Clouds of steam anthology
A virtual anthology about British railway motive power, especially the steam locomotive. At present it is divided into five sections: a broad chronology (from George Stephenson to British Railways standard types); boilers (which should be joined by everything from buffer beams to poppet valves), footplate experiences and names and "other trivia", and poetry with Night Mail at the beginning.
George Stephenson and the Great Builders. from
Michael
Robbins The railway
age. Oxford University Press, 1966. pp. 18-19.
There would have been much less misunderstanding about the nature
of Stephenson's work if people had not persisted in regarding it as principally
a matter of mechanical engineering. The invention of the steam locomotive
has tended to steal the picture. In its development, though Stephenson certainly
played a very prominent part, he has to share the credit with a number of
other men. But he has more important claims. With his equally gifted son
Robert, he was really more notable as a civil engineer—the actual
construction of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway was a prodigious feat
for its age, and it was immediately recognized as such. But he was outstanding
as the organizer of success. His administrative methods may have been
undeveloped, but he had a conception, shared by some of his influential backers
in the 1820s but not at that time by his brother engineers, of the Railway
as an entity-of its construction, motive power, commercial potentialities,
and internal management—underlying all his immense activity. What was
more important, he had the force of character to convince doubters and to
override obstinate opposi- tion. This is well shown in the minutes of evidence
on the first Liverpool & Manchester Railway bill, which have been reprinted
and are not difficult to come by. They show the best legal brains of the
capital set against the self-educated mechanic from Tyneside; and they show
how character at length got the victory over brains. Not that Stephenson
was destitute of brains—far from it; but it was tenacity of character
that secured victory for the bill, at the second attempt. Stephenson showed
during the hearings on the first bill that he had the stuff in him that would
command eventual success; and it did.
Sharpies from
Hamilton Ellis The beauty of old
trains. London: Allen & Unwin, 1952. p. 32
Probably the most beautifully satisfying to look upon of all the very
early engines were the celebrated Sharpies, for so were called the standard
engines of Sharp Roberts and Company, built from the late 'thirties onwards.
They owed their perfection by contemporary standards, not to an Englishman,
but to an immigrant Saxon, for this is believed to have been the maiden design
of the worthy Charles Beyer, a native of Plauen, who had studied under
Redtenbacher and had applied himself to aesthetics as well as mechanics and
physics, with all the diligence of the earnest and conscientious German.
This was the Beyer who later went into partnership with Richard Peacock,
to found one of the most famous firms of locomotive builders in the
world.
Non-standard Standards from Michael R. Bonavia.
The birth of British Rail. London: Allen & Unwin, 1979.
p. 55
Riddles and his team were meanwhile proceeding with gusto to develop
the new standard' designs for BR locomotives. I have put 'standard' in inverted
commas, because so- called standardisation schemes often act in reverse —
they merely add to the total number of types in service for which spares
have to be kept and know how acquired — unless certain conditions are
fulfilled. First, the inspirer of standardisation must be reasonably certain
of a long period in office, and that his successor will not prematurely discard
his policies. This, for instance, was not the case when Edward Thompson
formulated his 'standardisation' plan for the LNER as he had only a short
expectation of years in office. Next, a continuing demand for the type of
motive power involved must be predictable for at least a quarter of a century,
preferably longer. Lastly, there must be the financial resources clearly
in sight for large-scale scrap-and-build, quickly replacing non-standard
by standard products — as when Stanier took office on the LMS. None
of these prerequisites was present when the Riddles team plunged into their
task.
Clan class Pacifics from
Cecil.J. Allen . British Pacific
locomotives. London: Ian Allan, 1962. p. 218
Why in any event it should have been thought necessary to supplement
the large numbers of other Class '6' types, such as the L.M.S. 'Jubilee'
4-6-0s (the former Class 'SX') by a type of greater weight and cost, and,
as it turned out, little if any greater tractive power, is a mystery. The
'Clans' never appeared in any regular working as replacements of the 'Jubilees'
on the Midland Division of the L.M.R., nor on the Great Central line. No.
72009 Clan Stewart made a brief appearance on the Great Eastern line
as a proposed substitute for the latter's 'Britannia' Pacifies, but after
trial runs between Liverpool Street and both Clacton-on-Sea and Norwich the
outcry raised by the prospect of so dubious a bargain resulted in a speedy
return of the stranger north of the Border. It had been thought that the
'Clans' would take over the working of the Highland main line, and also the
lines between Glasgow St Enoch and Stranraer and Stranraer and Carlisle,
but this did not happen.
Rebuilding the Bulleid Pacifics from J.E.
Chacksfield. Ron Jarvis: from Midland Compound to the HST.
Monmouth: Oakwood Press, 2004. p. 127.
Some suggestions were ignored, for example, in the early days of the
investigative work the suggestion came from BR Headquarters that a rebuild
to a two-cylinder layout might well be required. Ron took careful note to
put this on one side as it would result in such major changes to the locomotive
as to destroy the existing design concept, which in principle was sound enough.
There remained a further batch of major modifications required to complete
the ultimate rebuild, viz:
The switch to three independent sets of valve gear
A new centre cylinder and front frame stiffening
A new smokebox assembly
Deletion of the air-smoothed casing
The Brighton office was, at that time fully committed on the support of the
BR Standard class '4' 2-6-4T and 4-6-0, plus the design of the 2-10-0 and
the 2-10-0 with the Crosti boiler, when the order to proceed on the Pacific
came through from Mr A. Smeddle, the deputy Regional CM&EE. Ran accordingly
set up a small development section under Michael Lockhart to achieve the
redesign, which was, by now, an extremely urgent task.
The basic remit to which Ron was constrained to work is probably best put
in his own words from a letter to Col H.C.B. Rogers in later years: 'The
whole principle of the exercise was to eliminate the unsatisfactory features
and retain the many excellent ones the original design included. Moreover,
nothing was to be changed unless there was a very clear case for making a
change.' The first big problem was to see if three sets of Walschaerts valve
gear could be applied, if possible, to the existing cylinders. It was soon
evident to Ran that the middle cylinder would have to be replaced and the
steam-chest moved to one side to line up with the valve gear in the space
between the connecting rod and the right-hand frame plate. One feature of
the new inside cylinder assembly was that the valve had inside admission
as against the previous outside admission. This eased the worries about access
for maintenance of the glands which would only be exposed to exhaust pressure.
The outside cylinder valve glands were easily accessible for any rectification
needed. The resulting middle engine drew heavily on those employed on the
'Schools' class and the Stanier 'Jubilee'. The outside cylinder valves were
located such that it was possible to link onto the new valve gear, the original
units could therefore be used.
The manufacture of a new inside cylinder assembly enabled a new fabricated
smokebox saddle to be provided, which was bolted to the front of the cylinder
casting. The whole assembly made a very solid bracing for the front frames.
The new outside Walschaerts gear was very similar to that on the BR class
'4' 2-6-4T. A modification had to be made to the final drive to the valve
spindle based on the need to translate the actuation to the cylinder vertical
centre line. Here Ron's knowledge of some German valve gears, picked up in
Turkey all those years ago, came in useful to guide the draughtsman detailed
to cover this change.
Roof stays. L.P. Ahrons The British
Steam Railway Locomotive 1825-1925. London: Locomotive Publishing
Co., 1927. p. 175.
The fire-box with direct roof stays in place of girders made its
appearance in W. Bouch's Stockton and Darlington engines, but it is by no
means certain that these were the first engines in this country to have this
method of staying. It had previously been employed in Belgium and France,
and direct stays in combination with roof girders had been used in America.
According to the late Edward Reynolds direct stays had been used in some
of the earliest Great Northern engines, the date of which was not
given.
Water-gauges. James T, Hodgson
and Charles S. Lake. Locomotive
management. 9th ed. London: Technical Press, 1948. p. 95
From the well-known fact that one of the most common causes of boiler
explosions is shortness of water, it will be understood readily that the
water-gauge fittings on the front plate are essential adjuncts to a boiler.
Two sets of gauge-glass fittings are usually employed, so that one acts as
a check against the other, and as a safeguard should one require repairing
or not be working properly. The glass tube water-gauge consists of a straight
glass tube connected by fittings at the top end to the steam space in the
boiler, and at the bottom end with the water; the bottom end of the glass
is fixed above the highest part of the heating surfaces. The gauge glass
is a simple and yet effective method of showing the water level, the steam
being transparent in the glass, and the water rising to its own level in
the boiler. One of the principal objections to the use of gauge glasses is
the chance of injury to the driver and fireman by the bursting of a glass.
In recent years, however, it has been the practice to incorporate in the
upper and lower arms of gauge glass fittings, a ball and a spring valve which
automatically shuts off the steam and water in the event of the gauge glass
tube breaking under pressure. Further protection is also afforded by the
adoption of protectors which prevent a shattered gauge glass from flying
in all directions.
Boiler explosions. C.H. Hewison
Locomotive boiler explosions. Newton Abbot: David & Charles,
1983. p. 39
When the 6.15am train from Paddington arrived at Swindon on 7 February
the engine was taken off and the Actaeon was attached, taking the
train forward to Gloucester; there Actaeon drew off two of the carriages,
put one in a siding and was gravitating back towards the train on a down
gradient, propelling the other carriage, when the boiler burst. The two
safety-valves were blown sky high, falling through the goods shed roof 30
yards away, a piece of the boiler penetrated the wall of a house nearly 300
yards distant, and the bottom half of the boiler was forced down with such
violence that it broke the crank axle. Casualties are not mentioned in Captain
Wynne's report on the case.
There was no question of excess steam pressure; the safety-valve ferrules
were intact and tampering could not have taken place. Wynne found that the
boiler's bottom plates had become 'deeply pitted with innumerable indentations,
apparently the effect of some corrosive action, and along the junction of
the bottom plates with the side plates, on the boiler's right-hand side,
there was a deep channel eaten away to some extent, reducing the thickness
of the plate to 1/10 in, evidently the effect of the same action'. 'The
conclusion appears irresistible' he went on, 'that the explosion was caused
by the plates being so much reduced in thickness as to be no longer capable
of resisting the ordinary working pressure of the steam'.
Wynne's report on the Actaeon explosion was the first from the RI
that mentioned boiler pitting. 'Believing the question [of pitting] to be
one of great and growing importance, I applied to Dr Tyndall, Professor of
Physics at the Royal Institution', but the only help that this scholarly
individual appears to have been able to offer was that 'science probably
furnishes the means for its prevention'. Wynne followed this up with a long
conclusion, which in brief was that the interiors of boilers needed inspection
at reasonably frequent intervals; he revealed that it was almost five years
since the interior of Actaeon's boiler had been examined, and therefore
since anyone knew what was going on there.
On the Flying Scotsman. Eric Gill (via Stuart
Legg's The Railway book S112)
"Well, did you get your ride on the engine?"
"Rather! "
"What was it like?"
"Marvellous, simply marvellous—a jolly sight more mar vellous than you'd
expect and yet in some ways quite the opposite."
I got to King's Cross about 9.30 (wasn't going to risk being late) and, after
a cup of tea and a sandwich, I ventured into the guard's van of the train,
at which the guard, looking very spruce, had just arrived with bag and flags
and what not, and said: "I say, good morning, look here, it's like this;
I've got this engine pass to Grantham.' "Oh, have you?" " Yes, and, I say,
can I leave my bag in here till I come off the engine?" No objection to that,
so I stepped back on to the platform and there I saw Mr. Sparke, the District
Locomotive Superintendent, and a friend of his. Mr. Sparke had very kindly
come to introduce me to Mr. Young of Newcastle, the driver of the engine,
and his friend kindly presented me with a nice clean swab to wipe my hands
on from time to time. (Forgot all about it afterwards, but kept it as a memento!)
The engine, No. 2582 of Newcastle, then backed in and I was introduced to
Mr. Young—very grand and important and an object of curiosity to the
group of enthusiasts on the platform (I mean me, not Mr. Young).
I was born beside the railway at Brighton, and I spent most of my childhood
examining and drawing locomotives, and what surprised me now was, first,
how little things had changed in fundamentals since I was a child 35 years
ago and, second, how simple in idea the mechanism of steam engines still
is. A detail that struck me immediately was that the throttle lever on the
L.N.E.R. engine was worked by pulling it upwards towards you whereas on the
engines of my Brighton childhood it was worked by a lever at right angles
to the axis of the boiler.
The remaining few minutes were spent in explanations of the brake apparatus,
steam pressure required—the names of this and that and then someone
called up from outside: "right you are" and I gathered that it must be exactly
10.0. The engine was driven from the right-hand side, so I was given the
piano-stool or perch on the left side, with one foot on a pail (a quite ordinary
household-looking pail) and the other dangling. Up to this time the fireman
had been doing various odd jobs about the place. He now shut (if you can
call it shutting, for it only about half covered the gap) the iron door between
engine and tender, and Mr. Young, having made a suitable response to the
man outside who had shouted "right you are," pulled up the handle (both hands
to the job and not too much at a time—a mouthful, so to say, for a start,
to let her feel the weight) and, well, we simply started forward. It's as
simple as that. I mean it looks as simple as that.
And, immediately, the fireman started shovelling coal. I shouted some apology
to him for taking his seat. I could not hear his reply. It was probably to
say that he had no time for seats. He shovelled in about 6 shovelsful; then,
after a few seconds' pause, another half dozen—a few seconds' pause
and then six or more shovels and so on practically without stopping the whole
time. What strikes you about this, even more than the colossal labour of
the thing and the great skill with which he distributes the coal in the fire
and his unerring aim in throwing a pretty big shovelful of coal through a
not very large opening, what strikes you is the extraordinary primitive nature
of the job. You stand in a space about as big as a hearthrug spread out longways
to the fire and you take a shovelful of coal out of a hole at one end and
throw it through a hole in the other end—spilling a bit every time.
You go on doing this for hours. Your attention must be as great as your skill
and strength. You must watch the pressure gauges and you must watch the state
of the fire at the same time. And your only relaxations are when, on entering
tunnels or passing stations, you give a tug at the whistle handle and when,
on a signal from the driver, you let down the water scoop to take up water
from the trough between the rails (which occurs every hundred miles or so).
And talking of primitive things, look at the whistle handle! It is a round
ring on the end of a wire (there is one on each side of the cab). It dangles
down about a foot from the roof. When the train is travelling fast you have
to make a bit of a grab for it as it is never in the same place for two seconds
together. On receiving a nod of acquiescence from Mr. Young, I pulled the
handle myself as we approached Peterborough, and again as we went, at reduced
speed, through the station itself. (My first pull was but a timid little
shriek, but my second was it seemed to me, a long bold blast.)
But don't imagine I'm complaining or sneering about this primitiveness. It's
no more primitive or less venerable than sawing with a hand-saw or ploughing
with a horse plough. I only think that it's surprising how these primitive
methods persist. Here we were on an engine of the most powerful kind in the
world, attached to one of the most famous of all travelling hotels—the
string of coaches called The Flying Scotsman—with its Cocktail Bar and
Beauty Parlours, its dining-saloons, decorated in more or less credible imitation
of the salons of eighteenth-century France, its waiters and guards and attendants
of all sorts, its ventilation and heating apparatus as efficient as those
of the Strand Palace Hotel, and here we were carrying on as if we were pulling
a string of coal trucks.
All the luxury and culture of the world depends ultimately upon the efforts
of the labourer. This fact has often been described in books. It has often
been the subject of cartoons and pictures—the sweating labourer groaning
beneath the weight of all the arts and sciences, the pomps and prides of
the world—but here it was in plain daily life.
And what made it even more obvious was the complete absence of connection
with the train behind us. The train was there—you could see if it you
looked out when going round a bend—but that was all. And just as the
passenger very seldom thinks about the men on the engine, so we thought nothing
at all about the passengers. They were simply part of the load. Indeed there
may not have been any passengers—we weren't aware of any.
And the absence of connection between engine and train was emphasized by
the entirely different physical sensations which engine travelling gives
you. The noise is different—you never for a moment cease to hear, and
to feel, the effort of the pistons. The shriek of the whistle splits your
ears, a hundred other noises drown any attempt at conversation.
Though the engine is well sprung, there is a feeling of hard contact on the
rails all the time—something like riding on an enormously heavy solid-tyred
bicycle. And that rhythmic tune which you hear when travelling in the train,
the rhythm of the wheels as they go over the joins in the metals (iddy UMty
. . . iddy UMty . . . &c.) is entirely absent. There is simply a continuous
iddyiddyiddy ... there is no sensation of travelling in a train—you
are travelling on an engine. You are on top of an extremely heavy sort of
cart-horse which is discharging its terrific pent-up energy by the innumerable
outbursts of its breath.
And continuously the fireman works, and continuously the driver, one hand
on the throttle lever, the other ready near the brake handle (a handle no
bigger than that of a bicycle and yet controlling power sufficient to pull
up a train weighing 500 tons) keeps watch on the line ahead for a possible
adverse signal. If the signals are down they go straight ahead, slowing down
only for the sharper curves and the bigger railway junctions. You place absolute
trust in the organization of the line and you know practically every yard
of it by sight. You dash roaring into the small black hole of a tunnel (the
impression you get is that it's a marvel you don't, miss it sometimes) and
when you're in you can see nothing at all. Does that make you slow up? Not
at all—not by a ½ m.p.h. The signal was down; there can't be
anything in the way and it's the same at night. I came back on the engine
from Grantham in the evening, simply to find out what they can see. You can
see nothing but the signals—you know your whereabouts simply by memory.
And as for the signals: it's surprising how little the green lights show
up compared with the red. It seemed to me that they went more by the absence
of a red light (in the expected place) than by the presence of a green one.
You can see the red miles away but the green only when you're almost on it.
And if it seemed a foolhardy proceeding to rush headlong into tunnels in
the day time, how much more foolhardy did it seem at night to career along
at 80 miles an hour in a black world with nothing to help you but your memory
of the road and a lot of flickering lights—lights often almost obliterated
by smoke and rain. And here's another primitive thing: You can generally
see nothing at all through the glass windows of the cab at night because
the reflections of the firelight make it impossible. To see the road, to
see the signals, you must put your head out at the side—weather or no.
The narrow glass screen prevents your eyes from being filled with smoke and
cinders, but, well, it seems a garden of Eden sort of arrangement all the
same.
And they don't even fill the tender with coal of the required size. Sometimes
a big lump gets wedged into the opening and has to be slowly broken up with
a pickaxe before it can be dislodged—what about that? Well, I call it
jolly fine; but it's jolly rum too, when you think of all the electric gadgets
and labour-saving contrivances which the modern housewife thinks herself
a martyr if she don't get.
Up the long bank before Grantham—yes, and you notice the ups and downs
when you're on the engine. They are both visible and hearable. You hear the
engine's struggle (there's no "changing down" when it starts "labouring").
You feel it too, and looking straight ahead, and not only sideways like the
millionaire in the train behind, you see the horizon of the bank before you.
It looks like a hill. And when you run over the brow you see the run down
and you hear and feel the engine's change of breath, you hear and feel the
more easy thrust of the pistons.
And, on the return journey, going down into London in the dark (on No. 2750
with Mr. Guttridge and Mr. Rayner, a London engine and London men) with steam
shut off and fire nearly out—just enough fire to get home with—we
were pulled up by an adverse signal. Good that was too. Nothing visible in
the blackness but the red lights over our heads. Silence—during which
the fireman told me that Mr. Guttridge had driven the King 28 times. Suddenly
one of the lights turned green—sort of magical. "Right ho," said the
fireman. Eric Gill. Letters. 1947
This is the night mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich. letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door,
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb--
The gradient's against her but she's on time.
Past cotton grass and moorland boulder,
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses;
Birds turn their head as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches;
Sheepdogs cannot turn her course
They slumber on with paws across,
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.
Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs, yelping down the glade of cranes
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Seton the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her;
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs,
Men long for news.
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations,
And timid lovers' declarations,
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands,
Notes from overseas to me Hebrides;
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, me violet, me white and the blue,
The chatty, me catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and me heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and me printed and the spelt all wrong.
Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters
Or a friendly tea beside me band at Cranston's or Crawford's;
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen.
They continue their dreams
But shall wake soon and long for letters.
And none will hear me postman's knock
Wimout a quickening of me heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
W.H. AUDEN
ERIC GILL
What's in a name? Lambert p. 45
On 15 January 1938, Éamon de Valera was travelling from Holyhead
to Euston. When it was discovered that the only locomotive available was
'Royal Scot' No. 6122 Royal Ulster Rifleman, it was prudently agreed
the nameplates should be removed. This proved a wise decision, as his arrival
was awaited by a tumultuous reception party which might not have appreciated
the irony.
274. Drawing engines
I have said before that from my earliest years I had always been fond
of drawing engines and bridges and signals and tunnels. As time went on this
enthusiasm was canalised more and more into the drawing of locomotives. Whether
or no I was any good at it does not matter. The point is that I was always
doing it and with progressively greater and greater attention to the details
of structure and the technique of draughtsmanship. I knew little or nothing
of mathematical drawing. I used rulers and compasses, but as regards measurements
and proportion I went entirely by eye. I was very much concerned with the
structure and movement and purposes of locomotives, because you can't make
a good drawing of anything unless you know how it works and what it is for.
This may be a "heresy" from the point of pure aesthetics but I wasn't interested
in such things then and am only interested in them now in order to repudiate
them. But what I was primarily concerned with then was locomotives as such,
their character, their meaning. And as this character and meaning were manifest
in their shape, it was their shape I was determined to master. I laboured
under the spur of this enthusiasm for ten crowded years. I don't know how
many hundreds of drawings I made. Perhaps it was not very many; for I could
only do them in my spare time in the evenings and in holidays - on the
breakfast-room table when the things had been cleared away and before the
time came for the next meal to be laid. I suppose I was a pretty good nuisance,
but my parents were proud of the result and encouraged me, and once or twice
my drawings were even exhibited at school. I suppose I was training myself
to be an engineer. I think I thought that all engineering was like that –
an immense enthusiasm for engines – engines as beings. Engines pulled
trains; they belonged to the Railway Company, they did things and served
purposes. Their construction depended upon a vast amount of mathematical
calculation and knowledge of physics. But, though I saw, though rather dimly,
that I should certainly have to go into all that, it was the shape and character
of the locomotive that really enthralled me.
(c. 1895) Eric Gill, Autobiography (1944 ed.), 73-4