Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[tony52]

A Deltic locomotive has been brought out of retirement for mainline freight duties.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13592652

[Colin Bishop]

Yes, very impressive, I did enjoy watching it on TV this morning. It will be HMS Warrior and HMS Victory next....

Colin

[Ghost in the shell]

what next, Crewe heretage being asked by Virgin trains to lend them The APT?

[ian kennedy]

This is a no brainer, as HGV running costs rocket.

Steam locomotives will soon be making a comeback too as oil prices rise further and lower supply levels and higher oil demand rises globally on an improving economy%%
It will the canal network that gets a revamp next...just watch and wait!

Ian

[pugwash]

It is being used to run bauxite from the docks at Blyth into the Alcan smelter at Lynemouth where my son works.
Its just down the road from me but I havent seen it yet.

Geoff

[Ghost in the shell]

This is a no brainer, as HGV running costs rocket.

Steam locomotives will soon be making a comeback too as oil prices rise further and lower supply levels and higher oil demand rises globally on an improving economy%%
It will the canal network that gets a revamp next...just watch and wait!

Ian

when it costs £1750 to fill up the average truck tank, its hardly surprising that rail freight is going up, and for me to get to wicksteed this year cost me £40 in fuel and i only have a ford escort 1.8TD that does around 38 to the gallon, i can see small branch lines becoming popular again for passenger travel as long as the prices stay reasonable

[malcolmfrary]

And the BBC still can't tell the difference between a train and an engine.  Probably not just the BBC.

[derekwarner]

Could I ask if any Mayhem member has had to work or supervise work on a Deltic engine be it land or sea based?.......my experience was that Deltic design engine was the work of the DEVIL ....... for marine applications ...... ....Derek

[Circlip]

Company I worked for used to supply the exhaust clamps on the "Hunt" class sweepers. Later, Chidingford was offsprings first command and was doing a shakedown on a replacement Deltic when we went for a day trip (Burial at sea for an Affray ex submariner) on it.

  Seemed to be a full time job checking the sump oil for "Metallic suspensions".

  Regards  Ian.

[wartsilaone]

I believe the Napier Delics were originally designed for marine applications, fast patrol boats and such like. Also that has just been mentioned they are used in the Hunt class mine countermeasures vessels. The engines are very highly strung which accounts for their high casualty rate especially on locomotives when they being revved up and down all the time.

Ali.

[pettyofficernick]

Heres a few phots of one of these marvelous examples of british engineering, taken on board HMS (now TS) Iveston last year.

[wartsilaone]

Is that the E130 or the T9-29? And of course does it run? I think it's a paxman baby deltic, a smaller and older version of the engine used in the BR locos.

[pettyofficernick]

Not sure of model No, Iveston was commissioned in 1955, so it is probably an early one. No, sadly the MOD locked the shafts when the ship was purchased by Thurrock Sea Cadets, I doubt if starter cartridges will be available any more, and I don't think starting it would be allowed anyway. I have a few more phots of the 'innards' if you are interested, incidentally, the schemetic diagram animates if you click on it.
Regards,
Nick

[derekwarner]

Please post them Nick....    they will be the most complex images of a design engineer's work that went off the rails  ....Derek

[wartsilaone]

http://www.royalscotsgrey.com/deltics.htm

[pettyofficernick]

Heres a peek inside one of the crankcases, each crank has 2 con rods attached to it, if you look carefully you can just make them out, also chucked in a phot of one of the generating sets, powered by a Foden FD6, another masterpiece of British engineering. Ton Classes had 6 of them, 4 generating sets and 2 for the active rudders (eggwhisks) There is a copy of a Deltic workshop manual available on the internet, just google it, a most interesting publication. It has phots of the inside of the synchronising case, looks like giant size watchmaking!
Regards,
Nick

[dave301bounty]

Nick ,that lot brings back a lot of very funny times ,I was a mechanic on her ,prop with a star ,badge left shoulder ,back in 60s ,and there is a member of n b ,club who sailed her to ,we had her sceaming outside the river ,fantastic engines . as you say ,British Engineering .

[Ghost in the shell]

deltic,

performance marvel, maintenance menace!!!

[sweeper]

In my memory the title of this thread should be Go Dirty, Go Deltic.
The marine version, plumes of clag showing way before you ever spotted the ship. Getting them started involved the use of diesel burning space heaters to generate hot gas to warm the system up to about 20C prior to firing up. Try working on these devices, under the engine, standing on the frames, dirty oily water lapping over your boots, heater always caked with pure oily carbon so you ended up like an escaped member of a certain non pc show.
Yes, they were a powerful unit for their size and weight but what a dirty way to get your power. And if something went wrong inside the block, major headaches! Like a con rod snapping while the engine was going full chat. Rod punctured light alloy casing (filled with pressurised lub oil) and hacksawed it's way along the casing as the engine kept on running. What a mess.
Let's not think about the drive for the turbo scavenger - a flexible shaft that had a habit of parting. Don't leave them idling either, they can throw their toys around quite a bit if you ignore the warnings.
Bring them back?
As long as I don't have to go near the thing!
No doubt the railway enthusiasts will be happy.

[Peter Fitness]

This is a shot I took of the Napier Deltic engine on display in the National Railway Museum at York, in 2008.

Peter.

[pugwash]

My father took my brothers and I to Nuneaton station to see the original Deltic when it was being trialled
on the Euston to Glasgow service. First time I had heard the sound of the diesel horn and then it came
through the station virtually flat out.  What a noise and what a sight, but it didnt compare with the
old Duchess of Sutherland coming south a few minutes later. Couldn't see the platform for steam and smoke.

Geoff

[wartsilaone]

I'm a diesel man but there is Nothing quite like a princess coronation at full cry.

[malcolmfrary]

I never knew before that they ever worked on the WCML, even less that the prototype was made in the same building that many of Blackpool's trams were built.
http://www.napier-chronicles.co.uk/dp1.htm
When trainspotting on Preston station as a little lad, it was always impressive seeing the Fyffes banana trains being thumped up from the dock line with a Fowler on the front, like a panto villain emerging from below the stage in a cloud of smoke.  If I had been doing it a couple of years earlier, I might have seen Deltic emerging - as that was the way out to the main line from Dick Kerr's, it must have gone that way.
Seconded the motion about the Princess Coronation - I just wish that I had had a camera when I was waiting on Penrith station for a stopping train when the up Caledonian came through, having a good run to gallop up Shap.  Sort of a high speed earthquake.  Great.

[wartsilaone]

Here is a couple of drawings I did years ago. They are from photos taken by my father in York.

[derekwarner]

wartsilaone ....your pencil sketch of IA23 is a credit to your skills.....thank you for sharing   

Still does not get away from my earlier call that these engines were DEVIL work.....or to work on.......  Derek