Like their Mallard…Is it a high boiler? Or is it the driving wheels?
I just can’t place my finger on it.
Ive gotten used to the UK Steam, I think they like to make do with less and maybe rely on jacketing to cover everything up.
One thing is clear to me, those little engines spend a great deal of time at pax speeds way faster than what I have seen in the USA.
http://www.burgess57.freeserve.co.uk/Picture5992.jpg
The Burgess Webpage usually has videos of steam and desiel in the UK regularly. I think that the video quality is deliberately downgraded a little bit to save bandwidth or such. A little digging in thier Archives will yeild enough UK steam to make a day’s enjoyment.
I think the Mallard is very special as it may still hold the world steam speed record. Something that must have done prior to ww2. Im pretty sure our US engineers unofficially kicked thier mounts past the triple mark many times and stayed there but no one was around to officially record it.
It’s too bad not many exist with DCC and SOund in true USA HO scale. I would get a few.
They had style!
Smooth lines, Belpaire fireboxes, classy paint schemes… What’s not to like?
Really, I think the big difference is in the clean lines. Late US steam was designed for ease of maintenance, so as much of the piping and fittings wre outside for all to see. British steam, on the other hand, a) had fewer “gadgets” overall and b) hid what extras they did have under the boiler jacketing for the most part.
I kinda like British steam. Of course, the PRR felt the English Belpaire firebox was worth emulating, and so built thousands of steam locomotives with Belpaire fireboxes.
The British “loading gauge” - the minimum height and width of equipment - was smaller than in the US, so British equipment tended to be smaller and to have less stuff sticking up like steam domes, sand domes and stacks.
What I’ve wondered about is how the Brits came up with such beautiful steam locomotives and then such…well, let’s say “undistinguished”… diesel designs. I guess because they went to diesels later, they maybe missed the ‘streamliner’ era and just went to boxes with a cab at either end.
Actually I kinda like their "Peep! Peep! " whistles…Beyond that no interest at all.
DG:
You’d need a lot of fingers…
Lots and lots of differences in requirements, evolution, and engineering. British locos had a smaller loading gauge for the engine size required (compare NYC Niagara vs. ATSF 3751) and were smaller overall (increasing relative size of human-scaled features). Britain had more varieties of mechanism in general use; was generally very conservative and had fewer accessories than US locos. Change a lot of distinctive features, and a lot of British locos do resemble US power.
(Apologies are offered. The hacked version does have a certain US pre-WWI GN look)
That’s one nice thing about steam. Every country with a homegrown loco industry had their own unique steam power. You’d never mistake a typical German loco for a typical French one.
Lines were also engineered to relatively higher standards from the very beginning. There was a better guarantee of a traffic base; there weren’t too many British railroads that were built off into the wilderness like a lot of American lines were. They were better financed, and I suspect the cost of labor was relatively cheaper than it was in the US - so they could afford a flatter, straighter line of road. Combine that with the size limitations of the British loading gauge, and you get some surprisingly small engines in mainline service. The distances were also relatively short, so tank engines had more utility. American companies tended to be built with the expectation that they could be improved if the traffic warranted it.
here’s an illustrative size comparison - take the North British Railway’s “Glen” class 4-4-0s, built for service to Inverness in 1913. They weighed 57 tons, 4 hundredweight, and developed about 20-22,000 pounds of tractive effort. A Pennsy K-4s, built at the same time, weighed over 154 tons, and developed 44,460 pounds of tractive effort. U.S. and British ton measurements vary slightly, so this data should be taken with a grain of salt, but it makes the essential point: even with a common standard gauge, American stuff is a lot bigger.
They’ve always looked strange to me too, I guess its a matter of what you are used to seeing. The same for some of their older cars, trucks and airplanes, very “British” looking!
MP:
Now, we are hardly comparing apples to apples here! [:)] A K4 is the Humungus of US Pacifics.
We might as well compare a J3 Hudson and a Midland single.
Gresley A3 4-6-2:
154 tons weight, 96 tons engine alone
(Edit: 96 long tons = 108 US (short) tons)
~30000 lb TE
3981 sq ft heating area
40 sq ft grate area
(Edit 1): Compare to the Soo Line 2718, built 1923, with engine weight 140 tons and 37000 lb TE.
I think the biggest difference is the smiling face with moving eyes on the front of all those British engines my kids watch on Saturday mornings. I don’t see many locomotives like that here in the US. [;)]
Tom
There is an HO scale LIVE STEAM model of the mallard locomotive tho…That’s way cool!!!
I believe Strasburg runs a real steam thomas complete with a face. Beats me how they go ahold of it though. The engine that did it for me was the old D-1 Number 1223 now stored in the PRR Museum. We didnt have Thomas back then when it was running. And what a sweet runner it was too… easy on the slack and good stack talk.
Sorry for straying OT… I know about that HO scale live steamer, Im just not ready to go that far just yet.
Falls,
The 4-4-0 at the Museum is a D16sb manufactured by the PRR’s own Juniata shops in 1905.
The Strasburg Thomas was built in Strasburg’s own shops from a former Porter Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal 0-6-0T side-tank locomotive. There’s a duplicate at the museum across the street:
The front bumpers, or whatever their name is, is unlike anything I have seen on N. American engines. They use more cowling or fairings around the drivers. As pointed out earlier, they were somewhat smaller…but they still had to travel relatively similar distances and move just as quickly. So, relative to their boilers and frames, the drivers seem much larger. It must be an illusion, this relative size making the British drivers seem larger, but those drivers have to be near 72-80" in many cases, not unlike the K4 and Northerns. Also, I think the tenders were somewhat smaller? Dunno. And they were painted brighter colours more often than were the N. American engines. I also agree that the fireboxes, while not exactly unheard of in N. America, were not as pervasive as they seem to be in England.
Does that sound like most of it, DG?
-Crandell
Yes it does. Thank you gentlemen. I thought those drivers looked large compared to the engine.
As were the BR standard steam designs:
http://www.the-siding.co.uk/steam/pages/73096e.htm
http://www.the-siding.co.uk/steam/pages/73096f.htm
I’ve worked on a few of these when visiting the UK, and IMO they compare well with modern US locos for easy access. In some respects they are a bit better - I’d much rather open up the smokebox door on a UK engine than one on an American engine.
Not really. There’s not a lot of room between the boiler shell and the cladding, mostly what you’ll find there is small diameter pipework from the lubricator to the cylinders, etc. Many UK locos had Gresham & Craven or similar style injectors mounted on the firebox backplate, so there would be no visible pipe runs or clack valves on the boiler. (As a PRR steam modeller that’s something you’d be familiar with?).
Where the clack valves were mounted on the boiler, the delivery pipe was often clamped to the footplate and only ran under the cladding for a short distance. Blower and ejector pipework/operating rods were usually exposed, likewise for superheater dampers, antivacuum valves, etc.
Belpaire fireboxes originated in Belgium, designed by Alfred Belpaire. They certainly were worth emulating - much better than radial stay boxes, IMO.
All the best,
Mark.
Crandell, they’re called buffers. You won’t find them on N. American engines because they are a feature associated with UK-style hook drawgear, which was never used in N. America.
They’re called splashers. Almost all engines running in the UK had plate frames, as opposed to bar frames typical of N. American practice. On many engines the footplate attached to the top of the frames, hence it was lower than US running boards, which were typically attached to the boiler. The combination of low footplates and big wheels made the splashers a necessary feature.
Much smaller than N. American tenders, for the most part they were rigid-framed with three axles. Even the relatively rare UK bogie tenders were quite small compared to N. American designs. UK tenders, particularly the “big” LNER rigid 8-wheel tenders, are rather like NYC steam tenders - plenty of coal space, relatively little water. Partly because water troughs/track pans and water scoops were in widespread use, and because water columns/standpipes were far more plentiful in UK stations and yards than they were in the US.
All the best,
Mark.
DG
So, would you say we have explained the whole Gresley business?
Thank ye kindly, Mark. Buffers they be. [8D]
So, apart from making you wince once or twice, what would you say about our impressions of the two when comparing them for DG’s question? You are much more knowledgeable about steamers, certainly about what is extant these days. When we ask, “What is it that makes the N. Americans pause when we see a British steam locomotive?” what would you point to that comes to mind from your practised eye? You have mentioned the splash guards, the somewhat deeper space between the cladding and the boiler plates, etc. Go on…
Thanks.
-Crandell