Locomotives Illustrated

[52A]

The final (steam) Locomotives Illustrated, No 170 An LNER Miscellany, has been published covering a variety of classes not featured previously. Future issues will concentrate on diseaesels starting with the class 37s.

[Blink Bonny]

Wash your mouth out with soap and water sir!!

Ye gods. LI minus steam. Whatever next?

[LNER Fan 60008]

Wash your mouth out with soap and water sir!!

Ye gods. LI minus steam. Whatever next?

What's wrong with Diesels?

Anyways, I've never seen much of Locomotives Illustrated, so, I don't know if different kinds of engines in it is something horrifying or not.

[giner]

Wash your mouth out with soap and water sir!!

Ye gods. LI minus steam. Whatever next?

What's wrong with Diesels?

To pose that question on a predominantly 'steam' forum (there weren't too many diesels about in LNER days) is, at minimum, risky or, at most, brave or foolhardy.

However, to answer your question and not to get too steamed up about it: Not much, I suppose, apart from the fact that most of them are just plain butt ugly, characterless, devoid of any visible life, and too often prone to failure.

[Bullhead]

...most diesels are just plain butt ugly, characterless, devoid of any visible life...

With the possible exception of the spiritual successors to the Gresley pacifics, the splendid Deltics.

I remember a phrase from "1066 And All That" - the cavaliers were wrong but romantic; the roundheads were right but repulsive. The same general principle applies, possibly, to steam and diesel. Apologies, of course, to 70013, and the citizens of Drogheda.

[richard]

Coughs and sneezes spread diseasels...



Diesels have a reputation for being dirty and oily. Of course steam engines were dirtier and oilier - just a different kind of dirt!


Richard

[CVR1865]

Steam engines have heart and soul. When you hear them thumping up a bank they sound alive. They have mood swings when they will be mechanically fine but steam poorly. They hiss gently, and even when their fire is out you can listen to them simmer and smell the fantastic aroma of so many years.

Diesels just smell of pollution and like a bus. Then they go pop and stop working.

[Bullhead]

I agree with the general sentiment. Steam locomotives seem to me to be as close as we've come to engineering a machine which lives. Watching rain droplets trickling like sweat down the streamlined casing of an A4 at Waverley some years ago while she radiated an animal-like heat really brought this home to me. Likewise, a slightly drunken evening in the excellent bar at Bridgnorth station in the height of summer - whichever loco had been in service that day (a BR standard 4MT 2-6-4T, I think) stood shivering and burping to itself as it cooled down in the platform road outside. I crunched my porky scratchings with a tear in my eye, I can tell you.

Nevertheless, one of the most uplifting experiences (at any rate, that I dare mention in public) I've enjoyed in recent years was a trip on the footplate of an HST between Edinburgh Waverley and Dundee. The sound effects from the engine room were very stirring - no suspicion of a pop, despite the fact that the driver asked me to "mind the shop" briefly during the station stop at Kirkcaldy when he went back to sort an air brake problem.

Conversely, a trip on the footplate of 61264 on the West Highland Line was dirty, hot, and just plain noisy.

[LNER Fan 60008]

Wash your mouth out with soap and water sir!!

Ye gods. LI minus steam. Whatever next?

What's wrong with Diesels?

To pose that question on a predominantly 'steam' forum (there weren't too many diesels about in LNER days) is, at minimum, risky or, at most, brave or foolhardy.

However, to answer your question and not to get too steamed up about it: Not much, I suppose, apart from the fact that most of them are just plain butt ugly, characterless, devoid of any visible life, and too often prone to failure.

Oh, ok. I personally like the industrial ones that were built by "Ruston" co.

I can't find a pic of one.

[Blink Bonny]

Mrs Blink Bonny comments that if diesels are Butt Ugly and prone to go pop then she wishes to announce that there are many of them still in service between Skipton and Bradford on a supposedly electified line every morning. Yeeeeuuuuuuccccchhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

She say: You can't beat a Double Fairlie..... Though I'd prefer a B1. Or a Black 5. Or a B17............ #

Personally I was never a fan of the Deltics but the EE Type 4s. Nearly as nice as a steam engine.

#Mrs BB - he's off again!!

[silver fox]

On the subject of electrified lines, I heard petitions on Saturday for the lines to be taken out, as they are there for just the one train....oh hang on there's an 86 parked in the station, and there's often 2 901 & 902

[LNER Fan 60008]

Hmm. I like the Deltics, but, I understand why some people really dislike the Diesel engines.

By the way, here's a "Ruston" engine.