I had a truly spiffing opportunity to see the wonderful topics discussed in this post in real life yesterday. I took part in a driving experience on "Manston", which @martyn kindly described as a "Spam Can", but which I prefer to think of as one of Mr Bulleid's more successful locomotives, a Battle of Britain class.

I fired this from Swanage to Norden under the careful eye of the real fireman, and only managed to drop one piece of coal. I'm not sure I'd want to do this all day every day though, and am sure there weren't too many overweight firemen. I managed to collect a token too! Driving was far easier than I expected something as complicated to be, and while I was always under direct instruction I could see how such a powerful beast could be controlled very subtly, a true art form. I was so pleased to see things that I have read about and modelled for over 60 years for real, like a banner repeater signal and pulling the whistle cord! A truly wonderful day out!

Thanks to the Southern Locomotive group for the opportunity to do this, a fine bunch of gentlemen running some wonderful locomotives, including "Eddystone" which is currently doing very well main line.





Dave - a very lucky man....!

Uber cool!  

What a SuperSpiffing post, Dave. Thank you very much.

It's good to see you are attending to the brakes as I wouldn't want your tea can to fall off the firehole shelf.

I'm glad you had a perfik day out in Purbeck.

With all good wishes.

John

I love this thread and forum with the great variety, humour and expertise that is so freely given.
I remember seeing Eddystone at Sellinge in Kent a decade ago in lots of bits. It's amazing the effort and achievements of often a small dedicated team to bring these wonderful locos back to life for so many of us to enjoy.
Glad you had such a wonderful experience and thank you for your very entertaining and knowledgeable posts.

Quote from: Southerngooner on March 13, 2026, 09:16:06 AMI fired this from Swanage to Norden under the careful eye of the real fireman, and only managed to drop one piece of coal. I'm not sure I'd want to do this all day every day though,

I used to fire on the Watercress Line and, although one day at a time was pretty easy most of the time, I wouldn't want to do it every day either.

The worst day I had was on 34016 Bodmin and there was a problem with the smokebox door locking dart - it kept riding up out of its correct location so the door opened slightly, eliminating most of the smokebox vacuum - usually halfway up the 1:60 up from Alton. I had no trainee to help out either so I practically fell off the footplate at the end of the day 

In contrast, another day I was on the Drummond Greyhound, T9 30120 (*), which simply wouldn't stop steaming. The driver and I had a tacit agreement - if I was going to make steam he was darned well going to use it and if he was going to use it I was darned well going to make it 

Due to the gradients (1:80 up one way and 1:60 up the other) we were double headed with 34105 Swanage but the old girl wasn't bothered in the slightest and happily pulled 5 Mk1s and Swanage around - most of the day the Swanage crew had their feet up 

(*) I heard the other day that the Swanage Railway are going to give the T9 a major overhaul, including replacing the cylinder block that was already cracked before we had her and has been patched up at least twice.
That should give the old girl a new lease of life again 

Vital Statistics

Occasional Special No. 2


Hello Chums

You might recall that I mentioned, in the part of the surprisingly brief mini-series discussing cylinders, that for two inside cylinders, their diameter was constrained by the distance between the inside faces of the frames. I mentioned that this distance was about four feet. This was based on my own experience as I hadn't seen a relevant published figure for this dimension.

Then, on 17 March of this year, @cmason posted on my Poppingham thread a very interesting article from The Engineer about the North Eastern Railway's Gateshead Works.

The article is fascinating and, on page 616, is probably the most comprehensive list of dimensions of a British inside-cylinder locomotive I have ever seen. With Colin's kind permission, I'm glad to reproduce the article here. A look at all the relevant dimensions will demonstrate just how tightly constrained locomotive engineers were by the standard gauge and the British structure gauge.

Incidentally, outside cylinders had their own limitations on diameter due to the distance between the outside face of the frames and the edge of station platforms.

Of course, all the other dimensions included in the list are worth thinking about.

With SuperSpecial thanks to Colin.


'N' Gauge is Such Fun!

Many thanks for looking and all best wishes.

Toodle-oo

John

Crikey, I never knew that they used brass boiler tubes at that time - I'd always thought that they were originally wrought iron, eventually replaced by steel.

Quote from: chrism on Yesterday at 08:43:37 PMCrikey, I never knew that they used brass boiler tubes at that time - I'd always thought that they were originally wrought iron, eventually replaced by steel.

Thank you. Brass was commonly used and was long-lasting. In Railway Adventure, LTC Rolt makes much of Dolgoch having her original boiler, made of Low Moor iron with brass tubes.

All good wishes.

John