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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. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    I suspect very unfavourably. You rarely found a K1 on passenger work away from the West Highland and they were not really mixed traffic locos in the same sense that the Crab or Southern moguls were. But as I say this is not a field of knowledge that I have any great insight into.

    Peter
     
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  2. bluetrain

    bluetrain Well-Known Member

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    I think the K1 boiler was also 6 inches fatter than the L1 boiler? That would increase weight, but was more than offset by the absence of tanks so that the K1 max. axle-load was a ton less than the L1.

    The K1s appear to have been used predominantly on freight duties. Given the very slow speed of the traditional British goods train, goods engines typically achieved much lower annual mileages than passenger engines. So it's a fair guess that the L1s beat the K1s on annual mileages.

    That seems a very likely conclusion. I assume that the K1 & L1 had similar designs of axle-boxes and bearings, but there don't seem to be any reports of the K1s sharing the issues that the L1s had in those areas. Lower-speed work and lighter axle-loading might have been factors that helped the K1s to avoid problems. And of course the K1s did not have issues with leaking side tanks.
     
  3. Eightpot

    Eightpot Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    I've had a delve into Willie Yeadon's 'Register of LNER Locos' but am unable compare the two as there are no recorded mileages for the Peppercorn K1 at all. There are, however, some for the L1s available. I have set out the loco's number, life mileage, age between being put into service and withdrawal in years and months, and the average number of miles attained per month during the working life. I have just taken two available examples that are recorded as having achieved the highest and lowest average mileages per month. The others in between.

    Highest. 67764 managed 428,761 miles during 13 years 6 months in service = 2646 miles/month.

    Lowest. 67766 managed 352,556 miles during 13 years 9 months in service = 2136 miles/month.

    Hardly a fantastic performance in my opinion. However, it is interesting to compare the L1s above with the V1 and V3 2-6-2 tanks:-

    Highest. 2925 (67625) managed 1,002,191 during 31 years in service = 3728 miles/month.

    Lowest. 2930 (67630) managed 695,814 during 27 years 9 months in service = 2147 miles/month.

    At least 10 of the V1/V3 class achieved over 900,000 during their in service lifetime.
     
  4. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Interesting numbers, but without the context of their duties, hard to interpret.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
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  5. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    The problem with quoting total withdrawal mileages of latter-day locos is that in many cases they were withdrawn well before being worn out, for reasons that had less to do with the specific quality of the loco than of simply the rapid modernisation underway in that era. How many locos built after, say, 1950 ran a million miles before withdrawal? Not many, yet I can point to many older locos that comfortably went past 1.5million, simply on account of longevity. In isolation it isn't a good measure of quality, particularly not for late-era locomotives.

    Tom
     
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  6. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    We need another post from Michael Rowe on the diagramming. I could imagine that a lot of their work was quite peaky, so on some days they might be doing just one inbound in the morning and one outbound in the evening.

    I wonder what mileage per month the Fairburns and Standard 80xxx tanks achieved. And the 61xx class.
     
  7. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    It's always interesting to see other people's work where the stats are concerned. However there's a few points I would make about the context of the above data.

    • The service life of the Thompson L1s is roughly half, or less than half, the Gresley machines. Both classes suffered early withdrawals.
    • Most of the Thompson L1s were built between 1948 and 1950. The only exception is no.9000, built in 1945 and therefore three years older than its classmates.
    • Classes V1 and V3 were normally recorded separately in the LNER stats: the boiler type and pressure amongst other things leading to the LNER identifying them separately. So are your "highest" and "lowest" examples in V1/V3 one of each, or two of one? Because that changes things quite significantly, in fact.
    • Using average miles/month is not useful. I would suggest a like for like comparison in timeframe is more meaningful as a start, and it should be average annual mileage (which is what the LNER and then BR (E) recorded in their Use of Engine Power documents). You need to see the figures for 1945-withdrawal for the two classes to make a meaningful comparison of the classes' work. You will find the Thompson machines data doesn't change - but the Gresley machines will go down in average annual mileage and availability (which is the standard you should be using, not per month).
    An example of this can be found in my upcoming book, where the prototype is compared with the existing Gresley locomotives.

    The Yeadon's Register series of locomotive books is an excellent photographic record. Past that, it has (for me anyway) limited value where it gives workshop visits, and mileages, without full context of the works done or the average annual mileages.

    It's for that reason you would look at a Thompson A2/3 Pacific and see it has visited works more often - but no context as to why - and assume straight away it was a poor machine in comparison to a Gresley A4 Pacific. When the reality is that the two classes had differently planned maintenance schedules and one was notionally run to failure, and one was preventative maintenance. One class was longer in the works than the other during the year - the A4. Availability was always higher with a Thompson Pacific.

    In this example, the lifetime averages for both classes are not helpful, like for like comparison. By 1948, the era of thousands of trained men in maintenance positions was over, and the way the railway kept stocks of spares/undertook maintenance work on their locomotives had also changed. A quick glance at the statistics I have for the prototype L1 shows that by the second year of its work (having emerged partway through 1945) its availability was 11% higher than a V3 at 68%. The lower pressure V1 had identical availability for that year. The L1 had the lowest mileages by 5000 miles (27,724 miles compared to the V1's 31,091 and V3's 32,732 miles).

    In isolation, the new Thompson L1 looks satisfactory but with worse mileages. The reality is that the prototype was on specific duties and touring the country, with testing equipment in tow, and the V1s/V3s mileages were some of the lowest of the war years, having achieved a respectable 40,248 miles and 41,537 miles in 1942 respectively. The trend for them was downwards, which is then borne out by the research I have done since, and hope to publish in another book (or another version of the Thompson book).

    If we take your stats and apply an average mileage per year calculation to the four locos, we get the following:

    L1 no. 67764: 32,982 miles per year on average.
    L1 no. 67766: 27,120 miles per year on average.

    These mileages look quite low, frankly. The Thompson L1 class was expected to do significantly higher mileages. I would need to see the context of the Yeadon's Register figures before making further comment, but this is much lower than the stats I have show for the entire class (lower by around 10,000 miles).

    V1 or V3 no. 67625: 77,092 miles per year on average.
    V1 or V3 no. 67630: 53,524 miles per year on average.

    These look substantially higher, and the top one in line with what was considered to be a good annual mileage for the v3 class, but the lower one looks closer to that expected of a V1 class in a year. Again, I need to see the Yeadon's Register figures, because these figures are much higher than the stats I have show for both classes (by about 30-35,000 miles each).

    If you were to take just the figures for 1946-1965 for both classes, I suspect that the comparisons would be very different than taking the whole lifetime mileages.

    There are lies, damned lies...and there are statistics!
     

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  8. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Here's some GWR data. You'll need to do some sums to get miles per month.
    Locomotive Maintenance problems Cook p10b centrefold fig.JPG
     
  9. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    The similarities and differences between this, specific to the 61XX class, and what I have from the LNER (which are per class and done yearly, not by months) is something of an eye opener.
     
  10. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    A little aside - interesting to see the monthly variation in coal consumption per mile. Presumably related to steam heating - February 1947 being particularly harsh.

    Tom
     
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  11. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    So that looks like around 1600 miles/month. I suppose quite a lot of the 51xx series was employed on freight?

    Re the L1 numbers, I bet they were low in the last three years of their lives.
     
  12. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    They are four-week months shown (or shewn, as this is Swindon...). S0 I make it closer to 1800 miles per calendar month.

    Tom
     
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  13. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Its not just 61xxs. Its 3150, 5100, 5101 and 6100 classes I think. The withdrawn locomotives were 1905-1908 vintage. There were under 30 1905-1908 5100s, under 40 1906-8 3150s, 10+ post war 5101s, 70 61xx built from 1931-1935 and the rest 5101s built between 1929 and 1939. The 3150s had larger boilers and the 61s higher boiler pressure.
     
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  14. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    Or spirited out of the shed for domestic use. :eek: It was a tough winter.

    Re the use of mileages, the attached passage from Wardale's the Red Devil is interesting. The context of the chapter was the future (or lack of ) for steam.
    Wardale.jpg
     
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  15. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    Tom I think you understate the conditions of February 1947, extremely harsh would be a little nearer the mark, and yes I do remember it.
     
  16. Eightpot

    Eightpot Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Unfortunately Yeadon's Register only gives the life mileages. However the two examples given of 67764 (highest) and 67766 (lowest) were both shedded between Hull Botanic Gardens, Middlesborough, and Thornaby, with each having odd periods at other sheds in the same general area. With both doing much the same work in the same general area it is strange for there to be quite big difference between the two locos mileages.

    Firstly an error on my part - can't read my own handwriting in that I gave the average annual mileage for 2925/67625 as 3728, whereas it should be 2728. However, for the V1/V3 it gets even more interesting in that for 67625 (converted to a V3 in August 1953) I overlooked that it was in store from 23/10/61 to 29/12/62 which brought its working life down to 29 years 10 months which increased its average mileage to 2799. This one was working daily around the Glasgow area at Eastfield and Parkhead.

    For 2930/67630 this remained a V1, also in Scotland but mainly at St. Margarets (64A), but from 1959 also at Eastfield and Parkhead.

    As for the L1s, both 67764 and 67766 were shedded in the same general area of Hull, Thornaby, and Middlesborough for most of their working lives, so why such a disparity in their average mileages?

    But then as they say - 'Figures can be made to mean anything.'
     
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  17. ady

    ady Well-Known Member

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    I have a book of Bullied WC/BoBs and their mileages are printed and its quite interesting how some got a lot of 'miles' but some didn't. Those with the most gained miles were those in traffic the longest (well duh Adrian). But some engines that were built alongside each other differed considerably. I read somewhere else that Swanage in her working days was considered a Lemon (for want of a better word) and was used on work where she was out of the way. Maybe 67766 was a Lemon too?
     
  18. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    The NYMR had 42765 for a gala a good number of years ago. The NYMR’ shed master at the time (Keith Gays) took it out on a train. When he returned he was full of enthusiasm. ‘An improved K1’ was his comment. Having it later on in the gala, I can agree with those words. However, I readily admit that two people’s opinion does not make a definitive answer.
     
  19. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    Nail hit firmly on head here.

    There is nothing wrong with the opinion of individual users of a loco. "Well she is good for me" may be true. But, surely you have to go for data on usage, maintenance etc to get a sense of the real availability and reliability of any loco.

    There's so much on here along the lines of, for example, "Well, 'X' said these locos were tiresome and he should know so it must be true" to realise that it's only part of any story about a class of loco or an individual loco.
     
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  20. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Fair enough, but it is part of the story so should not be dismissed either.
     

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