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Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by S.A.C. Martin, May 2, 2012.

  1. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    Even were one to disagree with a conclusion, if an author is good enough to explain the reasoning behind it, it may well make for an interesting read and add to ones understanding
     
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  2. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    I don’t believe he’s posted other than to get a rise out of me, in all honesty. It’s easier to do these days.

    No snowflake per say but the last few years it has been increasingly difficult to put ones head above the parapet, receiving on the internet and in public at railways occasionally, some pretty nasty stuff.

    Slings arrows and so on...but I’m a man like any other and occasionally they do leave a mark.
     
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  3. Fred Kerr

    Fred Kerr Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    And soothed - one hopes - by the calm discussion which has raised valid discussion points even from those who may disagree with your basic thesis. In that context the finished product should give a more balanced view of a contentious engineer who to date has been defined in black and white terms but never grey.
     
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  4. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

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    The real snowflake is the guy who is so set in his false biases about someone who lived and died many years ago, that he has to come along and interrupt any discussion that threatens that false worldview.
     
  5. talyllyn1

    talyllyn1 Member

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    There is far too much emotion wrapped up in "railway enthusiasm" to expect a calm, measured appraisal from those who "know more than you" - don't let it get to you.
    They fail to appreciate that we are trying to assess the performance of engineers employed by companies engaged in the transport of people and goods to the benefit of their shareholders.
    If the LNER had thought that Thompson wasn't delivering what they wanted, he would surely have been demoted or sacked.

    I have found this topic fascinating to read, even though I have no particular affinity to the LNER, Gresley or Thompson - please keep going!
     
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  6. 8126

    8126 Member

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    Depends what layout. The LMS already had the 3-cylinder 2-6-4 tanks with three sets of valve gear, driving on the second coupled axle, and of course it was done again on the Bulleids with similar drivers and boiler diameter to the V2, so I can't see that a 3-cylinder 2-6-2 in the same pattern would have been a problem. Thing is, the V2 would have needed a new inside cylinder to adopt that layout, which with their monobloc cylinder castings would have been a serious expense.

    On a tangent, I found it interesting to read a piece by Dick Hardy a while back in which he noted that no matter what the LMS management thought of the 3-cylinder tanks and their lack of advantages over the 2-cylinder variety, the men who crewed them were having none of it and staunchly maintained they were better. Of course, that may have been partly the pride in having something a bit different, but given the extra labour in preparing a 3-cylinder engine they must have felt there was something worthwhile in return.
     
  7. paullad1984

    paullad1984 Member

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    A closed mind which wishes to remain closed cannot even be opened with a crowbar, my mind was closed but the through discussion on this thread my view of Thompson has changed.
     
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  8. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

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    I think your view on Holcroft is at odds to what we know of him, and I think I have read and studied all of Holcroft's books and articles, except for his unpublished manuscript for a further book at the NRM archives.

    His description of his involvement in the 1926 General Strike strikes me as someone who was ultra Conservative in his politics, and his visit to Germany in the 1930s as more problematic.

    But setting the above aside, he was someone who clearly bore no personal grudge against Gresley over the conjugated gear, and volunteered to Gresley a way round Gresley's difficulties with the gear, which Gresley was not clever enough to fathom out for himself. He thought the ultimate Gresley arrangement of the conjugated gear a 'poor job' engineering wise, and foresaw the difficulties it would create. More significantly, he bore no grudge whatsoever against his own boss Maunsell when Maunsell ditched the Holcroft conjugated gear on the SECR and SR locos.

    Maunsell knew he had someone of immense value to the SECR and later the SR with his expertise in valve gears. Maunsell had a very good team of Pearson, Clayton, and Holcroft. As a result of Pearson and Holcroft's experiences with the (GWR) Churchward standard designs, the SECR had instant access to Swindon and all of which Pearson and Holcroft had experienced at Swindon with Churchward. Long travel valves were used marking the SECR as right behind the GWR in valve gear proficiency and this was just before WW1.

    What was Gresley doing? Mucking about with a conjugated gear he copied off a Prussion loco, of 2-8-0, and in a quandary how to go forward, and Holcroft shows him how to incline the middle cylinder and alter the conjugated gear. And on the original A1s Gresley mucks everything up with a short travel loco that a GWR Castle beats hands down.

    Clearly, to my mind, Gresley did not fully understand locomotive valve gears. Neither did Bulleid. They both lacked the detailed knowledge and expertise Holcroft had.

    It was probably left to an odd character called 'LBSC' in the 'Model Engineer' magazine to show Holcroft's true genius with 'Tugboat Annie' (do a google search). Holcroft was a frequent visitor to the Purley home and workshop of 'LBSC' and freely, as ever, provided his knowledge to others of valve gears.

    Cheers,

    Julian
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
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  9. Hermod

    Hermod Member

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    A Raven/Thompson S3-B16/3 as next and best new-build?
     
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  10. 2392

    2392 Well-Known Member

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    I find it somewhat interesting/amusing [not in a funny Ha! Ha! way] that here we are 64 years after Thompson passed away and 50 after steam ended on the national network. That he still has the ability to raise the temperature one way or another, rather like the current Brexit carry on........ Mind you I do wonder how much getting the C.M.E. post at the height of the 2nd World War muddied the situation, in so much as he was limited as to what he could do with new designs etc. Bearing in mind at the time of Thompson's appointment the U.K. still stood alone. OK the Russians joined the war in June/July '41 and the Americans in December/January '41-2......
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2019
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  11. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    He was incredibly limited by both LNER's emergency board and by the war department. New designs were very unlikely and only the B1 emerged as an all new design, made up of standard LNER components almost exclusively.

    And to be fair - we did have the whole of the British Empire at our disposal, including a not unsizeable amount of India, Austrailia, Canada, the Caribbean, and so on, providing supplies and pilots/infantry/etc together with those who had come over from Poland...it's very easy to say "we were alone" - we were never alone, and there's a sad beauty in that. For a whole other thread I fear!
     
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  12. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    upload_2018-11-20_9-26-14.png

    Some of you may remember this spread sheet from earlier in the thread. This is a copy of one of the previous shots - I have now completed the full fleet statistics for 1942 and am moving onto 1943 shortly (172 loco classes!). It has been no small undertaking and has been difficult in particular to check the figures for accuracy (where I have transposed them from the original document).

    I am thinking about how best to show the percentage figures visually to aid readers new to this and am thinking of a ranking system that is colour coordinated in percentiles of 0-10%, 11-20%, 21-30%, 31-40%, etc etc...what do you think? Overcomplicating it? Too broad in range?
     
  13. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Even in these days a colour page in a book may well be regarded as an undesirable complication.
    Trying to think what I would want to see...
    Cook tells us that the running costs of a locomotive are dominated by time between overhauls, whilst the number of locomotives the line needs are dominated by the availability. So my suggestion is those are the key things to present if you can. Its important to have the rest of the data, if only to show the workings out, and also for readers who are interested in other things like differences between areas. So I think I'd maybe look for a headline table which was just
    Class % works % sheds %net availability Planned mileage actual mileage
    And shown only against class. Save the more detailed stats for an appendix to show your working maybe
    It would be good to have it over at least a couple of years in order to get a better picture of time between overhauls
     
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  14. M Palmer

    M Palmer Guest

    Regarding jma1009's comments on Holcroft, I read just last night in E S Cox's Speaking of Steam a section on the conjugated valve gear. If you'll forgive the cherry picking, Cox quotes Holcroft as saying:

    “...but although my part in it was forgotten after a time, I was quite content with the quiet satisfaction of watching its progress over the years.”

    I also read in an article about unbuilt RH&DR locomotives that Holcroft was quite magnanimous despite not being paid by Howey for the creation of complete drawings for a 2-8-2 (with Baker valve gear) for the railway.

    For the love of Mallard's buffer beam, someone needs to get the publishing rights to that! :)

    FWIW S.A.C. Martin, I think that provided it is reproduced in the book in a clear font at a decent, readable size, that is perfectly fine as is.
     
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  15. RLinkinS

    RLinkinS Member

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    LBSC was definitely an unusual character but I think the word "odd" does something of a disservice to him. He actually designed far more locos in miniature than any CME of a standard gauge railway and he also built dozens of miniature locos. It is well worth reading Brian Hollingsworth's biography of him "LBSC His Life and Locomotives" although it should be remembered that Brian Hollingsworth was pro LBSC.
     
  16. M Palmer

    M Palmer Guest

    Does anyone know if Thompson looked into Baker valve gear as an alternative to Walschaerts? I believe I read somewhere that the GWR looked at it briefly.
     
  17. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    From my notes (and if we take Nock's source) - no, Baker gear was never considered as far as I can see - walschaerts is the only choice. How curious that you should post that, as I look at a Wikipedia article on it!

    Although on the Stephenson's valve gear notes on Thompson - something I had not considered - the D class locomotive, The Morpeth, no.365, was rebuilt with two inside sets of Stephenson's valve gear arranged to drive piston valves, with a Director (D11) cylinder block, in 1942. This D class locomotive remained unique and no more D49s were rebuilt.

    No.365 (later 2768) was a unique D49 loco originally built with Reidinger infinitely variable rotary cam poppet valve gear fitted. The valves were controlled by steam pressure instead of springs. This proved troublesome and after receiving camshaft damage in January 1941, the valve gear was removed - Thompson then utilised the boiler, chassis and tender to build the D class. More info here on the LNER Encyclopaedia Website.

    Bear in mind, at that time there was an availability problem and Thompson and his CMEs were doing all they could to press locomotives into service as much as possible. If you have a decent chassis, a good boiler and a tender, you're only valve gear and a set of cylinders away from a working locomotive. Lentz gear was out - getting spares was difficult - and there was a spare D11 cylinder block available. These reduced the number of cylinders from three to two as per the Cox/Stanier report's recommendations.
     
  18. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    I think this is good advice. I'd start with what's the story you get out of all this after the discussions from months ago. Then construct a table(s) of KPIs to base the discussion around. The full table is Appendix material.

    From what I recall you have around five years worth of data. So one table wants to be a summary time series for the key classes. Actually there are broader issues than just the P2s/A2s like how much did performance change during the war. This is good for the context in which he was operating.

    Are the differences in miles per available day of any interest?
     
  19. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    The data I have covers 1942-47. So it will be possible to get an idea of mileage and availability year to year for each class.

    Just on that note, something I realised today looking at my 1942 figures - we have a winner for the worst availability during WW2 for any LNER loco class...!

    upload_2018-11-20_12-0-48.png

    9% - what on earth happened there! There's a note to the effect that no time in workshops happened in 1942 for the D17 class in Scotland so the blank in that section is accurate. Very curious!
     
  20. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Pushed to the back of the shed while the fitters worked on locos considered more useful perhaps? They were pretty much end of life by then weren't they?
     
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