The LNER Encyclopedia

This question has been posted on another site but it intrigued me.

Deltics were fitted with water scoops for refilling the tanks for the steam heat boiler.
The question is did they ever get used to refill the tanks?
Do photos exist of filling taking place? Not of them just passing over as they do exist.
Photos of Class 40s filling up do exist and can be googled but not Deltics.

Anybody have an answer?

Hi all.
Yes we used the waters scoops regularly at Gateshead,however they were a bit unreliable and often got damaged as they were a bit slow when retracting.

52H

Not Deltics on the East Coast but... I've been on English Electric Type 4-hauled trains on the West Cioast when water-troughs were used. It wasn't altogether a gimmick; in the case of those locos, at least (and perhaps the Deltics) the water filler was halfway up and on the side, covered by a flap and not particularly big. This meant persuading a station water-column hose bag into a position to be useful without a soaking was quite difficult - or at least that was my understanding at the time.

As an aside how many diesel loco's still have one fitted? are there any?

Hi
The Deltics definitley had them and we used them regularly on East Coast main line.

52H

Out of interest wot sort of steam heating boilers were the Deltics fitted with?.

Hi all
The Deltics were fitted with Spanner boilers, these were fitted in the middle of the engine room squeezed between the two engines. They often went off when the engines were working hard,one theory was that a partial vacuum was created,this starved the boiler of air. This was answered by fitting a separate air supply through a duct in the floor.

52H

Thanks 52H i never had that much to do with the Deltics when i was a secondman at Kings Cross between April 1974- September 1975 because i never made it into No.1 link or 'top gang' or 'Newcastle lodge gang' as they were known as where most of the diagrams involved the Deltics so i never rode on them regular but apart from riding on a few of the class to & from the Passenger Loco and the station plus 2 or 3 Kings Cross-Leeds return workings in the summer of 1975 that was about the sum total of my experience of riding on them and those Leeds-Kings Cross return workings that had a Deltic on the front those Deltics were all fitted with ETH by then (1975) and it was a warm summer as well so i didn't need to touch there boilers.

52H wrote: Yes we used the waters scoops regularly at Gateshead,however they were a bit unreliable and often got damaged as they were a bit slow when retracting.

I recall reading somewhere that being slow getting the scoop up could result in taking the end off the trough - is that so, or a bit fanciful?

I have a vague memory that a railway friend of mine told me back in 1968 or maybe 1969 that 'Scrooby troughs' were still at that time layed in and were therefore the last set of troughs that remained on the GN section?.

Pennine MC wrote:

52H wrote: Yes we used the waters scoops regularly at Gateshead,however they were a bit unreliable and often got damaged as they were a bit slow when retracting.

I recall reading somewhere that being slow getting the scoop up could result in taking the end off the trough - is that so, or a bit fanciful?

A bit fanciful, I would've thought. Any troughs I've ever seen were chamfered off at both ends.

Hi all
The damage I refer to usually happened at Northallerton troughs ,and the damage was caused by the trailing crossover after the troughs.

52H

Just a little point about troughs, logical when you think about it. The surface of static water is (obviously!) level, and the ends of the trough must be the same height as the sides otherwise the water would just run out; it's the track level that dips down and rises again as it passes over the trough. Without this feature, scoops would always hit the end of the trough if not raised in time.
Does anyone know where the water filler on Deltics was? And where the tanks were usually filled? Funnily enough I've never seen a steam heat diesel having its water tanks re-filled when stationary - only on troughs. And even Brush 4s built for passenger work had boilers.

Hi all
We used a hose to fill Deltics water tanks,it was I think the same connection as fire hose, you pushed it on till it clicked, then turned on the water valve and it sensed water flow then a booster pump kicked in,and it made the pipe jump. We usually stood on the pipe till it settled. Once the booster pump kicked in it was quite fast. You closed the valve then pulled the two lugs to detach. You had to be careful you didn't get a shower. The filler was on top of the water tank,at about platform level. I've used these fillers at Newcastle York and Doncaster.

52H

Hi 1H etc

I don't know but I suspect that the start and finish of the trough was inclined to avoid the scenario of the scoop hitting a large lip at the end!!