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[Seaspray]

The only good thing that came from Beeching.

My brother-in-law worked for B.R. and ended up staying in a disused railway station in the countryside in Scotland.

 It was great there the last of the steamers knew him and whistled as they came through the station letting us know that they had dumped some very large lumps of coal for his fire. TERRIFIC DAYS.

Seaspray

[Peter Fitness]

All BR steam was single expansion in dual, or as in the case of the Britannia's and the Duke, three cylinders.
 

Sir William Stanier's Princess Royal, and Princess Coronation (or Duchess) class locomotives had 4 cylinders, as did ex GWR King and Castle classes. All these classes of loco operated under BR following the nationalisation of railways in 1948.

Peter.

[oldiron]

All BR steam was single expansion in dual, or as in the case of the Britannia's and the Duke, three cylinders.
 

Sir William Stanier's Princess Royal, and Princess Coronation (or Duchess) class locomotives had 4 cylinders, as did ex GWR King and Castle classes. All these classes of loco operated under BR following the nationalisation of railways in 1948.

Peter.

  Quite right Peter, in fact I'm building a 7 1/4" gauge King, however, they weren't built as BR Standards under BR auspice and under Riddles direction.  By the time of BR, construction of new 4 cylinder locos were finished except for a few Castles constructed at Swindon as a carry over of GWR design until a suitable BR Standard design passenger loco was developed and built.

John

[Peter Fitness]

Sorry John, I didn't realise you were referring to the Robert Riddles Standards only which, as you say, were either 2 or 3 cylinder locos.

Peter.

[oldiron]

Sorry John, I didn't realise you were referring to the Robert Riddles Standards only which, as you say, were either 2 or 3 cylinder locos.

Peter.

  No problem Peter.

Cheers
John

[Seaspray]

Always liked to go up to the station to see the steam locos come in. With their bell ringing and that big bright light on the front.

They seemed hugh as I was a small lad at the time and you had to board them from ground level. You were looking up at them.

Always wondered how B.R. drivers managed to see it the dark without a bright light

Seaspray

[oldiron]

Always liked to go up to the station to see the steam locos come in. With their bell ringing and that big bright light on the front.

They seemed hugh as I was a small lad at the time and you had to board them from ground level. You were looking up at them.

Always wondered how B.R. drivers managed to see it the dark without a bright light

Seaspray

  BR drivers just follow the tracks   
  The headlights looked neat, but in reality, but they didn't (don't) do much more than warn those not on the tracks its not a good time to be there. It takes so long to stop a train a speed that most trains over drive their lights anyway. They're not much help in allowing you to see something and stop in time. Real good for letting you know what you hit though.

John

[tigertiger]

The old Swedish model is interesting (don't know if it is the same today).

The rail infrastructure is nationalised, so the state rail department is in charge of planning, maintenance and new construciton of tunnels etc. (something Railtrack could not contemplate).
The rail operators are private companies that do need to run at a profit.


Perhaps a sensible compromise. And lets face, anybody who develops car safety systems unilaterally (1960s) is probably sensible.

You cannot really run infrastructure on a profit basis, there are nice experiments like the Birmingham North Relief Road (I bet that company is subsisdised). But congestion charging experiments have come to nothing.  Building a tunnel or bridge, to modern standars and modern H&S regs, would take more than the usual 15 year operators licsence, to pay back.
About the only thing you could realistically try to outsource in maintenacne, and we know where that leads (Hatfield, etc.)

And when 'Beeching's axe' did fall, I don't think anybody foresaw the level of growth in car ownership that followed.
I'm not defending Beeching BTW.

Just my two cents.

[oldiron]

  For some reason rail transport companies have always been looked at in a different light than other companies involved in other forms of transport. Airlines don't each have their own airport, highway transport companies (for people and freight) don't each own their own highway system, however, railways have always been expected to own, maintain and pay taxes on their won rail infrastructure.
  Here (Canada) the railways pay property tax on their properties and rights of way to the local municipalities, but that money doesn't come back to them in the form of upkeep of infrastructure as it does in other industry.
  Consequently railways, providing a service, are always expected to make money while carrying the bulk of the financial load on fixed plant upkeep which isn't done by other forms of transport. A completely inequitable scenario.
  This changed slightly during the eighties in the US. There were large scale abandonments of lines that weren't making (enough) money. Instead of tearing up the lines, the state(s) involved relieved the railroads of their deferred property tax burden in exchange for transferring over their infrastructure to be abandoned. The rails were happy to do so, the state(s) treated the acquired rail line as a private highway. They did the necessary upgrades on fixed plant then hired a contractor to run it for them. The contractor paid a nominal lease to the state, but was free of infrastructure costs, and had the opportunity to make a profit on whatever business they could russel up, as any good transport company would. It saved a lot of miles of marginal trackage.
  Here in Ontario, the province allowed the municipalities to raise the property taxes on rail property to whatever level they wanted. The rail companies responded with mass abandonments during the nineties that would have made Beeching blush. Now we have very little in the way of rail infrastructure left. Indeed CP and CN each have only one line across Ontario and there are very few branch lines left.

John

[trainspotter]

Agree that the railways are always treated differently to other transport systems, with the exeption of shipping.  The railways used to own a huge section of UK shipping and this was hived off.  (Some fantastic ship models in the National Railway Museum in York!)

One thing has never changed, the railways will always be a political football that is experimented with and never left to settle and get on with the day job. 

30 years ago electrification was king - the way forward despite the incomming diesels which were initially only short term fill ins.  The change in governance cancelled the main electrification schemes due to recession.  Diesels that did work, run into the ground over the next 20years. 

APT funding given for tilting trains barely sufficient to manage the paperwork let alone keep the experimental and world leading technology running.  Project cancelled just before new mechanisms on the drawing board were implimented.  Technology sold to highest bidder.

Small number of new electrics purchased for limited Intercity and Freight services (only 82 locos) - only significant electrification since on the East Coast - done on the cheap.

1990's Railway gets privatised with promise of private funding - which didnt materialise as each business unit had to make its own profit instead of helping support the whole, so cut the lifeline to anything that needed state support - which then saw subsidies double.

Freight companies take on road transport logistics, and set up door to do service, only to then be under cut by a lorry firms for short term who then go bust.  Customer never returns to rail as the rails have been ripped up, land has been sold off and not protected for future use.

Highest bidder which bought the APT technology makes it work in Italy - sells it to the UK and the Pendolino is born.  Electrification king again but needs fundamental replacement on the West Coast to run the Penodlinos on, but will take 5 years to renew as the infrastructure is life expired.

5 years later, electrification was a dead dog with new 'green' diesels being the flavour of the month invested in by the private freight companies who finally started replacing the worn out 1960's diesels (With American inspired 1970's tech) dont want to fund electrification or use electric and have to switch over to diesel traction where there are no wires anyway. 

Last year fuel prices go up and again electrification becomes a hot potato, despite the Freight companies buying 400ish new diesels between them and not a single electric. 

After fuel prices skyrocket and become the biggest news item since Big Brother started, Transport minister gives OK to 'investigate' further electrification, fuel prices fall within months, financial model for electrification model falls with it!

And full circle recession bites again......

You wouldnt guess that I have loved and worked on the Railway for 18 years would you - not the slightest bit cynical or bitter?????

Glad to have ships as a second past time!

Trainspotter

[Bryan Young]

  For some reason rail transport companies have always been looked at in a different light than other companies involved in other forms of transport. Airlines don't each have their own airport, highway transport companies (for people and freight) don't each own their own highway system, however, railways have always been expected to own, maintain and pay taxes on their won rail infrastructure.
  Here (Canada) the railways pay property tax on their properties and rights of way to the local municipalities, but that money doesn't come back to them in the form of upkeep of infrastructure as it does in other industry.
  Consequently railways, providing a service, are always expected to make money while carrying the bulk of the financial load on fixed plant upkeep which isn't done by other forms of transport. A completely inequitable scenario.
  This changed slightly during the eighties in the US. There were large scale abandonments of lines that weren't making (enough) money. Instead of tearing up the lines, the state(s) involved relieved the railroads of their deferred property tax burden in exchange for transferring over their infrastructure to be abandoned. The rails were happy to do so, the state(s) treated the acquired rail line as a private highway. They did the necessary upgrades on fixed plant then hired a contractor to run it for them. The contractor paid a nominal lease to the state, but was free of infrastructure costs, and had the opportunity to make a profit on whatever business they could russel up, as any good transport company would. It saved a lot of miles of marginal trackage.
  Here in Ontario, the province allowed the municipalities to raise the property taxes on rail property to whatever level they wanted. The rail companies responded with mass abandonments during the nineties that would have made Beeching blush. Now we have very little in the way of rail infrastructure left. Indeed CP and CN each have only one line across Ontario and there are very few branch lines left.

John

Are we back to Gordon Lightfoot days here? With such a huge landmass compared to ours (England) complete privatisation can be the only solution, but here, as with power and water and everything being so closely knit together the state (although I hate to say it) really should have more control over the natural and strategic resources. Fobbing them all off to Johnny Foreigener (BAA comes to mind) is a sure fire way to future disaster. And then Johnny F comes up with a begging bowl. Tough (on us).

[Bartapuss]

Forgot to mention in my last post that of first generation of diesel loco's was for the size and weight the power output (HP) was quite mediocre compared to that say of a coronation or A4 steam loco, hopes were high on improving passenger services and timings and they were pressed into front line service with little development when it would have been better to put them on freight services instead. Probably the biggest Achilles heel of this strategy was not helped by the fact that passenger rolling stock at this time was steam heated, no problem for a steam loco just tap off a supply from the boiler, but in the case of a diesel a steam generator had to be installed in the engine room, which obviously led to further complications and source of breakdowns. These were not a boiler as such but more of a series of coils heated by a fuel oil burner with water pumped in one end and steam coming out the other, only two manufacturer's supplied these, Stones Vapour and Spanner, and both were as bad as each other and were never ever reliable even to their end of use on the system, the thing was that if the boiler did'nt work then usually the whole loco was certified a failure and again sat around awaiting attention of the fitters. I've worked on the Stones and it was a right pig with it catching fire always a potential threat, you would start it up and it would'nt light let it go through the cycle and try again and it still would'nt light then all of a sudden it would take with a bang as the unburnt fuel that was dripping everywhere went up. 
New blood was brought in from the automotive and aero industries as a new approach to design and build the experimental APT (much to the disgust of the established BR engineering hierarchy) which used hydraulic systems to control the tilt mechanism, but when the production series was commenced this team was quickly disbanded. BR engineers used a compressed air system to work the suspension which was harder to control incrementally and suffer from freezing up in cold temperatures, also the equipment used although proven in industry was not able to cope with the rigours of rail traction environment. Despite this they did well remember at the time there was no digital computer or micro processors then everything was the old analogue system, I was a great shame that this project was not put into storage for a few years until the electronics technology could catch up and I remember seeing on TV when they showed gangs of blokes, smashing the 3 or 4 sets of trains that had been built, up with sledge hammers what a waste even though the whole project only cost £50 million.

[farrow]

As mentioned earlier, Beaching was about cutting loss making lines, not switching from steam to another power source. Trouble was in the old railway parlance, secondary and branch lines were feeders to the main line and never officially showed a profit due to the financial system then used. Also when his plan went to the minister, the MP's in marginal seats which were effected lobbied the minister and some were successful, which put more political colour into the story. It should be remembered Beaching was a bus fanatic and most of the buses put in place to replace the railways were removed not long afterwards for not making enough profit.
The real problem was the way forward was overhead 25000v electric system, but the country was too poor after the war to afford it, unlike our continental neighbours. By the way there was a compound steam loco I believe( I say with baited breath), the Midland Railway 4-4-0 loco.

[farrow]

I  forgot to mention, had it not been for the war and the resulting shortage of investment capital after the war, the Southern Railway would have been all third rail electric by the early 50's, as electricfication was thier policy before the war as it better suited the Southern than steam.

[tony23]

this might cheer you guys up, I took these photos in Febuary this year when Tornado came from York and traveling to Kings Cross waited about 2 hours on a snowy embankment for some priceless pictures  

[oldiron]

Good shots! Thanks for posting.

John

[Peter Fitness]

It's great to see some photos of the newest steam locomotive in action. 

Peter.

[Martin (Admin)]

Was that the locomotive that Jeremy Clarkson was shoveling coal?

[Peter Fitness]

Goodness me, Martin, you're up early 

Jeremy Clarkson was probably test driving it to see how it handled 

Peter.

[oldiron]

Was that the locomotive that Jeremy Clarkson was shoveling coal?

  What?!!! Jeremy Clarkson shovel coal?!!!  You must be confused.........Jeremy doesn't do physical work..

John

[gondolier88]

Hi Martin,

Yes that is the very same loco JC was firing on Top Gear.

Just a thought on triple expansion locos- considering compound engines have a volume of expansion of roughly 35-45% that of simple cylinders, meaning in laymans terms a high pressure cylinder @ 20" X 30" would step down to a cylinder roughly 32" X 30"- thats hard enough to fit into a loco- but imagine then having to step down to a third expansive cylinder (giving you triple expansion) using a rather conservative volume of expansion of 30% would give you a cylinder of roughly 40" X 30-  even to a non steam person i'm sure that seems stupid! 

Also, in order for a loco to be an efficient prime mover it needs to be symetrical- ie. weight split 50/50, power split 50/50 looking from the front, and to some degree from the side too- for a triple to be used you would need either 3, 5 or 6 cylinders and when you start having that many cylinders you start comprimising the loco's point of existance- ie. fast, efficient, easy to use, easy to maintain, reliable.

Greg

[oldiron]

Hi Martin,

Yes that is the very same loco JC was firing on Top Gear.

Just a thought on triple expansion locos- considering compound engines have a volume of expansion of roughly 35-45% that of simple cylinders, meaning in laymans terms a high pressure cylinder @ 20" X 30" would step down to a cylinder roughly 32" X 30"- thats hard enough to fit into a loco- but imagine then having to step down to a third expansive cylinder (giving you triple expansion) using a rather conservative volume of expansion of 30% would give you a cylinder of roughly 40" X 30-  even to a non steam person i'm sure that seems stupid! 


Greg

  Don't forget, the Norfolk and Western Y class  articulated compound locomotives used 39 x 32" low pressure cylinders.

John

[gondolier88]

Hi Martin,

Yes that is the very same loco JC was firing on Top Gear.

Just a thought on triple expansion locos- considering compound engines have a volume of expansion of roughly 35-45% that of simple cylinders, meaning in laymans terms a high pressure cylinder @ 20" X 30" would step down to a cylinder roughly 32" X 30"- thats hard enough to fit into a loco- but imagine then having to step down to a third expansive cylinder (giving you triple expansion) using a rather conservative volume of expansion of 30% would give you a cylinder of roughly 40" X 30-  even to a non steam person i'm sure that seems stupid! 


Greg

  Don't forget, the Norfolk and Western Y class  articulated compound locomotives used 39 x 32" low pressure cylinders.

John

Hi John,

Yes your absolutely right about that, but thats a COMPOUND, not a TRIPLE EXPANSION- a third phase expansive cylinder on that loco would be roughly 5ft Dia.!!! Thats wider than the tracks on GB rails!

Greg

[tony23]

I thought you may like to see these clips of a GTG in a members garden in Essex I went to last Saturday of Gauge1 loco's these are live steam fired by meths the Black 9F is my loco pulling 42 mineral wagons and guards van. The guy on the turntable with the base ball cap is me.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr6gbTrDvc0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBnuGj7VHU0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSihzhp4Xw0

[catengineman]

WOW