Does anyone know what is happening with 5029?

Sort of on topic, but I recall reading that the 'streamlining' added to the Castles and Kings caused overheating due to cutting off cooling air to certain key areas. Surely this would risk the reliability of any main line engine should an attempt be made to replicate it (April Fool or not!!!)?

Regards,

Dan

 

I'll be in Germany for the 175 celebrations so any surprises, or not, regarding 5029 will have to wait until I get back. I'm sure this thread will keep the subject alive for a while longer.

 

At this rate, its the 1930s streamline mania all over again. At least Bulleid went for 'air-smoothing' instead ! On a more serious note, I always felt that the GWR's attempt at streamlining was half-hearted, resulting in a couple of locomotives looking like the proverbial dog's dinner.

 

I think that 6014 (at least) retained the 'Vee' front cab to the end.

 

Collett was, notoriously, the man who, when it was suggested to him that certain noble Lords would like to see their names on Great Western Locomotives, picked the Dukedogs... If someone with that kind of sense of humour were asked to streamline locomotives for publicity rather than operational reasons what kind of result might one expect?

 

I was under the same impression, pretty sure the castle didin't.

Incidentally how can you have an April Fool which is revealed before April 1?

 

A better one than was evidently the case. If I were on the GWR board, I'd have probably taken him to task...

 

Understatement of 2010 so far really, if Staniers Bathtub has very little aerodynamic value then a Castle with a bit of welding has the same streamlined properties as a block of Flats, purely jumping on the publicity bandwagon with that one.

 

well if it is happening or whether it is this years 'april fools' (like the bluebell diesel gala last year), it would be a surreal thing to see. Imagine trying to rake out the smokebox with a great big dome on the smokebox door!

 

I have always wondered why only the GWR positioned loco lamp irons the correct way round to minimise the aerodynamic drag.

This seems to have escaped the attantion of every other loco drawing office.

 

That's funny: I always think about why the GWR has their lamp irons the wrong way round, as they can't assist in slowing the train down... I think I'd better construct my nuclear bunker!

 

I wasn't quite sure what you meant about the lampirons being a certain way round, so i did a little search on google images. I found this-anybody got any idea what it's from?

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5338466

Dan

 

Its in store waiting for a new build project to be worked up around it.

 

That actually made me laugh out loud...

 

Ruined my own post! Will start again...

 

As regards the difference in lamp iron styles, compare this:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/208/459117592_38d7095b2d.jpg

with this:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/2326866242_f40753fd5b.jpg

and you'll see the difference.

(Please note: these are not my photographs and they have been selected at random to prove a point).

 

I believe it is from 2-8-0 No. 3817 which was scrapped at Barry around 1980.

 

It would be an interesting exercise to get some suitably sized models in a wind tunnel and see what the results were... There's all sorts of speculation about the relative qualities of the various streamlining, but I've never seen any hard data.
To add some completely uninformed and worthless speculation, I wouldn't be suprised if the lower tender of the GWR wasn't at least as big a culprit in the drag front as anything happening at the front of the locomotive, and the effects of the amount of coal in the tender of all of them might be interesting... The bigger loading gauge on the western wouldn't help either. You''d need to do a fair bit of work to get worthwhile data though, pulling in the effects of crosswinds and everything else.

 

I wouldn't say its uninformed as it seems to be based on common sense. The lower tender of a GWR locomotive would surely act as a 'sink-hole' where air 'drops' due to the lack of resistance keeping the air-flow at the level of the top of the boiler. The 'sinking' air would thus hit the front of the first item of rolling stock, which acts as a secondary source of heavy drag similar to the front of a locomotive when accelerating. The question would therefore be just how much this secondary drag affected the performance of GWR locomotives at speed?

 

UKsteam is showing 5029 as a LE move from Tyseley to Southall on Monday (5th) no times as yet. Looks as if it is being dragged by a diesel though.