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P2 Locomotive Company and related matters

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by class8mikado, Sep 13, 2013.

  1. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    As a retired chartered mechanical engineer my biggest gripe is that todays young engineers know little about practical engineering. When I graduated from university I applied for engineering jobs with several organisations (B.R., C.E.G.B. N.C.B. and W & T Avery.) The one thing in common was that they all required me to go on a two year training scheme before taking up a substantive post. I went for the N.C.B. as that paid the most (£1,220/p.a.) and I've never regretted it. I learned a bit about everything from machining and welding to industrial relations and storekeeping in those two years. I even had a go at making horseshoes and shoe-ing a pit pony (not very successfully). It didn't make me an expert in anything but it gave me a real grounding in engineering, business and the practical world. I don't think any engineer gets a grounding like this, anymore; it is straight out of university and into a desk job. Most of my life has been at a desk but I would quite happily muck in and get my hands dirty on many occasion. People always welcome a helping hand on a job. Much more fun than wielding a pen. An ORR inspector was also lamenting this to me, the other day when we were chatting about someone. " Straight out of university and he's never picked up a spanner in his life."
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2020
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  2. Richard Roper

    Richard Roper Well-Known Member

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    Exactly my thoughts Re. University education today. All modelling-based, very little practical experience of "Real" Engineering, and it churns out a constant stream of Management candidates who have little idea of what the people on the shop floor are doing, or why... Employers usually start a new graduate on a training course, as the stuff they've learned at Uni is a long way from the practical reality. One chap I spoke to told me how much money per year it wasted the company - I can't remember the figure, but it was a Hell of a lot of money!
    A good few years ago one of the 3rd. year projects on the B.Eng course was to re-design an electric toaster. I felt embarrassed as the departmental Librarian, handing out bloody domestic apparatus under the pretence it was "Engineering"...
    I'm still restoring my bus, but when I was sorting the mechanical side, and when I was also restoring the Norton, I used to take parts in to sort during my dinner hour... The students were absolutely amazed at the scale of the parts. and had absolutely no idea about how to heat or cool components to fit a bearing in a housing or on a shaft... I'm a Librarian, not an Engineer, but I could honestly say that I know more about the practical side of things than some of our Mech Eng students did... Not a good situation.

    Richard.
     
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  3. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    My career was in financial services, although engineering has always been an interest and I did get an A level in engineering drawing. The same criticism applies though. I spent a few years getting a grounding and doing the professional exams before I was let lose on an unsuspecting public as an advisor. Now I couldn’t even get off the starting block as only graduate trainees are considered. I used to get them for on the job training, straight out of university and some had no idea how to interact with people. The theory and subject knowledge is fine but you have to know how to empathise with, perhaps a muddy boots farmer, followed by a titled country estate owner.
     
  4. LMS2968

    LMS2968 Part of the furniture

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    I did it the other way around! After over 25 years on the spanners (mechanic) I had to give it up for medical reasons. I went to Uni and got an Engineering degree, followed up with a PGCE (Teaching certificate).

    I remember during the final year of the B.Eng (Hons) course we were covering ergonomics and had to measure the rake of a steering column in a BL cab the Uni had. We used a variable angle spirit level, which was rather bulky and very difficult to get into the available space. I was a bit surprised when one of my fellow engineering students solved the problem by turning the spirit level upside down!
     
  5. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Can we get back to the P2 please?!
     
  6. W.Williams

    W.Williams Well-Known Member

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    This is a whole thread in and of itself but there are some important points to consider here.

    Practical experience is invaluable, but if you don't know what a thread is yet but expect to "make it" as an engineer, you better hope Santa gifts you a Machinery's handbook.

    Modern Degrees are designed to craft Engineers with significant design and analysis capability. To this end they largely achieve this, evidenced by the number of Engineers in other professions, finance in particular.

    CAD,CAM,FEA has gone a long way towards helping developing engineers understand the mechanics and manufacture of things. It is pretty incredible what you can do on a computer before you ever touch bar-stock.

    Many Engineers at university engage in programs like Formula Student which not only provides serious practical experience but challenges students to design and justify these designs to professionals. It is a serious engineering challenge and it's not the only route that developing graduates can take to gain all important hands on experience.

    This is borne out in the video above. A design model translates directly in to parametric drawings and CAM files for manufacture. The assembly model leaves little to the imagination over what fits where and what doesn't. This may not look like practical experience, but it is in my book I'm not alone.

    Modelling a P2 in Solidworks is no mean feat, and you don't have to get your hands dirty to do it.

    The way the P2 is being done, fully modelled, FEA and CAM for machining is to this Engineer the only way to do it. Confirmed functionality and fitment BEFORE metal gets cut is by far and away the most sensible option.

    Anyway, what constitutes "Real" engineering? Does it have to be made of inch thick plate? Would a Mclaren not be "Real" Engineering?
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2020
  7. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Leaving aside different views of the nature of engineering practice, I think @Steve and others do highlight an important issue - how someone with a degree develops their experience within their function of an organisation, so that they have a rounded understanding of how the world works. That gap between theoretical knowledge and understanding of how people work matters, and those without it are fundamentally limited in their capability. However, it is not just something to be taught - the qualities that make good managers (middle and senior) are in my opinion innate. For example, a few years ago, I was on a leadership* development course in a cohort of about 15, with the official (and optimistic!) objective of getting people ready for promotions to senior roles within a couple of years. Within my employer, there was one of us (and not me) who I could see as a future VP - and he's got there, but through a sideways move elsewhere.

    * - A pet peeve is the way people confuse "manage" with "lead". A lot of what we're talking about in this sub-thread is not about management, but the much tougher role of leading people. Any fool can allocate work, tell people what to do, etc., but it's much rarer to find people with the combination of skill and personality to be able to get people to want to do a tricky job.
     
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  8. LMS2968

    LMS2968 Part of the furniture

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    Having seen both the practical and theoretical sides, I can't say that I can't entirely agree, although that's true in parts. I taught engineering design, mostly but not entirely to students from Jaguar Land Rover. If you ask most people to design a car, you'll get a piece of paper with a streamlined (to them) sports car. How the passengers fit in, where the engine goes, the fuel tank, etc., are minor details not considered. The first thing you draw in car design is the driver and work outwards from there to accommodate all the necessary functions within the design parameters given. Then you might design the car's shape to enclose them all, but that isn't the end. The shell is made of individual panels, so you must then draw out each of these (today in 3D) including attachment flanges and mounting holes, etc. Then you need to design the die tools to press them out, and then you have to design the order of assembly so that every part can be attached and it isn't found that, while it's happily in place on the 3D model, it is impossible to get into that position if certain other panels have been attached first.

    In the days of steam locomotive building, the draughtsmen - and CMEs - would have served an apprenticeship in the erecting shop before making the transition. He thus understood the need to make parts accessible (although didn't always apply it), what materials were suitable for particular applications, and how some items, after time in service, could be removed only by oxy-acetylene. If he was a good designer, he would apply this experience in his later work.

    I remember going around JLR at Halewood with a group of students to see how the assembly system worked (it was building Jaguars at the time). A complete engine and transmission was about to have the shell dropped over it. I noticed, on what would become the rear face of the engine, a small hose, easily attached at the assembly plant, and wondered, should it ever burst, how the hell you'd ever reach it in the car!
     
  9. Richard Roper

    Richard Roper Well-Known Member

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    Maybe mods could please move the management sub-thread into its own topic? It's a very relevant area for discussion, but as Matt has said, this is the P2 thread... My apologies for assisting in it being side-tracked!

    Richard.
     
  10. 242A1

    242A1 Well-Known Member

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    Sadly cars are not seen as consumer durables. It is interesting to see people advise to dispose of a vehicle at the end of the factory warranty and replace.
    This is where older vehicles are so attractive. They are not over complicated and can be readily serviced and repaired. And our steam locomotives are, well, repairable and are not designed to force the obtaining a replacement after a decade or so. In a world obsessed with disposability the building of something that is not a part of that world is refreshing.
     
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  11. LMS2968

    LMS2968 Part of the furniture

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    Yes, 242A1, you're talking to someone who uses a 59 year old Ford Prefect as daily transport and his only car!

    Modern cars are designed to last the warranty period trouble free. After that, they're the owner's problem, such as that hose.

    Sorry, even further drift from the thread title!
     
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  12. 60044

    60044 Member

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    Many years ago there was a series of comic novels about the Royal Navy, but John Winton (who later went on to write about the Festiniog and Fairlies) and he described how the pipework was installed on a submarine - on a monday morning all the pipe fitters were lined up on the dockyard wall with their tools and materials and when a whistle blew they had to race to their places of work and get started. Of course, the heavier the pipe, the slower they moved and so the smallest pipes had the straightest runs and the bigger pipes had to bend and twist around them! I'm (I think!) sure that's the comic version but when I look under the bonnet of my car nowadays I'd be hard put to say that the same system isn't used by car designers nowadays! Incidentally, the John Winton series referred to at the start began with "We Joined the Navy" and consisted of around 6 titles in all. Can still be found on internet booksellers and well worth a read!
     
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  13. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    Sorry can’t agree with that, a modern car is infinitely more reliable than anything from the past. The only downside is that if you do get stuck there’s nothing you can do yourself. I once drove an old 100E and the brakes were the road equivalent of the Coal Tank! The most challenging car I had was my first company vehicle, a Morris Marina, totally unreliable. When was the last time you saw, even a 20 year old car that was rusty. As for driving on a day like this without climate control, forget it.
     
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  14. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    You could be right, some years ago I had to change the alternator on my wife’s R plate Polo. Three long bolts in the bracket and two inches in front, the radiator with an acre of space behind. Which way round were the bolts fitted? A five minute job turns into one hour. If the next owner had to do the same job I put the nuts at the front.
     
  15. Eightpot

    Eightpot Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Same with the Morris Minor series. The bolts securing the master cylinder had their heads behind the torsion bar for the front suspension. Brilliant! Why couldn't they fit them the other way round?
     
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  16. LMS2968

    LMS2968 Part of the furniture

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    Then you should have got them fixed! I didn't say modern cars are unreliable. I said they were designed to last the warranty period; everything after that is a bonus.
     
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  17. talyllyn1

    talyllyn1 Member

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    On my old 100E adjusting the drum brakes was a regular chore, and getting them to pull up evenly was even more time consuming. It reminds me of an early SVR reccy (before the line opened beyond Hampton Loade). After a detour to Tenbury Wells, I was coming down the steep hill into Bewdley when the brakes failed completely and the handbrake merely slowed me down a bit. I seriously considered ramming one of the cottage walls on the way down, but mercifully managed to roll safely distanced from the car in front, negotiate the main street and come to a rest on the river bridge! It turned out to be pin-hole failure in a brake pipe (no dual lines in those days). I was very pleased that brown trousers were fashionable. I can't believe now that I drove it all the way back to Sutton Coldfield with no brakes and repaired it myself on my Dad's drive.
    Sorry, I know this is way OT, but it's amazing what memories are stirred by this forum!
     
  18. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    I don't thinks so, I can remember the rust buckets of the 60s. I doubt if a Mk1 Vauxhall Victor would even last the warranty period now, it used to be twelve months, the norm now is 3 years with a lot of bodywork warranties going to 7 years. thankfully the 100E wasn't my car. I would have one now but only as a plaything
     
  19. Thompson1706

    Thompson1706 Part of the furniture

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    One of our Contracts Managers had a Marina as his company car. This was subsequently replaced with the new Ital and his old car was parked up in the yard. A week or so later he had a puncture in the Ital and he told the storeman to replace it with a wheel from the Marina temporarily.
    He came into the office later complaining that the car wasn't handling very well , which was not surprising due to a different wheel diameter.
    The same guy liked to go for a few pints with us on Fridays after work, so we got into his car and set off. He drove to the petrol station in Liverpool where we had an account and pulled up. He said 'Wembley tomorrow, i'd better fill up'
    , to which I said 'great these company cars,free fuel, I don't know why you don't get a jerry can for on the way back'.
    He disappeared and came back ten minutes later with a full jerry can of petrol. 'Great idea Bob' he said. I won't print my reply.

    Bob.
     
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  20. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    Sounds like you never had to replace the bypass hose on an original (pre-BMW) Mini. ;) (The replacements were actually made to a concertina design so you could get them in without removing the cylinder head).
     
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