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

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by S.A.C. Martin, Dec 3, 2021.

  1. Bill2

    Bill2 New Member

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  2. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I think that is somewhat harsh on the LNER. Front-line express locos typically had about 20 - 25 years at most in the front line before cascading down towards eventual withdrawal. So viewed from the perspective of the early 1930s, diesel wasn't a viable, proven technology for mainline express locos. Diesel shunters yes, but not express passenger duties. So at that point, introducing a new class of steam locos wasn't a dead end: it was what was sensible, probably with a projected life in the front line that would have gone into the mid - late 1950s.

    The SR and LMS didn't introduce mainline diesels until the late 1940s. That is 15 years after the LNER would have been making investment and design decisions about major new steam locomotives that led to the A4s. They were hardly "just around the corner" in 1933-34 sort of time frame.

    Your argument seems to be the equivalent of saying "putting a V12 Merlin petrol engine in a Spitfire in 1936 is clearly a dead end because there's this Frank Whittle chappie playing round with gas turbines in his back garden ..."

    Tom
     
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  3. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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  4. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    I'm not so sure about that, diesel technology was in its infancy and the capital cost of locomotives was about twice that for steam. The attraction was that it was far less labour intensive. How far did we advance? I'm sure seven lightweight coaches with a stoker fired A4 at both ends could have kept to HST timings on the ECML[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
     
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  5. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    No because that isn't my argument. You are conflating two different points.

    i) In the end the 'victory' of the A4 was pyrrhic because in the medium term steam was to be surpassed by diesel and electric. It was the most advanced bit of nineteenth century technology, you can dress it up anyway you like but that is what it was. Given that the world was moving on it is ultimately a dead end which is why there is nothing beyond the A4. In the short term it is backing the right horse, in the medium and long term it is the wrong horse.

    ii) By the late 1940s when the LMS, SR had caught up with the rest of the world on dieselation, the LNER hadn't. I find it surprising, given how experimental the company was at earlier stages in its history, and its willingness to pursue new technologies such as electrification, that there is nothing in response to diesel as new technology for mainline traffic. And this takes us back to Gresley and whether in the last decade as CME he stops being the innovative, forward looking CME that he had been and becomes more conservative which means that new forms of technology are not being pursued.

    If we ask the question where is the LNER's equivalent of Bollen, Ivatt or Fairburn? Then the answer is probably 'being CME of the SR' - which in turn raises two questions as to why there was no one else in the LNER thinking about diesels, and how much the narrative of Gresley the innovator is down to Gresley and how much of it is actually Bulleid. We accept the idea that the omnipotent CME is outdated and that design efforts were much more team efforts, then the weakening of the team (when people leave or retire) will end up weakening the quality of what is being produced. Losing the person who is the most forward thinking and the person most likely to embrace new ways of doing things is clearly going to result in a more conservative approach.
     
  6. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    At this point, I start to ask how much Bulleid - very much a man of steam - was really driving the SR diesels and electrics forward; the excellent book on the electrics by Simon Lilley and John Wenyon emphasises how Raworth was at the heart of the project. At the risk of bringing one of NatPres' standard topic killers in, I'd suggest that for all the engineering innovation in places, Leader was actually no more forward thinking than the A4s, but just an attempt to eke out the last bit of incremental improvement in the 19th century technology that was - is - steam locomotion.

    I also note that the chief innovations I associate with the LNER were minerals related, in particular the NER's embrace of high capacity wagons and the electrification schemes in NER territory. Just how much of Gresley was in those schemes?
     
  7. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    I've read all these posts with a lot of interest. A few random points.

    Surely a fleet of main line locos which lasted 25 to 30 years in front line service has justified and paid for itself. That's regardless of whether the fleet was the A4s, Duchesses or Kings.

    Between c 1945 and 1955 we were pretty much out of money. Lots of sectors only really got going around the time of the Modernisation Plan.

    Strongly agree re the UK economy and innovation. Coal fired ships, textile machinery, the UK has always tried to get the last drop out of the capital stock. It's not an exclusively railway phenomenon. Something to do with the required rate of return post tax and the real cost of capital?
     
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  8. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    Ok, we are arguing semantics, but can it really be a phyrric victory if it sees out it's design life?
    Jarvis rebuilds of Bulleid pacifics, 9Fs or A1s perhaps, but not the A4.

    The lack of interest in diesel after the war was more about going direct to electrification than a lack of interest in forward-looking. The diesels produced would bear that view out. So the idea you could see mainline diesel in UK conditions (loading gauge, forex, technology, labour relations etc) as the way forward in the current cycle in 1930 is pretty unlikely.

    Ask Gresley what he thought would replace an A4 he might well have said "an EM1" as that tech was going and in 30 years would definitely be mature
     
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  9. Fred Kerr

    Fred Kerr Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Is it ? You need to take account of the power sources that were current (excuse the pun) and the rationale behind its use. Hungary electrified its branch lines as the power could be cut off when trains were stationary thus saving coal and water; the costs per mile being cheaper for electric hence the cost saving. Switzerland had been using electricity throughput the 20th Century using electric derived from its hydro-electric network with minimal use of coal because it had few coal mines. The USA developed diesel traction because it had cheap oil supplies thus oil was a direct competitor of coal and the labour costs became an important factor in labour costs. How far the depression encouraged the development of diesel traction as a source of employment may be factored into the change is questionable but once the railways adopted and developed diesel traction the cost factor quickly swung the balance away from steam. Need more power ? Either make steam locomotives bigger (i.e. more expensive) or couple two or more together (i.e. cost more crews) but for diesel traction simply couple more locomotives together but still under the power of one crew.
    So what with the UK ? The UK had a large coal sector hence fuel was cheap compared to the cost of oil needed for diesel traction; oil also needed to be imported at a cost to currency hence its relative scarcity. Especially after WWII when the country needed exports rather than imports thus the diesel era could not / would not be developed on a large scale until the country could afford the import of a competitor to the available coal resource.
    Within the LNER it should be noted that the early Shildon electrification was removed in the 1930s when steam proved to be a cheaper option than renewing the electrification infrastructure. Was the LNER to blame for saving funds by using existing and transferrable resources in the guise of steam traction rather than spend scarce capital renewing the electrification infrastructure. It may in hindsight be seen as a short term solution without consideration of the long term advantage but even in 1956 the scrapping of the Liverpool Overhead Railway was judged against the availability of alternative transport without thought that 50 years later it could be a tourist attraction that would benefit the local area hence be thought as a long-term investment.
    The curse of the UK is that it moves in short term thinking and reaction to events rather than making investments to creating events. Thus when the European mainland was virtually destroyed during WWII the national railways elected to renew by investing long term in electrification schemes whilst in the UK sufficient railways existed thus renewal was by investment in steam as a short term measure to capitalise on existing technology and provide employment without looking to make long term investment in electrification as Riddles so desperately wanted but the Government could not / would not invest in thus leaving diesel traction as the medium term investment until the Government provided the long term funding. Look to Marples restriction on the ECML electrification (1960s) and the current hiatus on the MML electrification to see the consequences of that policy.

    In the inter-war years the problems of the Grouping forced railways to look only to short term policies hence the continuation of steam traction at the expense of diesel / electric traction. Despite its paucity the LNER looked to a future electrification with Gresley specifying the Class 76 for the Woodhead scheme as a first stage in electrifying the GCR to London and its GER suburban electrification with a possible extension to Norwich (?) whilst IIRC no other railway had looked to such long term investment. Even in terms of diesel traction the post-war LNER Board had considered buying 25 main-line diesels (similar to 10000 / 1 rated at 1600 hp) for its ECML services but funds and imminent Nationalisation postponed that investment until a Government took over - but one that used the money as a milch cow to extract money from its needs rather than invest in its future. That is a political discussion for another thread but does not confirm Gresley as an old-fashioned designer unwilling to contemplate the future. I would venture to suggest that Gresley may well have designed future diesel / electric traction BUT only at the encouragement of his Board of Directors as Ivatt was able to do at the LMS. As Simon has noted with Thompson the CMEs could only design what the Board(s) would approve hence they may have designed many ideas but only proffer those which they knew the Boards would accept.
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2021
  10. Hermod

    Hermod Member

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    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/DSB_MS_and_DRG_Class_137.jpg

    The red one was one of four used at the oppening of the little belt bridge medio 1935.
    Half a year later a four car version was put in use and ran until 1973 just like the DDR version of the flying hamburger.
    The danish was an entirely danish construction and the four car version could have done everything the Silver Link did but faster.
    The really interesting thing behind LNER/Gresley was how this very feudal management setup could survive post WW1.
    Everywhere else in Europe state with its rent seeking civil servants had infiltrated.
    They were able to make much bigger failures.
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2021
  11. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    That bit of the argument doesn't make sense. All technology gets outmoded if you look far enough into the future. You might as well argue that a wooden sailing ship built in 1800 was a dead end because by 1900 iron motor ships would be common place. If you get the expected lifetime out of a machine, you can't say that building it was a dead end. So for a steam loco, 20 - 25 years in top flight service is all you'd expect. Viewed from the perspective of 1935, that means the A4s should have lasted into the late 1950s. At that point their replacements were diesel powered which was a viable technology in 1955 - but was not in 1935.

    That doesn't mean they "backed the wrong horse" in 1935. At the very best, diesel traction for high-powered services was in its infancy - unproven in capability, reliability and operating cost. The most that would have been sensible would have been to have dabbled with an experimental locomotive for test purposes. "Backing the wrong horse" would have been to introduce sufficient unproven diesels to run the East Coast express services, and then found they had poor reliability, or were expensive in fuel, or you didn't have sufficient fitters and drivers experienced in their use - all of which would have been highly plausible outcomes. Whereas introducing 35 powerful new steam locos of a design that was basically an increment on what had gone before was the sound business decision, and was vindicated by the fact that they broadly carried on doing the same job for 25 years. Even the LMS and SR who introduced mainline diesels post war only built five successful ones between them, so even in the late 1940s that was really experimental in nature to test the waters.

    It's also worth remembering in any discussion about modernisation of traction that in the period in question, Britain didn't have it's own native supply of oil, but had plentiful coal. Logic would suggest that the transition should have been steam straight to electric (generated from coal) - but for the East Coast Mainline, that would be a huge capital undertaking, without significant ability (as on the SR) to run a really intensive suburban service along the route as it developed. And unlike the SR, who had a rolling programme of short, primarily suburban, electrifications between the wars with each one generating a return on capital very rapidly after being commissioned; for the East Coast you would have had to do a significant part of the whole scheme before seeing any benefit - much riskier and more costly.

    Tom
     
  12. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    Worth pointing out that while the LMS Twins & the 3 Bullied main line loco's were a success, the other LMS Main Line loco, 10800 & the Bullied 0-6-0 were not as successful, clearly there was a significant risk.
     
  13. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Quite - and that was in the late 1940s, following a period (the war) in which there had been major advances in internal combustion engines driven by the war. Trying to introduce a ca. 2000hp mainline diesel locomotive in 1935 would have been fraught with risks (whereas 350hp shunters were viable and successful before the war).

    Tom
     
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  14. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    And the LMS twins weren’t even at the 2,000hp level.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
  15. Paul42

    Paul42 Part of the furniture

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    I have found that I have photos of the interior of the Flying Hamburger in th Nuremberg Transport Museum which I took in 2012. Clearly not the luxery option the LNER were after.
    IMG_9221 EDIT 2 LR.jpg
    IMG_9222lLR.jpg
     
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  16. bluetrain

    bluetrain Well-Known Member

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    Although the Germans were pioneers of inter-city diesel travel with the Flying Hamburger, they were also building main-line steam engines in large numbers during the 1930s, including over 100 of the 3-cylinder streamlined 01.10 and 03.10 Pacifics. Meanwhile, Chapelon's work continued in France. So the LNER (and LMS) were in the contemporary mainstream in continuing to develop steam traction.

    Over the pond, American steam locomotive development also continued apace through the 1930s, seeking ever greater power and speed as well as improved mechanical reliability. But in 1939 came an important milestone from General Motors in the development of main-line diesel traction:

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

    During the war years, diesel engine manufacturers were required to prioritize military requirements. But after 1945, main-line diesel locomotives spread very rapidly across the USA, with the last new steam locomotives delivered in 1949. British railway leaders took note and acquired some prototype main-line units - diesel-electric for the LMS and SR, gas turbine for the GWR. The LNER Board planned to order 25 diesel-electrics of 1600 bhp to operate in pairs on the ECML, but that plan was binned on nationalisation. There then followed a hiatus from 1948-55 when the only "modern traction" acquisition was large numbers of diesel shunters plus the completion of the Shenfield and Woodhead electrification schemes that the LNER had started.

    Other European countries also seem to have been generally slow to introduce high-power main-line diesels prior to the mid 1950s, although many were undertaking extensive electrification. Of course, these countries were recovering from war, funds may have been limited and where electrification was taking place, it made sense to cascade the newer steam locos to replace older locos elsewhere. Fuel supplies may also have been a factor. The USA had its own domestic oil supplies, but only the USSR and Romania then had that luxury within Europe. In the case of the UK, there will also have been the lingering memory of the 1947-48 cock-up, when the Government first encouraged the railways to convert locomotives to oil-firing and then discovered that it lacked the foreign exchange to pay for the oil. Oh yes, we have a long history of Government U-turns!
     
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  17. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    In which case then where is the LNER's Raworth? :) (I had generally associated Raworth more with the electrics than diesels)

    But here is the thing the SR post-WW2 has a three track approach - standardised steam designs, electrification urban and distance, and diesels - shunting and mainline. The same can be said about the LMS likewise. The LNER...

    I don't disagree that there was no money in 1945. But is the situation so different to France or Germany? Within a decade, SNCF is setting the speed record at 200mph that no steam engine was ever going to reach.

    What I find interesting is that if you go into the PRO you can see that from summer of 1941 (so after the invasion of the Soviet Union) there are considerable files of 'reconstruction' - ie what is the next peace going to look like and what do we want to do (to an extent reflecting lessons learnt from the perception of the failed peace of 1918). These go into some considerable detail and things are sketched up in considerable detail. The debates make for fascinating reading - some of it is so misguided, some of it very prescient. The point is that it is clear that during the conflict, a lot of time and thought was being given over to what would happen in the decade or so after the conflict (even when it was not clear what the result of the conflict would be. It wasn't that in 1945 all of sudden 'Nazi Germany is defeated what do we do now' - there had been plans made for the peace in advance (some but not all) which were put into action and some of which informed policy makers.

    With that in mind I find it striking that the LMS, SR and GWR, all despite having little to no money, despite coming out of the war with desperate needs, all have sketched up and ready to go prototype designs looking to a transport future so in this crisis period and shortly after we have a whole raft of experimental designs that lay down a marker for the future (some of which such as the gas turbines are dead ends). Except the LNER...

    I'd have thought that part of the CME role is not just reactive but also looking towards future trends and trying to design not just for the now but also for the future. I find it hard to imagine that there was no one on the LNER who was thinking about the medium and long term in the late 1930s, especially given how rapid the rate of technological change had been since 1918.

    No. Once again you are conflating points and arguing against arguments I haven't made.

    If you are building a sail boat as steam technology is becoming viable - your fastest time crossing the ocean is a pyrrhic victory. If you build the fastest ocean going liner as plane travel becoming viable then it is a pyrrhic victory. So your example of a sail boat being built in 1800 is not what is being argued. If you are building a sailboat in the 1860s just as the Suez Canal is being built and steam technology is being refined then it is pyrrhic victory. It might work out a viable normal life time but that doesn't alter it being outmoded as the last hurrah. Great you've built the pinnacle of an old technology.

    Now, in the short term it is successful and the right horse. The proven old technology beats the new technology. But in the medium and long term the new technology surpasses the old technology. By not even engaging with the technology in its infancy during the interwar period left the LNER behind the curve in the post war period.

    I am going to bold this next point because it keeps on getting lost. I am exactly arguing that the LNER should have developed experimental diesel designs in the 1930s and post-war period alongside steam not that the A4s should have been diesels.

    I am also arguing that I find the failure to engage with the experimental technology during its infancy puzzling because early Gresley was very experimental and embracing new ways of doing things. The LNER experiments with steam, experiments with electrification, but rejects diesels when they have the chance to experiment and ends up behind the curve. This doesn't fit with the younger Gresley in terms of attitude towards innovation.

    By going all in on steam in the short term - gives us the A4 which is a success. In the medium and long term by going all in on steam and not experimenting with diesels was backing the wrong horse. You appear to think I view it as an either or, I don't. I think that all three steam, electric and diesel should have been part of LNER locomotive policy from the 1930s onwards.

    The coal/oil argument is a red herring and parochial. Germany has coal. It has no oil. Where are the French oil fields? Why do you think Nazi Germany invaded the USSR? Why is the coup of August 23rd so critical to speeding up the end of the conflict? Both states have similar resource bases as the UK, and yet in the post-war period, while the UK is still dicking around with C19 technology from the dog days of first industrial revolution, France and Germany are leaping ahead with C20 technology from the second industrial revolution. 1952 for the introduction of the E10 and CC7100, 1956 for the V200 not even small scale prototypes but core classes that SNCF and DB built outwards from that built on the pioneering work done in the interwar period.



    This is an interesting argument and looking back you can see a logic that says 'electrification with steam holding the fort' - essentially a vision that sees the LNER/ER replicating the Southern/SR experience. It would be interesting to see if there is evidence anyone at the LNER at the time advancing that argument.

    In some ways this takes us back to the Geddes or Whitelaw argument (and also @35B 's point about wagon design) - whether the LNER under Geddes or someone else from the NER would have been more interested in electrification, improving wagon capacity and shunting efficiency than someone from the NBR/Highland.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2021
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  18. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    General Enquiry: How much real independence (and therefore scope to inovate) did any of the 'Big4' actually regain in the period between full wartime control and nationalisation?
     
  19. Fred Kerr

    Fred Kerr Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    This statement needs qualification as the DB V200 was ordered in 3 batches; the prototype (vorserie) of 220001 - 005 was built in 1953 followed by the first production (bauserie) of 50 (220006 - 055) in 1955 followed by a further 31 (220056 - 086) shortly after following the standard German practice; a form of Pilot Scheme for a locomotive type if you like. The German practice continued even with their powerful Class 103 with its Vorserie 103001-004 introduced in 1965 followed by the Bauserie 103101-245 in 1970. This misunderstanding IMHO cannot be compared to UK practice hence the UK CMEEs need not look to foreign practice to be blamed for the UK's reluctance to invest in modern traction.

    Your repeated point that the LNER should have developed experimental diesel designs alongside the A4s ignores the fact that Gresley was continuing NER practice by designing EM1 class 6700 (later 26000 TOMMY) as a long term aim of electrification once Board authority was gained. Instead of repeating this "red herring" perhaps it would be better to listen to the refrain that CMEEs could only achieve what their respective Boards would both allow and fund hence it would be better to look to the intent of the Boards concerned. IMHO the LNER Board would be looking to electrification as the long term future hence its proposed purchase of diesel traction could be seen as the short term future until funding could be afforded for electrification. This was a policy adopted by Riddles who was an electrification enthusiast but he was forced by his Board (i.e. the Government through the BTC) to adopt further steam construction by the lack of investment funds. As I noted in an earlier post the edicts of Ernest Marples as Transport Minister withdrawing funding for the ECML electrification and the continued refusal over the decades to electrify the Midland Main Line are only the modern parallels of a lack of Government funding for railways in the modern age compared to the lack of available funding for the LNER to consider options other than steam for the long term future. In simple terms the point is is "Follow the money - or lack of it" to understand the decision of the respective Boards / governments on the CMEEs' ability to provide future traction whether steam, diesel or electric.
     
  20. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    This raises a lot of issues about British Industrial Policy, and management/political failures.

    Also of course after WW2 we were trying to maintain great power status at the same time as having lost India, and hence The Indian Army which had allowed us to fulfill a lot of our military committments on the cheap
     

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