Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

Well I found Simon's post outlining the P2 development into the A2/2 most informative. With the addition of such well researched information, it was a big eye opener about the situation of both the P2s at the time and the desperate times the LNER faced during the war. I am greatly looking forward to the new book

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My apologies for missing this - but yes, that’s precisely why they divided the drive on the A2/2s, not least that it was also able to open up the possibility of equal valve events/more standard components by way of using three identical valve gears.

Separate cylinders with separate valve gears had an interesting advantage to the Gresley conjugated gear - conjugated gear is treated as one whole set (outer valve gear sets plus the 2:1 beam and associated pins and similar).

Separate sets of valve gear are exactly that - they can be swapped out individually when required.

 

Is it steam powered?

 

I don't think there's much that any of us can say about steam locomotives that hasn't been said before.

 

It might as well be!

 

I find it damn rude to be quite frank, and appalling from a moderator. "A few of you" - this thread is consistently one of the most factual and evidence based threads on this site, technical knowledge, statistics, history, it's all in here, and is fascinating stuff. Way, way, more interesting than a livery debate, or even worse, yet another discussion about boxes on the back. Those subjects being aired constantly give a poor reputation to this forum, whereas this is the forum at its best I feel. "Countless few members" well that's a contradiction in terms for a start, "thoroughly brassed off" Why? If you're bored, don't read it! I don't read entire sections of this forum because they're of no interest to me.
Who are Thompson's "acolytes"? Simon has certainly been enthusiastic about him, but I'm curious where the plural comes from, who else would be considered an acolyte? From what I can see most people here are totally disinterested, but highly interested. Finally who is the "we" asking to give it a rest? Is that as an official capacity as the forum administrator, is the forum or the mod team wanting Simon to give it a rest? I think the "likes" speak for themselves on this thread concerning where the majority consensus is on this matter.

 

I wanted to ask who the we was but I was afraid to incase I was thrown out!

 

And likewise I would have no hesitation calling out your comments as rude and unnecessary there either. But you are a moderator, and hence surely you have a responsibility to not encourage rudeness on the forum with a shrug of the shoulders and a "People are rude to me". It does not reflect well on the forum when the forum administrator acts like a total bore. That's not "using the mod card" it's me asking, as a member, for our forum administrator to hold themselves to a standard we would wish the whole forum to be, not to simply point to the lowest common denominator and aim for that.
Again, who is the "we" from your previous post - who else do you speak for?

 

To continue the analogy though, your initial comment is rather the same as if you had entered the bar in a pub and thrown your pint over a group of people hitherto engaged in a quiet conversation - and then tried to justify it by saying that other pub regulars were being bored by the conversation. And then you come out and claim you are the wounded party!

Tom

 

You chose to be a mod and with that comes certain responsibilities including how you treat forum members.

But we are not face to face, we are on a discussion forum.

Unless I’ve missed something, this is precisely what Nat Pres is meant to be about.

I don’t really take kindly to rudeness in public either.

You, as much as I am, are one of the faces of the heritage rail industry. Such behaviour is hardly becoming nor conducive to good industry relations I suspect!

But not from me. And not from this thread from anyone. I genuinely don’t remember seeing you ever post in here.

In the eight years I have been researching and writing on Thompson, I’ve received abuse online both here, by email, and in public at a preserved railway: not because of how I treat anyone, but because of my views on Thompson.

I’m still standing. I took the slings and arrows. I still take them occasionally.

I did it without personally abusing anyone. Yes, there’s been times I was exasperated, even angry, at some of the things that have been aimed at me.

But overall - the debate has been respectful, it’s been thoughtful, and I think we’ve all got a lot out of it.

Ralph, if you have a genuine problem with me personally, you can give me a call and explain why.

I’m happy to listen and if I’ve done something wrong, try and resolve matters.

However, I feel you owe us something of an apology. Your comments were unnecessary, at best. Nobody here has personally attacked you, at all.

In fact given your attitude today, I think we’ve been quite restrained.

 

That's coz you ain't a snowflake Ralph.

 

It’s not something to be proud of, either.

Declaring that other people have been rude to you, therefore you should have carte Blanche to be rude to everyone, is a very low bar to aim for.

I find when we are constructive in our dialogues, more and better things happen.

In any event - nobody in this thread today, bar Ralph, has behaved in any way approaching a snowflake - in fact everyone bar Ralph has been very restrained whilst also obviously uncomfortable with how he’s behaved.

For my part, I think it is unfair to single out this thread for criticism (and me too, come to that) when some pretty repetitive, and at times ugly discussion continues elsewhere.

Thompson may not be your cup of tea - and that’s fine - but the forum is big enough to find something else to peruse rather than jumping in to attack the subject, those discussing it, and feigning victimhood to boot.

May I say on a positive note - thank you to those who have defended my position and to those of you who have messaged me off forum too. I am, as always, very grateful for your input, help and support.

 

Rather like 'Miff', I found yesterday's post by Simon very interesting.

I don't know what caused RalphW's response.

Simon's post 3263 was most illuminating as to his own thought process.

The principle objection I have to Simon's post 3263 is that he is proponent of the Gresley P2 rebuild, as built by Gresley with a few modern tweaks.

My thought process is that if Thompson was such a clever engineer and with such a good team around him, he ought to have first tried out solving the problems with the P2s rather than rebuild them.

After all, Simon is supporting the new P2 Gresley build.

Crank axle failures can be due to all sorts of things. The IWCR experienced regular failures of crank axles on it's batch of Terriers, but on other lines they were hardly encountered at all.

So far as availability of the rebuild P2s are concerned, I would be far more interested in the mileages ran rather than availability percentages.

Cheers,

Julian

 

Ralph,

With respect, I fear that yours is very much a minority view. If you are disinterested in Simons' posts, then fine, that is your perogative, but I find it most disappointing that you should suggest that he should "give it a rest".

Just because you aren't interested in a particular facet of railway preservation and railway history, it doesn't mean that others share your personal view. It would be a great shame if we were to be denied the chance of continuing to read one of the more informative threads on NatPres.

Andy

 

Maybe thompson did consider solving the P2s as 2-8-2s initially. But being a small class of just 6 engines, all of which had differences between them, it was probably the easiest thing to standardise them into one design.

The pacific arrangement was more in use within the Uk than the 2-8-2 arrangement so rebuilding them into the proven 4-6-2 arrangement was possibly a safer bet. Especially in a time when breakdowns could have large impact on war traffic as well as the normal LNER services.

Plus due to the war demands, It may be possible that there wasn't time or spare resources to design, trial and experiment different attempts to solve issues relating to the 2-8-2 arrangement.

I'm a great fan of the work of gresley and believe his P2s were a great machine (and greatly look forward to seeing a new one finished soon in the form of 2007) but they were an exclusive class which didn't fit the rest of the fleet.

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If you re-read my piece again you will note that I do give the annual mileages Julian.

Thane of Fife more than doubled its annual mileages in the years after becoming an A2/2.

Availability is the most important thing on a railway in terms of motive power. You need to know that you have enough locomotives to cover all work and do it adequately.

The LNER really struggled with this between 1939-44 but a change in how the sheds and major works interacted with regard to the shopping of locomotives (including a different approach to boiler inspections and similar) paid dividends.

The attempt by Thompson to “standardise” as much as possible going forward also helped, albeit I think we can safely say that he was not able to fully implement his policy due to time constraints. Peppercorn continued where Thompson left off but he also ran out of time.

 

Well me for a start.
Moderator or Administrator doesn't and shouldn't stop the person from joining in any topic that is posted, the matter has been discussed many time in the past. Being a moderator (and you FS 123 was the first to play the moderator card in this spat), being a moderator is voluntary, unpaid, they are just normal forum members and THEY HAVE THE RIGHT to comment on topics (within the forum rules).
I didn't consider Ralph's post that started all this rubbish rude , discourteous, derogatory in and way. Just a member commenting on a topic.

'Ey oop S.A.C, you've got yourself a fan club.

 

That is of course true. But if you use the word 'we' rather than 'I' in a post it certainly gives the very strong impression that you are speaking with your moderator's hat on, not your personal one. After all, what other group of people could you be speaking in the name of?

 

Each to their own interpretation but Ralph's remark - justified or not - didn't give me the impression that he was speaking as a moderator.