Steam Locomotive Features Likes and Dislikes

Trains Magazine Steam & Preservation
1

What features on steam locomotives do you find aesthetically pleasing or ugly. I’ll start with a few.

I like vestibule cabs. I like Elesco feedwater heaters but not Coffins. I prefer inside bearings on lead trucks but outside bearings for the trailing truck. I don’t like boilers that are much lower than cab height. I like piston valves over slide valves, especially on big Mallets. I don’t like streamlining. Here’s some sacrilege–I think the GS4 is ugly. I like Wooten fireboxes but am ambivelant on Belpaires.

2

I don’t care for streamlining, either. The smokebox is the “face” of the locomotive, and I don’t like it covered up. For the same reason, I don’t like air pumps and such up front.

I also don’t like elephant ears, though I’m sure the crews appreciated them.

3

Preference of round smokebox doors versus some of the later ones that look like they pulled a boiler out of the nearest small town public utility.

Prefer larger cabs versus ones that look like a phone booth was hung on the back.

Prefer Delta trailing trucks versus Hodges or Cole.

4

What about invisible features that you don’t like?

Take Oliver Bullied’s Pacifics, the Merchant Navy and Battle of Britain classes.

These were largely box shaped, but showed the smokebox as Paul prefers.

One of the larger MN class, which has been stored unserviceable for many years, is to be rebuilt in its streamlined form, which it lost during 1959-60. There are a number of the light Pacifics that remained in their original form, and a few are in working order. So is it important to rebuild one of the larger engines? The two types are very similar in appearance, particularly when streamlined where the smaller boiler diameter is less obvious. The light Pacific is one foot shorter in the firebox, and as a result the distance between the trailing driving axle and the trailing truck is also one foot shorter, as is the length of the locomotive. Usually a smaller tender is attached to the Light Pacific.

But not something that nine out of ten observers could tell without looking at the number or the nameplate.

Anyway, to make the rebuild look right, they are fitting inside valve gear that used chain drive and sat inside an oil bath. While is is possible to keep the existing locomotives working, why fit something that is known to increase maintenance effort?

So that’s something I don’t like. When streamlined, the outside Walschearts valve gear would only be partly visible and that would be hard enough to maintain. (There’s a third set inside anyway for the third cylinder…)

Why make things more difficult for a locomotive that doesn’t look much different from others already preserved?

(I thought that the “new” T1 should have outside Walchearts gear and piston valves. At least one T1 ran like that. Why ask for trouble for someting that will be difficult anyway?)

Peter

5

Really great stuff, M636C!

6

(1) It makes no sense at all to ‘replicate’ a high-speed locomotive that was reputed to have many valve-related issues without replicating the specific valve and port configuration involved – that being eight-valve Franklin System with the two little inlet valves and two bigger exhaust valves per cylinder end.

(2) The valve gear chosen for replication on 5550 is in fact far simpler, more robust, and less expensive than Walschaerts or Baker, while reasonably optimized for the eight-valve setup … that’s what makes it type B-2. The performance of any of the poppet-valve T1s is superior to the T1a in very comparable ways to the Lima-improved over standard K4s … let alone the distinctive advantage, which is not well-established enough to my knowledge in historical records, of the RC K4 over OC.

It might be added that the ‘drive-arm’ version as used on the type D ‘kits’ has a number of prospective benefits over the earlier heavy-frame versions, for B-2 purposes at least. On the other hand, the kind of ‘optimized’ Franklin gear involved in Townsend’s “Long Compression” (type “C”) and used by Vernon Smith on ATSF 3752 likely does NOT have as good high-speed performance in a number of respects, and would require as much or more custom design for its freight-optimized valve arrangement and components than the existing PRR drawings and specs could possibly need.

I will grant you that the OC version of eight-valve poppets gives better nominal cutoff control than a non-continuous-contour RC system. On the other hand, the whole idea of implementing variable cutoff on this type of poppet valve with typical SHM valve-gear reverse action is laughable when you think about the physical acti

7

Actually I’d be far more interested in seeing a debugged version of Bulleid VG than a kludged retrofit that greatly increases the augment at high speed. Suspect the problems with chain stretch, including when reversing the engine, might be addressable with a bit better mechanical understanding than Bulleid seems to have used (his experience was with industrial machinery always driven in the same direction continuously); I strongly suspect that modern materials will solve the problem with punching holes in the tin oil-bath reservoir that was most of the problem with Bulleid gear in service as far as I can tell. And no leaks = no fires in addition to no ridiculously outsize oil “consumption”.

8

I will grant you that the OC version of eight-valve poppets gives better nominal cutoff control than a non-continuous-contour RC system. On the other hand, the whole idea of implementing variable cutoff on this type of poppet valve with typical SHM valve-gear reverse action is laughable when you think about the physical action of the valves, although there were a number of folks who tried to promote the idea to those technologically naive and misguided in the ways of poppets.

I think a comment from a driver of LNER 732, a C9 class Atlantic with rotary cam valves but relatively few “steps” of cutoff, quoted by Cecil J Allen comes to mind:

“I wanted to open it up further but I thought I would kill the fireman” as an explanation as to why performance was not up to expectation.

The locomotives that showed the best performance with OC poppet valves were the D49 4-4-0s that generally had light loads and more “in reserve” than the larger locomotives on heavy trains (such as 2001 “Cock o’ the North”, although it had rotary cams but retained fixed cut-offs).

By the 1950s, “British Caprotti” gear combined rotary cams with variable cut-off successfully, as far as I can tell.

Peter

9

I like sleek and elegant. Don’t like engines that look like a massive pile of poor plumbing. CP’s G class Pacifics come close to my North American ideal. The Big Boy (although I like its size and presence) comes close to my idea of a plumbing nightmare.

10

How could you two, Ulrich and Paul, disdain this equivalent to an English Pug?!?

Okay, it may be not be elegant, and could charitably be termed utilitarian, but I like that in-your-face look…paired. I don’t much care for the unbalanced look of the narrow gauge steamers with only one pump flying up front; doesn’t work for me. My mum told me all good things come in pairs. I never managed to argue with her.

11

I like:

  • headlight installed above the smokebox door
  • large drivers
  • Long and large tender
  • whitewall tire
  • streamlined front end and tender
  • enclosed cab
  • larger leading wheels for 4-8-4
  • glossy paint
    I don’t like:
  • Single headlight in the middle of the smokebox
  • Single leading wheel
  • no trailing truck below the cab……
  • Switchers

[C][swg]

12

I t depends on what you saw as a child, I guess to determine what you regard as normal. I attach a link to the Victorian Railways S class:

http://www.victorianrailways.net/motive%20power/ssteam/ssteam.html

This was a 3 cylinder Pacific, built as an enlargement of Gresley’s LNER locomotives. In fact the leading dimensions are similar to those of the Peppercorn A2 built some 20 years later. It is built to a larger loading gauge than the British locomotives and has bar frames and the three cylinders are cast in a single unit.

A lot of effort was expended in making it look like a British locomotive. Since it had bar frames, there was a visual empty space forward of the smokebox, so the Valances outside the running boards were shaped to resemble the curved plate frames of Gresley’s Pacific.

But that was typical of Australian Locomotives.

Feel free to check out the rest of the site. There is even a section on a couple of McKeen cars worth looking at. But the image of Australian locomotives is shown.

When the drafting was revised in the 1930s, the work of R.P.Wagner in Germany can be seen in the smoke deflectors. This continued with Witte type smoke deflectors applied to some post WWII steam locomotives.

The EMD diesels with double cabs can be found too, if you are interested.

Peter

13

There is more than a trace of American esthetics in VR’s S class. They look like the offspring of a Gresley 4-6-2 and a light USRA Pacific.

14

Interesting, those Aussies with knuckle couplers and buffers. Me, I like 'em all!

15

Unsurprising when you know where W.A. Webb came from and where he worked before going to Australia…

16

I think Webb was president of SAR, not VR. The late SAR steam power bears even more resemblance to contemporary American practice than VR or NSWGR steam.

17

That is of course true.

However, there seems to be little doubt that the Victorian locomotives were influenced by the Locomotives purchased by Webb for the SAR. The three classes of SAR locomotives, ten each 4-8-2, 4-6-2 and 2-8-2 arrived in 1926. It is generally agreed that these locomotives were built to general arrangement drawings prepared for the SAR by Alco. However, it wasn’t politically acceptable to buy locomotives from the USA, so Armstrong Whitworth got the order.

As built they looked like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_Railways_600_class#/media/File:SAR_600-class_locomotive_B-3992.jpg

A comparison of the overall dimensions of the VR S with the SAR 600 shows the influence, the VR locomotive being built in 1928. The VR went with three cylinders to minimise the need for clearance modifications at the high passenger platforms.

Sometime around 1937, the 4-8-2s, which had been altered to 4-8-4 to carry a booster, were partially streamlined:

http://www.comrails.com/pic_cd/cd_p0108337a_25.html

This showed influence from the SP GS-2, the green being a colour associated with the state’s centenary in 1936.

The SAR picked up design influences quite widely:

www.comrails.com/pic_mbc/mbc_b04_13.htm

My favourite, while not steam, is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Austral

18

Thanks, Peter. I hadn’t realized that the SAR 900s had something other than an EE cooling system.

A lot more of these things intersect than a lot of people realize (I wish more fans looked beyond their borders).

19

Since this is a bit off topic for this thread, I wont say too much.
I’ve checked drawings of the BR classes D200, D5900, and D6700 and D8000 all had a shaft driven fan at roof level with vertical radiators inside body side grilles. The locomotives I built during my 1970 University holidays had this arrangement, QR class 1300 and WAGR class RA.

I think LMS 10000/1 and the Egyptian 1A Do A1 units had side mounted vertical radiators and a shaft driven fan also.

The D9000 “Deltics” had roof mounted radiators in an EMD like arrangement.

Peter

20

I guess I’ll start off with saying that I think the South African Railways 15F class with original round headlight were the best looking steam locomotives ever built, and that gives a good foundation for my tastes.

http://allatsea.co.za/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/janine09.jpg

Likes:

-Relatively gritty and unpolished look

-good number of auxilary components exposed

-dark colour and smokebox face

-fat boiler, prefer tapered as well

-on eight and ten coupled engines drive wheels notably smaller than boiler diameter

-boxpok drivers (although no SAR designs had these)

-headlight mounted high or on middle of smokebox

-air compressors can be on smokebox as well as the boiler is fat enough

-can do with or without belpaire firebox

-massive drive rods of later locos

-smoke deflectors on locos with fat boilers

-fat boiler with short, stumpy chimneys and domes

Dislikes:

-Streamlining

-Distracting colours (not all colours mind you)

-Light or white smokebox front

-boilers that are both skinny and mounted very high up

-‘unnecessary’ aesthetic choices and clutter

-eight or ten coupled locos with drive wheels as large as boiler diameter

-locos with both fat boilers and tall chimneys/domes