1948 Locomotive Exchanges

Argue amongst yourselves....

 

To be quite frank about it, the Exchanges were a waste of time and provided little real data. The infrastructure, to use later terminology, was in very poor condition following deferred maintenance throughout World War II; only inferior coal compared with pre-war standards was available; and instructions to the crews as to what they were supposed to achieve seem not to have been given: some crews thought they were expected to produce low coal consumption and others high power outputs.

Under these circumstances, comparisons are, indeed, odious.

 

Agreed. The WCML was hampered severely by pw restrictions so no lively running there. The SR crews went hell for leather to show what their steeds could do and sod the fuel consumption, especially the Light Pacifics, whereas other crews were distinctly "coal dodging" on some runs. In the case of the GW Kings, there was only one non GWR route they could run on. Hardly a scientific exercise but it's given us all something to argue about over the years.

 

Now the 90s ? Shap Trials, thats worth talking about ( hint , cause i know very little about them...)

 

You could argue they were a great success in providing a form of justification for a mainly LMS design team to build mainly LMS design locomotives.

 

I was on the one with 71000. The hill climbing that day was of the highest order. Just a pity damp rails thwarted the Duke's attempt on breaking the Appleby - Ais Gill record.
The sound on both Grayrigg and Shap was awesome.

 

I was just looking at some of the pics on the Nine Elms website, can anybody enlighten me why the LMS engines on the Southern were given WD tenders? I know the Bullieds were given LMS tenders so they could use the water troughs, but brain is blank on why the LMS ones had been changed. Length of turntables?


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Wasn't it for extra water capacity?

 

According to Wikipedia

 

Indeed it was...due to the absence of troughs on the Southern.

Edit...73129 beat me to it by seconds

 

It was the converse of the Bullieds! With no troughs on the Southern, the LMS locos would be unable to do the normal length of runs that were in the SR timetable.

 

ask the question as what other way was there to try and establish the best design the way it was carried out may not have been correct but the idea was good.

 

Excellent, thanks for clearing that up!


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