Volume 36 (1946)
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Journal No. 189

Topham, W.L. (Paper No. 456)
The running man's ideal locomotive. 3-29. Disc.: 29-91.
Mainly concerned with rugged locomotives for rugged terrains, based mainly on experience gained during WW2 in Persia (now Iran) and Egypt: oil firing tends to colour his views. Noted the "unquestionable" desirability of three-cylinder type for high speed passenger work (either 4-6-0 or 4-6-2), and for heavy freight jobs performed by 4-8-0 or 2-10-0 types. The two-cylinder 4-6-2, such as the Indian Standard XB class or the BAGS 12K "is to be eschewed as it hunts notoriously in service especially if provided with Cartazzi slides for the radial wheels instead of helical return springs. Nevertheless did acknowledge the success of LMS class 5.
His proposed "ideal" would have had 5ft 9in coupled wheels, 21in cylinders, a parallel boiler with Belpaire firebox operating at 220 psi. The parallel type was cheaper to produce and cheaper than the taper type. A steel firebox should have been fitted as the copper type was out-moded. Longitudinal stays rather than roof bars were specified. With oil firing roof stay nuts burned. Welded fireholes as used on Buenos Aires Great Southern and BAW were found to be effective. The method employed in the USA for fixing superheaters should be adopted. Three fusible plugs of the type employed on the Egyptian State Railways should be used. "The boiler needed to be big enough for the engine, many good engines were spoilt by too small boilers". Multiple valve regulators combined with the superheater header both avoids the use of snifting valves and ensures that steam is retained in the elements. It was noted that the GWR locomotives had no domes yet the regulators were located in the boiler steam space. Some of this followed experience with 8F 2-8-0s fitted with oil firing: notably burning of torpedo ends of superheater elements. More washout plugs were required to ensure adequate accessibility. Topham considered that the header joint which leaked least was the old Midland Railway pattern of plain face-to-face type. There was further criticism of the 8F: the superheater tubes were only 11 SWG and there had been many burst elements in Persia and Egypt with oil-firing: 9 SWG was advocated. Shorter superheater elements were advocated for oil-firing. Considered that superheaters should be fitted with shut-off valve in the event of burst elements.
The standard GWR smokebox combinging drum with saddle was advocated. The Midland Railway smokebox door was an excellent one and should be fitted with six circumferential clamps. All pipework in smokebox should be of steel not copper as latter deteriorates. Many failures were experienced with GCR ROD type due to lack of belling and welding in steam pipe connections. The blower ring cast integrally with blast pipe cap as fitted to Midland Railway and Egyptian State Railways was recommended. The steam fountain should be placed outside the cab on top of the firebox. This improved accessibility and avoided heat in the cab. Injectors need to be capable of working at high ambient temperatures (as in Persia where feedwater temperatures reached 96° to 109° F): the Seller's monitor injector was simple to change (Figure) and the Nathan injector was also advocated. Feed water pumps and heaters were deprecated ("never live up to reputation in practice").
Advocated clackboxes on side of barrel with  a stop valve, Considered that top feed led to priming. Water gauge of Klinger reflex pattern. Whistle should be of Caledonian type and on cab roof.
Noted the gymnastics needed to operate LNWR brake valves. Advocated crosswise rather than fore and aft operation of brake valve. Westinghouse vacuum ejector was simplest. The blower valve location was critical. Liked the double sliding firehole door fitted by the LMS and GWR. Noted the need for cab seats and advocated thick glass windscreens as fitted to LNER Pacifics and Italian locomotives. Steel chequered cab floors with duck boards under the crew's feet were recommended.
Plate frames were advanced, but these needed to strengthened around the horms: "when a Baldwin 2-8-2 and an LMS 8F collided in Persia it was easy to see who got the best of it" (p. 16). It was considered that bar frames were very weak at the front end. Disc wheels for the bogie were abhorred: "you cannot see what is going on". Commended King class bogie's external axle boxes (17). Automatic pressure relief valves for the cylinders were demanded. Poppet valve gears were too prone to catastrophic failure for the service envisaged. The Walschaerts valve gear as developedd for the LNER V2 class was admired. One suggested modification suggested for the union link from the crosshead to the combination lever was for it to be coupled directly to the small end pin as in the USA and on Italian locomotives. Pennsylvania type piston valves were advocated. The screw-type reversing gear as used on the GWR, MR compounds and 2P class was admired. The pistons, crossheads and rods should be of cast steel. A solid single slidebar with renewable bronze slipper liners was recommended and all nuts should be catellated.
The 8F solid bronze bushes with white metal inserts gave excellent service.Knucklepins gave a lot of trouble in service, and should be catellated. Springs should be laminated throughout. Compensating gear good theoretically, but in practice has a lot of disadvantages. Compensating beams add to the weight. Hangers need to sufficiently large. Advocated LMS latest type of axleboxes. In lubrication "grease is the thing", advocated grease guns and candles wherever possible. For the valves and pistons the Detroit sight feed lubricator was better than the Eureka type as the latter gets hotter in service. Flexible rubber connections for lubricants were deprecated as they burnt away. The sandbox should be placed on top of the boiler. A wooden cowcatcher was prefered to steel ones. The Whitaker Automatic Staff Exchange Apparatus was commended (see son's comments in Discussion). The GCR ROD ashpan received specific condemnation as the trailing coupled axle was completely surrounded. The tender should run on four-axle bogie type with the number on the sides. It should be all-welded.
Discussion
The President, F.S. Whalley (29-30) noted that "if a thing was complicated in proportion to its function it was wrong". Draughtmen should have running experience. Operating staff should be involved in design. A.H. Whitaker (30-2) disagreed with statement on parallel boilers: he preferred the taper type. He considered that superheating was taken too far on some freight engines: it was suitable for long-haul, but not for lighter work. The boiler needed to be lagged. During WW2 "'his Company' (LMS?) had borrowed some old engines (K10?) from the Southern Railway, and they had wonderfully efficient injectors which could be detached in a very short time": these were presumably Urie-type. Agreed for the need of strong buffer beams. Thanked the speaker for recognizing his father's work. W. Cyril Williams (32-3) was critical of Topham's slant: 8F class were neither designed for Persia nor for oil-firing. Also suggestion that excessive emphasis placed upon Argentina and worse still Italy. Highly critical of Topham's observations on bar frames: the British locomotive industry had exported hundreds of locomotives with bar frames. Power reverse was essential for large locomotives.

Journal No. 190

Cox, E.S. (Paper No. 457)
A modern locomotive history: ten years' development on the L.M.S. — 1923-1932. 100-41. Disc.: 141-70; 275-6. 9 illus., 14 diagrs. (incl. 9 s. els.), 11 tables.
Major paper in terms of steam locomotive history: it generated a considerable amount of discussion, and therefore needs to be read in association with Cox's Locomotive panorama. Several unfulfilled projects are considered: a Hughes design for a Flamme type 4-cylinder 2-10-0 (Fig. 2); a 1924 design for a 4-6-0 based on the compound 4-4-0 with a boiler which Cox considered led to the Royal Scot type (Fig. 6). Figures 7 and 8 show the Fowler 4-cylinder compound designs for 4-6-2 and 2-8-2 and Fig. 9 shows the cylinder layout to have been adopted. A notable feature was the proposed large combustion chamber. Long lap valve gear would have been employed. Cox considered that the problem of incorporating a large compound within the British loading gauge had been solved (this assertion does not appear to repeated in Locomotive panorama). The four-ply frame construction at the back end of the trailing truck was incorporated in the later LMS Pacifics. Cox claimed that some cylinders were actually cast. Fig. 11 shows the starting valve fitted to No. 10456, a Hughes 4-cylinder 4-6-0, rebuilt as a compound in association with the Pacific project which was "the most modern but least known compound engine to run in this country" (he appeared to forget that the Gresley high-pressure locomotive was a compound). Fig. 12 (graph) showed annual coal consumption in the period 1927 to 1938 for 4-cylinder 4-6-0 (1929: 53lbs/mile; 1933 60 lbs/mile); standard compound (1927: 44 lbs/mile; 1937: 51lbs/mile); Prince of Wales (constant 52lbs/mile), Hughes 4-6-0 (constant 60lbs/mile) and class 2P 4-4-0 (47 lbs/mile).
Discussion at Derby Meeting on 14 January 1946; J.C. Loach (161-3) was highly critical of the LMS lack of a small smart tank engine. The Stanier 2-6-2T still had an undersized boiler. He was also critical of the bissel trucks in spite of Stanier having modified them with bolster bearing pads and check springs. The 16ft 8in fixed wheelbase was excessive and the overhang was appreciable: he suggested 14ft or 14ft 6in. Cox replied that the wheelbase was an "old Spanish custom" at Derby, and that in later designs this had been reduced..: D.W. Sanford (163-4) made a contribution which O.S. Nock was apt to paraphrase: "it had been very pleasant to hear the Author recall the very interesting years that followed the formation of the L.M.S., particularly for those who were there at the time. It seemed to him that the three English locomotive centres had very different outlooks. At Derby the nice little engines were made pets of. They were housed in nice clean sheds, and were very lightly loaded. There must have been a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Engines in existence. At Horwich they had gone all scientific and talked in "thous.", although apparently some of their work was to the nearest half-inch. At Crewe they just didn't care so long as their engines could roar and rattle along with a good paying load, which they usually did. As regard Horwich contribution, he thought that mention should have been made of the very excellent Dynamometer Car which was designed and constructed by the old L. &. Y. That was far in advance of anything used in this country, ... Whilst it would. appear that Crewe design was largely inspired by Heath Robmson, it must be admitted that the Western Division of the L.M.S. took heavy loads: although servicing facilities at sheds were poor.". Also commented upon the replacemrent of Schmidt piston rings by narrow rings: on the Royal Scots where coal consumption was reduced from 70lb/mile to 35lb/mile. A similar replacement on the Claughton class reduced coal consumption to that attatined by the Caprotti modified engines. Finally he noted that the advantages of long travel valve gear had been described by Colburn and that Benjamin Connor had used it on Caledonian locomotives in 1859.
Discussion at Newcastle Meeting on 27 February 1946 R.A. Smeddle (168-9) that the old North Eastern Railway did not have comparable problems in terms of rivalry which the Midland and LNWR shared as the other constituents of the LNER were much smaller! He had seen the first Royal Scot on a visit to NBL and considered that it was "a most impressive locomotive" and experience of Lentz oscillating cam and rotary cam valve gears led him to believe that poppet valves caused less problems than Walschaerts or Stephenson valve gears . J.J. Lovatt (169) considered that a disadvantage of poppet valves was the large cylinder clearance and that this led to eddy currents in the flow of the exhaust steam.
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Journal No. 191

Bond, R.C. (Paper No. 458)
Ten years' experience with the L.M.S. 4-6-2 non-condensing turbine locomotive, No.6202. 182-230. Disc.: 231-65 + 10 folding plates. 4 illus., 20 diagrs. (incl. 4 s.els.), 10 tables.
Ljungstrom non-condensing turbine 2-8-0 locomotive on the Grangesberg-Oxelösund Railway: illustration and side elevation. The turbines (one for forward, and another for reverse working) were the major distinguishing feature and these in turn placed considerable demands upon the lubricating system, and to some extent upon the boiler. A feed water heater was fitted. There was a double blast pipe and chimney. It was soon found that the degree of superheating needed to be increased. Roller bearings were fitted. There are data on availability and a detailed record of repairs. Table 2 compared coal and water consumption of the turbine locomotive with Princess Royal Nos. 6212 and 6210 on London to Glasgow workings with a dynamometer car:

Bond used these data to show that No. 6202 achieved a lower coal consumption of over 6% except in the case of one run by No. 6212. Data compared the hammer blow inflicted by three classes: Coronation at 72 mile/h 3.47 tons per rail (whole engine: .24); 5XP at 72 mile/h 8.31 tons per rail (whole engine: .61) and classs 5 at 64 mile/h 7.59 tons per rail (whole engine: 9.03)  Data were presented which showed that coal consumption of the Royal Scot class increased by 8% over 28,000 miles of running due to wear in the valves and pistons. Hammer blow and wear in cylinders was eliminated in No. 6202. Discussion: Stanier (231-3) opened the discussion by noting how he and Dr Guy of Metropolitan Vickers visited Sweden to see a Ljungstrom non-condensing turbine 2-8-0 locomotive on the Grangesberg-Oxelösund Railway. He admitted that it had been a mistake to use a boiler with too small a superheater, basing this on Swindon practice. E.S. Cox (232-3) noted that he had observed the Pennsylvania Railroad turbine locomotive at work when it was scheduled to perform the Chicago to Crestline round-trip of 580 miles within 24 hours. He had observed the locomotive from the footplate between Chicago and Fort Wayne (148 miles). H. Rudgard (233) noted that the locomotive was extremely smooth running, but that the tubes tended to get dirty more quickly. He stated that the tests of the Beyer-Ljungstrom tended to suffer from the locomotive only being allowed on the main line with special permission and at the slightest sign of trouble it was taken off. T. Henry Turner (239) noted that the smoother traction would be appreciated by the passengers; D.R. Carling (243-4) noted that there had been improvements in condensing mechanisms, the possibility of using a geared reciprocating engine for travel in the reverse direction, and possibly acting as a "booster" to assist in starting: he also refered to S.R.M. Porter's B-E bogie. H.I. Andrews (252) could not understand what was going on inside the turbine when the locomotive was exerting tractive force at standstill: Bond replied to this with the assistance of R.A. Struthers of Metropolitan-Vickers (pp. 255-6): basically the energy is briefly converted to heat within the turbine,.

Tritton, Julian S. (First Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture)
Locomotive limitations. 283-323.
Figure 7 shows the now well-known photograph of bogie Sentinel locomotive for Colombia with Woolnough boiler in Belgium with distiguished guests, including Gresley and Bulleid. Noted that locomotive had excellent ride and reached 56 mile/h. On p. 296 it was claimed that King class had exceeded maximum dimensions for a narrow grate. On page 297 there is an extensive quotation from Sir Alan Mount's Report of the Pacific Locomotive Committee in which it was stated that high speed operation of heavy modern engines will cause inestimable damage to unsuitable track. He then proceeded to examine flange forces on the track examining work performed in France, Germany, America and India. He then considered large articulated locomotives: the American Mallet and the Beyer Garratt and high pressure and multi-cylinder designs, notably the Schwartzkopf-Loeffler locomotive and the Swiss Locomotive Company's 4-6-4 of 1937 for the Chemin de Fer du Nord which employed Uniflow cylinders. He followed this by describing relatively traditional diesel electric and gas turbine motove power.

Journal No. 192

Kelway-Bamber, Herbert (Paper 459)
Coal and its Post-war carriage on British Railways. 332-7. Disc.: 337-47.
Statistics of coal conveyed:: criticism of failure to employ bogie wagons and the low (9.5 tons) amount conveyed per wagon.

Smith, K.A. (Paper No. 460)
Stages in the development of a railway dynamometer car. 348-80. Disc.: 360-89.
Includes a brief analysis of the various types of dynamometer then available. This is followed by a description of a new dyanamomter car constructed for the New South Wales Railways.

Journal No. 193

Whalley, F.S. (Presidential Address).
The work of their craft. 401-29. 28 illus., 8 diagrs., map.
Mainly an account of the "Liberation" type built for UNRRA: the United Nations Relief & Rehabilitation Administration: the 8F and Riddles Austerity designs are also considered: there were similarities between the Liberation and Austerity designs. The Liberation type had a wide firebox as the Berne loading gauge is more generous. The tender was very similar to that fitted to the Austerities but ran on two bogies. Amongst the many illustrations there are two of locomotives in transit by road to Liverpool docks. The road trailer was capable of being steered from the rear and ran on solid rubber tyres. There are further pictures of the locomotives at the dockside and being loaded into the hold of a ship...

Nightingale, W.A. and Kamlani, M.V. (Paper No. 461)
The use of experimental data in fixing the proportions of locomotive boilers. 430-69. Disc.: 469-86. Bibliog. 36 diagrs.
Based on Indian conditions. pp. 443-6: ashpan losses at low firing rates lesser proportion of total fuel consumed than at high firing rates.

Journal No. 194.

Eastwood, Frank. (Paper No. 462)
Workshop gadgets in railway shops. 491-577. Disc.: 577-88.
Broad gauge railways in the Argentine.

2008-05-06