Austerity 2-8-0 query

I think there needs to be a qualifier somewhere here for "production" classes - pilots and prototypes fall into their own category.

 

I did some analysis once of scrapping rates (on the SR and constituents). In the mid 19th century, all the companies scrapped at about 4% per year, i.e. the typical lifecycle of a locomotive was around 25 years. Taking Cudworth, Beattie and Craven as near contempraries, it was actually very consistent: they all replaced about 4% of their fleet each year. Cudworth built a small number of large classes; and Craven built myriad small classes, but the 4% replacement rate was the same for both.

Towards the end of the century, things started to last longer, driven I think by two factors. Firstly, there was less technological change in, say, the 1875 - 1900 time frame than there was in 1850 - 1875. Put simply, an 1850 loco was struggling with the job by 1875 in a way that an 1875 loco was not struggling (so much) in 1900 - so there was slightly less need to scrap a loco in order to replace it with a larger one. Secondly, by stretching out the replacement rate but continuing to build new locos at the same annual rate, fleet sizes grew as the railways expanded. By the end of the century, replacement rates were more typically around 3%, i.e. locos typically lasted 30 - 35 years. Locos built in the 1870s were mostly gone by the outbreak of World War 1.

Things changed dramatically in the twentieth century. There were a series of massive disrupters: electrification, two world wars, and then the BR modernisation plan, that meant the old "steady state" model didn't apply. Some locos went early because the work for them dried up (even some diesels introduced in the BR modernisation plan had gone within 10 years). Other locos held on for ages because they fitted some small niche that wasn't worth building anything new for (think Lyme Regis, Hayling Island, Wenford Branch). On the Bluebell we have 92240, built in 1958 and withdrawn in 1965, more or less the same time as No. 72 (built 1872, withdrawn 1964). You can't really assert much about the qualities of the two types from withdrawal dates!

Prior to World War 1, you can look at some short-lived locos and be pretty sure they were duds: the Drummond 4-6-0s built as front-line express locos which mostly only scraped 15 years or so on secondary duties come to mind, where the early withdrawal is indicative of a dud loco. But from the inter-war years onwards, it becomes increasingly hard to correlate quality and life span.

Many people consider the 9Fs to be amongst the finest locos ever built in this country, but on average they lasted about ten years. Equally, we shouldn't mistake the fact that a handful of locos on BR had 80+ year lifecycles to disguise the fact that those were very much outliers, and their class mates had typically been scrapped forty or fifty years earlier.

Tom

 

Not in LNER matters, apparently (eg: Great Northern).

 

Thanks for a most interesting analysis.

The 3 late-surviving Beattie well-tanks were perhaps the extreme example of engines retained for niche duties, having originally come from a class of 85, of which the other 82 had been withdrawn before 1900. You mention the Drummond 4-6-0s as duds, but some were rebuilt as "pseudo H15s" retaining the Drummond long flat grate, perhaps because Urie and Maunsel felt unable to completely scrap relatively modern assets. The Dean/Churchward "Kruger" 4-6-0/2-6-0s were scrapped after 3 or 4 yeas in service, but replaced by new "Aberdare" 2-6-0s - I suspect that was recorded as a rebuild or renewal to avoid embarrassment - the episode didn't seem to harm Churchward's reputation. On the LNWR, Whale scrapped all the Webb 3-cylinder compound passenger locos, which were 10-20 years old at the time (the 0-8-0 goods were rebuilt to 2-cylinder, as in slower time were Webb's 4-cylinder compounds).

At the time of Grouping, most locos on most of the railways were under 40 years old. A notable exception was the Midland, who retained large numbers of Kirtley double-framers from before 1875. It appears to have been company policy to rebuild and modernise elderly locos rather than build new larger ones, possibly aligning with the infamous Midland "small engine policy".

The Scottish railways also had a lot of very old engines (as did the Irish!). In a book by H J Campbell Cornwell on Caledonian Locomotives (1882-1922), there is reference to a debate between John McIntosh (Caley CME 1895-1914) and some of the Directors. It had been noted that there was a sharp difference in loco expenditure between the Caledonian and North British, although the two railways were of similar size and with similar Drummond-inspired loco fleets. See attachment for details.

 

I think that takes us into a different space.

 

The LMS policy is worth a look and shows that early withdrawal wasn't confined to the 1960s. I am grateful to Arthur Cook's LMS Locomotive Design and Construction (1990), published by the RCTS, for this information.

In 1923 the LMS inherited 10,396 (an additional 80 S&DJR locos were absorbed in 1930) in 393 classes. By the end of 1936 these figures had reduced to 7,620 (down 27%) and 165 (down 58%). A report to a Board meeting o 24 October 1935 stated, ". . . that a further 530 locomotives would be required to complete the replacement of units 'which, while in good condition and with a substantial further life, are not fully adapted to the new conditions'. It was proposed to purchase 369 locomotives under the Government scheme 'as a further instalment of the special renewals'." In other words, they were withdrawn not because of any specific problem, merely that there was better available.

 

I'm curious about this statement, was the WD a near failure?

As far as I understand, it was a machine designed to be knocked out quickly and as cost-effectively as possible, for the purpose of moving tons of wartime freight. Did they not do this?

I know there has been discussion about their rough riding at speed, but I can't imagine for the original design purpose that was too much of an issue? Starting in a country where most of your freight speed is limited by the use of basic, unbraked 4 wheel wagons and then moving onto the continent where you just need to move faster than the front line progresses? Was there something intrinsically wrong that made them unreliable or unable to raise steam?

What about the ROD version of O4?

 

Thanks very much for those interesting figures. I suggest there are two additional factors increasing longevity of locomotives during the third quarter of the nineteenth century: firstly steel gradually and generally replaced wrought iron in construction and it is much more robust; and secondly there was a tendency to build new replacement boilers rather than keeping the same boiler with a locomotive, and thus boiler life became less of a deciding factor.

 

Again from Arthur Cook's book the LMS had a clear policy of reducing the total number of classes and also reducing the total locomotive stock. Sir Harold Hartley commented "we inherited an appalling number of classes". They mainly started with the low hanging fruit, classes with few locomotives thus being particularly vulnerable, even though in many cases they were newer than older locomotives from large classes. The figures show how successful this policy was...

 

The original question was if there was a genetical connection from 8Fs to WD 2-8-0.
Just like the clear path from Pennsylvania K4s to LNER pacifics.
My take is no.
It looks to me as a bunch of younger engineers getting an unexpected chance to show how smart they really were.
This gives birth to the question if they were smarter.
Comparing it to the LMS 8F answers seem to be no , maybe ,yes
and comparing it to the S160 is not level field.

 

deleted

 

Testament to how over engineered steam loco's generally are that WD's a 'just enough to get by design' were still slogging along nigh on 20 years after being built.
IIRC correctly some investigative work was being done on replacing various frame components within ' 90733' with more robust - some nice analysis being done by some engineering students ? .
Suppose that the drawings for the Vulcan foundry 2-8-0 'Liberation' class would be long gone ( a descendant of the WD dont know if any still survive)
dont know if any progress was made on this

 

https://www.locomotives.com.pl/Freight Steam Locomotives/Tr202.htm
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8916903/vulcan-foundry-drawings
The NRM seems to have a few VF drawings based on the above entry including for the Liberation. Last time I enquired, Liverpool, which has the bulk of the VF collection of images, drawings etc, had not archived it and had no plans to do, so not accessible.

 

There's a GA of the Liberation here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/124446949@N06/32608196486
To my eyes it doesn't look like a cousin of the WD. The Vulcan Foundry would surely have had plenty of design capability and designs of their own to work from which would be a better starting point than a GB loadog gauge locomotive. I'd hazard a completely evidence free guess that it was more of an in house production. One would need an expert in the Vulcan Foundry products I suppose.

 

The fundamental problem was that go everywhere british 20 inch cylinders cannot sit further apart than 6feet 8 inches.
The max cast iron counterweigth in a 4 feet 8 driving wheelset therefore can only balance the rotary parts.
To counter 40% of repreciprocating masses(considered absolute minimum by Cox) needs lead,tungsten or uranium.
Was lead rationed in UK during WW2?
WD decided to skip all reprocicatory balance and thereby condemned locomotives to max 25-30 mph in all eternity.
From this limit Raven T2 had been better starting point.
Wide steel firebox,4feet drivers ,outside Walschaerts and optimized steam ways.

 

A lot longer than that for the 2-10-0 version - still in service in Greece until the late 1970s. Not bad for a disposal design.

 

According to E S Cox, the Liberation 2-8-0 design was developed "with the assistance of representatives of seven Europeran countries". Cox comments that "they exemplified a strange mixture of national features". With their high-pitched boilers and wide fireboxes above the coupled wheels, they seem to me to more closely resemble the American S160s than anything else, albeit with British-style plate frames rather than American bar frames. They were,however, considerably heavier than either the S160 or WD 2-8-0s, at 85t with 19t max axle-load. They were too high and wide to operate within Britain.

The largest share of the locos went to Yugoslavia, who must have liked them as they built some more in the 1950s.

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

 

I recall reading in one of the railway magazines that several WDs were overhauled at Crewe Works in 1966, I'll have to do some digging to find the reference.

Cheerz,

Alan

 

Yes, just found a photo of 90396 at Crewe Works yard in 1966. It appears to be in usual WD condition. It was going to have some work done on it because the loco number was stencilled on the cylinder cladding. It was a 56A Wakefield loco and was withdrawn in June 1967.