Journal of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers
Volume 45 (1955)
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Journal No 243.
Davy, G.V. (Paper No. 541)
Recent trends in electric locomotives: a review of some of the more important
developments in electric locomotives since the beginning of the Second World
War. 18-62. Disc.: 62-97.
General Meeting of the Institution held at the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, London, on Wednesday 12 January 1955 at 5.30 p.m.: Mr. A. Campbell,
President, in the Chair.
Includes bibliography.
S.B. Warder opened the discussion (62-4) noting that Papers on electric traction
were rare:the last dealing with types of electric locomotives generally on
a world basis was that presented by Fairburn about twenty years ago. With
electric traction it was necessary to exercise great care in defining
what was meant by an electric locomotive, because it was not really a prime
mover but a conversion unit. It was that feature which rendered comparison
with other prime movers so difficult. It was also the feature which allowed
the superior performance which must always be obtainable under conditions
where much of the weight had been removed and there was unlimited power behind
the traction units to call upon as required. It was necessary to make this
point because the Author referred to the various types of system which were
available where of course the whole arrangement was interlinked. The fact
that there were so many ways of getting the current to the train underlined
the various combinations of arrangements which were possible on the
locomotive.
It was a pity that the Author in his review of present practice (in fact
he also dealt with past practice going back to the year 1904) omitted mention
of the locomotives on the Southern, because they were unique. These locomotives
which dealt with the gap problem in a 3rd rail system, had a maximum speed
of 85 m.p.h. and happened to have simple nose suspended motors without any
form of resilient drive at all. As the Author stated, in recent years there
had been a marked tendency to depart from the types with cab mounted motors
and carrier axles which were popular some years ago, so that all designs
now had total adhesion and bogie mounted motors. That tendency laid the duty
of guiding the locomotive on the more heavily loaded motored wheels, thus
one of the most important problems confronting designers was to ensure that
in the higher axle load ranges both riding and the effect on the track were
satisfactory at the highest speeds. The experience which British Railways
had gained from the limited experiments which they had carried out showed
that there was not a great deal to be gained by flexible drives so long as
the main criterion was the total weight on the axle. It would seem that the
measures adopted to give the desired flexibility often cancelled themselves
out due to the extra weight which the measures themselves required. From
all that he had seen to date the resilient gear wheel was as good as
anything.
He was particularly interested in what the Author had written about American
practice as he had recently had an opportunity of seeing the Pennsylvania
rectifier locomotive. At the time it was out of service due to an unfortunate
accident during inspection. The interesting point was that there was apparently
no urgency in carrying out repairs since there was no suitable job to put
the locomotive on, its power being too great for normal traffics which were
offering at that particular time. This illustrated the fact that designers
had to take into very close account the utilisation aspect.
The Author referred to the impressive mileages which the SNCF averaged on
specially selected services which was, after all, mainly good diagramming;
but it was not to be expected that such figures could always be obtained
taking the railway system as a whole. A corresponding example was the Southern
Region diesel electric locomotive which was diagrammed for 688 miles a day.
That compared quite favourably with many figures given in the Paper. Another
aspect which was not often appreciated and which must come into the picture,
particularly when considering wholesale electrification or general
electrification where there were freight and passenger services, suburban
and main line, was that of arranging the work in such a way that the power
demand was at its maximum at a time when the national demand was at its lowest.
By that means it could be arranged that the cost of current would probably
be a fraction of what it would be if the full service were operated during
peak hour periods. In this country there was more experience of suburban
services where it was necessary to carry all the people at the same time
in the morning and in the evening thereby creating a heavy maximum demand
factor; but when freight operation was contemplated it was desirable when
diagramming the services to move as much freight as possible in the middle
of the night or day so that the maximum demand was unaffected. In that way
it was possible to secure a general overall economic improvement not only
for the railway organisation itself by reducing the cost of current, but
for the national power networks increased load factor from the corresponding
flattening of the load curve.
Reference was made to maintenance which was as vital from the design point
of view as for the operator. It was rather striking that the American railroads
were prepared to put up with a much higher failure rate than could possibly
be contemplated in this country. Of course, he would not suggest that America
was the place to go to see electric traction. The electrical engineers over
there were too busy making the diesels work !
A great deal of attention was devoted in the Paper to the 50 cycle single
phase type of locomotive and there could be no doubt that there were considerable
potential prospects for that system now that it had been given a new-look
by the various methods of power conversion available on the locomotive.
He could not go all the way with the Author when he spoke about the good
prospects with a 50 cycle motor. One would agree that they were much better
at the present time than they had been in the past, for considerable strides
had been made in AC commutator design; but it was still true to say that
the DC motor had a better traction characteristic than its AC counterpart,
for the AC motor, as was well known, had a relatively poor starting performance
and only showed up to advantage in the high speed ranges. For that reason
it gave a very good performance when hauling fast trains of medium weight,
but on heavy freight service unduly large outputs were required in order
to accelerate the train quickly through the zones of poor commutation to
avoid serious burning of the commutator. He foresaw much greater prospects
for the AC/DC combination with the rectifier in particular.
Reference was made in the Paper to locomotives as mobile substations. That
could be misleading because it gave rather a false impression of the all-up
weight of a locomotive which carried itc- own transformer. In fact the
transformer merely cancelled out the weight of the DC resistance groups which
were required for DC control. The tendency, observed in the slides dealing
with French locomotives, indicated that in the long run a much lighter AC
locomotive was being evolved than for the corresponding case with DC. In
fact if the same rate of progress were maintained it would be necessary,
shortly, to carry ballast to counteract the loss of weight.
It was difficult to know whether one could admire the design of the French
locomotives with the centre cab. They took some getting used to with the
two pantographs, an arrangement which looked rather ugly. In a previous
discussion on this question in another place he happened to remark that with
the centre cab arrangement and the transformer between the bogies the driver
had to sit on top of a live transformer. That remark was capped by a subsequent
speaker who stated that in this country the main problem was to keep the
driver warm whereas it would seem that the French now had the job of trying
to keep him cool ! What does the Author think?
Mr. E. S. Cox (Vice-.President) referred to the question of the power capacity
of electric locomotives and illustrated diagrammatically the characteristics
of the steam, diesel and electric locomotives. In changing the form of motive
power it was sometimes put forward in a facile way that diesel and electric
locomotives of comparable nominal capacities were interchangeable, but because
of the features pointed out by Mr. Warder by which electric traction had
a power station behind it, a performance potential on the electric locomotive
was obtained which was far and away beyond that of any other alternative
form of motive power, and that accounted for the fine performances which
were recorded in many parts of the world. It was found, however, that the
method referred to in the Paper-and one which was commonly used-of describing
electric locomotive performance by a horsepower figure was most misleading,
and undoubtedly the only true method of comparing one electric locomotive
with another, or indeed with any other form of motive power, was to produce
for that locomotive not a wheel rimltractive effort speed curve but a drawbar
pull/speed curve which would take into account the weight of the locomotive
as well.
It was a little surprising to find in the Paper under discussion, and indeed
in most Papers on electric locomotives, no reference to current consumption.
Every Paper on steam locomotives and most Papers on diesel referred at some
stage to the fuel consumption, and the fuel consumption of electric locomotives
was current consumption. No reference was ever made to that, but surely it
must be of some importance and interest, and in the section of the Paper
dealing with the different ways in which 50 cycle current could be applied
to a locomotive comparative current consumptions for the same work must have
some importance.
Referring to the evergreen subject of bogies and bogie designs, the Paper
once again underlined the great variety of designs which were developed,
and it would be interesting to hear from the Author how he or his firm evaluated
the merits of one compared with another. How could he be confident in
recommending to any railway a type of bogie which was to be preferred? Mr.
Cox’s own feeling was that it was a field in which those concerned had
hardly scratched the surface, and a great deal more had to be done to measure
riding and track effects on a comparative basis so that information could
be obtained on what parts it was necessary to improve.
Bruce, J.G. (Paper No. 542)
Overhaul and maintenance of direct-current traction motors. 98-118. Disc.:
118-35.
General Meeting of Institution of Electrical Engineers held at Savoy
Place, London, WC2 on 11 November 1954 to which members of the Institution
of Locomotive Engineers were invited.
Dealt with the general case of conditions appertaining to the DC axle-hung
traction motor, particularly to experience and practice found on the railways
of London Transport.
Maintenance of traction motors falls into three categories:
(a) Running-shed maintenance.
(b) Periodic overhaul.
(c) Repairs and modifications.
(i) Repairs arising from service failures.
(ii) Modifications to improve reliability and performance
Journal No. 244
Foster, G. (Paper No. 543)
Welding of cast iron and steel components in locomotive manufacture and
maintenance. 159-73. Disc.: 173-203.
T. Henry Turner (page) From the point of view of the mechanical engineer
it was obviousiy wise to employ as few processes as possible. “The friends
thou hast, and their adoption tried” applied in this case. It was clearly
impossible non-destructively to test all welds; it was therefore necessary
to concentrate on the best training of welders, using the approved processes.
To help in this, the former LMS Scientific Research Department had an old
four-wheel coach converted into a mobile X-ray laboratory (Fig. 10). The
successor to that coach, an old bogie vehicle, had been in almost continuous
use, visiting last year the locomotive works at Darlington, St. Rollox,
Inverurie, Cowlairs, Crewe and Derby, as well as working at the civil engineering
welding school and on specially important bridge and pontoon construction
in contractors works (Fig. 11). That was a record of scientific application
to this problem which included the use of isotopes as well as ordinary X-rays.
The X-ray apparatus was at one end of the bogie coach and in the middle was
an office, in which films could be shown to the operators who were being
trained. The development of the X-ray films took place at the other end of
the vehicle. That coach had been so useful that there was talk at the moment
of building two more.
MacLeod, W.H. (Paper No. 544)
Some features of railway curving. 204-38. 26 diagrs., 3 tables. .
Relationship between locomotives and the track on curves.
THE PRESIDENT: SESSION 1955-56: Kenneth John Cook.
245-6.
portrait
Biography
Kreissig, E. (Paper No. 545)
The Uerdingen railbus. 265-99. Disc.: 299-317.
Presented in London on 9 March 1955. Mr. A. Campbell, President, said
he desired to apologise on behalf of Herr Kreissig for his inability to be
present at the meeting to read his paper. Herr Kreissig was unfortunately
sick and unable to travel. Members would doubtless wish hiin a speedy recovery
from his illness and a message would be conveyed to Herr Kreissig giving
him news of the meeting. Mr. Jury Koffman, a Member, who was well known to
most present, for he had read papers before the Institution in past years
and also contributed to the discussions from time to time, had stepped into
the breach and had kindly offered to read the paper. The Institution was
indebted to Mr. Koffman in more ways than one in connection with the paper,
because the script arrived in German and Mr. Koffman translated it into English.
Therefore, members could be assured that he was really familiar with the
paper! Mr. J. Koffman then presented the paper entitled “The Uerdingen
Railbus” by E. Kreissig. Also presented in Birmingham on 10 March
1955.
Cox (300) wondered whether the design had been able to get rid of the not
very happy “clump, clump” sensation of the four-wheeled vehicle
passing over rail joints. Anyone who had travelled in a four-wheeled vehicle
had experience of that and it was not particularly restful. It was not possible
to determine from the photographs whether there was any special feature in
the springing to alleviate that difficulty. The combination of disc brakes,
and light tare weight would seem to present an unfavourable situation, so
far as track circuits were concerned, and it would be interesting to know
whether any speciaI measures had been found necessary.
Fore, J. (Paper No 546).
Footplate impressions. 317-21.
Fifth Ordinary General Meeting and Graduates’ Evening, Manchester
Centre, held at the College of Technology on Tuesday 22 February 1955 at
6.30 p.m., the Chair being taken by Col. G. Rigby.
Footplate observations: Stanier Pacifics (both series:Princess Royal far
more difficult to fire); Royal Scot (difficulties in maintaining boiler pressure
when working lightly) and class 5: very impressive performance of these engines
on the heavy express freight trains which link London with the North West
and Scotland. While this class is not so prone to rolling and swaying at
speed as the express passenger 4-6-0s, the knocking and vertical vibration
usually associated with two-cylinder designs is very noticeable when the
engines are becoming due for shop repairs. Their ability to work hard, however,
does not seem to be prejudiced to any great extent by this roughness
Many drivers opened almost fully the LMS dual-valve type of regulator and
then partially returned the handle towards the closed position. The extent
of this reverse movement was generally sufficient to move the pilot valve
back across the main valve but not to close the latter any appreciable amount.
Hence, though the regulator handle was seen to be only about half-way over
the quadrant, the valve itself was almost full open. Observations on locomotives
fitted with steam-chest pressure gauges substantiated this. Moreover, there
was little variation in the range of cut-offe used by different drivers working
similar trains despite the apparent wide choice of regulator opening. The
only British locomotives which were regularly worked with the regulator handle
pulled right over were the ex-LNER “Pacifics” with the double-beat
throttle valves where the actual opening of the valve was roughly proportional
to the travel of the regulator handle and to ensure a good pressure in the
steam chest, the handle must be kept well over.
Freitas, A. (Paper No. 547)
Axle bearings in rolling stock on Indian Railways - a review of design and
performance. 321-48.
General Meeting of Bombay Branch of the Indian and Eastern Centre
held in Bombay on 17 December 1954.
Journal No. 246
Jaekel, F.H. (Paper No. 548)
Operation and running maintenance of locomotives on the Nigerian Railway.
353-82. Disc.: 382-413.
Cook, K.J. (Presidential Address)
The steam locomotive: a machine of precision. 418-49+ 5 folding plates. 11
diagrs. 25 illus.
Zeiss optical equipment for frame alignment. Application of Churchward
type big ends to Gresley Pacifics at Doncaster Works. Realignment of frame
and horns on WD 2-8-0s. Improved lubrication via felt pads to WD
2-8-0s.
Journal No. 247
Cockcroft, Sir J.
Atomic energy and propulsion [Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture]. 458-74.
General Meeting of the Institution held at the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, London SW1, on Wednesday 29 February 1956 at 5.30 p.m.: Mr. K.J.
Cook, President, in the Chair. The President said it was a very great pleasure
and a great honour to introduce Sir John Cockcroft who was to deliver the
Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture. The Institution had waited quite a long
time for the Lecture, and it was very gratifying indeed to see such a good
attendance. Obviously there was an attraction when the subject was one in
which all engineers were vitally interested, particularly at the present
time, The Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture should have taken place the
previous year, but on account of pressure of business, Sir John Cockroft
was unable to come then, but members would doubtless agree that the Institution
had done well to wait until Sir John Cockroft could deliver the lecture in
1953. The Institution had also “won by a day” in that Sir John
Cockcroft had been indisposed and it was the first time in the last few days
that he could have addressed the Institution. The subject was one of intense
interest-“Atomic Energy and Propulsion.” Atomic energy was a subject
which was in everybody‘s mind, particularly in the scientific mind,
at the present time, and the Institution of Locomotive Engineers were
particularly interested in propulsion. It was doubtful whether at the present
time a more fitting and suitable subject could have been dealt with on the
occasion of the Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture.
The only significant direct exploitation of nuclear power in transport was
in the Nautilus submarine, but in the USA consideration had been given to
atomic-powered aircraft and locomotives, but the main problem was the weight
of shielding. The main application to railways was likely to be from nuclear
power stations through electric traction.
Smith, S.A.S. (Paper No. 549)
The British Railways Mechanised Iron Foundry, Horwich. 475-500. Disc.:
500-32.
General Meeting held at Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London,
SWl, on Wednesday, 5 October 1955, at 5.30 p.m.: Mr. K J. Cook, President,
was in the Chair..
Author was Works Manager, Horwich Locomotive Works, British Railways. Of
the 13 Workshops on British Railways where there are iron foundries only
four include Mechanised or Continuous Casting Plants. The four are situated
at Eastleigh, Cowlairs, St. Rollox and Horwich.
The earliest to be constructed was that at Eastleigh erected in 1932, and
from it a variety of miscellaneous castings are produced. The Cowlairs Plant
produces brake blocks and firebars, that at St. Rollox, baseplates, brake
blocks and wagon axleboxes. The Mechanised Plant at Horwich is by far the
larger and in it are produced principally chairs, baseplates and all types
of brake blocks.
There are several factors which under present conditions direct attention
to the possibilities of Continuous Casting Plants as opposed to the Loose
Pattern and Plate Moulding practices.
(1) That the labour need not have had any previous experience.
(2) For a given floor area much greater outputs can be obtained by mechanised
plants than from non-mechanised plants.
(3) Home Office Regulations regarding foundries can be more easily and
effectively met with a high degree of mechanisation.
Discussion: E.S. Cox (503-4)
Bingham, G.S. (Paper No. 550)
Railway breakdown organisation in use on the London Transport system. 533-65.
Disc.: 566-93. 36 figs.
General Meeting of the Institution held at the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, London, SW1, on Wednesday 16 November 1955 at 5.30 p.m: Mr. K.
J. Cook, President, was in the Chair.
The organisation consisted of three breakdown engineers, three assistant
breakdown engineers and nine breakdown gangs, the normal complement of each
gang being a chargehand and five to seven men. These gangs were located at
Neasden, Ealing Common and Hainault Depots, and they each worked on a three-shift
roster covering the 24 hours. These depots were selected to provide the best
possible cover over the London Transport area
Journal No. 248
Wordsworth, C. (Paper No. 551)
Locomotives for heavy industry. 609-36. Disc.: 636-72.
Included traditional steam, geared steam and diesel locomotives used
by the Steel Company of Wales.Until 1934 the Company had used small 0-4-0STs
with 14 x 22in cylinders and weighing 28 to 30 tons. Figure 7 shows two of
these (Nos 208 and 305), but in 1934 a very large 0-4-0ST with external valve
gear, weighing 44 tons was obtained. They had a wheelbase of only 6ft 6in
and tended to pitch badly on anything other than excellent track. In 1941
four more of this type were obtained, but with inside Stephenson valve gear
as the Walschaerts valve gear was prone to damage on slag heaps. In 1948
it was decided to acquire modern large 0-6-0STs with external cyclinders
and valve gear. These had 18 x 26in cylinders..
James. C.E. (Paper No. 552)
Simplified control of a main line diesel electric locomotive. 673-93. Disc.:
693-700.
Experience gained at Brush Traction: aim was to present driver with
vital information in a simple manner.