LSWR T1 new build ?

In reply to TOM for his observations about Dugald Drummond locomotives and boilers, like all locomotive designers of the 19th century Drummond had his good designs and his bad designs, he was also trying to figure out the best ways of pre-heating the water being fed into the boiler thus the cross-tubes configuration of his design, not all of the boilers he designed were bad steamers. The locomotives built back in the day were built to do specific tasks, nothing like the later designs that followed that would be equally at home at the front of a goods and a passenger train, we have to look back at that time without taking what we know today with us, we must also note that CMEs would make changes to locos designed before they took office to make them more useful in their time and beyond, however, Drummond only replaced boilers on Adams classes when said boilers were life expired and mainly on older engines the same as others did that followed him. All of the locomotives designed before Robert Urie had saturated steam boilers, it was Urie that introduced superheating to the LSWR, but because superheaters are large pieces of equipment when the were fitted to the Drummond locomotives it made them look ugly, though for some classes it did improve their performance, however, a trial was carried out on M7 126 being fitted with a supertheater which turned out to be a complete failure, it suffered increased coal consumption plus it was a lot heavier than the rest of the class and thus restricted its route availability, because it would be too expensive to return it to a saturated boiler the Southern Railway scrapped M7 126 in 1926, this being the first casualty of the class. Before we write off Drummonds locomotives, we must take all of them as a whole and see which ones did not live up to expectation, but first I will quickly add that although Drummond was good with the four couple locos, he had trouble with 4-6-0s, the only class of that configuration that was a partial success was his T14 class.

 

It's not that every loco that Drummond designed was awful, just that for his reputation as a designer seems to me well in advance of what he actually produced.

In essence, his two cylinder designs were average for their time - OK, but not startling in comparison with what was being produced elsewhere. The 4 cylinder engines were universally poor: the double singles were disastrous, the various iterations of the four cylinder 4-6-0 varied from dreadful all the way up to merely poor. The fact that they were introduced with great fanfare on the best expresses, and then rapidly relegated to night time goods trains, while the Adams classes they were supposed to replace were hastily reintroduced, speaks volumes.

With regard his efforts with cross water tubes: Drummond claimed better fuel economy, but it came at the expense of increased boiler construction and maintenance cost. Technologically it was a dead end - which would be a bit more forgivable were it not for the fact that his contemporaries on adjacent railways were showing the way in boiler design with superheating: the Marsh I3 on the Brighton and Churchward's designs on the GWR. Given the geographical location of the LSWR, Drummond must have been well aware of those designs. It is certainly not true that all boilers before Robert Urie were saturated - on the LSWR maybe, but both the GWR and LBSCR had excellent superheated locos in Drummond's time.

As for re-boilering: of course that normally occurred when the original boilers were life-expired, and most designers of the period did it. It makes good economic sense if a boiler has a typical life of perhaps 25 years that designers would re-boiler the engines of a previous generation to get more economic life from the rest of the loco. But compare the results of Wainwright's re-boilering of Stirling's engines, which were transformed, compared with Drummond's re-boilering of Adams' locos, which were almost invariably considered to be a retrograde step.

Don't get me wrong: Drummond had his good points (notably as a workshop organiser) and his best locos were comparable with similar designs of the era. But he certainly wasn't in the upper echelons of locomotive designers, and he designed more than his fair share of complete duds. Certainly one feels that those impoverished shareholders of the SECR got better value from the appointment of the relatively unheralded Wainwright than their more affluent South Western colleagues got from Drummond.

Tom

 

True Tom, me thinks that by the time Drummond came to the LSWR he was past his prime, but as you say, as an organiser he was good at it, he was a hard but fair man by all accounts. Yes I fully appreciate that superheating was around during say the second half of his tenure at the south western, but it seems it was something he did not understand so stuck with what he knew, how many of us have that trait today? Thank whatever that I try not to let new things beat me, I will persist until I have an understanding of how things work, then I find later on that sometimes something new is more of a hassle than something else which made more common sense, so yes, I too get stuck in that, "If it aint broke don't fix it with something untried and tested."

 

It's even slightly stranger than that. According to Bradley two boilers were built for the O2s in 1909, so actually during Drummond's tenure, with all the usual Drummond features, which were apparently identical to the Adams boilers in all major proportions and were correspondingly successful. The same applied to two boilers built for the 415s in 1907 (one of which was used on two of the Lyme Regis three in the final years). Batches of 'quasi Drummond' boilers were built post-grouping for the O2/G6 and T1/A12 classes, and had the reputation for poor steaming and priming referred to above. So whatever the shortcomings of the boilers on some Drummond classes, he can't really be held responsible for the "Drummond pattern" boilers that picked up a bad reputation on the Adams tank engines.

Bradley makes reference to new Adams-pattern boilers being built for the IoW O2s in the '30s in his writings on the G6 class, but then refers to them as refurbished in his writings on the O2 class. Perhaps this was more of an: "Everything new except the works plate" rebuild to disguise building new boilers to a pattern that for whatever reason had not been used a few years earlier.

Incidentally, if this boiler really was from a T1 and not a Jubilee, then the last example to carry a Drummond boiler in service was No 361, withdrawn in 1949 and outlasting the next survivor by almost five years...

 

Can anyone think of any CME who presided over a more radical change in direction, while being an internal candidate and major player in the previous regime, than Urie? He rebuilt practically of all his predecessor's principal main line designs to some extent, even the brand new D15s were rebuilt very quickly. The new designs, in basic configuration, didn't look at all out of place forty years later. Everything with outside cylinders, outside Walschaerts valve gear, no 0-6-0. Partly, I suppose that stems from the gaps he needed to fill at the time, but we don't know what would have appeared if a new light freight loco had been needed, as opposed to having a large supply of 700s to superheat.

Maunsell, Stanier and Bulleid all came in from the outside. Gresley certainly moved things on a lot, but most of his work on Ivatt's engines were logical developments of what Ivatt had already been doing. Churchward I guess...

 

He certainly didn't have much sentimental attachment to his erstwhile boss' designs or design philosophy, that's for sure!

Tom

 

Surprising really that CMEs had quite so much power to produce 'duff' locos for quite so long without the board holding them to account eventually...

 

Oh PS I vote for an Adams Jubilee!

 

I think the answer is that CMEs were much more than locomotive designers: they also had to run a workshop involved in repairs and sometimes new construction, and in some cases (including Drummond) they were also head of the running department.

In the circumstances, the main concern for the board was whether there was sufficient motive power to run the service: whether that motive power was excellent or merely adequate was probably a secondary concern provided it was there in sufficient numbers where required.

Drummond's locos - at least the two cylinder designs - were adequate. They certainly weren't comparable with the best locos being provided to the GWR by Churchward, and arguably they weren't really much more than incremental increases in size over the Adams locos that had gone before. But to his credit, Drummond ran a tight ship on the operating side and his workshop organisation was excellent, especially given the simultaneous upheavals of relocating the loco works from Nine Elms to Eastleigh, and the significant rebuilding of Waterloo at the same time, as well as suburban electrification. (The latter not his direct responsibility, but it must have been disruptive and have exercised the minds of the board to a considerable degree).

In the circumstances, a CME who kept on top of the loco situation, even if the locos were somewhat pedestrian (and there were a few out and out duds) didn't really present too much cause for the board to get really concerned.

Where a CME gets into real hot water is when both their designs are inadequate for the traffic, and the workshop organisation is poor, at which point the ability to run the service starts to be compromised and the board gets very agitated. The classic example is J.C. Craven: at one point, anything up to half the LBSCR's locos were sitting out of traffic for want of workshop capacity to repair them. Ultimately Craven paid the price, even though - as subsequent events showed - he was probably only partly to blame for that situation. A move of the loco works by the LBSCR to a green-field site - as was on several occasions suggested, and as was carried out by the LSWR - would have paid dividends, but never occurred.

Tom

 

Early Drummond designs were pretty much Chinese copies of Stroudley's. A little later on he adopted the bogie and somewhat more generous steam passages but it was not until he branched out further from the tenets of "the Master" that things began to go seriously wrong.

PH

 

Was Drummond the designer of Caledonian 4-2-2 No. 123? I read an article about its brief return to steam (along with HR103, GNoSR No. 49 and NBR No. 256) at the end of the 1950s and apparently, it had quite a turn of speed and impressed the crews who drove it. Judging by its appearance, I would assume that the CR and LMS didn't alter it much from its original design, but it was presumably a successful loco or would not have been saved for preservation. If Drummond did design it, would he have been in his prime at the time?

 

I believe that Dugald Drummond was responsible for the Caley single, but, you could also be confusing other locomotive designs in Scotland with his brother Peter, both were working as CMEs at the same time, Dugald came south whilst Peter remained in Scotland, it is true that Dugald learnt his trade from another Scotsman in the guise of William Stroudley at Brighton, in fact he was Stroudleys works manager and had already for the time brought Brighton works up to date including all of the workshops dealing with loco, carriage and wagon construction.

 

Just one question, this surviving boiler, is there a boiler number surviving on it?

 

The LSWR did in fact to my knowledge force one CME to put in their resignation, this CME had replaced his father upon his retirement, but his designs were not a patch on what his father had provided, any ideas who I am talking about? ..... One William Beattie

 

Good ;point THE SAGGIN DRAGON

 

Just to set things straight, Stroudley was hardly Scottish. He did work in Scotland for a while although he hailed from Oxfordshire.

PH

 

I stand in the corner corrected, holds head in shame

 

Not all Drummond boilers could be classed as poor steamers, I'd love to see how superb the M7 would be if you put a better one on it! One of the most fun engines I've fired; just enough challenge to bite you if you get it wrong, but get it right and it'll be singing away up the bank.

PS: My vote goes for a T1, if only because we have a picture in our museum of one shunting outside the spot where my office now is!