Flying Scotsman

I’m also losing the will to live Simon, as I’ve said before if you really feel so strongly about 60103/4472/103/1472 and it’s current appearance why not have a chat with its current custodians and operators and see if something can be done rather than waste your energy telling us on here about ‘what should be done’

I hate to rather brutal Simon you do sound a little bit like a child stamping their feet and getting upset because you can’t have your own way.
Personally I’d much prefer to see the SMG group chuck the same amount of cash towards D8000, D200 and D5500 as it did towards 60103, am I going to see that happen though?

 

I'm not in the habit of being silenced because people don't like the view being offered.

If you find my views irritating either put me on ignore or skip over my posts.

With respect, I found it irritating you wanted to stop the discussion earlier in the thread but held my tongue and I didn't personally attack you.

Play the ball not the man.

No. Because they don't bring in anything like the money that Scotsman does by way of its status and relative importance.

(I would like to see the British mainline diesels get some love, mind, over and above being displayed).

 

Hear hear. Also add D9002 and D6700 to that list.

 

I've got to say that's not how I've read it. Clearly Simon is passionate, but the last page or more haven't been about whether FS should be in apple green/single chimney or not, it's been about disproving the unsubstantiated(?) notion that FS could not perform useful and valuable work on a modern railway with a single chimney. If the same unsupported point kept getting thrown out again and again at me, I'd probably get frustrated too.

Nothing more really to add to the chimney debate. Going back to the subject earlier in the topic; when I think of FS I think of 4472, in apple green with LNER down the side of the tender. I was born after it regained a double chimney, it never really occurred to me that the livery didn't match the parts. As far as I was aware it looked like Flying Scotsman which matched the pictures in my Thomas books and the model on my train set. I know more now, however I would still like to see it in the other green, or blue with or without deflectors, or the right chimney.

 

One of a few runs that 4472 has done on the S&C with 13 on the draw-bar (without a diesel on the rear).
1L07 Manchester Vic - Carlisle 30.08.87.

 

Great photograph. 'Nuff said on the single chimney?

 

There's a world of difference between dragging 600 tons around and dragging a train along at 60+mph to be able to run on today's main lines and keep reasonably out of the way of pursuing trains The latter on balance will generally demand a far greater steam output. With the former the loco would be running at a long cut-off with a consequently stronger blast and air through the fire. With the latter the reverser would be well pulled back and the Kylchap enabled better steaming rates at speed when running at short cut-off with a consequently softer blast. Your argument doesn't hold any water.

 

The loco is also now 50 years older than that Didcot picture that @S.A.C. Martin posted, and the network was far less intensely used and a lot more flexible than it is now. How many fast services were running on the ECML pre-war? Nowhere near the 6 an hour in each direction currently, plus another 6 GN/Thameslink services. That's 12 trains an hour in each direction over Welwyn viaduct. You don't have the option of getting your 600 ton train gradually up to 60-70mph and staying at that speed any more. Trundle along here, dash along there, water stop, pathing stop, sit around for an hour while the fire goes cold then blast up Stoke bank.

 

Steam is only timed at 60, you wouldn't have to hit an A3 hard to do that, unless climbing heavy hills.

Can't get my head round the idea of de-tuning it. Crazy idea.

The double is better suited I think to todays varying coal types and grades, which I believe was the reason for fitting in the first place. It wasn't just about perfirmance.

So i'm firmly in the double with deflectors and BR green camp. Better for drivers too!

 

Steve, can you prove that the steam output of a single chimney Gresley A3 is significantly lower than a double Kylchap fitted one?

I’m asking you to consider that the difference in steaming rates between the two setups is not a deal breaker and can still be more than adequately managed on the mainline.

Again, there are single blast pipe machines that run up and down the mainline currently that are not exactly short of steam when running.

The Gresley A1 and A3 were not in any part of their history known as shy steamers. If anything, the direct opposite, irrespective of the blast pipe arrangement.

Checking my notes Steve, but isn’t the maximum cut off on a Gresley loco restricted to 65% anyway? Whether single or double?

If you’re saying Scotsman in single chimney format was always being run at a long cut off, how does that square up with the secondary evidence we have on Gresley Pacifics that states the general approach to these locomotives was different to your view.

I think you know that it does hold some water Steve, but you’re not willing to admit a bias in this.

I would respect you more if you stated that your view was about retaining the kylchap as a preference as a driver: which I would respect absolutely.

Rather than making the inference that Flying Scotsman, contrary to virtually all other examples of locomotives fitted with single and double chimneys during their lives, cannot be run efficiently with a single chimney setup.

All true but the point has been made repeatedly by me that railtours are not so heavy as the Gresley Pacifics were designed for.

All I am advocating is that the advantage of a double chimney A3 over a single chimney A3 in preservation is not so great that it would restrict the locomotive from doing the work it is doing now.

Which is hardly the most controversial view ever proclaimed on this forum, and it is backed up with over 40 years of the locomotive and its classmates and running in the original form and Scotsman herself doing it for every single notable achievement and rail tour run between 1964 and 1992.

 

First and foremost Simon I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death of your right to say it.

You have a very passionate view of how you, yourself and a few others would like to see a certain A3, I’ve genuinely no problem with you wanting to see it in its earlier guise but as I keep saying you haven’t got to convince those of us on an internet forum, if you really feel that strongly about 60103/4472/1472/103/ Triggers Broom and it’s current condition, how difficult would it be for you to have a conversation with the Science Museum and put a proposal through?
Your not silly or daft and you have the experience of looking after the finances of a certain other mainline 4-6-2
I have to ask you one question and that’s
‘How do you think your idea of a single chimney A3 would get past the bean counters at the Science Museum with all the spare cash they have to play with at the moment?’

 

Let’s just stick a Giesl on it and be done!

 

But see Brian Basterfield (via the RPS site) for some rather caustic remarks on FS performances in the 1970s and 1980s. Not that that proves anything either way about the chimney.

 

Don't suppose you have a link to said article/comments, would love to read them.

 

If you visit the Railway Performance Society site there is a link on page 1. Then go to the pages on the S and C in preservation and the Cumbrian Coast.

 

I think you are making an error of logic here. (*)

Specifically: Were Gresley pacifics typically worked at short cut offs? The secondary evidence says yes. Were they also capable of hauling 600 ton trains? Again, the evidence says yes. Did they therefore work 600 ton trains at short cut off? No, you can't logically deduce that, and it would be very unlikely if they did do so. The (comparatively short) max cut off is a red herring here, since we aren't talking about driving them at 65% - but it might not be unusual if it were necessary to run at no less than about 40% with such heavy trains, whereas a 250 ton train would likely fly along at 70+ mph on 20% or so on the level. The argument as I read it from Steve is that there is no issue in steaming when you are running with a long cut off since the draft is very fierce; but the Kylchap gives you an advantage in the tightly pulled up regime when the draft would otherwise be reduced.

It's also not an argument that because there are other single chimney locos running successfully, therefore all single chimney locos will be successful. The critical condition is mass-flow rate of air through the fire to burn the maximum amount of coal: what works for a Black 5 with 28 sq ft of grate will necessarily be different from what is needed for a large pacific with 50% more grate area and therefore ideally 50% more mass-flow rate of air. You can't use the success of a Black 5 as proof of success of an entirely different loco.

Ultimately I don't think the fact that the locos were on occasion called upon to pull very heavy loads is necessarily a good guide to how they would perform on today's mainline, where there is a premium placed on acceleration to a much greater degree than either high speed or maximum load. (600 tons must have been rare in any case, if for no other reason than a passenger train that long is an operational nightmare as it is far longer than typical platforms. Stick a 18-20 coach train at Kings Cross and you are way beyond the signals and blocking half the throat, which means special traffic arrangements to dispatch it: not something you'd want to do routinely)

For clarity: visually I prefer the loco in single chimney form, but I don't think the arguments you are advancing are logical proof that it would be perfectly adequate on today's railway in that form.

(*) To be fair, arguing with @Steve on a matter of locomotive operation is almost invariably an error ...

Tom

 

Thanks. I'd never heard of the RPS before.

 

Using much better quality coal than is available now

 

How is that censorship? Particularly compared to @Matt37401 ‘s comment which was trying to shut @S.A.C. Martin down. It might have been ‘self-censorship’ but that’s a very different concept (and I’m not even convinced it’s that).

Or is this one of those times when you don’t care if you’re factually incorrect?

Simon