Two new steam locomotives being built in Sheffield, U.K…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGe9B00mqWE&ab_channel=TomIngall
David
Fine, informative video. Thank you, North Brit.
It’s bittersweet to watch this and see you Brits adding to your ever-growing stable (if that’s the right word) of steam locomotives that seemingly roam every corner of your “green and pleasant land,” while in this country we don’t dare dream of a new Hudson or such. Best wishes to everyone connnected with this project.
Two words that to me have always connoted top quality: “Sheffield steel.”
Not much there anymore, I don’t think.
Might take a new T1 out for a spin, someday. Hope so!
Ed
One apparent difference is that steam locomotives in the UK are generally smaller than North American steam and don’t have such things as cast frames to complicate building new. Another factor seems to be the American tendency to dream big. I would think that a smaller proposal like a light Pacific would be more likely to be achieved than an engineering experiment like a T1.
It is… but very few people not already railfans are going to be enthusiastic about any $6 million light Pacific prototype, and the locomotive once built can’t handle the kind of excursion consists required to earn its keep.
Note the regrettable suspension of the British 5AT project (one of the great technical achievements of the 20th Century, if not quite as grand as the restoration and correction of 71000 Duke of Gloucester), which is I think comparable to a good light Pacific if designed as I advocated with the lead tender truck pushed up to guide the rear of the 4-6-0 chassis. That would be little more to build than, say, a P2 (of which two are in the works, delightfully different in detail) and ALL the FDCs to build it were worked out by one of the best steam men in the business… but no one bit, and that reluctance to bite continues to this day, despite the fact that a 5AT could easily be built with the ‘wicked cool’ of the T1 for less money, and able to run many more places. There were specific plans to market the 5AT as a ‘rightsized’ new engine for tourist and excursion service in North America.
It is well known (here) that The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust built ‘Tornado’.
They are now building 2007 ‘Prince of Wales’ and 3403 ‘Highlander’.
David
From the T1 website, it appears the new T1 will not have a cast frame, so that complication will be avoided. Whether that will be a problem will really have to wait until the locomotive is operational. I doubt it can be predicted. While it would likely have been a problem when the originals were built, a lot has happened in engineering, fabrication and metalurgy since then.
The T1 wasn’t an “engineering experiment”, not with 50 production locomotives after the first two prototypes. There were over twice as many T1’s produced as Big Boys.
I would MUCH rather see a T1 running than a light Pacific.
By the way, I don’t mean at all to take away from what the Brits are doing. It is simply wonderful. But we’re doing things here, too. Just wanted to point that out.
Ed
Why do I think the Big Boys had higher monthly miles and much higher total miles than the T1, even though there were only half as many. The T1 may not have been called experimental, but it was.
Many critical bugs weren’t worked out of the T1s until 1948… by which time they were recognized as a far worse use of capital than F and E units. It remains to be seen whether high-speed slipping even at the ridiculously high FA finally inflicted on the locomotives would have impaired their performance on the expected 880-ton consists at sustained 100mph speed…
Were the T1s kept on long prestige runs with short turnaround, like the Niagaras in Kiefer’s study of motive power, and proper instruction given in the handling of the locomotives, I suspect much better performance numbers may have been observed… but with conversion of the nightmare type A scam with a reasonable continuous-contour RC setup. But by the time the bugs were ironed out in principle, not only did no one care to try, but active financing tied up by inconvenient white elephants needed to be released and reset…
Many critical bugs weren’t worked out of the T1s until 1948… by which time they were recognized as a far worse use of capital than F and E units. It remains to be seen whether high-speed slipping even at the ridiculously high FA finally inflicted on the locomotives would have impaired their performance on the expected 880-ton consists at sustained 100mph speed…
Were the T1s kept on long prestige runs with short turnaround, like the Niagaras in Kiefer’s study of motive power, and proper instruction given in the handling of the locomotives, I suspect much better performance numbers may have been observed… but with conversion of the nightmare type A scam with a reasonable continuous-contour RC setup, and the 1948 centrifugally-cast valves and revised mechanism. But by the time the bugs were ironed out in principle, not only did no one care to try, but active financing tied up by inconvenient white elephants needed to be released and reset…
I think there is no doubt UP got more out of their Big Boys than PRR did out of the T1s – they certainly had the traffic and the support to run them years longer. Here the timeless topic of the Q2 vs. J1a crops up: postwar UP was a high-speed railroad; PRR a 50mph freight road. Q2s were brilliant on long wartime trains on wartime priority timings, but eliminate all that and they did little a 2-10-4 (admittedly a very, very good one) could do on far less maintenance. What might have been interesting would be where on UP a locomotive with the single-unit sustained low augment power of a Q-class might have proven interesting or useful… I for one would like to see what 4-6+4-6 engines with proper conjugation (and the Q2 tricks to shorten rigid wheelbase) under a suitable common boiler might have accomplished… not only out West, but on fast TOFC as that concept began to make sense in the '50s. (We can discuss water-rate implications later.)
I don’t know. I hope you will tell us.
Because…
Experimental: based on untested ideas or techniques and not yet established or finalized.
Two experimental T1’s were built (6110 and 6111). The production locomotives were built about 4 years later, after the experiment had been evaluated.
Ed
Or misevaluated. When you take a railroad (PRR) that hasn’t designed a steam locomotive in 20 years (M1 Mountain) and combine it with arguably the most conservative of the Big 3 locomotive builders (Baldwin), and try to design the latest and greatest with all the bells and whistles, what are the chances of success? I think we know the answer.
But will they be able to afford the coal to run them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-IozzOqzQ
I saw that PBS report here in Australia!
In fact, designs exist for conversion of most British steam locomotives to oil firing. This was done in 1946-47 when a coal shortage arose. At the time it was too expensive to import the oil, and basically only testing was carried out. However the tests with “Castle” and “Hall” class locomotives on the former GW main line West of Exeter were very successful as regards both performance and availability.
Peter
Rather than a light Pacific, which the Blue Mountain and Reding already has in erxcursion service, how about a locomotive that was in its class and the best for high-speed steam for decades after it was designed, p0rototype-tested, and fleet-prodeced, and one of the few locomotives of its railroad that could be called beautiful, the PRR E-6 Atlantic.
New T-1, meet your new grandfather.
Or restore the stuffed-and-mounted one at Strassburg.
It couldn’t haul a train long enough to pay the costs of building it.
The PRR’s E-6’s were excellent locomotives for their time but as the passenger cars began being built of steel and the consists became longer they just couldn’t cut it any longer. However on runs with shorter consists like on the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Line where passenger consists were shorter the E-6’s hung on right up until dieselization.
That being said an E-6 couldn’t handle the long passenger consists typical of todays excursions without diesel assistance or assistance from another steamer.
There’s little to no chance of the E-6 at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania being restored to operation, preservation and not operation is the “mission statment” of the museum. The Strasburg RR could certainly do it but they have no reason to, they don’t need it.
Regarding the coal situation in Britain, I was at the Stewart’s Lane shop iin London when the Tornado was being coaled. They had big fabric bags that they would cut open and drop the coal in. I asked a guy about it and he said that it came from Russia. I asked, “Aren’t there still coal mines in this country?” He said that they have all closed down but one open pit mine may reopen. The deep shaft mines are all shut.
I didn’t mention this in my earlier post but one of the reasons I suggested a light Pacific was where it could be operated compared to something as large as UP 844.