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

So I will include a reference to this in the glossary and leave it as the accepted word “cartazzi”.

 

Question for the floor - if you were to arbitrarily split these locomotive classes by way of the age old groups (e.g. Express passenger, Mixed Traffic, Freight, Shunting), where would you place the following?

J6 K2 O1 J50 O2 K3 N2 A1 P1 U1 J38 J39 A3 D49 B17 W1 V1 P2 A4 V2 K4 V3 V4 EM1

So far I have asked this question of three friends and had three different answers!

For myself, I split them:

Express Passenger

A1, A3, A4, B17, P2, W1

Mixed Traffic:

J6, K2, K3, N2, J39, D49, V1, V2, K4, V3, V4, EM1

Freight:

O1, O2, J38, P1

Shunting

J50

N/A*:

U1

*The U1 doesn't really fit into any of the above categories I think?

 

FWIW I agree with how you’ve done it - so now trying to imagine which the problem children were…. My money’s on J50 and B17?

 

J50, B17 and D49. The latter I really had a proper argument on!

I'm welcome to having my mind changed but I didn't think the D49 was an express passenger locomotive, despite the 6ft 8in wheels indicating it should be. But BR considered them 4P, no mixed traffic classification...so where would we put them?

B17 to my mind is an express passenger locomotive, and always was thus, (BR disagreeing and making them 5P4F - so mixed traffic - but painted them as express passenger?)

J50 is a shunter that was used for goods trains and passenger services...?

In fairness we agreed the J50 was primarily designed as a shunter with the capability to be used for passenger services.

 

Agree on J50, D49 is a surprise, I can sort of see B17 as a dyed in the wool London Extension obsessive, hence picking it out as likely, but I suppose that (with the J50) is getting into designed as vs used as territory

 

Where did you get the group definitions from?

Sent from my SM-A105FN using Tapatalk

 

Combination of:

• secondary sources on LNER
• Use of engine power documents notes
• Thompsons standardisation plan in the LNER document “forward”
• Contemporary reports on the loco classes

 

The D49's were really a replacement fro the aged NER 4-4-0's so definitely designed and built as passenger locomotives. They were essentially NE based throughout their lives, not normally being seen south of Doncaster. I think some greyness comes into being because of the term 'express passenger' which is used instead of simply 'passenger' which they and many other locos were, for example, the N2's.
In the case of the B17's, having a power classification of 5P4F does not make them mixed traffic. A1's & A2's for example, were 8P6F. Most passenger locos also had a freight rating.
The Ardsley tanks were definitely shunting locos, being the LNER standard class for this purpose. I would thin kit was rare for them to be used on passenger trains but i can't produce evidence to support that statement.

 

For the purposes of writing and making general statements on Gresleys engineering though Steve, should I be separating out express passenger, passenger and mixed traffic?

And I agree on B17, that’s why I put it in the express category.

 

That's for you to decide but I would suggest that there is a clear distinctio between 'express passenger' and 'passenger'. The former are generally associated with the important trains between large towns and cities with few, if any, stops but the vast majority of passenger trains on both the LNER and later British Railways were the more humdrum stopping trains calling at intermediate stations.

 

Its always going to be a bit arbitary isn't it. D49 is classed as "light express passenger" in my 1958 observers book, B17 as express passenger and J50 as freight and shunting. But there are loads of categories among the ER types; others include passenger, suburban passenger, suburban passenger and freight, freight, heavy mainline freight lets face it almost anything was used for anything if the shed master was desperate enough!

 

I feel I am probably going to take an editorial decision made on this over the next few days!

 

I thought the age-old groups of engine types were "passenger", "luggage", "mineral", "ballast" and "Dobbin the shunter's horse" ...

T9om

 

And if I was to try, I am sure that I would give you a fourth different answer!

On some railways such as in Germany, the loco classification system specifies types as express passenger, ordinary passenger, goods, etc. British railways did not do that, so it's left open to differing interpretations as to what fits where. Your selections are probably as valid as any other.

But I would pose the question of whether the usage classification stays the same throughout an engine's life. This is a particular issue for the large-wheeled 4-4-0 types, which generally started life as top-link express locos of their era - think of GE Clauds and NE R-class for instance. But in later years, these locos were cascaded to lesser duties, typically secondary passenger work although still mostly on main lines and longer branches. No longer express engines, but I'm not sure they fit the "mixed traffic" label.

Gresley added some more D11 Directors, followed by D49s, both largely used on express work in their early years but later pushed onto lesser duties as more Pacifics and then V2s and B1s became available. The contemporary LMS Compound 4-4-0s followed the same decline in status, leaving the Southern Schools-class and GNR(I) V/VS as the only British 4-4-0 types to remain on express work into the 1950s.

 

Could the problem be resolved by creating a category of "secondary passenger" such as defined by the LMS to include their Jubilee and Patriot classes ? Such a classification wouldn't demean the classes involved but would clearly separate them from those in the "Express Passenger" category - perhaps to the enhancement of the latter ?

 

So the reason for trying to categorise Gresley's designs in this way has been my overall attempt to make sense of the numbers we have. Best illustrated by this graph:



I feel that you can see a real pattern across his design life, and though there are 25 designs over a thirty year period, I'd argue cogently that most of these are developments from his earliest work, with three cylinders and conjugated valve gear applied. The most experimental of his work has the lowest numbers and arguably doesn't affect the LNER as much as, say, the influx of nearly 300 J39s from 1926 does.

What I am trying to show is that the focus on just the hundred Pacifics ignores that he presented the G.N.R. and L.N.E.R. with over 1500 new locomotives over that thirty year time frame, the vast majority of which were actually what we could define as mixed traffic locomotives (if we count the J39 as mixed traffic and not freight/mineral - the K3 and V2 certainly are mixed traffic).

So you can see my dilemma. It might make a difference by way of 300 locomotives by simply changing one or two from category to another. However, I feel confident enough to say that if I at least say that this is an arbitrary sectioning of classes for the purposes of an analysis, then perhaps I am being fairer on Gresley and his work and myself.

You could then present the classes as:

Express Passenger

A1, A3, A4, B17, P2, W1

Secondary Passenger

N2, D49, V1, V3

Mixed Traffic:

J6, K2, K3, J39, V2, V4, K4, EM1

Freight:

O1, O2, J38, P1

Shunting

J50

N/A*:

U1

But splitting the J38 and J39 by way of wheel diameter? Should J38 be freight and J39 mixed traffic? It's an interesting overall debate, for sure.

I think the above list would probably be my final arbitrary interpretation, unless anyone else has objections?

 

I don't think that graph is really very clear. Taken at face value, it shows that, for example, 300 J39s were built in 1926, but nothing else. Whereas in 1925, there was a handful of P1 / U1 - and nothing else. Which looks like a locomotive works programme to drive a works manager to despair!

I get what you are trying to show - but that graph doesn't show it. Anyone glancing at it will think it shows a time series, when actually it doesn't - there are missing years, and other years repeated on the x axis.

What I'd suggest would be to

(1) decide on your classifications, i.e. group 25 different classes into 4 or 5 broad ranges.

(2) Sum how many in each group was built each year, 1923 - 1941 (or '48)

(3) Plot as a stacked bar chart or stacked line chart.

Essentially you need to produce a graph like this, but with your data (i.e. what is labelled "Regions" would be your "Types" - Express, Mixed Traffic, Goods etc; the y axis would be annual production; and where there are months below, you'd have years). Then you might see a pattern.



Tom

 

Not strictly "passenger" trains but the sight of them steaming into and out of Leeds Central with ECS for London Trains was something to behold. They also worked many a trip and local goods around the Bradford area and West Yorkshire in general. (You may gather from my user name that I am a fan!).

 

On the classifications: did the LNER distinguish "goods" and "mineral" engines? I'd suggest the distinction would be a mineral engine would have very small wheels (probably 4'9" or smaller); would likely have been built without vacuum equipment and link couplings only - whereas a "goods" engine would have vac equipment and screw couplings, and likely larger wheels (say 5'0" or thereabouts). The distinction would be that a mineral engine would be pretty exclusively designed just to haul coal, iron ore etc - which were very important traffic flows - whereas the goods engines would be able to haul general goods traffic, which would potentially include fitted trains possibly running at higher speeds.

As examples, I'd suggest NER P / P1 / P2 / P3 (LNER J24 - 27) were "mineral" engines, whereas e.g. J39 would be a "goods" engine.

Given the relative importance of mineral, goods and passenger traffic on a line like the LNER, teh distinction feels more important than concentrating on finessing the difference in passenger types!

Tom

 

I really like this Tom. I am not sure I have enough time ahead of the print deadlines to put it together, but I will have a go this week. It's a very good idea. Thanks for taking the time to put together that answer.