The LNER Encyclopedia

I hate to contradict, but I believe the 1939 Gresley proposal shows evidence that (perhaps inconvenient) measures were employed to try to keep the wheelbase squeezed within the limits for a 70' turtable deck: Cramped coupled wheel spacings and little space within the cab which is pushed well for'ard over the large firebox.

The post-war designs certainly bust the house-limit!

10000 barely sat on the turntable at Nottingham Victoria (as evidenced in the footage of it being turned), and the 4-8-2's have got to be larger beasts, could they have been fitted with 6-wheel tenders to compensate if built? Would they have been fitted with 6-wheelers as a matter of standardisation? If the LNER couldn't get enough 85ft turntables built in time, where would the nearest triangles be to the sheds they might have been sent to?

Just chucking some ideas out there to see what other people might think.

A six wheel tender would limit its range and make it pointless to build. Perhaps the LNER realised the same problem.

I wonder if any minutes of LNER management or board meetings exist in the NRM's archives that record a debate over potential 4-8-2 or 4-8-4 engines? Presumably there must have been formal authorisation for the initial drawings, otherwise the drawing office would have been wasting time and money.

The turntable problem would no doubt have been one of the practical and financial reasons against proceeding.

Coming back to the minutes - these would be highly interesting to read I would have thought - a good subject for a book. (That said by someone who frequently has to type minutes up and hates the task!).

I refer back to my comment above. On checking the drawing in RCTS 10A the combined wheelbase of engine and eight wheeled tender for the 1939 4-8-2 proposal is shown as
67' 4" 5/8. Short enough to shuffle onto a 70" deck if necessary, with various bits of ironmongery overhanging at both ends (a gnat's whatsit more than 77 feet over buffers). How balanced the deck might be is another consideration of course.

I get the feeling in Gresley's time that he put ideas to his draughtsmen expressly Bert Spencer and vice versa and ideas were schemed out - the skilled d.a. staff could rattle off a proposal fairly quickly, and that is all that these drawings we see today were - the finer details had to be worked out if and when a proposal, when taken to the board, was authorised for construction. Going on you can see how the developments of A4, P2, V2, Peppercorn A1 etc. worked their way through to the final product if you study the drawings in RCTS.

Bear in mind that my drawings are a work-up of some of these adding detail in the tradition of the way that previous final designs had been reached; there is no real evidence for example that had the 4-8-2 been built, it would be 100% akin to the first outline proposal.

Atlantic 3279 wrote:I refer back to my comment above. On checking the drawing in RCTS 10A the combined wheelbase of engine and eight wheeled tender for the 1939 4-8-2 proposal is shown as
67' 4" 5/8. Short enough to shuffle onto a 70" deck if necessary, with various bits of ironmongery overhanging at both ends (a gnat's whatsit more than 77 feet over buffers). How balanced the deck might be is another consideration of course.

That's almost 5ft overhang at each end. Not the best angle, but the photo of the Kings cross turntable below makes it look a bit tight. Note the caption referring to "Boris Russell"!

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=kings+ ... 1,s:0,i:72

Has maths changed these days or are we at cross-purposes? I make 77' to be 7' in excess of 70', or 3' 6" at each end. How does that amount to almost 5' each end

I think what 2002 means is that the loco has nearly 5' overhang at each end from centre of front bogie wheel to buffer tips and likewise from centre of rear tender wheels to buffer tips.

The drawing shows 4'1 1/2" at the front and 5'6 1/2" at the rear!

Saint Johnstoun wrote:I think what 2002 means is that the loco has nearly 5' overhang at each end from centre of front bogie wheel to buffer tips and likewise from centre of rear tender wheels to buffer tips.

The drawing shows 4'1 1/2" at the front and 5'6 1/2" at the rear!

Thanks Allan, that was exactly what I meant, but I should have been more specific - apologies! Of course Graeme's measurement is more relevant to the ability of the turntable, and surrounding space, to cope.

Yes - my old 4-8-2 would fit the modified Heljan turntable on my old layout in Leicestershire but the new one certainly won't fit the one on my current layout!

As we are all using an extended Pacific chassis this automatically makes the wheelbase a scale 9 inches too long!

I see what was meant regarding the dimensions now. Ta for clarification. The amount of overhang at either end of any large LNER loco must of course be similar, so the 4-8-2 figures are nothing special.

2002EarlMarischal wrote:

Atlantic 3279 wrote:I refer back to my comment above. On checking the drawing in RCTS 10A the combined wheelbase of engine and eight wheeled tender for the 1939 4-8-2 proposal is shown as
67' 4" 5/8. Short enough to shuffle onto a 70" deck if necessary, with various bits of ironmongery overhanging at both ends (a gnat's whatsit more than 77 feet over buffers). How balanced the deck might be is another consideration of course.

That's almost 5ft overhang at each end. Not the best angle, but the photo of the Kings cross turntable below makes it look a bit tight. Note the caption referring to "Boris Russell"!

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=kings+ ... 1,s:0,i:72

Not to be a pedant, but another tragedy in photo captioning, I see. "60117 Boris Russell". Ye Gods, does nobody check these things?

There is I suppose, without total departure from estanlished LNER practices, another way in which a vital couple of feet might have been saved from the length of a 4-8-? loco plus tender combination, so as to fit 70 foot turntables with greater ease: The corridor tenders had tanks 9" wider than the non-corridor types to maintain capacity despite the internal space lost to the rather cramped crew passage. Gresley had at one stage proposed a wide tank on a non corridor tender to give even greater capacity, but this was not favoured because of the way it restricted a loco's availability for reverse-running duties - or at least exposed the crew to dangers when trying to see around the tender (and created danger for others if the crew couldn't see). Now if it were judged to be the case that the 4-8-? locos would seldom / never be required to run in reverse, and if it were also the case that their duties would demand no higher tender capacities than the pacifics, then a full-width, full capacity variant of the non-corridor eight wheeled tender that was a couple of feet shorter could have been built.

As a digression from my current 4-8-2/4-8-4 theme, I thought there may be some interest in another minor conversion I have on the go.

Recently I purchased 2 USA Scotsman sets minus the observation car. I sold the water tenders on eBay, and ended up with a couple of USA 4472 models at a very competative price.

Mick b is kindly looking at the possibilities of converting one for me, (more about that later), but I am having a go at one myself. Here are some photos:

Before: After removal of bell, whistle and cowcatcher: The whistle leaves a small barely noticeable hole in front of the works plate; the bell a glue residue on the running plate for filing/sanding off/touching-up; and the cowcatcher bufferbeam requires removal, cutting away and filing down: Within 10 minutes all this was done, with just some cosmetic work to finish: Not much more than a name and number job left......

I urge anyone else impatient for Book Law and wanting an LNER A3, to go down the USA route - yeehah!

[Oh and I forgot to mention, the sets include a bag of vacuum pipes, coupling hook etc which can be used when the cowcatcher and buckeye are removed].