Sir Nigel Gresley - The L.N.E.R.’s First C.M.E.

I took the inference to be that that may have harmed his career in post-war France. I’m not well enough versed in French politics to comment on whether that was likely or not.

Having read this discussion, I’m kind of with @S.A.C. Martin about Chapelon. It rather feels that he was busily designing a Supermarine Spiteful while the rest of the world was trying to get their hands on F86 Sabres and Mig 15s. There was a technology shift and ultimately wringing the last few drops out of the mature technology is less useful than making big strides with the immature technology that has already surpassed in performance the old one. No-one much wanted 3000hp piston engine fighters after 1945.

Tom

 

I merely reported a view. You evidently missed the tone of my OP.

 

But Chapelon's principles influenced Gresley when he was designing the A4s for instance so he had an effect pre-war.

 

Perhaps you could advise on the link between Vichy France and Chapelon?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France

 

Thank you, I know all about Vichy France. I'm not sure you do though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France

 

I was commenting on the suggested link between Chapelon and Vichy. I'm always surprised by the number of potentially actionable statements on this forum!

Chapleon's main problem was that his talents always seemed to embarrass previous 'achievements' of his employees, particularly PLM. To quote Wikipedia, "Despite his abilities and track record, he was never presented the opportunity to design a class of entirely-new locomotives that were produced in any numbers. He was continually stymied by railway management and politicians, and often his superbly performing locomotives were treated as embarrassments by his superiors, because they showed up the poor performance of the officially-approved locomotives."

As for any technology shift, French steam still had another 30-odd years and SNCF were not going to electrify all their main lines.

To paraphrase Churchward, Chapelon might have said "Mon 242A1 aurait pu faire reculer deux des trucs sanglants de Gresley!" Sorry, Simon only joking!

 

Yes, I was concentrating on post war since the conversation was about why his ideas didn’t influence things more post war. One suggestion was related to whether he was shunned as a result of Vichy issues (I can’t comment); my contention is that by the post war period, there was little to be gained by wringing the last ounce of performance out of the steam engine.

Tom

 

Not in the A4s built without the Kylchap exhaust. What else would you propose Chapelon influenced?

Arguably Gresley's work has very little of Chapelon's principles. You could argue maybe the W1 in compound form does, maybe some thing of the P2s...but everything else? That's Gresley's work, based on his GNR principles from Ivatt and his work on his own conjugated valve gear.

 

From here (Wardale?): https://www.advanced-steam.org/wp-c...The-Benefits-of-Compounding-july-2012-_2_.pdf

"With such a remarkable advance, other engineers took note, and all of Chapelon’s ideas,
compounding apart, were tested in the UK in the 1920s and 30s, with Gresley taking the lead. The
original 1934 P2, Cock O’ the North, 2001, had poppet valves, Kylchap exhaust and an ACFI heater, as
French as you could get."

 

Yes. One engine. That is still the crux of my point!

 

Like a few other French steam locomotives, 141P82 was originally retained for Mulhouse but was subsequently scrapped, apart from its Bissel bogie, which is on show at Mulhouse. 141TD740 is another such example but which was not scrapped.

 

Just a follow up - if Gresley took the lead, he took the lead with the P2 in 1934. So something has gone awry in this interpretation - I cannot see where there are particularly Chapelon inspired locomotives in the UK between 1920 and 1940 to be perfectly honest?

Gresley and Chapelon certainly spoke and discussed locomotive engineering, the Kylchap was applied to a few of Gresley's engines but it wasn't universal. The ACFI water heater was used a couple of times, on class P2 and B12, poppet valves used on a B3, a P2, and some D49s, together with a slight re-design of the Holden B12s batch in the 1920s.

Beyond that I am struggling. Gresley employed round topped boilers, conjugated valve gear and fairly generic blastpipe and superheater arrangements that were his and Robinson arrangements from the pre-grouping period.

Compounding is the big thing, as far as Chapelon is concerned, unless I have missed something, and Gresley only utilised compounding once in his as built W1 for the LNER.

So who were these other engineers utilising Chapelon's ideas?

 

You'd have to ask Mr Wardale(?). Mr Gresley must have called Chapelon "The French genius of steam" for good reason?

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Chapelon

 

I've read Wardale and from whats on here

1. Wardale points out that the Steam Loco's greatest enemy was its advocates, and
2. The standard of design, construction & maintenance left a lot to be desired, and
3. From what I can see there appear to be issues over the reliability of Chapelon's designs - which may or may not relate to point 2

 

Direct and streamlined internal steam passages for one. IIRC Gresley and Chapelon were on very good terms.

 

I would strongly argue that Gresley had always been looking at streamlining the internal steam passages, all the way back into G.N.R. days, regardless of Chapelon's views. This is borne out by the development of his locomotive design from taking over at the GNR to his final design, the V4.

Continuous improvement in that area, I don't believe that is something one should attribute to Chapelon over Gresley's own work in that field.

 

I don't think it pays to be too dogmatic about this came from here, that came from there. Every designer is dealing with the same laws of physics. Admittedly steam era engineers could be horribly parochial, but a good designer will have his/her eyes open to all sorts of influences and ideas and blend in anything that seems worthwhile from elsewhere into their own thinking. The influences may be subtle, but it doesn't mean they weren't there. AIUI Swindon, for instance, is believed to have picked up from Chapelon that steam chest volume should be larger than typical practice, and modified their tooling so replacement cylinders had a greater steam chest volume. Didn't cost much, maybe saved a bit of weight, presumably added a little bit of efficiency. Doubtless there were many more examples of ideas that were quietly incorporated from who knows where. Gresley would have considered Chapelon's ideas and where they reinforced and confirmed his own thinking run with them, and where they didn't seem applicable or of limited benefit then discarded them.

I submit that an unwillingness to look around and learn from others is the mark of a small man, not a great engineer.

 

That's true Jim: equally attributing the success of a designer to someone who probably had little influence on it seems wrong too.

 

I think there's a lot in that. A few propositions :

1. To try to compare Gresley and Chapelon is a category mistake. SNG was an ace CME ; Chapelon was an ace designer. It would be interesting to see Gresley's job description --- leading a successful loco and carriage design team was I guess just one of several points on the JD.

2. Wasn't Gresley a brilliant student of loco design? He was a magpie. He drew on GN, GC, GW practice, Lentz, Cartazzi, Bugatti, Chapelon, others I've forgotten. He had the knack of seeing what could work, aided greatly by Spencer, Bulleid and team. Whereas Chapelon personally made big advances in loco design--- how big, depends on who you read. Both of them believed in scientific method and testing, hence Gresley's interest in the test plant at Vitry.

3. Chapelon created the 3000ihp loco. In that context it's interesting to re-read Fiennes and ponder where we might have gone without the war :

'In the teeth of those who will not hear a word against SNG, I assert that few men have done a greater disservice to BR than when he proved to the Board of the LNER that they should continue with a policy of steam traction.......Gresley condemned us to around 2000hp when we needed over 3000hp for twenty unnecessary years.'

4. Gresley was a great leader of men. He caught the popular imagination. He brought to a relatively impoverished railway some star quality. Who in the twentieth century compares with Stephenson and Brunel? Gresley is one.

 

Which war? Without WWI, we'd likely have had a precursor to inter-city OHLE up and running .... and railways sufficiently well-heeled to have taken notice of what was going on down in deepest Sussex.

One slight thought re: extremely powerful locos .... one significant reason HNG's P1 class wasn't extended beyond two examples was infrastructure, or rather it's lack. Even had the markets existed to routinely run the sort of mammoth passenger trains operated during WWII, I can't help but think of the lengths the Southern went to when trying to avoid lengthening platforms by just 2 carriage lengths on just the London commuter lines.