Sir Nigel Gresley - The L.N.E.R.’s First C.M.E.

You could make that argument for Gresley A4s versus the diesel railcars of DB. I am unsure if you can for diesel shunters.

Quite agree.

 

Looking at the drawing of Gresley's 4-8-2 mentioned in a previous post it was not designed in detail but appears like a much elongated A3 with the larger firebox and 50 square feet grate of the P2 (or W1) and a very long smokebox to make up the length. In particular the boiler has the same diameter the A3, as it's not really possible to fit anything larger over 6' 8" wheels within the LNER loading gauge so one would not expect a big increase in power output. Presumably the main intention was to haul longer trains on the ECML reliably, rather in the Gresley idiom of providing small classes of locomotives for specific duties. There is also a report of an A4 with 275 psi pressure proposed around the same time, (possibly to allow increased loads for the streamliners?) Whether either of these proposals would have progressed and been built but for the war is unclear..

 

On the wider subject of railcars, it is interesting that the NER had introduced a couple of petrol-electric railcars back in 1903, but it took over 50 years for IC railcars to become commonplace in LNER territory. The LNER operated a few diesel railcars in the 1930s, but did not get so deeply involved as the GWR or the County Donegal.

https://www.lner.info/locos/Railcar/railcar.php

 

Add the GNRI to that list. Pre-1932, all petrol engined 'rail mounted buses', but by the mid 30s, they really began to get into their stride. Even the impecunious SL&NCR got in on the act. Their 'Railcar B', effectively a 5'-3" gauge version of the two ex-Donegal vehicles on the IMR, survives (unrestored, but secure) at Downpatrick.

Today's useless fact: Did you know the ex-B&CDR Belfast Queen's Quay - Bangor line (the only bit which survives) was the first in these islands to fully dieselise it's passenger services, in 1953? Well, you do now!

 

As far as I can make out by the 1930's diesel railcars and shunters were an established technology but a UK/European loading gauge 'main line' loco had yet to prove itself.

 

I've seen the diagram but it does raise some questions, I think. Clearly there was an upper limit to how big a boiler could be accommodated, but as the V2s with 6'2" drivers had by then been shown to be fast and free-running I wonder if the drivers could have been reduced to 6'2" and a slightly bigger boiler worked in to go with the bigger firebox - and why were 8-coupled drivers thought necessary - was it just to put the power down better? Otherwise I have to wonder whether the 4-8-2 would have been any better than the Thompson and Peppercorn pacifics with 50 sq ft grates.

 

A more interesting question might be if you had a smaller wheeled loco that could accelerate and climb hills faster even if it didn't have the top speed of a larger wheeled one what could you have done with it?

I know very little about the ECML but presumably it might be possible to improve the point to point times or have a few more station stops.

 

Looking at British made large diesel lumps supplied to firms manufacturing locos for BR and CIÉ in the mid 1950s, there's really no arguing with that! The cousins were streets ahead and remained so until the likes of Maybach, Paxman and Sulzer got their act together.

 

The interesting omission is English Electric whose engines were on a par with the likes of Maybach et al whose products had been refined in the industrial environments of air and marine transport. This was the major problem of their introduction to BR's rail modernisation as they were fixed within a bodyshell that had limited facilities to absorb vibration whereas in the marine environment the sea provided a medium to achieve this. In the case of BR diesel traction the vibration was forced back into the engine and its associated bedplate thus creating problems within the crankcase hence the operating problems and maintenance effort that so bedevilled the 1st generation of diesel traction.

 

I don't see that episode as trying to prove anything. The question as normally recounted was whether a high speed (for the 1930s) service like the German one could be introduced between London and Newcastle. It could, with (what we would now call) a DMU, but steam could offer the same or better timings with a longer train. What is omitted from the usual story is whether a DMU with more vehicles was considered, and if so why that wasn't pursued.

 

At which point, I'd be curious as to the implications of such a long DMU for that era. The GWR railcars only ran to (from memory) 3 carriages, and I wonder whether the multiple working equipment (I presume mechanical transmissions?) would have been able to cope with longer formations. I'd also be curious as to whether the extra siding and maintenance requirement for such a bespoke duty would have been feasible, not just practically but economically.

 

I don't think the "Flying Hamburger" diesel trains had much in the way of the creature comforts that the LNER high speed trains did, and to have included those creature comforts (including kitchen cars) would added a lot of weight that would have considerably degraded the performance of the diesel trains whereas the steam locos could handle it.

 

I know nothing about the Flying Hamburger but, reading up, it appears to have been a 2-car articulated set with a single diesel engine driving a generator with each of the axles on the middle bogie having a traction motor, the extreme bogies being unpowered. I suppose that it would have been possible to increase the number of cars but it would have required more engines and I don't know whether the technology existed to satisfactorily remotely control multiple diesel engines on a divided drive that would have then existed with more vehicles.

 

Der Fliegende Hamburger was 85 tons /102 passengers that was timetabled 286km in 138 miutes or 124kmh.
The fastest ever european fare taking steam train was belgian and did 119km in one hour.
The Elizabethanian was a 88km per hour schedule
Was LNER steam on level with german diesel?
If you run two times as fast You need 8 times as much power for air resistance and that is what hurts

 

A better comparison is the Silver Jubilee 108 Km/hr

 

A rough comparison
Flying Hamburger 124kmh and 8 horsepower per passenger
Silver Jubilee 108 kmh and a four hour rating according to Cox ca 1300 horsepower or 6.5 horsepower per passenger
Speed ratio cubed ca 1.5 times 6.5 would need ca 10 horsepower per passenger on Silver Jubilee if doing 124 kmh
Diesel beats Steam everytime and steam locomotive needs 50% more mass/power

 

But what was the infrastructure like on the Hamburger? On the LNER, they had notorious restrictions like 30kph through Peterborough, the at grade crossings at Newark and Retford, the swing bridge at Selby etc. Is 108 v 124 based on a level playing field?

 

You mean trying Mallard on the track where the 05 did 200kmh plus two years before?

 

No, it’s about the nature of the route as a whole.


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The GWR twin railcars had two engines in each car and could operate with an unpowered carriage between the two units. They didn't come out until 1941, but I think its fair to say the tech was there.