LNER interested in locos similar to the LMS's 10000/1

[Pandora]

Reading (and thinking) around the subject of the O'Brien book,  the Edwardians  railway engineers  and railway manufacturers were certainly capable of conversion from steam traction  to  electric traction,  eg the L&Y schemes,  the NER schemes by Raven etc,  it may be the uncertainty of the economic climate   which held back adoption due to the need to borrow big sums of  money to create the electric network,  the uncertain economic climate being WW1,  1920s and 1930s depressions, and WW2.  In an alternative scenario,  by 1940  electric traction would be the norm for mainlines and diesel traction the norm  for railcars and light traffic branch lines

Edited December 29, 2018 by Pandora

[Nearholmer]

Access to capital, or rather lack of access, was definitely a big issue in the 1920-40 (and, under BR, beyond) period, but it was anything but clear that, even given capital, electrification of long-distance main-lines could show a viable rate of return at this period, which is part of why the LMS held-out for diesel for the Anglo-Scottish services.

 

Electrification “tech” was firmly established pre-WW1, so the issues holding back electrification were definitely economic, rather than technical - where it could be made to pay, and capital could be had, it went ahead.

[kevinlms]

Access to capital, or rather lack of access, was definitely a big issue in the 1920-40 (and, under BR, beyond) period, but it was anything but clear that, even given capital, electrification of long-distance main-lines could show a viable rate of return at this period, which is part of why the LMS held-out for diesel for the Anglo-Scottish services.

 

Electrification “tech” was firmly established pre-WW1, so the issues holding back electrification were definitely economic, rather than technical - where it could be made to pay, and capital could be had, it went ahead.

Melbourne was a good example of this, with the electrification of the suburban network started pre WW1 and basically completed by the mid 1920's. Lots of upgrades and expansion since.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railways_in_Melbourne#Electrification

 

Current plans

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railways_in_Melbourne#Future_expansion

[The Johnster]

I'm sure a major boost to this sort of thing came from the decision to ban steam locomotives from New York City!

[AMJ]

Anyone ever considered photoshopping a pair of USA F locomotives into apple green, I think they would look great.

 

If Peppercorn was like Gresley to look further afield than our shores I'm sure that USA prime movers and gen sets in UK loading gauge would have been considered.

 

Single ended locos would be a steam loco oriented company just look at Ireland and the many that ran until fairly recently that needed turning or running in pairs like the 20's.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Single ended locos would be a steam loco oriented company just look at Ireland and the many that ran until fairly recently that needed turning or running in pairs like the 20's.

That wasn't through choice though. Apparently Bulleid wanted the 121 class to be double ended, but General Motors wouldn't do the redesign work for some reason. So they were built with single cabs - luckily they relented with the later 141 class. 

[cheesysmith]

The comment earlier about the HST and only being able to pull 8 coaches, is totally missing the point of probably the best design of train the UK has ever made. The HST has 8 coaches, each 23m long. This gives you a length of 184m. The old MK1 was 20m, so for the same length of train you would have 9 coaches. Each MK1 could seat 64 standard passengers, but the Mk3 could seat 72, at the same seating pitch\room per passenger, so the HST could carry the same number of passengers on the same length of train but with one fewer coach to build\pay for\maintain. As for the power cars, they were designed not to destroy the tracks they were to run over, BR having found out the hard way with the class 86 on the WCML. The only weak points in the power cars were the limited power input\output of the alternator and the cooler group. There was a proposal by GW in the first years of franchising of new electrical equipment for the power cars, but it didn't come off due to the repayment time would be too long, and the expectation was the HST was going to be replaced quickly (hindsight has proved that wrong).

[Titan]

I am sure I read somewhere that at one point the LNER was considering a number of these:

 

https://www.derbysulzers.com/sncf262BD1.html

 

With up to 4,400bhp up front in the 1930's they would have had a pretty spectacular performance!

[PhilJ W]

I understood that the government would not allow the LNER the US$ to purchase any American locomotives?

[RLBH]

I am sure I read somewhere that at one point the LNER was considering a number of these:

 

https://www.derbysulzers.com/sncf262BD1.html

 

With up to 4,400bhp up front in the 1930's they would have had a pretty spectacular performance!

Would 12LDA31s even fit in the UK loading gauge? Contemporary 12LDA28 ratings would have been around the 1,800hp mark and individual units perhaps 90 tons each, for 3,600hp from a 180 ton twin unit. Not too shabby, and probably something that Vickers Armstrong could have turned out if required.

[Titan]

Would 12LDA31s even fit in the UK loading gauge? Contemporary 12LDA28 ratings would have been around the 1,800hp mark and individual units perhaps 90 tons each, for 3,600hp from a 180 ton twin unit. Not too shabby, and probably something that Vickers Armstrong could have turned out if required.

 

From memory I think you might have been right. There was an artists impression of the LNER units which I can't find which looked very similar, and I did not recall that they had as much power as the French unit, but 3,600bhp would still have given a performance comparable to a Deltic...

[Zomboid]

I don't know how tall a 12LDA31 would be, but there's room either side of a 12LDA28 for a uselessly narrow walkway (at least in a 45), so by putting class 20 style doors along the edge and doing away with the walkway there would be space for a slightly wider engine. There's not much room for a taller engine, though.

[cheesysmith]

You would be able to fit the 31LDA in width size. It depends on thing like where the turbochargers are fitted, as a lot of diesel engines from Europe had them fitted on top, causing problems with the limited night in the UK. Also, there might have been a problem with the weight of said engine, as the 28LDA twin bank as used in the 47 came in at 20 tons, and these earlier designs were even heavier iirc.

 

The sulzer LDA engine didn't really improve on its power to weight ratio until the experimental R series, which would have been a perfect engine for updating the different 6 and 8 cylinder locos, but development was dropped due to the need to sort out the defective twin bank engines (the problems with the twin bank engines affected all the twin versions, including the 45 & 46, but was worse on the 47 due to the updating of the engine). The low power to weight ratio of the sulzer engines was due to sulzer being cautious with the rpm of the main bearings in its engines. The R series was a answer to this in that it was a modified 6LDA with higher rpm and 4 valve per cylinder heads. Imagine a 25 with the same weight but a installed HP of 1800! And that was only the experimental version.

[Zomboid]

Class 45s (and I would assume other 12LDA locos) have the turbo (just the one) in the free space above the generator, so that would probably not be a major issue in itself for fitting the larger prime mover into the loading gauge.

[JohnR]

But then Peppercorn went on to build 100 pacifics! I find it hard to believe that this would have occurred if he would have had to justify that to shareholders and not just to an uninformed Minister of Transport.

 

While the BTC (and hence the Railway Executive) were restricted by the capital spending controls, as well as availability of steel etc in the post war years, plans for investment like that never had to get approval from the Minister. 

 

He merely had to get approval from the RE member for Mechanical Engineering - R. A. Riddles. 

[adb968008]

LNER electrification predates the LNER...

https://www.lner.info/locos/Electric/ee1.php

 

I wonder why this loco never featured in Woodhead plans.

 

Similar these locos, there was a plan to convert one from 1500vdc overhead to a 1500vdc powered by a diesel generator from ENglish Electric.

https://www.lner.info/locos/Electric/ef1eb1.php

 

My opinion was the UK was 2 decades behind the US in development of diesel traction. Therefore the interest in GM and GE is only natural, their F Units were averaging higher mileages than LNER Pacific’s before WW2.

 

How easy was access to oil supplies preWW2 (Pre-North Sea) in the days before super tankers and before the Saudis discovered they had quite a lot of it ?

Edited January 2, 2019 by adb968008

[russ p]

I thing 13 would have suffered from wheel slip on the woodhead, those big wheels with two motors on each driving axle