Air smoothed merchant navy

I wouldn't draw too much attention to that if I were you. Sourcing such materials isn't as difficult as some people seem to make out.

 

So is all this rumour or is it really going to happen?

 

Well the story was in Railway magazine, so I think its more than a rumour

 

That an original MN is better than a rebuilt does not need to be proved, it is axiomatic. :smt002

 

I imagine a lot of these things start as an idea and/or a story and never go any further. Maybe this is one that will make some progress. If there is any substance in it then a web site should appear very soon. Incredibly cheap and and easy to set up these days and so vital in spreading information etc. So I'll watch and see if one of those appears soon.

Been thinking about it overnight. Which Bulleid fan wouldn't! I have thought through two options.

First is to rebuild as the loco was built, chain driven valve gear included. With maybe cosmetic changes, (if possible), to make it more route friendly. Such a loco must surely be aimed at the main line!

Second would be to do what happened in Germany with 01 1102. One of a class that had been rebuilt and re-boilered from streamliners to conventional style. Just hammer out some sheet metal and stick an airsmoothed casing on the rebuilt! (I think I may have rather simplified the process there!). Trouble is no one particularly liked it afterwards because all it represented was another main line loco, not a re-creation of the original.

Coming back to relative performance of original v rebuild. IMHO impossible to judge at present because of insufficient surviving data on the actual performance of the originals. One test would of course be taking a Bournemouth Belle load up Roundwood bank! 76 mph and still accelerating at the top is what 35012 did in 1965. In the very capable hands of Gordon Hooper, with Andy Cook as fireman, (whose son is a member of this Forum). I know Gordon came originally from Exmouth Junction where I think he had significant experience firing the original MNs. I very much hope he will be at the Nine Elms re-union next month, so I'll see what he thinks on the matter. But off the top, I guess that 30 psi extra boiler pressure has got to do something!

 

Interesting proposal which is going to generate some sensible discussion on this forum (hopefully). So, a genuine question; Why did British Railways re-build the whole class?

 

Wasnt it after the accident of one where some of the motion bent its self there is a picture somewhere on the internet i have seen of it

 

I would like to see one of the ex Barry hulks restored to visually represent 21C1 (making sure it was built to current main line specs as Hamilton was) but to be improved to make a Super Merchant. I think Ian Riley was talking about improving his MN if there was scope in his workshops after his Black 5 was completed.

For me I don't think we will ever get a true representation of the original class as built. Not only is the quality of engineering available now compared to 70 years ago far in greater but current line restrictions will prevent running as it was back in the day.

We only have to look at the performance of Tornado to prove what modern engineering can achieve.

 

Amongst the reasons that I have picked up were problems centering around the valve gear and the steam reverser. Sometimes you'd ask a driver what cut off he had been using and he would laugh and say something like, "on one of these we don't know what the cut off is. It's either forwards or backwards"! (Edited to mention that comment referred to the Light Pacifics).

Maintenance problems cause by the air smoothed casing were also cited as a reason for rebuilding. Easier to get at things without it in place.

Others here will have more chapter and verse on the reasons than my limited comments.

Interesting comment in Winkworth's book, attributed to an engineman, "I don't know why they had to rebuild the engines; all they needed was a decent reverser and they would have been fine". And to Winkworth that summed it up.

 

I think repair and running costs had a lot to do with the decison to rebuild. I think I read somewhere that the "Leader" used more oil for lubrication than a comparable sized diesel uswed for fuel! I suspect the Merchant Navies were also very heavy consumers of oil, and if the reversers were as bad as stated, they were probably not capable of being set to run economically, making them heavy on coal and water.

 

I was talking to a very knowledgeable guy on the foot plate of Manston at Eastleigh. He was very supportive of the steam reverser. As I understood it from him the main problem was lubricating it and the quality of the seals that were used. With modern seals and better maintenance they have few problems with it. You have to admire Bulleid for his (sometimes) forward thinking.

 

The reverser can be problematic but carefully maintained they give good service. It's finding the time to lavish all this TLC in an everyday working environment that's the problem. I've seen an article that reckoned if Bulleid had used the Ashford steam reverser (vertical) rather than the Eastleigh one (horizontal) the problems would have been much, much fewer.

 

I guess we just have to be thankful that not all the Light Pacifics were rebuilt. Not only now in the presevation era, but also up to July 9th 1967. And some drivers loved them. Very sad I never thought to talk to Fred Hoare, (Salisbury Top Link engineman), about his time driving the original MNs. Stupid of me really because he loved the original condition Light Pacifics. I had a lovely up ACE run with him behind 34002 once, (it's in Winkworths book, he was on it as well). Net time not much more than 76 minutes on the 80 min schedule. Yet one of his colleagues would have said at Salisbury. "It's not a MN so we will lose 3 minutes on the schedule today". (Not typical of Salisbury drivers thankfully).

And Fred, who would normally keep himself down to the high 80s /low 90s as a top speed, did tell me once he had taken an original Light Pacifc beyond 100mph at Broad Clyst. But I guess he had been bought up on the original Bulleids of both sizes, grew to love them and never lost that love.

And of course we do have that wonderful run right at the end with 34102 and driver "Boy" "The New Cross Lip" Gaffney. Loco in dreadful mechanical condition but he managed to get 100 mph at Fleet after a Basingstoke start. And now I have seen my brothers very detailed log of the run, (he did time those sorts of runs in amazing detail), I no longer have any doubt as to whether it was true 100mph. It was! Shame Winkworth didn't know that detail was available when he wrote his book.

But as for getting a true Bulleid MN back. It's the sort of project that would really interest me. But it has to be a multi million pound job doesn't it? And a timescale for completion that is beyond what I want to become involved in.

 

Steam reversers were around before OVS incorporated one into his designs but I get what you're saying.

 

If it's a new build, why not give it a new name? Perhaps a sponsorship deal could be wangled with one of the modern cruise lines, with the loco running boat train tours to their ships.

 

Im sure that partially you we're right. The Bulleid Pacifics had so many unusual features that took some getting used to and no doubt had lots of teething troubles - if they had arrived in 1935 im sure that by 1938 they would have been on the same Podium as the A4'S and Princess Coronations (and in some peoples minds they already are)

Born into a world of mend and make do rather than development they never got that fine tuning and so, the Romance of 'what could have been' exerts a major pull on the hearts and minds of both Veterans and 'Steamagers' This is why Duke of Gloucester exists(should have been a world beater), why Tornado Exists(never given a chance at those interchange trials), why City of wells got a Geisl( they should all have had tthese) and why there are half a Dozen new builds in progress,
Craftsmanship, underpinned by space age technology, Drudgery foiled by the need of men and women to do something worthwhile with their own time and with their own hands have enabled Steam Locomotives not only to be reborn and continue in operation, but turn in performances to the highest standards.

Maybe we just make longer lasting oil these days but no one who runs a Bulleid Pacific seems disappointed with them... ?

If an unrebuilt Bulleid pacific hadnt looked very similar to a British standard, hadn't had a dam good boiler and been cheaper to rebuild than replace i suspect they would all have gone to Barry or Gone for Good as did alot of very good Locos- in which case judgeing by the interest these peculiar Locomotives generate, a new build Unrebuilt would already be pacing the network, it would n't be a replica, rather a development and would run like clockwork, but more than this, just like Duchess of Hamilton and Mallard do, it would look absoloutely fantastic ...and could run in a nice dark blue...

 

Well done. Got the question of colour in at an early stage. Next we must discuss the number. 21Cxx or 350xx? :smt002

 

No, No. Please not blue. And please none of this 21Cxx business! I always refer to the Bulleid at the Bluebell as 34023!

OK, OK, it doesn't matter. Just let's have one back in service.

Interesting comment above about the timing of the MNs arrival. Yes. Those few years pre war could have seen them viewed in such a different light. Such is history. But the original MNs gave such a superb platform for what followed. And I'm right in the middle of that at present as I am working with a group of timer friends from the 1960s on setting up an online library of the runs we timed. It is going to show a lot of very, very good running. And that will I am sure put the MNs second to the A4s in terms of the number of times a UK steam loco class was properly recorded at 100 mph or more.

But very sadly, I have a feeling that between a good number of us with an enormous amount of timing logs there will not be a single run behind the MN class as O.V.S.B. had them built. They had gone too early for us. And despite some exaggeration, (IMHO), of what was said those machine did between Salisbury and Exeter before the speed trapping started, I am sure the lack of virtually any documentation from those days means a good many other 100 mph plus runs will just be lost in the mists of time.

 

One thing that comes to mind why un rebuild a Merchant Navy when we already have un rebuilt west countries and Battle of Britain’s. Surly a MN is only a bigger vision of a WC or a BB. Don’t get me wrong I would be more than happy to see a un rebuilt running up and down the main line but shouldn’t we be concentrating on finishing all the other new builds first. I’ve never seen a BR 72xxx or 82xxx run before and both locos are in the process of being reborn again and will we ever see 72010 Clan Hengist completed and running on the main line.

 

You can't dictate how people spend their money and there's a good chance that those who would pay to see an original MN rise from the ashes, wouldn't pay to see a new Clan or whatever. I doubt the funding of this project will significantly detract from the funding of others.