The LNER Encyclopedia

There isn't any policy either way as regards locomotives and their designers.

In my biographies and locomotive pages I try to be as balanced as possible - especially as regards McDonnell and Thompson. Both were controversial figures who probably made some bad decisions, but both were designers who definitely did good things and designed good locomotives at one time or another.

Back to mixed traffic Pacifics: Thompson and Peppercorn both built A2 Pacifics which were intended to be the faster/heavier end of the traditional mixed traffic range - and not the Express Passenger locomotives of the A1/A3/A4s. I think I read somewhere that the idea started before Gresley died, but I'm not sure where. Either way, nothing was built until after his death.


Richard

Pyewipe Junction wrote: Form what I have read about this class it was an abysmal failure.

Only because there were only ever 2 built. The rest of the order for the class was canceled by Tompson. Had history been differemt and Gresley continued to be the CME of the LNER byond 1941 and the class could have been more sucsessful.

I suspect that Colombo is right and it was to do with turntable lengths.

I imagine that any new design would have to be considered by a Running Committee, or some such animal, and the question would certainly be asked - "how widely available will this type be?" Given the LNER's straitened circumstances, any new design that even hinted at capital expenditure on maintenance facilities like turntables would be unwelcome.

By way of example, the LNER never spent money on locomotive facilities on the former GER routes if it could possibly help it -which was a contuinuation of the GER's own policy of never spending money on them! Ipswich, for example, a major MPD doing big overhauls - was an absolute shambles until BR days.

Turntables were expensive to buy and to instal. Even if the locomotive never strayed from the main routes, some blighter on a committee would be bound to ask "what if..."

Regarding the choice between 2-6-2 and 4-6-0, wasn't the B17 designed by NBL, who applied divided drive, which Gresley didn't like? Perhaps the one-axle drive would be more difficult to arrange on a 4-6-0. Just a thought...

Regards

RSR Engineer

[quote="Pyewipe Junction"]
V2s were plagued by pony truck problems.
[quote]

I can vouch for this with the Farish version, and last week I took it apart, and stretched the spring in there, and it worked, but seems to have gone back now!

RSR,

The ex-NER class B16 3 cylinder 4-6-0 locos had all the drive onto the first driving axle and this was in consequence heavily stressed and a source of some problems with broken axles as I recall.

This will probably have influenced future designs.

Colombo

The V4s were an expensive machine to build and maintain, especially compared to the Peppercorn K1s, which could do the same work. The V4s were described as a Rolls-Royce for a Ford job, and as the operating conditions had changed drastically after ther war, rugged and simple, rather than expensive and complicated was the direction taken. The V4s were excellent machines, and it is a pity they were not preserved.