I should have said that British railways were behind with the introduction and design of diesels (with one or two notable pioneering exceptions) - as you point out, some British manufacturers were doing quite well with production for overseas.
As suggested above, I think the Government, crippled financially through its indebtedness to America during the War, leaned on BR to use coal-fired steam.
What I do find strange are (i) decisions to build company engines well after Nationalisation (yes, I'm looking at you, Swindon, i particular); and (ii) the decision to scrap modern locos after such short lives. West Germany did it much better, building few steam locos in the 1950s but keeping some in good nick until the early 1970s. It has been said that the cheapness of steam locomotives meant they could be "written down" more quickly than modern traction.
What is undeniably true was the increasing difficulty in getting labour toservice steam locos - especially as so many sheds offered appalling working conditions.
There were a few reasons for continuing with the old company locomotives. Some of them were simply good - even the primitive North Eastern J72 - and the Black 5s could have kept going for ever. But probably the main reason was cost: the engineering had been done and paid for, so all it took was to write up a works order to get things moving again when the war ended. On the other hand, the standard designs didn't take long to get going, because some parts could be readily developed from existing components, Swindon boilers being a good example.
I can confess now that I had a job interview with BR as a new graduate, and made the serious mistake of suggesting that the standard designs had not been very imaginative. I realised too late that one of the interviewers had been responsible for much of the design work...
The early demise of steam was indeed partly down to the difficulties in finding people willing to work in such a dirty environment as a locomotive depot. Much was made in 1960s publicity films of the cleanliness of the new diesel depots then being built.
As I understand it, in the immediate post-war period, this country did not have the foreign exchange to afford the necessary oil. A proposal to fire steam engines with oil was knocked on the head for this very reason. Diesel technology was not very advanced in the UK and few companies could provide the product. So another factor was that diesel locos would have needed to be imported, or at least, like the WR hydraulics, be built under licence. This of course had a whole bunch of political issues attached, quite apart from the foreign exchange question.
What has never been explained to me is why, at the very same time, it was fine to import fuel oil to enable the surviving tram networks, and many trolleybus systems, to be replaced with diesel buses. If foreign exchange was such an issue, why were they not erecting trolleybus wires everywhere? It baffles me and makes me wonder if we have the whole story.
The use of oil fuel for steam locomotives in the UK was tried twice, if I remember correctly - in the 1920s and early 1950s, but the main reason each time was a coal miners strike. It stopped very quickly when supplies resumed.
Perhaps a little unfair to say that diesel technology was not very advanced in the UK. In particular, the pioneering work by Herbert Akroyd-Stuart and the advanced research and development undertaken by Sir Harry Ricardo were influential around the world, not least in the USA. I think it might safely be said that the UK was one of the leaders for a long time.
Very few loco builders in Britain offered diesels in the immediate post-war period and the railway's own shops were not set up for them. Gorton put together the Woodhead electrics but the actual electrical bits were bought in, while the locos were built using steam-age technology, which is why they were like tanks and very, very heavy.
To rest my case, I have only to point at the numerous failed diesel designs that were eventually produced from 1954 onwards. Most classes were a complete waste of money. Baby Deltics. Metrovick-Crossley Co-Bos, to give but two examples. There is no reason to think that had they started in 1948 the average quality would have been better. The standard steam engines may have been dirty and inefficient, but they were tried and tested technology and they worked.
It has been rightly said that British locomotive builders did well with diesel and electric locomotives for some time, both pre- and post-WW2, but largely with exports.
In the British Isles, only the Great Western, in England, developed its series of fine railcars in the 1930s (many of which lasted until the 1960s), but the real trend-setter was the Great Northern Railway of Ireland (GNRI).
Not only did this enterprising concern - which straddled the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland - build its own rather idiosyncratic collection of diesel railcars for its broad-gauge lines, but it also assisted the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee with its equally innovative use of 3-foot gauge railcars. The later cars, built by Walkers of Wigan, and the GNRI's Dundalk works, were versatile machines - economical to run, but capable of hauling a trailing load, and, in fact, virtual locomotives (they could shunt as well!).
They had two disadvantages - they couldn't be run in multiple (each car had to have its own driver), and they were single-ended and had to be turned at each terminus. The County Donegal retained steam for goods and special workings until closure, so turntables were available!
Post-WW2, the GNRI introduced its fine fleet of AEC/Park Royal broad-gauge railcars, and it has been said that, by the mid-50s, any prospective GNRI passenger waiting for a train was just as likely to find a diesel turning up as a steam train. Add to that the Company's integrated bus, train, and road lorry services in their part of the Republic, and one realises how much of value has been lost.
Some of the Donegal railcars have been preserved, and I travelled on the Isle of Man Railway's pair (ex-CDRJC 20 and 21) way back in 1968. They have AIUI undergone much further restoration more recently...
Yes, very worrying. Hopefully they'll find some suitable staff soon, as the few preserved main line steam locos in Ireland need somewhere to stretch their wheels...
So it was - *Geranium* Red & Cream, with a black line separating the two main colours. It was a little disappointing to see that the Isle of Man Railway had repainted them in the somewhat darker red (with a cream band) used in the 60s and 70s on their Road Services buses...
The older CDR cars preserved in Ireland are in the proper colours, as Henry Forbes and Bernard Curran intended.
Speaking of liveries, the express locomotives of the GNRI (all 4-4-0s, even those built post-WW2) were mostly turned out in a wonderful sky-blue livery - quite impractical, one might think, but it looked superb when the engines were newly painted, or just clean! Railcars, the horse tram (yes! working the little Fintona branch until 1957), the Hill of Howth electric trams, and the numerous buses, were all in a lovely Oxford Blue and Cream livery.
Speaking of liveries, the express locomotives of the GNRI (all 4-4-0s, even those built post-WW2) were mostly turned out in a wonderful sky-blue livery - quite impractical, one might think, but it looked superb when the engines were newly painted, or just clean!
Indeed - thanks for that! O Sam, what a little beauty!
Mind you, even some of the GNRI's humbler engines were kept clean - despite being plain black, with no lining. I can't provide a link, but there are plenty of photos in books about the GNRI which show workaday, but well-groomed, engines and coaches.
They used to put newly painted or overhauled engines on a little siding outside Dundalk Works, right next to the main line, for the edification of passing passengers...
Perhaps a little unfair to say that diesel technology was not very advanced in the UK. In particular, the pioneering work by Herbert Akroyd-Stuart and the advanced research and development undertaken by Sir Harry Ricardo were influential around the world, not least in the USA. I think it might safely be said that the UK was one of the leaders for a long time.
I'm glad you said that. Just around here, Mirrlees, Crossley, Gardner, National, Ruston and several smaller firms were all making diesel engines from a very early date. If anyone would like to see an Akryod-Stuart engine; a big running Mirrlees from the 30s with quite a lot of Ricardo input; the first true diesel built in the UK (by Mirrlees, which has a crosshead, interestingly enough, though it is single-acting); a sectioned Deltic which I think used to be in the National Railway Museum; the oldest running Gardner anywhere (I think - though this is a gas engine, not a diesel) etc etc etc then you would be very welcome at the Anson Engine Museum after Easter when we re-open. If you are interested, there is a fairly active Facebook page here showing what we have been getting up to.
Looks rather like the engine lab at Southampton University when I was there in the early 70s - BMC A-type petrol engine, Ruston oil engine, Crossley gas engine; I don't recall a diesel but there must have been.
Perhaps a little unfair to say that diesel technology was not very advanced in the UK. In particular, the pioneering work by Herbert Akroyd-Stuart and the advanced research and development undertaken by Sir Harry Ricardo were influential around the world, not least in the USA. I think it might safely be said that the UK was one of the leaders for a long time.
I'm glad you said that. Just around here, Mirrlees, Crossley, Gardner, National, Ruston and several smaller firms were all making diesel engines from a very early date. If anyone would like to see an Akryod-Stuart engine; a big running Mirrlees from the 30s with quite a lot of Ricardo input; the first true diesel built in the UK (by Mirrlees, which has a crosshead, interestingly enough, though it is single-acting); a sectioned Deltic which I think used to be in the National Railway Museum; the oldest running Gardner anywhere (I think - though this is a gas engine, not a diesel) etc etc etc then you would be very welcome at the Anson Engine Museum after Easter when we re-open. If you are interested, there is a fairly active Facebook page here showing what we have been getting up to.
Thanks for posting that, Mark. The Anson museum looks terrific! The video of the Mirrlees engine starting is great. The arrangement of that engine is interesting - it looks a lot like much larger modern marine diesels where the crosshead is needed to relieve the piston of lateral loads. Didn't you have a complete Deltic T18 engine there at one time? I vaguely remember you posting something about it, years ago. With a bit of luck I'll be in the area when I'm next in the UK (friends and family near there) so I hope I can visit.
Going back to the argument about the BR Standards, because of the war and nationalisation there was a huge backlog in the replacement of timeworn motive power. The antiques that lurched their way round much of Britain may have entertained enthusiastic observers but they were both horrible and inefficient for those that had to work them. Carrying on building more modern Big Four standards was a sensible interim answer. All four companies had existing orders on January 1st 1948, the LMS classes 2 and 4 tender and tank locos, LNER Pacifics, B1s, K1s and L1s, Southern Pacifics, and GWR, Castles, Panniers etc. The last 2251 didn't turn a wheel until about 1950. This continued. There were were Ivatt 2-6-0s that went direct to the Eastern and the North Eastern Regions, and Fairbairn 2-6-4s to the Southern to replace aged LBSC tanks.
That would have been one solution, but some of the designs, effective though they may have been as motive power, dated from just before the innovation of things like rocker grates and self cleaning smokeboxes which made them easier to manage. There had also been a lot of successful innovation in design detail between 1930 and 1950, things that don't look exciting in train-spotting books but which reduce the amount and frequency of non-productive time locomotives spend in workshops.
As many have said before me, the BR class 5s, class 4 2-6-0s and 2-6-4s and class 2s likewise were very similar to their LMS predecessors. I'm not sure why the class 6 Pacifics (Clans), the class 4 4-6-0 (75 series) and class 3 (77) and (82) designs were ever built at all. Originally a second series of Clans was even going to be built and sent to the Southern. What need did the Southern have of more light pacifics when there were already light pacifics trundling round Devon with 2-3 carriages?
The Britannias and the 9F though were completely new and the 9F especially was a gem of a loco. The Duke of Gloucester might have been if somebody who should have known better had known how to read a technical drawing.
As it is, that there were still plenty of pieces of moribund antique technology wheezing their way along the main lines of Britain well into the 1960s, engines the late LMS designs and their BR standard successors were designed to replace, shows why they were needed and a good idea at the time. The last Super D didn't go to its over-delayed rest until 1964 and there were still 11 4Fs at the beginning of 1966.
Thanks for posting that, Mark. The Anson museum looks terrific! The video of the Mirrlees engine starting is great. The arrangement of that engine is interesting - it looks a lot like much larger modern marine diesels where the crosshead is needed to relieve the piston of lateral loads. Didn't you have a complete Deltic T18 engine there at one time? I vaguely remember you posting something about it, years ago. With a bit of luck I'll be in the area when I'm next in the UK (friends and family near there) so I hope I can visit.
That single is interesting - the pedestal is set to one side over the crank (regarding lateral piston forces) but then what you win on the way up, you lose on the way down (or vice versa)! The piston, liner and rod in it had had a dramatic demise and we had to steal a liner from a later 4 cylinder pedestal and put it in this one, where thankfully it fitted - quite a lot of work. Yes, in store there are two complete Deltic engines which I think don't belong to us, on massive bronze subframes as I think they came from a minesweeper. I'm not sure if they are 18 or 9 cyl, I'll have to have a look on Tue.
If anyone intends to visit, do PM me and if I can I'll be around to give you a bit of a guided tour. There must be 30 or 40 big running engines (largest diesel single we just got going is 144 liter displacement, 13 ton flywheel), of which maybe 10 or 12 run on a quiet day, more on a big 'steaming weekend'. Perhaps 20 big ones which at the moment are just for looking at! Then another 30 or 40 smaller ones in running order, and another - fifty? - in big rusty lumps in containers all over the site and out in the rain. And at the really small end more Lister D's than might be considered strictly necessary I do metal casting demos sometimes, there is a blacksmith and wood bodgers, local history display which is fantastic... I do hope some of you are able to make it up here one day.
I think it's fair to say that, whilst Britain was indeed in the forefront of the pioneering diesel revolution, the railways of Britain didn't take advantage of it - for many reasons, economical as well as political.
@Enoch - thanks for your explanation of why the BR Standards were introduced. Yes, they were more up-to-date than their Big Four predecessors, and I agree that some them weren't really needed.
Not all pre-grouping locomotives still at work in the 50s were wheezing and moribund, though! Our Town was served by steam push-pull trains until 1961, and the lovely H class 0-4-4Ts still ran as sweetly as ever. One of our neighbours often used to drive the Westerham branch train, or the Hawkhurst branch, and was full of praise for Wainwright's engines - he occasionally did a turn on one of the surviving C class 0-6-0s, which were equally good, but with a more draughty cab...
We also had several of the various more modern Maunsell 2-6-0s, which were sometimes dirty, but still handling heavy freight trains as well as cross-country passenger services. Alas! 1957 saw the partial eclipse of the famous Schools class 4-4-0s on the Hastings line, but we still saw a few after that inauspicious year - they, I'm afraid, were often in a rundown and neglected state.
I think that the Maunsell 2-6-0s (and the "Rivers") deserve a lot of credit for being some of the very first locos to bring together - in 1917 - virtually all the features of a "modern" engine, viz. taper boiler with Belpaire firebox and superheat, outside cylinders with piston valves and Walschaert's valve gear, barrel smokebox (unlike the "Scots" and "Patriots" which were 10 years later) etc. No roller bearings, rocking grates or self-cleaning smokeboxes - they came quite a bit later.
Mr Maunsell designed some very fine locomotives, with the possible exception of the Lord Nelsons...which AIUI were difficult to fire properly.
There wasn't really anything much amiss with the Rivers, except that the water used to surge about summink 'orrid in a half-empty tank, and it is said that the main cause of the nasty Sevenoaks accident (which led to their immediate withdrawal for rebuilding) was the Southern's rather less-than-perfect track...
They were IMHO a very handsome design, like most of Maunsell's work. Bulleid's revolutionary engines must have come as something of a shock!
You didn't really need the last word in technology to work a pick-up goods train at an average speed of maybe 25 mph. A 4F or J11 was quite adequate for that.
The loss of this traffic was perhaps a more compelling issue. Some small GE-based diesels were working pick-up goods in the late 50s/early 60s but did not have a long life as the reason for their existence simply evaporated.
A major factor in the death of steam was that in the 50s and 60s Britain was booming, there was plenty of employment, and you could get the same wage or better for doing a clean job in a factory or office as you would receive for the hard and laborious work involved in maintaining steam engines in traffic. This was a particular issue in the more prosperous areas of the country. Even the drivers were not that well-paid by current standards.
Mr Maunsell designed some very fine locomotives, with the possible exception of the Lord Nelsons...which AIUI were difficult to fire properly.
There wasn't really anything much amiss with the Rivers, except that the water used to surge about summink 'orrid in a half-empty tank, and it is said that the main cause of the nasty Sevenoaks accident (which led to their immediate withdrawal for rebuilding) was the Southern's rather less-than-perfect track...
They were IMHO a very handsome design, like most of Maunsell's work. Bulleid's revolutionary engines must have come as something of a shock!
In a sense the Rivers were re-incarnated as the Metropolitan's K class.
Didn't the Brighton also have problems with water surging in its express tank locos? I think they fitted baffles (and, I think, in one case a well tank).
Mr Maunsell designed some very fine locomotives, with the possible exception of the Lord Nelsons...which AIUI were difficult to fire properly.
There wasn't really anything much amiss with the Rivers, except that the water used to surge about summink 'orrid in a half-empty tank, and it is said that the main cause of the nasty Sevenoaks accident (which led to their immediate withdrawal for rebuilding) was the Southern's rather less-than-perfect track...
They were IMHO a very handsome design, like most of Maunsell's work. Bulleid's revolutionary engines must have come as something of a shock!
In a sense the Rivers were re-incarnated as the Metropolitan's K class.
Didn't the Brighton also have problems with water surging in its express tank locos? I think they fitted baffles (and, I think, in one case a well tank).
I think they did, if you're referring to D Earle Marsh's lovely 4-6-2Ts? I shall have to have a look in my copy of D L Bradley's Locomotives of the LBSCR, in 3 volumes, and on a somewhat remote bookshelf...
Marsh also designed various classes of smaller, but elegant, 4-4-2Ts, but they seem to have been indifferent performers on anything but local trains.
The Metropolitan Ks may well have had better track to run on - AIUI, Sir Herbert Walker ordered the immediate withdrawal (on the day of the Sevenoaks accident), and subsequent rebuilding of the Rivers, partly on the basis of the bad publicity. The press quickly coined the pejorative epithet *Rolling Rivers*, which I don't suppose appealed to either Walker or Maunsell.
To my great surprise, when I was given a repro version of a wartime Combined Volume a few years ago, the Southern section listed, along with a table of their principle dimensions, the nicknames used for the various Southern classes. The I3s were listed as 'Marsh Tanks' but the I1s were clearly named as 'Wankers'. One can only conclude that the middle class staff at Ian Allan were not aware of the meaning of a word of slang which would have been more or less universally known 15 years later.
Going back to a more serious note, the general reputation of the LMS/Midland 4F is that they were were a mediocre footplate experience. Apparently 4Fs didn't steam as easily as 3Fs, had troublesome bearings and ash tended to blow into the cab from underneath the firebox. If one was going to choose an existing middle range goods engine to multiply in 1923, the 4F was probably the best of those handed over, but it would have been better to have designed something more modern, which is what eventually the Ivatt class 4 was intended to be. In contrast, everyone seems to agree that the Super D was appalling, uncomfortable, controls in the wrong place, quite dangerous to fire, and brakes that were both inadequate and unpredictable. It is quite a shock is when one realises that quite a lot of Super Ds only got rebuilt into their final form as late as the 1940s, a stage in their lives when scrap and replace should have been the only proper engineering decision.
The Britannias and the 9F though were completely new and the 9F especially was a gem of a loco. The Duke of Gloucester might have been if somebody who should have known better had known how to read a technical drawing.
The Duke himself was known here as an enthusiastic consumer of alcohol.
If one was going to choose an existing middle range goods engine to multiply in 1923, the 4F was probably the best of those handed over.
I think I’d take a J11
Sorry. I should have been clearer. I was talking about those the LMS acquired. They couldn't have adopted somebody else's inheritance as a standard.
I don't know enough about the other lines to comment. The LNER received three heavy duty 0-6-0s from the Great Eastern, the North Eastern and the North British, but I don't know how suitable any of those were for anything other than heavy and slow coal and mineral work. The J11s might well have been a better bet as a general purpose 0-6-0. I've picked up the impression from somewhere that like the LMS 4F, the J39, the LNER's own standard 0-6-0 was undershod, a bit too powerful for its bearings.
The Southern with its various permutations of the Woolwich Mogul gives the impression of having inherited something much more useful. Despite what happened to the Rivers, there was a freight tank version that worked in the London area into the 1960s.
If one was going to choose an existing middle range goods engine to multiply in 1923, the 4F was probably the best of those handed over.
I think I’d take a J11
<snip>
The Southern with its various permutations of the Woolwich Mogul gives the impression of having inherited something much more useful. Despite what happened to the Rivers, there was a freight tank version that worked in the London area into the 1960s.
Yes, the W class - just the job for heavy freight workings, but, after an exhilarating (or perhaps scary) trial on the Oxted line, they were forever banned from hauling passenger trains, even when earnest and heartfelt requests were made for them to work railtours in the 1960s. One imagines the shade of Sir Herbert Walker frowning down upon such requests from the Great Head Office in the sky...
The Southern also had the relatively modern, but rather conservative, Q class 0-6-0s, Maunsell's final design. I did occasionally see one on a local passenger working, but mostly they were used for freight work.
With not as much freight traffic as other railways, the former South-Eastern part of the Southern (in latter years) seemed to manage quite well with the various Maunsell Moguls, the old but feisty C 0-6-0s, and Bulleid's fabulous Q1s...though I sometimes saw, from my bedroom window, one of the latter plodding along with 70+ wagons (often tar tankers bound for the erstwhile Berry Wiggins plant near Grain).
What about the LBSC K class Moguls? - they were pretty good.
If the early LMS had not been so Derby-oriented, they should have looked at the Glasgow & South Western which had an excellent 4F rated loco in the 403 or "Austrian Goods" 2-6-0s. Sadly there were only 11 of them.
Their predecessors, the 279 class "Pumper" 0-6-0s, were abominable.
Ah yes - the unfortunate K class, all withdrawn summarily for no apparently good reason.
We didn't see many ex-LBSCR engines at Our Town (we had a few E4 0-6-2Ts for a while), but I do recall spotting my one and only K class on the turntable one day. AFAIK, it had brought in a goods train earlier in the day, but I don't know on what working it returned to safety Brighton territory!
I did wonder about the later G&SW goods locos. In the interests of standardisation, they'd all gone well before my time. Both the G&SW and the North Staffordshire had modern 0-6-2 tanks that look as though they could have been quite useful for a significant gap in the LMS stock list. However, I don't know how good they were. Some of the North Staffordshire ones lived on in industrial use well into the BR period.
I saw a K once on a goods at Rye, the only time I've ever been there. I believe they were used quite often on slower passenger services and that the crews were quite keen to get them rather than some of the other engines that were available.
Yes, the Brighton Ks were well-regarded. Not sure quite why they were all condemned at once, but there were only 17 of them (IIRC), so perhaps they were simply non-standard.
Rye is an interesting location - happily, the station is still open to passengers on the Ashford-Hastings line - and it also had an intriguing goods-only branch to Rye Harbour, which closed after years of little use in 1960, but which seems to have attracted few photographers. The area south of Rye Harbour once had a fascinating network of narrow-gauge lines, too, muchly employed in the shifting of ballast...
Yes, the Brighton Ks were well-regarded. Not sure quite why they were all condemned at once, but there were only 17 of them (IIRC), so perhaps they were simply non-standard.
Well, steam was running down anyway. They were all 40 or more years old, so fully depreciated from an accountancy point of view. So easy to write them off the stock list.
Yes, the Brighton Ks were well-regarded. Not sure quite why they were all condemned at once, but there were only 17 of them (IIRC), so perhaps they were simply non-standard.
Well, steam was running down anyway. They were all 40 or more years old, so fully depreciated from an accountancy point of view. So easy to write them off the stock list.
Yes, I guess they were no longer needed, even though there was nothing much wrong with them!
Cost of maintenance is the usual reason, the big item being the boiler. Anything expensive and non-standard would do it, which is mostly why the Glasgow and South Western and the Highland railways generally fared so badly after 1923.
I well remember the GWR railcars working the local services our of Carmarthen in the war and postwar years when we took hilicays with my aunt and uncle. on the other hand, the Greenford branch was worked by a steam push-pull quite late.
There was a tendency to weed out small, non-standard classes. The complexity of keeping spares for so many different types was a factor. The GW standardised early, the LMS under Stanier, and even the hard-up LNER had a go under Thompson. But if you pick up your combined volume for (say) 1960, your mind will boggle at how many different classes remained.
There was a tendency to weed out small, non-standard classes. The complexity of keeping spares for so many different types was a factor. The GW standardised early, the LMS under Stanier, and even the hard-up LNER had a go under Thompson. But if you pick up your combined volume for (say) 1960, your mind will boggle at how many different classes remained.
I don't have a combined volume, but I do have a copy of The Observer's Book Of Railway Locomotives (1960 edition), and the variety is indeed mind-boggling. Mind you, quite a few classes still surviving at that late date were in penny numbers, so to speak,
I don't have a combined volume, but I do have a copy of The Observer's Book Of Railway Locomotives (1960 edition), and the variety is indeed mind-boggling. Mind you, quite a few classes still surviving at that late date were in penny numbers, so to speak,
That is still one of my trusted reference books. I also had the 1955 Ernest F Carter edition that was so full of obvious errors that it became fun to read. I am not sure if I gave it away or threw it away, but you prompted me to look for it on line just now, where I found someone shamelessly offering it for £38. I think it was five bob back then.
The best pictorial source I have for the astonishing variety of post-nationalisation locomotives is Casserley and Asher's Locomotives of British Railways, and for data, Hugh Longworth's monumental British Railways Locomotives 1948-1968.
Perhaps we could ask this eclectic crowd to nominate our favourite railway authors?
I don't have a combined volume, but I do have a copy of The Observer's Book Of Railway Locomotives (1960 edition), and the variety is indeed mind-boggling. Mind you, quite a few classes still surviving at that late date were in penny numbers, so to speak,
That is still one of my trusted reference books. I also had the 1955 Ernest F Carter edition that was so full of obvious errors that it became fun to read. I am not sure if I gave it away or threw it away, but you prompted me to look for it on line just now, where I found someone shamelessly offering it for £38. I think it was five bob back then.
The best pictorial source I have for the astonishing variety of post-nationalisation locomotives is Casserley and Asher's Locomotives of British Railways, and for data, Hugh Longworth's monumental British Railways Locomotives 1948-1968.
Perhaps we could ask this eclectic crowd to nominate our favourite railway authors?
I once had the Carter version of the Observer's book, but, like you, got rid of it! Most of Carter's work was greatly flawed, alas.
The 1960 edition was revised and edited by the great H C Casserley, whose huge range of photographs spanning a long life (1903-1991) gives such a wonderful portrayal of railways in the UK and Ireland.
As to authors, I nominate three, to wit, C Hamilton Ellis (for his often lyrical accounts of pre-grouping railways), W J K Davies (a prolific and scholarly writer on the subject of light- and narrow-gauge railways in Europe and further afield), and Rev W Awdry, whose Thomas the Tank Engine etc. books are firmly based on proper railway practice, and recorded historical events!
I think Rolt's greatest work was Red for Danger, but then it inspired my working life and remains essential reading for anyone contemplating a career in railway operation.
By all accounts Rolt wasn't always the easiest person to get on with, and I think I'd strongly disagree with his politics ... but he Got Things Done, both with railways and canals.
I loved "Railway Adventure", enjoyed (if that be the word "Red for Danger". But his greatest book may be "Narrow Boat". His autobiography is also interesting, particularly his times with Sentinel and Kerr, Stuart.
By all accounts Rolt wasn't always the easiest person to get on with, and I think I'd strongly disagree with his politics ... but he Got Things Done, both with railways and canals.
I loved "Railway Adventure", enjoyed (if that be the word "Red for Danger". But his greatest book may be "Narrow Boat". His autobiography is also interesting, particularly his times with Sentinel and Kerr, Stuart.
Yes, I agree with your assessment of Rolt, and I'd add his biography of I K Brunel to the list of his best works.
I gazed at my shelves to see if I could answer my own question... not so easy! Hamilton Ellis was an early favourite and still is. I am sure everyone needs one book by Canon Roger Lloyd for something relaxing and carefully written. The technical books tend to be less relaxing, but Dick Hardy, nominated above, could do it beautifully. A century ago, the American journalist, Angus Sinclair, surely knew how to write on technical matters in an engaging manner. I've been accumulating photo albums of Scottish railways, and a firm favourite is Ranald D. Stephen. His books of his own photos, mostly from the 1920s, are a pure delight, like gazing into a time machine. I was a very young devotee of Norman McKillop - 'Toram Beg' - for his delightful articles in 'Trains Illustrated' about his hands-on driving experiences. His book, "How I Became an Engine Driver', is still good reading. For a contemporary author, I think the Scottish journalist David Ross is outstanding in his careful research and clear writing. His history of the Highland Railway is exemplary - a good model for a well-written history.
Comments
I should have said that British railways were behind with the introduction and design of diesels (with one or two notable pioneering exceptions) - as you point out, some British manufacturers were doing quite well with production for overseas.
What I do find strange are (i) decisions to build company engines well after Nationalisation (yes, I'm looking at you, Swindon, i particular); and (ii) the decision to scrap modern locos after such short lives. West Germany did it much better, building few steam locos in the 1950s but keeping some in good nick until the early 1970s. It has been said that the cheapness of steam locomotives meant they could be "written down" more quickly than modern traction.
What is undeniably true was the increasing difficulty in getting labour toservice steam locos - especially as so many sheds offered appalling working conditions.
I can confess now that I had a job interview with BR as a new graduate, and made the serious mistake of suggesting that the standard designs had not been very imaginative. I realised too late that one of the interviewers had been responsible for much of the design work...
The early demise of steam was indeed partly down to the difficulties in finding people willing to work in such a dirty environment as a locomotive depot. Much was made in 1960s publicity films of the cleanliness of the new diesel depots then being built.
What has never been explained to me is why, at the very same time, it was fine to import fuel oil to enable the surviving tram networks, and many trolleybus systems, to be replaced with diesel buses. If foreign exchange was such an issue, why were they not erecting trolleybus wires everywhere? It baffles me and makes me wonder if we have the whole story.
Perhaps a little unfair to say that diesel technology was not very advanced in the UK. In particular, the pioneering work by Herbert Akroyd-Stuart and the advanced research and development undertaken by Sir Harry Ricardo were influential around the world, not least in the USA. I think it might safely be said that the UK was one of the leaders for a long time.
To rest my case, I have only to point at the numerous failed diesel designs that were eventually produced from 1954 onwards. Most classes were a complete waste of money. Baby Deltics. Metrovick-Crossley Co-Bos, to give but two examples. There is no reason to think that had they started in 1948 the average quality would have been better. The standard steam engines may have been dirty and inefficient, but they were tried and tested technology and they worked.
In the British Isles, only the Great Western, in England, developed its series of fine railcars in the 1930s (many of which lasted until the 1960s), but the real trend-setter was the Great Northern Railway of Ireland (GNRI).
Not only did this enterprising concern - which straddled the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland - build its own rather idiosyncratic collection of diesel railcars for its broad-gauge lines, but it also assisted the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee with its equally innovative use of 3-foot gauge railcars. The later cars, built by Walkers of Wigan, and the GNRI's Dundalk works, were versatile machines - economical to run, but capable of hauling a trailing load, and, in fact, virtual locomotives (they could shunt as well!).
They had two disadvantages - they couldn't be run in multiple (each car had to have its own driver), and they were single-ended and had to be turned at each terminus. The County Donegal retained steam for goods and special workings until closure, so turntables were available!
Post-WW2, the GNRI introduced its fine fleet of AEC/Park Royal broad-gauge railcars, and it has been said that, by the mid-50s, any prospective GNRI passenger waiting for a train was just as likely to find a diesel turning up as a steam train. Add to that the Company's integrated bus, train, and road lorry services in their part of the Republic, and one realises how much of value has been lost.
Some of the Donegal railcars have been preserved, and I travelled on the Isle of Man Railway's pair (ex-CDRJC 20 and 21) way back in 1968. They have AIUI undergone much further restoration more recently...
So it was - *Geranium* Red & Cream, with a black line separating the two main colours. It was a little disappointing to see that the Isle of Man Railway had repainted them in the somewhat darker red (with a cream band) used in the 60s and 70s on their Road Services buses...
The older CDR cars preserved in Ireland are in the proper colours, as Henry Forbes and Bernard Curran intended.
Speaking of liveries, the express locomotives of the GNRI (all 4-4-0s, even those built post-WW2) were mostly turned out in a wonderful sky-blue livery - quite impractical, one might think, but it looked superb when the engines were newly painted, or just clean! Railcars, the horse tram (yes! working the little Fintona branch until 1957), the Hill of Howth electric trams, and the numerous buses, were all in a lovely Oxford Blue and Cream livery.
Mind you, even some of the GNRI's humbler engines were kept clean - despite being plain black, with no lining. I can't provide a link, but there are plenty of photos in books about the GNRI which show workaday, but well-groomed, engines and coaches.
They used to put newly painted or overhauled engines on a little siding outside Dundalk Works, right next to the main line, for the edification of passing passengers...
I'm glad you said that. Just around here, Mirrlees, Crossley, Gardner, National, Ruston and several smaller firms were all making diesel engines from a very early date. If anyone would like to see an Akryod-Stuart engine; a big running Mirrlees from the 30s with quite a lot of Ricardo input; the first true diesel built in the UK (by Mirrlees, which has a crosshead, interestingly enough, though it is single-acting); a sectioned Deltic which I think used to be in the National Railway Museum; the oldest running Gardner anywhere (I think - though this is a gas engine, not a diesel) etc etc etc then you would be very welcome at the Anson Engine Museum after Easter when we re-open. If you are interested, there is a fairly active Facebook page here showing what we have been getting up to.
Thanks for posting that, Mark. The Anson museum looks terrific! The video of the Mirrlees engine starting is great. The arrangement of that engine is interesting - it looks a lot like much larger modern marine diesels where the crosshead is needed to relieve the piston of lateral loads. Didn't you have a complete Deltic T18 engine there at one time? I vaguely remember you posting something about it, years ago. With a bit of luck I'll be in the area when I'm next in the UK (friends and family near there) so I hope I can visit.
That would have been one solution, but some of the designs, effective though they may have been as motive power, dated from just before the innovation of things like rocker grates and self cleaning smokeboxes which made them easier to manage. There had also been a lot of successful innovation in design detail between 1930 and 1950, things that don't look exciting in train-spotting books but which reduce the amount and frequency of non-productive time locomotives spend in workshops.
As many have said before me, the BR class 5s, class 4 2-6-0s and 2-6-4s and class 2s likewise were very similar to their LMS predecessors. I'm not sure why the class 6 Pacifics (Clans), the class 4 4-6-0 (75 series) and class 3 (77) and (82) designs were ever built at all. Originally a second series of Clans was even going to be built and sent to the Southern. What need did the Southern have of more light pacifics when there were already light pacifics trundling round Devon with 2-3 carriages?
The Britannias and the 9F though were completely new and the 9F especially was a gem of a loco. The Duke of Gloucester might have been if somebody who should have known better had known how to read a technical drawing.
As it is, that there were still plenty of pieces of moribund antique technology wheezing their way along the main lines of Britain well into the 1960s, engines the late LMS designs and their BR standard successors were designed to replace, shows why they were needed and a good idea at the time. The last Super D didn't go to its over-delayed rest until 1964 and there were still 11 4Fs at the beginning of 1966.
That single is interesting - the pedestal is set to one side over the crank (regarding lateral piston forces) but then what you win on the way up, you lose on the way down (or vice versa)! The piston, liner and rod in it had had a dramatic demise and we had to steal a liner from a later 4 cylinder pedestal and put it in this one, where thankfully it fitted - quite a lot of work. Yes, in store there are two complete Deltic engines which I think don't belong to us, on massive bronze subframes as I think they came from a minesweeper. I'm not sure if they are 18 or 9 cyl, I'll have to have a look on Tue.
If anyone intends to visit, do PM me and if I can I'll be around to give you a bit of a guided tour. There must be 30 or 40 big running engines (largest diesel single we just got going is 144 liter displacement, 13 ton flywheel), of which maybe 10 or 12 run on a quiet day, more on a big 'steaming weekend'. Perhaps 20 big ones which at the moment are just for looking at! Then another 30 or 40 smaller ones in running order, and another - fifty? - in big rusty lumps in containers all over the site and out in the rain. And at the really small end more Lister D's than might be considered strictly necessary
@Enoch - thanks for your explanation of why the BR Standards were introduced. Yes, they were more up-to-date than their Big Four predecessors, and I agree that some them weren't really needed.
Not all pre-grouping locomotives still at work in the 50s were wheezing and moribund, though! Our Town was served by steam push-pull trains until 1961, and the lovely H class 0-4-4Ts still ran as sweetly as ever. One of our neighbours often used to drive the Westerham branch train, or the Hawkhurst branch, and was full of praise for Wainwright's engines - he occasionally did a turn on one of the surviving C class 0-6-0s, which were equally good, but with a more draughty cab...
We also had several of the various more modern Maunsell 2-6-0s, which were sometimes dirty, but still handling heavy freight trains as well as cross-country passenger services. Alas! 1957 saw the partial eclipse of the famous Schools class 4-4-0s on the Hastings line, but we still saw a few after that inauspicious year - they, I'm afraid, were often in a rundown and neglected state.
There wasn't really anything much amiss with the Rivers, except that the water used to surge about summink 'orrid in a half-empty tank, and it is said that the main cause of the nasty Sevenoaks accident (which led to their immediate withdrawal for rebuilding) was the Southern's rather less-than-perfect track...
They were IMHO a very handsome design, like most of Maunsell's work. Bulleid's revolutionary engines must have come as something of a shock!
The loss of this traffic was perhaps a more compelling issue. Some small GE-based diesels were working pick-up goods in the late 50s/early 60s but did not have a long life as the reason for their existence simply evaporated.
A major factor in the death of steam was that in the 50s and 60s Britain was booming, there was plenty of employment, and you could get the same wage or better for doing a clean job in a factory or office as you would receive for the hard and laborious work involved in maintaining steam engines in traffic. This was a particular issue in the more prosperous areas of the country. Even the drivers were not that well-paid by current standards.
In a sense the Rivers were re-incarnated as the Metropolitan's K class.
Didn't the Brighton also have problems with water surging in its express tank locos? I think they fitted baffles (and, I think, in one case a well tank).
I think they did, if you're referring to D Earle Marsh's lovely 4-6-2Ts? I shall have to have a look in my copy of D L Bradley's Locomotives of the LBSCR, in 3 volumes, and on a somewhat remote bookshelf...
Marsh also designed various classes of smaller, but elegant, 4-4-2Ts, but they seem to have been indifferent performers on anything but local trains.
The Metropolitan Ks may well have had better track to run on - AIUI, Sir Herbert Walker ordered the immediate withdrawal (on the day of the Sevenoaks accident), and subsequent rebuilding of the Rivers, partly on the basis of the bad publicity. The press quickly coined the pejorative epithet *Rolling Rivers*, which I don't suppose appealed to either Walker or Maunsell.
Marsh's I1 and I2 class 4-4-2Ts weren't all that successful, but the I3s were a lot better. A few lasted until just after nationalisation.
Going back to a more serious note, the general reputation of the LMS/Midland 4F is that they were were a mediocre footplate experience. Apparently 4Fs didn't steam as easily as 3Fs, had troublesome bearings and ash tended to blow into the cab from underneath the firebox. If one was going to choose an existing middle range goods engine to multiply in 1923, the 4F was probably the best of those handed over, but it would have been better to have designed something more modern, which is what eventually the Ivatt class 4 was intended to be. In contrast, everyone seems to agree that the Super D was appalling, uncomfortable, controls in the wrong place, quite dangerous to fire, and brakes that were both inadequate and unpredictable. It is quite a shock is when one realises that quite a lot of Super Ds only got rebuilt into their final form as late as the 1940s, a stage in their lives when scrap and replace should have been the only proper engineering decision.
I think I’d take a J11
The Duke himself was known here as an enthusiastic consumer of alcohol.
I don't know enough about the other lines to comment. The LNER received three heavy duty 0-6-0s from the Great Eastern, the North Eastern and the North British, but I don't know how suitable any of those were for anything other than heavy and slow coal and mineral work. The J11s might well have been a better bet as a general purpose 0-6-0. I've picked up the impression from somewhere that like the LMS 4F, the J39, the LNER's own standard 0-6-0 was undershod, a bit too powerful for its bearings.
The Southern with its various permutations of the Woolwich Mogul gives the impression of having inherited something much more useful. Despite what happened to the Rivers, there was a freight tank version that worked in the London area into the 1960s.
Yes, the W class - just the job for heavy freight workings, but, after an exhilarating (or perhaps scary) trial on the Oxted line, they were forever banned from hauling passenger trains, even when earnest and heartfelt requests were made for them to work railtours in the 1960s. One imagines the shade of Sir Herbert Walker frowning down upon such requests from the Great Head Office in the sky...
The Southern also had the relatively modern, but rather conservative, Q class 0-6-0s, Maunsell's final design. I did occasionally see one on a local passenger working, but mostly they were used for freight work.
With not as much freight traffic as other railways, the former South-Eastern part of the Southern (in latter years) seemed to manage quite well with the various Maunsell Moguls, the old but feisty C 0-6-0s, and Bulleid's fabulous Q1s...though I sometimes saw, from my bedroom window, one of the latter plodding along with 70+ wagons (often tar tankers bound for the erstwhile Berry Wiggins plant near Grain).
If the early LMS had not been so Derby-oriented, they should have looked at the Glasgow & South Western which had an excellent 4F rated loco in the 403 or "Austrian Goods" 2-6-0s. Sadly there were only 11 of them.
Their predecessors, the 279 class "Pumper" 0-6-0s, were abominable.
We didn't see many ex-LBSCR engines at Our Town (we had a few E4 0-6-2Ts for a while), but I do recall spotting my one and only K class on the turntable one day. AFAIK, it had brought in a goods train earlier in the day, but I don't know on what working it returned to safety Brighton territory!
I saw a K once on a goods at Rye, the only time I've ever been there. I believe they were used quite often on slower passenger services and that the crews were quite keen to get them rather than some of the other engines that were available.
Rye is an interesting location - happily, the station is still open to passengers on the Ashford-Hastings line - and it also had an intriguing goods-only branch to Rye Harbour, which closed after years of little use in 1960, but which seems to have attracted few photographers. The area south of Rye Harbour once had a fascinating network of narrow-gauge lines, too, muchly employed in the shifting of ballast...
Yes, I guess they were no longer needed, even though there was nothing much wrong with them!
I don't have a combined volume, but I do have a copy of The Observer's Book Of Railway Locomotives (1960 edition), and the variety is indeed mind-boggling. Mind you, quite a few classes still surviving at that late date were in penny numbers, so to speak,
That is still one of my trusted reference books. I also had the 1955 Ernest F Carter edition that was so full of obvious errors that it became fun to read. I am not sure if I gave it away or threw it away, but you prompted me to look for it on line just now, where I found someone shamelessly offering it for £38. I think it was five bob back then.
The best pictorial source I have for the astonishing variety of post-nationalisation locomotives is Casserley and Asher's Locomotives of British Railways, and for data, Hugh Longworth's monumental British Railways Locomotives 1948-1968.
Perhaps we could ask this eclectic crowd to nominate our favourite railway authors?
I once had the Carter version of the Observer's book, but, like you, got rid of it! Most of Carter's work was greatly flawed, alas.
The 1960 edition was revised and edited by the great H C Casserley, whose huge range of photographs spanning a long life (1903-1991) gives such a wonderful portrayal of railways in the UK and Ireland.
As to authors, I nominate three, to wit, C Hamilton Ellis (for his often lyrical accounts of pre-grouping railways), W J K Davies (a prolific and scholarly writer on the subject of light- and narrow-gauge railways in Europe and further afield), and Rev W Awdry, whose Thomas the Tank Engine etc. books are firmly based on proper railway practice, and recorded historical events!
LTC Rolt, for kick starting the preservation movement, for Railway Adventure, and for the Landscape Trilogy.
Gerard Ffeines for I Tried to Run a Railway
RHN (Dick) Hardy for Steam in the Blood
Simon Bradley for his excellent The Railways: Nation, Network and People
Finally, and going back a bit, George Dow for his magisterial Great Central trilogy (Rolt also gets in on the GC act with The Making of a Railway)
Merry Christmas
I loved "Railway Adventure", enjoyed (if that be the word "Red for Danger". But his greatest book may be "Narrow Boat". His autobiography is also interesting, particularly his times with Sentinel and Kerr, Stuart.
Yes, I agree with your assessment of Rolt, and I'd add his biography of I K Brunel to the list of his best works.