The A-1

As child, my father was stationed in England with the USAF a few years before the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956. I was only three or four, but I still have vivid memories of riding the rails with my parents and being fascinated by those gigantic (to little me) steam engines!
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
Wow! Talk about ambitious plans. :eek:
It was also interesting to see that the Ontario & Western has/had trackage in Wisconsin, where a wreck in 1955 spilled chocolate on the tracks in Hamilton, near Oneida. ;) :confused:

Wayne
 

myltlpny

Member
That's a pretty ambitious project. I wonder what new technologies, if any, they've incorporated into the new engine.
There was a steam engine built in the early '80's in India. It ran on either propane or natural gas. If I remember correctly it was a 4-6-2. It was big and red, I remember that.:mrgreen:
 

nkp174

Active Member
That's a pretty ambitious project. I wonder what new technologies, if any, they've incorporated into the new engine.
There was a steam engine built in the early '80's in India. It ran on either propane or natural gas. If I remember correctly it was a 4-6-2. It was big and red, I remember that.:mrgreen:

It's a replacement for a class of locomotives that were scrapped...so I don't there is anything new. I'm pretty sure...from what I've read over the past 10yrs...that it is as close to an original A1 Peppercorn pacific as possible.

The reason for it is that there were 4 classes of large London Northeastern Railway (LNER) pacifics. A1, A2, A3, and A4. 2-4 A2s survive (3 IIRC), 1 A3 (the flying Scotsman), and 6 A4s (Mallard, Sir Nigel Gresley, Union of South Africa, Dominion of Canada (which is in Canada), Dwight D. Eisenhower (in Green Bay, Wi), and a sixth somewhere in England...so this is provide that missing A1...especially since the 2 most famous British locomotives were from the same series.

Interestingly...the Peppercorn A1s were newer than the A2s, A3s, and A4s...which were Gresley pacifics (Peppercorn & Gresley were the Chief Mechanical officers in charge of the designs). The A1s were a late 1940's engines of the BR period...while the A4s were from the 1930s.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
nkp: the LNER's CMEs liked to expropriate the A1 designation for their own new designs. Gresley started with his Pacifics in A1, then A3 when they were improved. In 1947 the last of the unrebuilt ones went to class A10. Class A1 was Thompson's rebuild of Great Northern for which he was never forgiven. A4 was the streamliners. A5 to A8 were 4-6-2 tank engines. The A2 (A2, A2/1 and A2/2) were also Thompson's engines , although A2/2 were rebuilt from Gresley's P2 class 2-8-2. (It's been suggested that there will never be a mass-produced model of the A2 because no 2 were alike.)
Peppercorn became CME (Chief Mechanical Engineer) in 1946 and designed his own pacific (et al). My list stops in 1947, so his locos aren't included. Of courese, he made his locos A1, which wasn't a problem because there had only been one rebuild into that class.
Sorry to have gone on like this so long.
 

baldwinjl

Member
In my opinion, the British have a completely different sense of history than we (Americans) do. They are also VERY proud of their engineering achievements through the years. They have a bit of an us against the world complex going for them, in a lot of ways deserved, and it has served them well. Another example is the Vulcan bomber which a group has restored, which flew for the first time in ten years last month.

Jeff
 

nkp174

Active Member
The British idea of "classes" with locomotives is bizarre...especially how they rebuild locomotives into other classes...such as Gresley's A1s becoming A3s. I also recall an article around 6 years ago about how perhaps the Flying Scotsman should be reclassified as an A4...as it was achieving such performances. I can't think of anywhere that this is more confusing than with the Great Western Railway's many rebuilt broad gauge locomotives...they make my head spin.

I wasn't familiar with the tank engine classifications...but that's because Steam Railway and Heritage Railway were always focused on the LNER's big engines (which seem small to me!). I'm a big fan of P2s...such cool locomotives.
I was trying to remember the deal between Gresley & Peppercorn...Gresley...if I recall...was the 3rd CME of the LNER...and Peppercorn was the 4th/last...I also tend to think the Gresley died before BR was formed...and that their was a good deal of animosity between him and Peppercorn...but I can't remember for certain.

The saddest thing for me, in British history, is that the only warship they saved was the Belfast! Come on! What was wrong with the battleship Warspite or the carrier Victorious? Thank God for Barry!

Britain was the only place I've been which has had as strong...or maybe stronger...nationalism than the USA. I like that. Of course, they don't discriminate with trains...they'll gladly purchase Polish steam locomotives and such. I recall an irate letter to the editor in Steam Railway once...he was an eastern European complaining about the British stealing all of their steam locomotives and that they should make do with what they had.
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
The saddest thing for me, in British history, is that the only warship they saved was the Belfast! Come on! What was wrong with the battleship Warspite or the carrier Victorious? Thank God for Barry!

I wasn't aware of the lack of preservation of warships. I find it interresting that a country that preserves so much of it's heritage has neglected the very navy upon which the entire empire was built!
 

nkp174

Active Member
While our rationing ended around V-J day...theirs continued into the 1950's. I highly suspect that it had an enormous affect on the torching of their historic ships.
The survivors include:
the Light Cruiser Belfast...which is next to the Tower of London
the ironclad HMS Warrior
the 18th century beauty...and flagship of Lord Nelson...HMS Victory
the tudor warship Mary Rose...although that is a bit different...salvaged 20yrs ago from the muck.

Most of the surviving steam was due to scrap yards, particularly Welsh ones, being a bit slow to cut everything up. It's a really cool story.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
NKP174:
Gresley was the 4th CME of the Great Northern railway 1911-1922 (following Sturrock, Stirling and HA Ivatt), then became
CME of the LNER until 1941. He was succeeded by Thompson who started rebuilding Gresley's locos to get away from the conjugated valve gear on the inside cylinder. Peppercorn took over in 1946.

The LNER had the most systematic designations for its lcomotives. Each wheel arrangement had a letter and each design had a number, but some had subclasses. I was told that the class numbers on the 0-6-0s were done by railway, then they started over again at J50 for the 0-6-0T tank engines.
The locomotive numbers themselves started systematically in 1923, where n000 was added to the numbers of the old company (n varied by company, of course), but even when Gresley was building his pacifics, they were scattered around in groups wherever he found an opening. There was one renumbering started in 1943, then a different renumbering in 1946. I think that even before they managed this, British Railways took over and added 60000 to all the new numbers. Flying Scotsman started as GN 1472, then LNER 4472, then 502 and 103, ending up as BR 60103 (where have we seen that number before?)
 

nkp174

Active Member
David,
Very informative. 3 CMEs of the LNER? I was definitely confused on that one. Now that you mention 1922...that rings a bell...I was inclined to think that 1920 was the clumping into the big four...but I'm confusing it with the D&RGW's formation which occurred in 1920.
I dislike the sort of piecemeal numbering that they did...it reminds me of the Pennsy's bizarre numbers...and the difficulties in tracking 19th century railroad equipment due to renumbering.

Since we're talking about all these cool engines...we need a picture...

Here's a Stirling from the NER...
 

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Mountain Man

Active Member
Well played...the British! Of course, it won't hurt that they have some spectacular scenery to travel through, with nice pubs and shops along the way!

On a related thought, how effecient do you suppose a steam engine could be made using 21st century technology...with oil at almost $100 USD a barrel?
 

60103

Pooh Bah
When Sir Nigel Gresley retired, he had been CME of the GN and LNER for 30 years and it was the middle of the war. (and you don't become CME at age 21)
I don't know exactly why Thompson went, but he lost popularity when he made his first pacific rebuild on Gresley's first pacific, Great Northern, which many LNER employees (and fans) though should have been preserved.
He made funny looking locos, too. He moved the cylinders from between the axles on the front truck (or bogie) to between the last bogie axle and the first driver. It probably helped them get around 18" radius curves.
 

chooch.42

Member
Hi, NKP ! You made me LOOK! Yes, that is a 4-2-2 loco !(hard to see from the available photo angle indoors) Most unusual engineering. Thanks for the tweak ! Bob C.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Bob C: there were a couple of loco designers over there who felt that adding extra drivers with rods to them just added extra friction. 4-2-2 was common enough -- I can think of 4 examples off the top of my head -- but the Stirling 8-footer was one of the nicest. I have an ancient plastic model, and she's the basis for Emily on the Thomas series.
 
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