You're most welcome. An excellent education, yet again. Interesting to see Durham and Northumberland being the rebels! 

A Coarse Guide to the Steam Locomotive for 'N' Gauge Modellers - Part 14


Hello Chums

You know how some people consider the Nineteenth Century to be a period of unbridled laissez-faire capitalism, free of government regulation?  Like so many perceptions, this is totally wrong and it is my contention that was the century during which something like the modern system of regulation evolved.  In this part we shall see that the consequences of an Act of Parliament of almost two centuries ago are still relevant today.

**

At this point, I think it would be handy for us to see inside a locomotive's firebox.  But that's a dashed tricky place for a coarse photographer, with well dodgy legs, like me, to take a picture.  But...wait a moment – I have a cunning plan.  I know a bloke in NSW who is a dab hand with a camera; I'll arrange for him to take the photograph for us.

[Brief pause for aeroplanes and suchlike... please talk amongst yourself.]

Sorry for the delay, it took longer for @Bealman , our photographer, to get from the 'Gong to York than I expected.  Maybe he was idling away the time in licensed premises, various, with pints of Broon. Here's the very nice picture:-





A BIG Engine this time.  Rebuilt 'Merchant Navy' 4-6-2 35029 Ellerman Lines at the National Railway Museum in York.  Helpfully, George got busy with a 'Junior' hacksaw before taking the photograph so we can see inside the locomotive's firebox.  And, if you are interested in this sort of thing, there is a lot to see.

Too much to describe in one postington.  So, we'll start with that strange pinky-brownish-red coloured thing crossing the firebox.  Sort of brick coloured?

That's not a surprise because it's called a brick arch and one of these can be found in the firebox of almost every standard gauge locomotive for railway service.  Industrial engines don't usually have them.  The reason it's there goes back to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Act of 1826¹.  I assume our legislators had seen or heard tell of the 'steam dinosaurs' that were clanking their way across Northumberland and County Durham shrouded in clouds of acrid smoke.  Parliament included a provision in the 1826 Act which required any steam locomotives used on the railway to 'effectively consume their own smoke'.

This requirement was included in the rules for the Rainhill Trials of 1829.

The consequence of this can be imagined and the incomparable EL Ahrons (1866-1926) describes it much better than I can:

'Although coal [as a fuel] was not prohibited, the result of the Act was that from 1829 coke for many years became the universal fuel on main line railways other than the Stockton and Darlington and one or two other lines in the Durham area.'²

Coke was much more expensive than coal and locomotive engineers spent many years attempting to work out how to burn coal cleanly in an engine's firebox.  Some of the resulting contraptions were ingenious but all were impracticable to a greater or lesser extent.  Finally, the problem was solved by Charles Markham and Matthew Kirtley on the Midland Railway.  By 1860 they had arrived at the solution we know to this day - a brick arch built across the firebox and a sloping deflector plate placed above the firehole.  This caused air entering through the firehole ('secondary air' to enginemen) to be deflected on to the surface of the fire which improves combustion.

The brick arch and deflector plate were quickly adopted and the use of coke was almost completely phased out.  Incidentally, the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway continued to use coke until 1980.  Coke burns hot and could cause distortion of the boiler tubes, leading to leaking tubes.  One afternoon, three out of the four engines in service that day failed with leaking tubes and the railway changed to coal firing.³

What we would now call environmental protection legislation, dating back to King George IV's time, has been an important factor in steam locomotive development and continues to be so.

We'll continue looking inside the firebox in the next part.

By the way, the near contemporaneous invention of the injector and solution to the problem of coal firing represents something of a turning point.  Until 1860, most innovations regarding steam locomotives were made in the United Kingdom.  After 1860, innovations tended to be from abroad - not totally, of course, but to a large extent.  M. Giffard, whom we met earlier, with his injector is the start of a trend.  I expect we might hear soon about two famous Belgians. 


¹ Liverpool and Manchester Railway Act 1826 (7 Geo. IV. c. xlix) of 5 May 1826.

² Ahrons EL, The British Steam Locomotive from 1825 to 1925, Locomotive Publishing Company, London, 1927, p130.

³ Railway World, Vol 45, No. 531, July 1984, p370.

Special thanks to George for the picture.


'N' Gauge is Such Fun!

Many thanks for looking and all best wishes.

Pip-pip

John

A tremor of anticipation rippled through them both as the mystical currents surged and eddied in Sylvia's heightened awareness. Cosmic tides were shifting inexorably, drawing them all into their ecstatic embrace.

Sylvia inhaled slowly, allowing the celestial energies to course through her with ethereal intimacy.

"The celestial powers have decreed this a night of profound transformation", she breathed huskily. "Fated awakenings shall transcend the physical to ignite the essence of those most ripe for such... rapturous transfiguration."

Jeremy felt the hairs on the nape of his neck prickle as Sylvia's dark eyes took on a familiar luminous, far-seeing quality. He knew better than to doubt her ancestral gifts when the mystical forces flowed so palpably through her commanding form. Covering her hands with his own, he leaned closer. "My love, I'm with you as always on your path. What destinies do you perceive unfolding around us?"

Sylvia's smile contained both excitement and serene awareness. "Look there, to where our dearest friends Eli and Giles sway enraptured on the dance floor." She inclined her head minutely, and Jeremy followed her signal to the couple in question, clearly surrendering to the potent pull between them.

"For them, the awakening shall be of the most ancient, elemental kind. Karmic soulmates, at last, embracing their profoundly fated reunion across the ages..."

As Sylvia spoke the words, a shimmering aura seemed to materialise around Eli and Giles as if the very energies of cosmic destiny were coalescing around them. Jeremy's breath caught in his throat as he beheld the etheric phenomenon.

Turning back to him, Sylvia's brown eyes shimmered with power—the kind that sprung from ancient energies. Her voice, a reverent murmur, carried the weight of celestial knowledge.

"And they are but the first catalyst tonight", she said, with supreme self-assurance. "Other rapturous awakenings shall follow in their wake—equally fated yet altogether different in their transcendent nature."

Jeremy, troubled by the strength of her words, wondered if Sylvia truly comprehended the cosmic forces she sought to influence. Perhaps her outer confidence was a mask, concealing both power and vulnerability. For in the delicate balance of celestial energies, even the most adept could falter.

As the hearth's flames flickered, Sylvia's silver bracelet caught the light, its Atlantean script whispering secrets only she could decipher. Jeremy leaned closer, drawn to her—part curiosity, part reverence. He sensed that tonight held more than mere magic; it held the promise of momentous events itself.

And so, seated side by side, Sylvia's complacency wove seamlessly into fate's tapestry—a thread of audacity that dared to manipulate the flow of celestial powers. Whether she was foolhardy or wise remained uncertain, but Jeremy knew he would follow her lead wherever the stars guided.

Sylvia's free hand drifted up to caress Jeremy's cheek in a tender gesture. "Are you prepared, my love, to surrender fully to whatever profoundly intimate initiation the celestial forces have in store for us?"

Quote from: dannyboy on Yesterday at 06:23:09 PMI suppose we can manage for one day. 

[But you do get one in the morning before I leave from sunny eastern Slovakia for Prague! 8-)]

Quote from: Train Waiting on Yesterday at 08:41:04 AMA Coarse Guide to the Steam Locomotive for 'N' Gauge Modellers - Part 13 - Supplemental

Quote from: martyn on May 31, 2024, 09:52:55 AMI don't know where I read it, and it was a very long time ago, but I'm sure that a piece I've seen said that the injector was originally designed (by Giffard) to refill boilers on a proposed airship!

But that could be a faulty memory......

]...]

Thank you, Martyn and that might well be the case.  M. Giffard built a steam-powered airship.  And... it flew (or so I understand)!

This was on my mind this afternoon at the West Wales Railway Modellers' Show, where their O Gauge Group displayed models of several other steam powered vehicles of that era.




I do hope you'll be able to cover some of these other 'ahead-of-their-time' developments in this excellent series John.

Mike

Quote from: dannyboy on Yesterday at 07:46:25 PMWhy do shops put stickers on non-stick frying pans?

More to the point, how do they do it?

 

A couple of weeks ago a guy evidently knocked on my parents front door (they're in their 80's) to say they had a tile that had slipped. He offered to pop and sort it for free. Whilst up there he "noticed" a loose ridge tile and quoted them an exorbitant amount. They said they'd have to pay by cheque so he got aggressive and left.
Today 2 chaps turned up and said there were 3 loose ridge tiles and proceeded to go up to fix them. It looks like a bit of polyfilla was smeared along the join.
Then one came inside and went upstairs then demanded cash for the work. Mum then got out a pile of cash, somewhere around £400 (who knows why she had it). The bloke snatched it out of her hand and said they'd be back on Tuesday for another £160 owed.
The bloody nerve of these people. Anyhow Police called and details taken but they admitted it was unlikely they'd have the resources to investigate.
Looks like I'll have to spend Tuesday around their house in case he turns up when the Police have instructed me to dial 999.
I could do without this stress and the amount of times I've had this chat with my parents as it's not the first time 

I had a major problem last Sunday a new graphics card installed in my main computer rig(card was two weeks old), which I also use for gaming packed in, it started smoking. It was not hot and the game I was playing for about 5 mins, I had played for 45mins a few days earlier. I installed a old card I had to test my machine and it worked has normal, what a relief that was I can tell you. The shop I bought it from said bring it in for testing and it smoked on there rig too so they gave me a replacement card.
 I had bought the new card because my Asus Gaming monitor( 9years old) had packed in with the white screen of death a few weeks ago so a new monitor had been aquired with 4k resolution so new graphics card to match. This pc has my old card installed now, I managed to sell one of my older cards to a guy in my Modelshop, so I got some money back from that.
Chris H.

J188

Okay, okay, so I'm weak, whatever...


At that price, why wouldn't you. At some point they'll get renumbered/rebadged to early BR.