A Coarse Guide to the Steam Locomotive for ‘N’ Gauge Modellers

[chrism]

As for the original Bulleid 'Pacifics' - I haven't a clue.  They probably would benefit from a series on their own.  And 'Leader' (like Paget's locomotive) I'll leave to someone else!   

I wouldn't worry about that - it was only a miniaturised adaptation of Walschaert's valve gear using chains and crankshafts instead of the more usual return cranks on one axle and the union links from the crossheads, all three sets being squeezed into an oil bath.
All carefully designed and assembled, of course, so as to increase the risk of wheelslip and lineside & boiler lagging fires 

[Papyrus]

"Building britains locomotives" by James W Lowe and is still available second hand via Amazon.

Plenty of copies also available on Abebooks.

Cheers,

Chris

[grumbeast]

Hi John,

 a really excellent thread!   Have been away from the layout for a while but this is getting me right back into things!  I confess I'd never quite understood how bearings worked and the role of the white metal alloy.  I now think I get it thanks to you and understand why hot boxes occur

Cheers

 Graham 

[Train Waiting]

If the forum is still handing trophies out, this noble gentleman deserves one. 

Thank you.

John

[Train Waiting]

A Coarse Guide to the Steam Locomotive for 'N' Gauge Modellers - Part 6


Hello Chums

I'm Apologising Again

Oops-a-daisy!  Sorry, I'm first to admit it, but it turns out I was hopelessly optimistic when I mentioned in the last postington that our discussion would move on from wheels.  I hope this threadingham reads like carelessly-written gibberish, but it's actually jolly tricky gibberish to write.  It's all my own fault for trying to deal with one thing at a time when describing something as interrelated as a steam locomotive.  I decided to start with wheels and had intended to move on, in this postington, to discuss how the wheels are powered.  But, when attempting to write the text, I ended up tying myself in knots.

Which is a 'Poppy ate my homework' excuse...





...for this postington being about, contrary to as advertised, guess; Yes –

Wheels.  Again!

We had got to around the late Victorian period in the British steam locomotive's development.  Let's say the summer of 1894.  Imagine we have gone to the Highlands for the 'Glorious Twelfth' and are staying there until the end of September.

Great Britain started steam locomotive development and led the way for some years.  Our locomotives were generally well-built and fairly efficient by the standards of the time.  Increasingly, they were built in the railways' own workshops rather than by private locomotive building firms.  After the rapid development between 1929 and 1845 progress slowed.

Meanwhile, in the USA, development accelerated.  And locomotives tended to be built by specialised firms.  Think of the 'American' locomotives seen in so many Western films – often garishly decorated 4-4-0s.  These were used for both passenger and freight trains.  North American locomotives often had to travel for enormous distances compared to their British counterparts at the time.  Which led to the locomotives there becoming much bigger, much more quickly.

The 4-4-0 was replaced on the major US and Canadian railroads by larger locomotives with wheel arrangements such as 2-6-0, 4-6-0, 2-8-0, and 2-10-0.  Also, carrying wheels at the rear appeared, allowing 4-4-2, 2-6-2, 4-6-2 and 2-8-2 types to become commonplace.

Remember the difficulty describing locomotive wheel arrangements in Great Britain prior to Whyte notation in 1900?  Well, in North America, they got round the difficulty by giving the wheel arrangements names.  Here's some examples that made their way across the Atlantic (sorry!):

Atlantic – 4-4-2
Pacific – 4-6-2
Mogul – 2-6-0
Prairie – 2-6-2
Consolidation – 2-8-0
Mikado – 2-8-2

These names were pretty much universally applied in North America.  However, some of the later and larger locomotive types had different names for the same wheel arrangement, depending on which railroad was using them.  Confusing ++!

Following 7 December, 1941, the name 'MacArthur' was encouraged to be used instead of 'Mikado', although the latter was often shortened to the rather easier to say, 'Mike'.  Incidentally, this rebranding exercise appears a much simpler way to attempt to remove the name, 'Mikado', than Edward Thomson's rebuilding of the LNER's passenger 2-8-2 locomotives as 4-6-2s.

Having diverted us with typical Poppingham silliness, let's return to Great Britain and to our Inverness-shire shooting estate.  September is rapidly nearing its end and arrangements are being made for our return journey to Poppyshire.  A few days later, as we make our way south along the main line of the Highland Railway, we are treated to an amazing sight – a steam locomotive with ten wheels.  Oh, my giddy aunt! Yes, a Mancunian called David Jones has introduced Britain's first 4-6-0 - in the USA the type was called a 'Ten-Wheeler', but this never really caught on in Britain.

Primarily intended for goods work, the class became known as the 'Jones Goods', although the Inverness engineman I have met tended to pronounce it as "Joneses Goods".  This was an especially successful class and No. 103 remains in Glasgow, the city where she was built by Sharp, Stewart & Co.  The distinguished firm that built her was no stranger to the type, having already built many for service overseas.

The North Eastern Railway was next to introduce a 4-6-0 and many other railways followed.  Interestingly, three important northern railways, the North British, the Great Northern and the Midland never had 4-6-0 locomotives.  Likewise, the South Eastern & Chatham and the London Brighton & South Coast.

Some of the 4-6-0 designs of the late Victorian and Edwardian period were good performers, but others were rather mediocre.  Simply lengthening an existing 4-4-0 design into a 4-6-0 was no guarantee of success.  Interestingly, Mr Jones' 4-6-0 was an entirely new design.  What appears to be a similar 4-4-0, his 'Loch' class, was introduced two years later, in 1896.




[A typical 4-6-0 of our period.  Resplendent in the famous LNWR 'blackberrty black' livery, this locomotive is a 'Prince of Wales' class 4-6-0, No. 86 Mark Twain.  The class was introduced in 1911.]


In 1889, five years before the introduction of the 4-6-0, the first 0-8-0 locomotives appeared in Great Britain, on the Barry Railway.  These had been built by Sharp, Stewart & Co for export to Sweden, but their customer was unable to pay for them. Beginning in 1892, FW Webb had lots of 0-8-0 locomotives built for the London & North Western Railway and some other railways introduced the type.

Incidentally, the Barry Railway examples were not the first appearance of an eight-coupled locomotive in Great Britain. In 1864/66 two 0-8-0 tank locomotives were built for the Vale of Neath Railway, two for the Great Northern and one for the Llanelly Railway.  All five had been scrapped before 1880.




[An interesting British 0-8-0.  One of HA Ivatt's 'K1' class of 1901  for the Great Northern.  Class nickname, 'Long Tom'.  LNER designation, 'Q1' or 'Q2']


The 4-4-2 'Atlantic' first appeared in Britain in 1898, with HA Ivatt's design for the Great Northern Railway.  This was followed by Mr Ivatt's friend and mentor, JAF (later Sir John) Aspinall's, 'Atlantic' for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway in 1899.

The first 2-8-0 to be built in Britain was the Great Western Railway's '2800' Class, introduced in 1903 as part of GJ Churchward's plan for standardised locomotives.  In 1904, George Whale on the London and North Western Railway commenced rebuilding some of his predecessor, Mr Webb's, 0-8-0 locomotives as 2-8-0s.

Britain's first, and for 14 years, only 4-6-2 or 'Pacific' locomotive, The Great Bear was designed by Mr Churchward for the Great Western Railway and entered service in 1908.

I think this postington has mentioned all but one of the important developments which came after the typical British 4-4-0 and 0-6-0 types during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.  Let's end (at last!) our present discussion about wheels at the end of 1911, the year of King George V's coronation.

Before we progress to how the wheels are driven, we'll have a quick look at tank engines – there was a plentiful plethora of types of these locomotives in the pre-1911 period.

But, before I make my escape, you might have noticed my use of 'all but one' a couple of paragraphs back.  I know we tend to think of 4-6-0s, 'Atlantics', eight-coupled goods engines and, of course, The Great Bear when we discuss locomotive progress in this period.  But we have left out the 2-6-0, which is, I think, a very interesting case for study.

Would you like to suggest what was the first British 2-6-0 – railway and year of introduction? 


'N' Gauge is Such Fun!

Many thanks for looking and all best wishes.

Pip-pip

John

[Bealman]

Brilliant stuff, John. Triple 

[martyn]

I can't quickly find a list on Google, but I think that some wheel arrangement names such as Atlantic, Pacific, were derived from the owning companies' name that introduced that wheel arrangement.

On the GER, the experimental 0-10-0 tank engine designed by James Holden was always known as the Decapod.

'Mogul' was derived from the first of this type in the UK, built for the GER in 1879, with first of class named named 'Mogul'.  This class was sometimes said to have been designed as an 0-6-0 by Adams (before he moved to the LSWR), but modified to 2-6-0 by his successor Bromley before they were delivered

Martyn

[Ed]

Really interesting read John, but not sure why you've got 'for 'N' Gauge Modellers'in the title, it's surely for anyone in any scale 



Ed

PS: Aren't 4-4-0 wheel arrangements, which you didn't list, generally referred to as 'American'

[Ali Smith]

Whilst I'm sure Martyn is generally correct that wheel arrangements were named after the company that owned the first example, I don't think that can be the case for the Mastodon! This is the 4-8-0, which is quite a rare wheel arrangement. I can only think of two companies that used it. The main one was Norfolk and Western who were so keen that they soon gave up on building 2-8-0s and never had any 2-8-2s, which was the normal progression from 2-8-0s in the American industry. The other company was the London and South Western, who's G16 class was designed by Robert Urie for hump shunting at Feltham and were tank engines.
Even rarer was the 4-10-0, which is rather alarmingly called a "Gobernador" after the first of the type, which bore that name. The engine was built for the Panama Railroad. In Panama they speak Spanish, of course, and it turns out that "gobernador" rather prosaically just means "governor" in that language. The only other engine I can think of with this wheel arrangement was No. 34 of the Gorre & Daphetid RR, but that probably doesn't count.

[martyn]

Whilst I'm sure Martyn is generally correct that wheel arrangements were named after the company that owned the first example, I don't think that can be the case for the Mastodon! This is the 4-8-0, which is quite a rare wheel arrangement. I can only think of two companies that used it. The main one was Norfolk and Western who were so keen that they soon gave up on building 2-8-0s and never had any 2-8-2s, which was the normal progression from 2-8-0s in the American industry. The other company was the London and South Western, who's G16 class was designed by Robert Urie for hump shunting at Feltham and were tank engines.
Even rarer was the 4-10-0, which is rather alarmingly called a "Gobernador" after the first of the type, which bore that name. The engine was built for the Panama Railroad. In Panama they speak Spanish, of course, and it turns out that "gobernador" rather prosaically just means "governor" in that language. The only other engine I can think of with this wheel arrangement was No. 34 of the Gorre & Daphetid RR, but that probably doesn't count.

Correct.

I will modify my original post as it only applies to a few classes, I was thinking of Atlantic, Pacific, and Texas, and a couple of others

The list I've quoted in my previous post implies that there were more.

Martyn

[joe cassidy]

Would the first British 2-6-0 have been a Midland Railway loco, imported from the USA ?

[martyn]

@joe cassidy

Would the first British 2-6-0 have been a Midland Railway loco, imported from the USA ?

See post #36, the Midland version was not introduced until 1899.

Martyn

[Ed]

  This topic has suddenly gone wide, I'm scrolling to the right.

Is there a extra long line above?

Ed

[martyn]

@Newportnobby @Tank

Me too.........

Martyn

[Newportnobby]

I noticed that earlier and had to reduce the size to 80% but that made the text small, of course.
From what I can see it's @chrism reply #30 that didn't wrap