thinking that. Almost as if someone had said, "We're building Class 5s and we're building Class 7s so we'd better do Class 6s to complete the set".
It's a bit of an odd one - the next batch (the first of which was cancelled on the blocks at Crewe part built) were supposed to go to the Southern Region. Given the plan was for the BR Stds to potentially work into at least the 1980s, if not 1990s, it was more that they were supposed to replace existing Class 6s as they came to end of life. Then the Modernisation Plan came along and killed the whole point of the standards.
I suppose the bigger question would be whether/to what extent there was any ongoing need for Class 6 at all... but the answer to that might not have been so much 'completing the set' as railwaymen thinking 'we've got class 6, we must replace them with class 6.'
The Clans would have been a very suitable loco for the GC London Branch if more had been built as was originally envisaged.
I am a GC fan myself, but I do the era of Sir Sam and J G Robinson, and my interests are principally north of Annesley.
they would almost certainly have ended up on it doing the Bournemouth-Leicester legs had batch 2 been built.
I know virtually nothing about the GC north of Nottingham Vic, and I'm shaky south of Calvert - it's a very localised niche of interest I've got. Although I have read all three of Dow's volumes and the new biography of Watkin!
I've never been quite clear what the Clans were built for.
Yes, I was thinking that. Almost as if someone had said, "We're building Class 5s and we're building Class 7s so we'd better do Class 6s to complete the set".
I've speculated in the same way about the class 3 2-6-0s in the 77xxx series, and I've similar doubts about why an extra lot of class 4 4-6-0s in the 75xxx series was added when they'd already got a class 4 standardised version of the Ivatt Doodlebugs in the 76xxx 2-6-0s. The same might even apply to the class 3 tanks.
I received a phone call an hour or two ago to advise that myself and two other directors of our local railway museum have been included on the guest list for the official launch of the re-gauged Victorian Railways R class locomotive. This has been a decade-long volunteer project to convert the loco from 5'3" to standard gauge, largely driven by the ever-shrinking broad gauge network in Victoria and South Australia. The locomotive R766 was built by North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow and entered service in 1952, almost simultaneously with the first VR diesels. Friday March 18 is the date for a run between Maitland and Newcastle and return, with the first public runs being on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20. You can find out more here
Wow, that's amazing! Was it possible to regauge without shortening the frame stretchers? When I first looked at the loco, I assumed it was German in origin - those smoke deflectors. But it also reminds me a bit of the Canadian Royal Hudsons.
One of unlikely books in my small collection is an Observer's Book of Steam Locomotives of Australia, 1979, which has a good description of the 'R'. Interestingly, it says they have, "SCOA-P type driving wheels to facilitate the possibility of conversion to standard gauge". There are plenty of Google hits for these wheels that I haven't been through yet.
I'd certainly not have bothered with the 8P. Even with the argument that it was supposed to eventually replace older locomotives in the same classification.
One of unlikely books in my small collection is an Observer's Book of Steam Locomotives of Australia, 1979, which has a good description of the 'R'. Interestingly, it says they have, "SCOA-P type driving wheels to facilitate the possibility of conversion to standard gauge". There are plenty of Google hits for these wheels that I haven't been through yet.
The R, J and N classes on VR were all designed for gauge conversion. The SCOA-P wheels were developed because Boxpok drivers would have been too heavy.
@Baptist Trainfan the locomotives were built with spacers at crucial points to make them convertible. The frames sat at standard gauge width as did the bearings, with axles and cylinders set at broad gauge width, the cylinder castings being bolted together with spacers inserted.
It should be noted that GM diesel-electric B61, which entered service at the same time as the R class is still in revenue service after almost 70 years of operation. The current owner is Southern Shorthaul Railroad which has built a business on a fleet of vintage motive power.
I keep telling my dear wife that I keep coming to the Ship to expand my horizons and what's left of my mind - proved once again! Thanks, @Barnabas_Aus.
I've sometimes wondered what ex LNER sheds thought when they had to swap their O6s for O7s in 1946-7. Or perhaps O7s were less unpopular at ex LNER sheds.
Circling back to this @Enoch I actually managed to ask the question last night. There's an element of the latter, or at least 'not invented here' from my sample of one (slightly contradicted by the fact that the O7s weren't either) but broadly - cribbed from memory at the bar:
with the 8Fs there was a sense that they were only ever borrowed - and we liked the O4s that we had anyway. There was more sense with the O4 that it would get you home. The DubDees came along and actually they were replacing not just the O6, but a lot of very old and very worn out locos, so from that view we didn't think of it as losing the O6 but losing a lot of other things. Same when the L3s and N5s went in the very early 50s. They were lovely, but they were worn out. The DubDees were a bit rough, but they were new, and they'd plod on and on and on, you could rely on them.
The only problem was that the tender used to hunt the loco. We used to fix that by heating the drawbar between the two then raising the loco and tender on sheerlegs while it was in steam and dropping it back onto the rails. When it bent and cooled that solved the problem. Problem was, every loco that we fixed like that got taken away from the GC to somewhere else and we were back at the start again.
Clearly a high-tech solution ... not recommended for diesels!!!
Were any of the American S160s used on the Great Central? I know that their unfamiliar features caused problems in Britain - I think there were several cases of crew misreading boiler water levels and dropping the fusible plugs.
Thankyou @betjemaniac. These days people with personal memories of such vital things are sadly getting rarer.
I've picked up from somewhere the impression that on the GWR the loco staff didn't regard their O6s as a patch on their own 28s, but respected them as plodders that would keep on plodding steadily along on surprisingly low boiler pressures.
On the LMS, not unsurprisingly, they greatly preferred their own 8Fs to WDs. WDs would plod along as you said, but compared with their own engines were cheapo, uncomfortable, the tenders hunted and they were really, really uncomfortable over 30-40 mph. Some of the wartime built 8Fs had a similar problem. It was caused by over simplifying the balance-weights to save money, and was why those with proper balance weights ended up in the 1950s with stars on their cabs. Although in theory they had a slightly higher tractive effort than an 8F, there was a widespread impression that the WDs were 5-10% short on actual power.
The really horrible engines to drive or fire, though, by all repute, were SuperDs. They could pull OK, but their cabs were primitive, badly designed and their brakes were weirdly unpredictable.
Clearly a high-tech solution ... not recommended for diesels!!!
Were any of the American S160s used on the Great Central? I know that their unfamiliar features caused problems in Britain - I think there were several cases of crew misreading boiler water levels and dropping the fusible plugs.
25 S160s allocated to Woodford Halse (at the same time). One of the LNER's S160 collapsed firebox crown incidents (the South Harrow one) occurred on a Neasden-Woodford working.
On the LMS, not unsurprisingly, they greatly preferred their own 8Fs to WDs. WDs would plod along as you said, but compared with their own engines were cheapo, uncomfortable, the tenders hunted and they were really, really uncomfortable over 30-40 mph.
It has been suggested to me that some of the more spectacular/stupid 'runner' performances with the 9Fs were the result of drivers cutting loose after years on O7/O4/O1s....
Interestingly, a BR driver of a later vintage, trained in the early 1970s and working out of Banbury, reckoned that some of the ex GC drivers he worked with only knew (on their diesels) two regulator positions - stop and flat out. He puts that down to a combination of three things:
1) just the instant power they had available in a diesel
2) the speeds they had got used to on the always 'smartly' timed GC services
3) the fact that during the run-down of the GC in the final years, with the closure of intermediate stations and 'simplification' of signalling, you could go up to 25 miles between signals.
Slightly more hair raising when they transferred those attitudes to the Thames Valley...
=The really horrible engines to drive or fire, though, by all repute, were SuperDs. They could pull OK, but their cabs were primitive, badly designed and their brakes were weirdly unpredictable.
To be fair, they were a much older design than the Stanier and Riddles ones. No front pony-truck either, although some of the Webb-designed locos on which they were based did have one - were they, as compounds, heavier at the front end?
I've sometimes wondered what ex LNER sheds thought when they had to swap their O6s for O7s in 1946-7. Or perhaps O7s were less unpopular at ex LNER sheds.
The only problem was that the tender used to hunt the loco. We used to fix that by heating the drawbar between the two then raising the loco and tender on sheerlegs while it was in steam and dropping it back onto the rails. When it bent and cooled that solved the problem. Problem was, every loco that we fixed like that got taken away from the GC to somewhere else and we were back at the start again.[/i]
Interesting to read that. A memorable feature of the WDs was the behaviour of equalising beams between pairs of tender axleboxes. We often saw them on the Great Northern main line near Hitchin, and the liveliness of the tender suspension was always quite obvious, even on good track. Presumably that was a contributing factor, though it never approached the wild rock 'n roll of the various LNER pacific 8-wheel tenders on a locomotive in a hurry.
The really horrible engines to drive or fire, though, by all repute, were SuperDs. They could pull OK, but their cabs were primitive, badly designed and their brakes were weirdly unpredictable.
To be fair, they were a much older design than the Stanier and Riddles ones. No front pony-truck either, although some of the Webb-designed locos on which they were based did have one - were they, as compounds, heavier at the front end?
Not as much older as one might think. Their final iteration wasn't until 1921. All of them were either scrapped or gradually rebuilt into that form, some as late as the end of the 1940s. That puts them as only 15 years older than the 8F and younger than the 4F - a design which also had quite a lot of flaws.
There really isn't much excuse for updating a design and not dealing with flaws which were fairly bad, ought to have been known and in the case of the brakes, were dangerous.
Another badly flawed design was the Fowler 7F 0-8-0 of 1929. By the time I'm conscious of, they were fairly rare. I only saw two. But they had quite a good boiler and valve gear stuck on frames and bearings which were no more than a 4F with an extra axle. As a result neither frames nor bearings were adequate for the stresses to which they were subject. The drive twisted and chewed up both.
@betjemaniac returning to the Woodford theme, you may well have heard the account of the incident there which led to the LNER ceasing to use slip coaches. It was shortly before Christmas 1935. An evening train used to slip a carriage for Stratford there. On this occasion, after the slip, the slip carriage caught up with the rest of the train and ran into the back of it. The most likely explanation was that a defect in the slipping mechanism destroyed the vacuum in the carriages in front of it, so that the train started to brake automatically.
Not heard of that one, but I can see how it happened. Slipping was always a bad idea: expensive extra staff and effectively 2 trains in one block section. I also wonder how often the slip coach over- or (more likely) undershot the platform.
Not heard of that one, but I can see how it happened. Slipping was always a bad idea: expensive extra staff and effectively 2 trains in one block section. I also wonder how often the slip coach over- or (more likely) undershot the platform.
The wikipedia article makes reference to the potential need to have locomotives or horses available in the event of stopping short.
I wonder whether the idea will be revived in the context of semi-autonomous electric freight vehicles forming land trains on motorways, allowing them to take advantage of slip streaming and for specialised tractor units to draw power from overhead lines and feed it to the rest of the train and stop them running down their batteries. When a lorry reaches its junction it can be disconnected and the driver take it into town.
@betjemaniac returning to the Woodford theme, you may well have heard the account of the incident there which led to the LNER ceasing to use slip coaches. It was shortly before Christmas 1935. An evening train used to slip a carriage for Stratford there. On this occasion, after the slip, the slip carriage caught up with the rest of the train and ran into the back of it. The most likely explanation was that a defect in the slipping mechanism destroyed the vacuum in the carriages in front of it, so that the train started to brake automatically.
funnily enough a couple of people were talking about that within my earshot the other week. Normally at that point I would eavesdrop, but I was busy on another subject at the time!
Could you, at a push, manage to justify a C4 "Jersey Lily"?
the issue with that is that I'd need all the stock for it to pull, and then it would worry me that the woodwork on the station and signalboxes was painted the wrong colour... I would love one but you've got to stop somewhere. More tempting is to drift a couple of years later an have a STD 5MT, GT3, etc...
I *really* want an L3 but the (discontinued) kits of them are very rare.
Slightly out of the blue, and thanks to Messrs Ebay and a sharp intake of breath before pressing 'purchase' I am now the owner of a very well kit built OO gauge N5 in LNER unlined black. Just needs a change of safety valves and modifying the livery to unlined BR black and that's another niche filled for Northants in 1952.
I'd never heard of the L3 until you mentioned it there - I only knew the GCR 4-6-2T locos.
The L3s were ugly brutes!
they were (to my eyes the wheels are too small for the loco - although if you take a photo from the front about 35 degrees off front on they do have a certain style), but there were a good handful of them just up the road from me so they need to be on the list. the 4-6-2s were the A5, and I've got one of those on order. The N5 is positively elegant compared to the L3!
Especially in GCR livery. Bassett-Lowke used to have a nice model (probably produced by Bing or Marklin) before WW1: https://tinyurl.com/mmsmpcy4. Worth a fortune today!
The Metropolitan K class in maroon must have looked nice too.
Naturally, I consider myself to be an authority on the subject of beautiful locomotives - don't we all? The first among equals on my list is the Cock o' the North as built (with some sentimental attachment. My father was acquainted with it when he lived in Cupar). Caledonian No. 123, is, to my eye, perfectly proportioned and deserving of a decent 00 scale model (which may possibly be in the works). I saw it in steam in Dundee in 1963 or 64 and have visited it many times in both museums where it has resided since then. Also perfectly proportioned is William Adams' 0415 radial tank, to which I treated myself the Oxford Rail version on the grounds that one worked on the Highland Railway during WW1. I like all Highland engines, of course, but the Skye Bogie is surely as charming as it is possible to make an engine.
Ask this question tomorrow, and I can come up with a completely different list.
For elegance I'd agree with the Dean single. Not quite so sure about the Johnson ones, though the livery was fantastic. I think I prefer his 4-4-0s, and also his original and less familiar version of the compounds. It would be hard also to beat the SE&CR D class.
I'd also go for the Scots as rebuilt with taper boilers. It's a great pity that by the time the reboilering programme started it was too late for them to appear in red, so that only the rebuilt Fury did, and at that stage without smoke deflectors. With their original boilers they always look a bit top heavy to me, though I never saw one in that condition. BR green never really set off either form adequately. The other class I definitely choose is the 9F. It's hard to beat them for sheer functional style.
Comments
No sails - but the name is there!
If you want to see a sail-powered railway, go to Spurn Head: https://tinyurl.com/263ee4mz
Our club layout is Woodford Halse - and includes the spur as far as Byfield. While my MPD is going to be based on Woodford (minus the turning triangle, which I don't have space for), the station is going to be a classic London Extension island, taking inspiration from a combination of Culworth and Helmdon for Sulgrave. But moved north to more like where Woodford is, to allow for the Western Region stock coming in from Banbury. I can see both the GC and the SMJ from my window as I type. Or would do, were they still there.
On the colours, it's a really picky point I suppose. I'd want one in full GCR livery to do it justice and GC buildings green and cream isn't the same as LNER green and cream. However, the other fly in the ointment is that to have one that far south plausibly it would need to be in LNER livery, and until 1937 LNER building were brown and cream... From the late 30s the Jersey Lilies were displaced from the GC mainline - largely by B17s, and stopped being common south of Nottingham IIRC.
I've already got a Clan sticking out like a sore thumb, and the closest I can get that to the GC is a photo of one going under the birdcage bridge at Rugby!
Agree rationally it should be B1s and O7s but thankfully there's a list of postwar allocations at Woodford from the 1940s up to closure available online and that's what I'm basing what I've got on.
The A5 isn't as much of an anomaly as it might be thought (given they were never allocated to Woodford) - though they were mostly based at Neasden for the London suburban traffic as far as Aylesbury. My Woodford connections point out that they still had to get to and from Gorton for deep maintenance, and while staging through Woodford would be pressed into service on the Banbury Motor. The L3 is the big remaining gap, as Woodford had loads of them. I could also find room for a 28XX. There should have been an Ivatt 4MT on the first list -as they seem to have got them at Woodford long before the London Midland region takeover. Presumably BR(E) drafted some in from the M&GN lines.
I would hate to have to sail that in any sort of weather
Incidentally, this is a rare example of enthusiast and railwayman terminology diverging (unusual in a hobby which can be slavish in adopting the slang of the grease-topped gods of the footplate.
To the spotters they were 'windcutters', to the crews they were 'runners'
I've heard they weren't all that popular with the crews, but I think that was mainly because they looked like Brits and so crews assumed they should have the same pulling power as a Brit, not realising that they weren't meant to.
Not the only instance. Spotters in some places used to refer to Stanier class 5s as 'Mickeys'. As far as I know, that was unknown among railway personnel. Another is 'frog' which is used by modellers, but for track engineers is 'crossing'. Then there is 'Lobster' now used to refer to Stanier 2-6-0s. The derivation is pretty obvious but the term was unknown in steam days.
I've a sort of belief, but can't remember its source, that BR may have used 'windcutter' as part of its sale's pitch to the NCB and others.
I think that's fair - apparently the crews that had them routinely liked them, but as you say, some got them and assumed they were just another Brit. BR(E) experimented with them out of Liverpool Street for a couple of months and apparently rostered them routinely for Class 7 turns. Although the conspiracy minded might suggest that's because they were trying to make the case for Brits, which they did then get...
Re the Clan at Rugby - special working taking Wigan fans to London for the Challenge Cup final IIRC.
I am a member of the group building a new one.
That's a new one on me - and yes, I can see how they got there from Crab! In my boyhood volunteering on the SVR the sole survivor was always just 'the Stanier Mogul'
By all repute, O7s weren't generally that appreciated at ex LMS sheds. They had plenty of experience of both Austerities and 8Fs and didn't regard an Austerity as being either as effective or as pleasant to drive or fire as their own design. I've sometimes wondered what ex LNER sheds thought when they had to swap their O6s for O7s in 1946-7. Or perhaps O7s were less unpopular at ex LNER sheds.
I'll ask my tame LNER/BR fireman who started at Woodford Halse in 1944 and report back.
I had to check this, but according to the Andrew Dow book on track (mentioned above) the term 'frog' was in fact used from early times, apparently due to its resemblance to the bottom of a horse's hoof, also known as a frog. (Modellers can get into animated discussions about live and dead frogs).
I suspect that some locomotive nicknames are quite recent inventions - I keep hearing ones that I never heard as a teenage train watcher. Some are certainly regional: for instance, the Black 5 was commonly known as a 'Hiker' in the Highlands.
But I stand to be corrected ...
Not at all - you're correcting me! As soon as you wrote that I thought I must have got it wrong, but I'd half remembered what happened. BR(E) were given Clans to play with in the hope that they could give the Brits back (shades, exactly as you say, of the 'tramroad'). BR(E) then treated the Clans as Class 7 to show them up, and got to keep their Brits.
So, apologies, they were trying to make the case to keep the Brits rather than get them.
I am a GC fan myself, but I do the era of Sir Sam and J G Robinson, and my interests are principally north of Annesley.
They were only class 6, and so, I suppose, could have been tried out on the Midland Division to Manchester and south of Leeds, but the problem there wasn't route availability. It was that the LMS hadn't built enough engines of class 7 capability. The Jubilees were class 6 already. In about 1957 some Brits were drafted in from other regions and the Western Division was ordered to release them some Scots. The Brits were fine but I suspect the Scots did better. As the Brits were longer, they suffered more wear on their frames and bearings from the curves on the line through the Peak. The same would have applied if Clans had ever been sent there.
A trailing axle may allow a wider firebox, but a powerful 4-6-0 does better on hills. I've heard that drivers on the Waverley route when some Leeds Scots began to work through to Edinburgh were mighty impressed that they didn't slip up hill and down dale the way their familiar A3s did.
It's a bit of an odd one - the next batch (the first of which was cancelled on the blocks at Crewe part built) were supposed to go to the Southern Region. Given the plan was for the BR Stds to potentially work into at least the 1980s, if not 1990s, it was more that they were supposed to replace existing Class 6s as they came to end of life. Then the Modernisation Plan came along and killed the whole point of the standards.
I suppose the bigger question would be whether/to what extent there was any ongoing need for Class 6 at all... but the answer to that might not have been so much 'completing the set' as railwaymen thinking 'we've got class 6, we must replace them with class 6.'
they would almost certainly have ended up on it doing the Bournemouth-Leicester legs had batch 2 been built.
I know virtually nothing about the GC north of Nottingham Vic, and I'm shaky south of Calvert - it's a very localised niche of interest I've got. Although I have read all three of Dow's volumes and the new biography of Watkin!
Enjoy your day!!
I'd certainly not have bothered with the 8P. Even with the argument that it was supposed to eventually replace older locomotives in the same classification.
The R, J and N classes on VR were all designed for gauge conversion. The SCOA-P wheels were developed because Boxpok drivers would have been too heavy.
@Baptist Trainfan the locomotives were built with spacers at crucial points to make them convertible. The frames sat at standard gauge width as did the bearings, with axles and cylinders set at broad gauge width, the cylinder castings being bolted together with spacers inserted.
It should be noted that GM diesel-electric B61, which entered service at the same time as the R class is still in revenue service after almost 70 years of operation. The current owner is Southern Shorthaul Railroad which has built a business on a fleet of vintage motive power.
Circling back to this @Enoch I actually managed to ask the question last night. There's an element of the latter, or at least 'not invented here' from my sample of one (slightly contradicted by the fact that the O7s weren't either) but broadly - cribbed from memory at the bar:
with the 8Fs there was a sense that they were only ever borrowed - and we liked the O4s that we had anyway. There was more sense with the O4 that it would get you home. The DubDees came along and actually they were replacing not just the O6, but a lot of very old and very worn out locos, so from that view we didn't think of it as losing the O6 but losing a lot of other things. Same when the L3s and N5s went in the very early 50s. They were lovely, but they were worn out. The DubDees were a bit rough, but they were new, and they'd plod on and on and on, you could rely on them.
The only problem was that the tender used to hunt the loco. We used to fix that by heating the drawbar between the two then raising the loco and tender on sheerlegs while it was in steam and dropping it back onto the rails. When it bent and cooled that solved the problem. Problem was, every loco that we fixed like that got taken away from the GC to somewhere else and we were back at the start again.
Were any of the American S160s used on the Great Central? I know that their unfamiliar features caused problems in Britain - I think there were several cases of crew misreading boiler water levels and dropping the fusible plugs.
I've picked up from somewhere the impression that on the GWR the loco staff didn't regard their O6s as a patch on their own 28s, but respected them as plodders that would keep on plodding steadily along on surprisingly low boiler pressures.
On the LMS, not unsurprisingly, they greatly preferred their own 8Fs to WDs. WDs would plod along as you said, but compared with their own engines were cheapo, uncomfortable, the tenders hunted and they were really, really uncomfortable over 30-40 mph. Some of the wartime built 8Fs had a similar problem. It was caused by over simplifying the balance-weights to save money, and was why those with proper balance weights ended up in the 1950s with stars on their cabs. Although in theory they had a slightly higher tractive effort than an 8F, there was a widespread impression that the WDs were 5-10% short on actual power.
The really horrible engines to drive or fire, though, by all repute, were SuperDs. They could pull OK, but their cabs were primitive, badly designed and their brakes were weirdly unpredictable.
25 S160s allocated to Woodford Halse (at the same time). One of the LNER's S160 collapsed firebox crown incidents (the South Harrow one) occurred on a Neasden-Woodford working.
It has been suggested to me that some of the more spectacular/stupid 'runner' performances with the 9Fs were the result of drivers cutting loose after years on O7/O4/O1s....
Interestingly, a BR driver of a later vintage, trained in the early 1970s and working out of Banbury, reckoned that some of the ex GC drivers he worked with only knew (on their diesels) two regulator positions - stop and flat out. He puts that down to a combination of three things:
1) just the instant power they had available in a diesel
2) the speeds they had got used to on the always 'smartly' timed GC services
3) the fact that during the run-down of the GC in the final years, with the closure of intermediate stations and 'simplification' of signalling, you could go up to 25 miles between signals.
Slightly more hair raising when they transferred those attitudes to the Thames Valley...
There really isn't much excuse for updating a design and not dealing with flaws which were fairly bad, ought to have been known and in the case of the brakes, were dangerous.
Another badly flawed design was the Fowler 7F 0-8-0 of 1929. By the time I'm conscious of, they were fairly rare. I only saw two. But they had quite a good boiler and valve gear stuck on frames and bearings which were no more than a 4F with an extra axle. As a result neither frames nor bearings were adequate for the stresses to which they were subject. The drive twisted and chewed up both.
The wikipedia article makes reference to the potential need to have locomotives or horses available in the event of stopping short.
I wonder whether the idea will be revived in the context of semi-autonomous electric freight vehicles forming land trains on motorways, allowing them to take advantage of slip streaming and for specialised tractor units to draw power from overhead lines and feed it to the rest of the train and stop them running down their batteries. When a lorry reaches its junction it can be disconnected and the driver take it into town.
Shudders violently... That's the kind of idea that would wake me up screaming in the middle of the night.
The potential problems or something more visceral?
funnily enough a couple of people were talking about that within my earshot the other week. Normally at that point I would eavesdrop, but I was busy on another subject at the time!
Slightly out of the blue, and thanks to Messrs Ebay and a sharp intake of breath before pressing 'purchase' I am now the owner of a very well kit built OO gauge N5 in LNER unlined black. Just needs a change of safety valves and modifying the livery to unlined BR black and that's another niche filled for Northants in 1952.
The L3 hunt continues.
The L3s were ugly brutes!
they were (to my eyes the wheels are too small for the loco - although if you take a photo from the front about 35 degrees off front on they do have a certain style), but there were a good handful of them just up the road from me so they need to be on the list. the 4-6-2s were the A5, and I've got one of those on order. The N5 is positively elegant compared to the L3!
The Metropolitan K class in maroon must have looked nice too.
I'll open the bidding with (unusually for me as the Southern is otherwise a total blind spot), the Brighton Atlantics.
What about the Dean or Midland 4-2-2 singles?
Ask this question tomorrow, and I can come up with a completely different list.
I'd also go for the Scots as rebuilt with taper boilers. It's a great pity that by the time the reboilering programme started it was too late for them to appear in red, so that only the rebuilt Fury did, and at that stage without smoke deflectors. With their original boilers they always look a bit top heavy to me, though I never saw one in that condition. BR green never really set off either form adequately. The other class I definitely choose is the 9F. It's hard to beat them for sheer functional style.