Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

But it does prove your point about Peter Townends work to be without basis.

Yes, I’m afraid some of them were afraid of such consequences, such is the depth of feeling on this debate.

It has been of immense frustration that so little of that I have collated I am allowed to publish.

Many of the anecdotes given to me have proven a theme. You continue, by the way, to assert that very attitude that people are afraid of when speaking on this matter.

So you basically agree with exactly that I wrote above...

 

You are perfectly at liberty to disagree. That is not in doubt.

The manner of your disagreement has been to challenge the accuracy of my statements, whilst providing no evidence other than your own prejudices.

I could immediately walk across the room last night and point directly to a piece of evidence that totally disproved your point on Peter Townend. There are many more. Such is the level of the debate.

You take issue with my points because you have strong feelings on the nature of the title “LNERS best Pacifics”. When you commented on the nature of single versus double chimney, you elevated the A2/3 directly above two larger classes. You cannot have it both ways.

 

A pity all those people you have spoken to didn't pipe up some time earlier in the last 60 years or so - or were they afraid of being excommunicated...


that is sadly true
several years ago , on the LNER site ,I dared to question the abilities of some HNGs locos and his choice of machinery while making a case in Thompsons defence .
he response from members was unbelievable .every one of my posts were removed and I was denied access to the site with no explanation . my presence was completely obliterated . a sad reflection on the site and its members imo.
using an LMS avatar may not have endeared me to them ,but hey!

 

Obviously not privy to the full facts but I am sorry to hear this, as a member of that forum.

I have actually suffered some minor verbal abuse in public over the last few years at railway events regarding my views on Thompson.

Happily the MRC of London were kind in accommodating me in February and I was able to give a talk unhindered and with great respect shown by all.

 

He spoke of one loco, not the whole class. I don't consider that a ringing endorsement of the entire class

Nope - I've no issue whatever with someone who had experience of the locomotives saying how he found them - good or bad. It really is a shame that they don't feel they can let you publish their anecdotes. I do however have an issue with crusading zealots who vow to revise history in order to rehabilitate what they perceive as a victim of a massive conspiracy.

Nope, you originally stated the A2/3 was "one of the best LNER pacifics" I fundamentally disagree, as stated above. Of course if you now say that is what you wrote, it would seem you are actually agreeing with me.

I stick with the published information - that isn't prejudice. You on the other hand originally set out specifically to vindicate Edward Thompson on the basis that you felt he was unfairly treated - without any facts to support your assumption; I would suggest that was prejudice of the highest order.

Pointing out a single incident of a driver liking a locomotive is hardly a disproval of my point. P Townend certainly didn't say the class was good as a whole and never put them in the "best of the LNER pacifics"

Perhaps you'd lke to photograph P105 of LNER Pacifics Remembered and show how A J Somers felt about the various A2s stabled at Peterborough

Bad riding, loose cylinders and blowing joints, slipping, fractured smokebox plates and cradle bolts, mostly due to the excessive distance from bogie to driving wheels;
The Thompson A2s were seldom able to run to allotted iileage without some defect requiring works attention; Loose weighbars on the inside motion putting the middle valve gear out of step; the middle eccentric was a "constant source of trouble" with overheating due to "their long throw and to the difficulty of access for lubrication" leading to the need to sent the sheave and strap to main works for "thorough reconditioning" ; ( he also says the 2 to 1 gear on the V2 gave far less trouble than the conventional valve gear fitted to the A2s)

That said he agrees that Owen Tudor was one of the best of the A2/3s and that they all steamed well having the double chimney.

So lets look at the numbers:

A3 single chimney - 78
A4 single chimney - 30
A2 single chimney - 11
A2/1 - 4
A2/2 - 6
total 129

Double chimney A3 - 77?
double chimney A4 - 34
double chimney A1 - 48
double chimney A2 - 4
total 163

So the A2/3 class has 163 locos better and 129 worse. Hardly puts them in the "one of the best LNER pacifics" does it.

I repeat - the A2/3 were certainly the best of the Thompson Pacifics but not as good as the double chimney Gresley and Peppercorn locos.

 

Good grief. What a mess of a response. I really have touched a nerve with you!

That you claim I have no facts is hilarious. There’s 88 pages of debate, information, direct quotes, resources given, direct sources quoted, I even wrote up carefully the whole Cox report - and yet I have no facts?

I’m not going to bother responding further to you. Your personal one man crusade against me is pretty clear, Thompson aside.

And once again pretty much proving my point about the level of debate and the aggression felt, one side to the other.

Anything which might threaten the world view and assumed position on Thompson, met with forceful replies.

Far from revisionist, proving my points expertly regarding both his treatment and the manner of the debate.

 

Firstly I said you started out on this oddessy with no facts, just the belief that Thompson was a victim, not that you didn't have any now. Care to revise your second paragraph in the light of the words I actually wrote?

Secondly - no detailed rebuttal of Mr Somers comments? no reanalysis of the numbers to prove me wrong? No evidence that P Townend really did praise the entire A2/3 class?

Oh dear - now whose nerve has been touched.

Do I have a crusade against you personally - not in the least, but I would seriously urge you to look at yourself and your crusade on behalf of Thompson and consider how it appears to the rest of us.

Indeed, that has been the general consensus with some variation in the details, but please note that this subject rears it's head every time Mr Martin makes a comment praising Thompson and someone disagrees. It desn't have to be me who disagrees, in fact it usually isn't, and wasn't in this case, but there you go.

 

If anyone would like to make a complaint about my behaviour online on Nat Pres they are welcome to contact the moderators.

If anyone has an issue with my desire for a more open debate on Edward Thompson, feel free to PM me and state what you feel, or post it here.

Regarding personal perception: perhaps the difference is that I do not hide behind the anonymity of a screen name and I do my best to respond in a constructive manner.

I frankly do not care what you think of me. Nor do I much care for the labels attached to me by a select few of you. I am interested in rational debate, with evidence.

I have provided more actual evidence in this thread than most and that is because I have bothered to do the research and look outside of the usual few books and articles.

If you still have a problem with that and would like to make it more formal, you are welcome to write to me.

But unless you are suggesting something more heinous: you do not have to agree with me. You do not have to read my writing. There is a button to mute my account. If you wish, kindly use it.

Regards.

 

Apologies for digressing a little, but - speaking as someone who has not been very much involved in the preceding 92 pages of debate - that skill is exactly the sort of skill that should under-lie all historical research, and should in my opinion be the main skill that emerges from any sort of higher education.

From what I have skimmed on this thread, Simon's main offence seems to be to commit the heinous crime of doing historical research and drawing conclusions from it. His conclusions can always be debated and reassessed - that's one of the points of historical research, and if it wasn't there would be no point in being a historian - but it seems like he has gone about the job exactly as a historian is supposed to. I would not be surprised if he had approached the University of York to see how much extra work would be required to convert it into a PhD thesis, because I get the feeling it is not far off that point.

 

It will depend if Simon has found something hitherto unknown or new in his research for it to qualify for a doctorate; speaking to someone a while ago, that was one of the many criteria.

 

Doc Martin eh?

Hmmm, it has a certain ring to it I guess....

 

The sentiments are much appreciated. No, I’ve not approached anyone and I don’t intend to.

I have a railway engineering apprenticeship scheme I need to concentrate on first and foremost at the moment anyway, though I’ve finally set myself a deadline to publishing the Thompson book online by the end of summer 2018.

The issue where Thompson is concerned is that most of the evidence was already in the public domain - just that so much of it was segregated from each other.

For example - he has his own biography and countless people have, without ever quoting it - used the Cox report to question his decision making. An edited version of the report appears in Oakwood Presses’ biography of Stanier.

I came into ownership of another copy which included more detail. I made a copy of that report available to everyone who asked for it.

The report changed my thinking quite substantially on Thompson’s WW2 decisions.

It has been an exercise, not just in collating different sources and pieces of the story but also trying to bring some balance to it all.

And if I ruffle a few feathers by saying that Edward Thompson was not the embittered, angry old man he has always been described as, and that his locomotive designs may not have been exceptional but were rather more than competent - then so be it.

And if at the same time we are able to properly contextualise his decision making, taking into account the effects of WW2 (which I am convinced rarely happens where he is concerned) then even better. Bring it on.

But most of all - if I am able to remind some of you that he wasn’t the most incompetent or evil man of the 1940s, then that is the most important thing.

 

To my mind failure to contextualise is the biggest failing in an awful lot of railway-historical works which only concentrate on one aspect such as locomotives. To give an example: last year I wrote a short history of the Ffestiniog; very well-trodden ground of course. There are many places you can look for chronological histories of the Ffestiniog's locos, but it was only when I tabulated the major repair dates of the locos that one obvious conclusion jumped out: Col. Stephens refused to pay for new boilers! I have never seen this mentioned anywhere previously myself, and it would require a lot of archival research to prove, but it is a very clear pattern when you view the loco stock's service dates alongside the changes in railway management.

 

Completely agree. It does frustrate how - for example - people criticise Thompson for his mostly rebuild and mend policy - many outright ignoring or ignorant to the fact he was restricted by both the war office and LNER board by what he was allowed to do.

 

Even the "classical" authors are not immune. To my mind, one of the great failings of OS Nock as a commentator on locomotives is that he got obsessed about times as a measure of performance, but - despite no doubt spending thousands of miles as a footplate guest - seemed oblivious to the myriad other factors that can affect locomotive performance: coal quality, how close a loco is to washout, how long since overhaul (and especially p&v work) and so on. Too often he would seem to take timing logs and on the basis of those make assertions about particular types of loco being "good" or "bad", without necessarily understanding the underlying factors leading to poor performance - which may well have had little to do with the design of the loco.

I think there is probably very fertile ground for a future railway historian with an accountancy mindset to really get their teeth into setting engineering decisions in the context of cost: too much locomotive commentary is based around performance (with the subtext - "why did so and so perpetuate such and such a sub-standard design?" - without a proper understanding of where the real costs lie in railway operations.

Tom

 

Very true. But such a piece of economic history (an abstruse branch of the subject that I strive to avoid as a student!) would be unlikely to appeal to the enthusiast audience which, in Nockian style, retains a fair degree of a top trumps approach to the subject, mixed with a level of loyalty to “their railway” that might embarrass a football fan or teenage girl.


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Maybe your follow up work should be on Charles Collett. The magnolia wallpaper of engine designers.

The new-ness can be in the interpretation.

That is interesting, and if we are talking PhD, the key point would be to demonstrate the relationship between the decline of the railway and the decision to not reboiler the locos. Does the railway decline because he doesn’t reboiler, or does he not reboiler because the railway is in decline. Methodologically you would have a very interesting process tracing thesis.