Imaginary Locomotives

[RedGemAlchemist]

You want ludicrous?

 

Quoted from the lore thread about my own freelance railway.

 

Unnumbered "THE MONSTER OF KELSBY"

Now I want to talk about one of Kelsby sheds' more interesting inhabitants for a second. This locomotive is known for a number of reasons: it was the first locomotive ever built in its entirety by the KLR, it is the largest tank engine ever to run on KLR rails and for being the only locomotive ever designed by William Bradleigh. It is, however, mostly remembered for its engineering. Not because it was groundbreaking or influential, but because the flawed mindset and the sheer ineptitude behind it is so mind-boggling that it's a wonder how on Earth this thing was ever even built, let alone that it was fired up. I give you, the unnumbered, unnamed "Monster of Kelsby":

The Monster of Kelsby.png

But to understand this bizarre creation, we must understand the man who created it, my great-great-grandfather William Bradleigh. William was not a well man. He was permanently ill and at a young age was crippled by polio and spent much of his life in a wheelchair. This, combined with constant failure at various pursuits, led William to be a deeply depressed and self-conscious young man. He was also fitful and prone to acts of outlandish behaviour, and the creation of the "Monster" is one of these.

In 1902, the GER built the A55 "Decapod", a gigantic 0-10-0 well tank, purely as a publicity stunt. William was angered by this, and constantly pestered his father to build something similar to outdo the railway company that spent so much of their time attempting to buy the KLR. David Bradleigh refused his son's flight of excess time and time again.

When David died in 1913 and William took over the KLR as David's only son, William took his opportunity to design this... thing. William was not good at many things, and locomotive engineering was definitely not one of the exceptions. The KLR's other engineers tried to reign him in but could only do so much. The monstrosity was completed in 1917, with very few modifications made to William's absurd design - the most notable being it being reduced to a 0-10-0 saddle tank from the intended 0-12-0! It had to be constructed in Kelsby sheds, according to William, to allow the public to mull over what they were doing.

It should be noted at this point that William was apparently unaware of the A55's failure as anything other than a publicity stunt. He just wanted to outdo the GER. So Pathe were called in and a massive crowd gathered at Kelsby Station, on April 19th 1917, to witness... the disaster he had designed attempt to move under its own power.

It didn't. And never would. It was fired up and everything set up for it to move but steaming was so poor due to too many design flaws to count that the boiler produced next to no power. If it moved at all it was a matter of millimeters. William drove the crowds away in shame and never designed another locomotive again, utterly broken by the experience of making himself a laughing stock in front of his entire country.

William would sadly never see much success. All the other locomotives the KLR gained in his tenure were bought from other companies. He grew increasingly depressed and withdrawn, and the only true successes of his tenure were the purchase of Peter, preventing the KLR from being bought out by the LNER, and fathering Edward Bradleigh I, my great-grandfather and the most successful CEO and CME the KLR ever had. Sadly, his depression eventually got the better of him and he took his own life in 1932 with a pistol at the age of 54.

As for "The Monster", it was slowly taken over to Berkham Works, very very tentatively. It took Bulldog, Pointer and two borrowed locomotives from the WNR to move the massive failed experiment, and on the way its coupling rods and one of its axles broke and its frames began to fall apart. It was shunted into the sheds and slowly broken apart.

When I was setting up the Kelsby Light Railway Museum in the summer of 2014, my great-uncle and I were looking around Berkham Works for interesting items when I discovered the gigantic smokebox and one of the wheels of "The Monster" sat in a back storeroom. It turns out the metal from the goliath machine was used for decades to make locomotive parts, and this was all that remained of the KLR's first in-house creation. Both are now in the museum in the former guildhall at Kelsby, along with a board sharing the story I have just told you.

Edited September 11, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[The Johnster]

I can't make that work with standard components. The boiler just isn't long enough. Even if you close the wheels together like the Bear the rear axle doesn't clear the firebox. I suppose you could give it an extended smokebox. It might work with a Std 1 boiler, but it works far better as a 2-8-0. But that wouldn't have any better RA than a Manor. A lightweight go anywhere 2-8-0 might work with 4'7 wheels. What you'd end up with would be something that bore the same relationship to the 45 as the 28 does to the bigger 2-6-2Ts. It might be a useful piece of kit on preserved lines... However if one figures preserved lines then plenty of fuel and water capacity and a tank engine might be a good idea, so one follows an apparently logical train of thought to reach this ludicrous conclusion...

 

gwvar1.gif

 

Manor boiler with extended smokebox and Manor front bogie migrated to rear. Most of the rest is lengthened 4575. 4MT in BR terms I imagine, but if you gave it 28xx wheels and Manor cylinders it would probably go to 5MT, at the cost of platform clearances.

 

I have to say that that is quite a handsome, well proportioned, beast.  It would make a very good banker for routes that needed lighter axle loads; I reckon it's about GW yellow.  It would be able to plug away happily enough uphill and the wheel arrangement suggests that it could run fast and steadily back down again, perhaps an important consideration on a single track secondary main line where paths are at a premium.  

 

Couple at Brecon for banking on the Brecon and Merthyr, perhaps, and at Machynlleth for Talerddig.  Might have found some employment in the Cornish China Clay district as well.  For banking work, you could use smaller, 45xx style, tanks to keep the axle weight down; the thing doesn't need much 'range'.

[JimC]

 I reckon it's about GW yellow. 

Yes, that was the sort of target in as much as I had one. A lot of water capacity would be in the bunker, so I'd instruct my team in the drawing office [grin] to adjust the side tank size so it was at the yellow limit .

[rockershovel]

I have to say that that is quite a handsome, well proportioned, beast.  It would make a very good banker for routes that needed lighter axle loads; I reckon it's about GW yellow.  It would be able to plug away happily enough uphill and the wheel arrangement suggests that it could run fast and steadily back down again, perhaps an important consideration on a single track secondary main line where paths are at a premium.  

 

Couple at Brecon for banking on the Brecon and Merthyr, perhaps, and at Machynlleth for Talerddig.  Might have found some employment in the Cornish China Clay district as well.  For banking work, you could use smaller, 45xx style, tanks to keep the axle weight down; the thing doesn't need much 'range'.

Not a GWR Line, but the S&DJR designed and built two groups of 2-8-0 locos specific to the line, for hauling heavy goods and mineral traffic over short, steeply graded lines with relatively low axle loading. These were fitted with tablet exchange apparatus both sides, being too long for some of the turntables.

 

The GWR also built 2-8-0T and 2-8-2T types, initially for Welsh coal traffic and later for other uses.

 

LNWR and GCR both built 0-8-4T types which were reckoned to be well suited to their (admittedly highly specialised) roles.

 

I’d say that as neverwazzers go, that is definitely in that hazy area on the bounds of possibility..

[Gibbo675]

I can't make that work with standard components. The boiler just isn't long enough. Even if you close the wheels together like the Bear the rear axle doesn't clear the firebox. I suppose you could give it an extended smokebox. It might work with a Std 1 boiler, but it works far better as a 2-8-0. But that wouldn't have any better RA than a Manor. A lightweight go anywhere 2-8-0 might work with 4'7 wheels. What you'd end up with would be something that bore the same relationship to the 45 as the 28 does to the bigger 2-6-2Ts. It might be a useful piece of kit on preserved lines... However if one figures preserved lines then plenty of fuel and water capacity and a tank engine might be a good idea, so one follows an apparently logical train of thought to reach this ludicrous conclusion...

 

284Tmanorboiler.jpg

 

Manor boiler with extended smokebox and Manor front bogie migrated to rear. Most of the rest is lengthened 4575. 4MT in BR terms I imagine, but if you gave it 28xx wheels and Manor cylinders it would probably go to 5MT, at the cost of platform clearances.

Hi Jim,

 

Your picture reminds me of a loco featured in a book that I have called, Locomotives That Never Were by Robin Barnes. Funnily enough the painting in the book shows an engine with the number 8202.

 

In 1937 the GWR proposed a 2-10-2 tank engine using the boiler from the 47XX class, the cylinders from 72XX class with 4' 6" wheels to haul coal trains between Ebbw Vale and Newport. In preparation for gaining information useful to the design of the locomotive King class locomotives 6003 and 6007 were trialed on the line. A 950 ton train between Newport and Aberbeeg worked by one of the Kings which then had more wagons attached to make it up to 1350 tons and along with the other King as a banker it continued to Ebbw Vale.

 

Gibbo.

[Corbs]

A model of that neverwazza has appeared on this thread before

[The Johnster]

This is fairly well known about; the problem was that it would have been difficult to keep the weight down (look who's a pot calling a kettle black!) and that tank leakage as a consequence of the loco 'flexing' it's frames on the Western Valley's vicious curves, already an issue on the 42xx/5205s working on the line, might well have been an issue.  It would have needed copious amounts of water, so there'e no chance of reducing the size of the tanks.  This is probably the reason that the driving wheel diameter, which could usefully have been lessened further on this loco considering the work involved and the T.E, needed, is as it is; smaller wheels would have further reduced the 'range' of the loco.  Though you've got to stop at Aberbeeg for the banker anyway...

 

I seem to recall an article in a Model Railway Constructer from the mid 60s featuring a model of this, using the chassis from an HD 8F and the boiler from a Castle.  

 

The LNW Beames 0-8-4s disgraced themselves on the Heads of the Valleys line by spreading the track underneath them, whichi is a shame because they were just what that line needed!  I think I'm right in saying that the other non GW 8 coupled tanks that were developed in the UK were intended for hump marshalling yard shunting, and only Maunsell's Z was introduced post grouping.  The NER had a go as well.  The GW 42xx/5205s were not just used in South Wales, they were a feature of the Cornish local China Clay traffic as well.

Edited September 13, 2018 by The Johnster

[Corbs]

Yes, it was a scratchbuilt O gauge model sold on Vectis Auctions a while back.

[runs as required]

Has anyone here on RMweb ever met Robin Barnes? 

He is one of my heroes, his skill at portraying improbable locomotives crops up in the most unlikely places and books. Might he lurk here under a pseudonym?

dh

[RedGemAlchemist]

Has anyone here on RMweb ever met Robin Barnes?

He is one of my heroes, his skill at portraying improbable locomotives crops up in the most unlikely places and books. Might he lurk here under a pseudonym?

dh

I am familiar actually. He was part of the reason I started freelancing, though it was people like Corbs and Nile that cemented it.

[melmerby]

The GWR 42/52/72XX series weren't the only 8 coupled tanks they had owned as they inherited some 0-8-2T from the Port Ralbot Railway.

Cooke USA :

https://orig00.deviantart.net/423c/f/2017/041/5/b/port_talbot_railway_cooke_0_8_2t_by_vincentberkan-dayjoao.jpg

 

Sharp Stewart:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3824/9068346264_f524890437_b.jpg

 

Keith

[Compound2632]

Not a GWR Line, but the S&DJR designed and built two groups of 2-8-0 locos specific to the line, for hauling heavy goods and mineral traffic over short, steeply graded lines with relatively low axle loading. These were fitted with tablet exchange apparatus both sides, being too long for some of the turntables.

 

Just to keep the record straight, the S&DJR 2-8-0s were designed by the Derby drawing office and built at Derby and by Robert Stephenson & Co. The input of the Highbridge Locomotive Superintendents, A.W. Whitaker (he of the tablet exchange apparatus) and subsequently M.F. Ryan - both Derby men - was simply to make the operational case for larger goods engines. [Ref: D. Bradley and D. Milton, Somerset and Dorset Locomotive History (David & Charles, 1973).

Edited September 13, 2018 by Compound2632

[Gibbo675]

I am familiar actually. He was part of the reason I started freelancing, though it was people like Corbs and Nile that cemented it.

Hi Mr Alchemist,

 

I was awarded his book for attaining a Duke of Edinburgh Award when in the Scouts on June 1st 1986 and I was thrilled with it and enjoy it very much still.

 

Do tell him from me, thanks for pleasure it has brought me in all that time. My particular favourite is the Stanier-Coleman 2-6-2 which I think would have been a good locomotive as were the V2's of the LNER.

 

The one question I have is, chapter 19, mud proof stockings with Clarissa, from where did he think that up ???

 

Gibbo.

[RedGemAlchemist]

Hi Mr Alchemist,

 

I was awarded his book for attaining a Duke of Edinburgh Award when in the Scouts on June 1st 1986 and I was thrilled with it and enjoy it very much still.

 

Do tell him from me, thanks for pleasure it has brought me in all that time. My particular favourite is the Stanier-Coleman 2-6-2 which I think would have been a good locomotive as were the V2's of the LNER.

 

The one question I have is, chapter 19, mud proof stockings with Clarissa, from where did he think that up ???

 

Gibbo.

Lol. I meant I was familiar with his work, not that I knew him.

Yes, that 2-6-2 is excellent though.

Edited September 13, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[rockershovel]

The LNW Beames 0-8-4s disgraced themselves on the Heads of the Valleys line by spreading the track underneath them, whichi is a shame because they were just what that line needed!  I think I'm right in saying that the other non GW 8 coupled tanks that were developed in the UK were intended for hump marshalling yard shunting, and only Maunsell's Z was introduced post grouping.  The NER had a go as well.  The GW 42xx/5205s were not just used in South Wales, they were a feature of the Cornish local China Clay traffic as well.

I DID say that they were a great success in their original, specialised role... the conclusion would seem to be that 8-coupled tank engines were a specialised item with few applications and numerous limitations

[Gibbo675]

Lol. I meant I was familiar with his work, not that I knew him.

Yes, that 2-6-2 is excellent though.

Nowt quite like a bit of out of context !!!

 

How funny.

[RedGemAlchemist]

Nowt quite like a bit of out of context !!!

 

How funny.

Humour, my friend, is all about context, or lack thereof. Edited September 14, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[The Johnster]

I DID say that they were a great success in their original, specialised role... the conclusion would seem to be that 8-coupled tank engines were a specialised item with few applications and numerous limitations

 

Fair point duly taken.

 

 

The GWR 42/52/72XX series weren't the only 8 coupled tanks they had owned as they inherited some 0-8-2T from the Port Ralbot Railway.

Cooke USA :

https://orig00.deviantart.net/423c/f/2017/041/5/b/port_talbot_railway_cooke_0_8_2t_by_vincentberkan-dayjoao.jpg

 

Sharp Stewart:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3824/9068346264_f524890437_b.jpg

 

Keith

 

Yes, I'd forgotten these.  They were presumably successful; the GW rebuilt the Cookes.  

[The Johnster]

I DID say that they were a great success in their original, specialised role... the conclusion would seem to be that 8-coupled tank engines were a specialised item with few applications and numerous limitations

Certainly in the British context; heavy shunting is a recurring theme.  The GW (really!) is an exception and the root of the 42xx and it's derivates lies in South Wales and the need for a loco that could handle heavy traffic over a short distance.  You might argue that other railways, and I'm thinking of the North Eastern with it's short haul pit to port mineral work, had similar needs, but perhaps not to quite the same extent.  The NE had the very good Raven Q6.  It also had it's own parallel to the Western Valley's uphill iron ore slogging, the Tyne Dock-Consett trains, which look to me like perfect work for a big heavy tank engine banked by another one!

 

Many British railways in the early years of the 20th century were very firmly wedded to 6 coupled engines, tank or tender, for goods and mineral work, and saw no need to indulge in these new-fangled American looking things with too many wheels and outside cylinders.  With the exception of the Midland, though, all the railways involved in the London house coal trade developed 8 coupled tender locos at this time, for the hauls from the marshalling yards where the trains were made up to the London reception yards, and these were very successful designs.

 

If you regard the GW as ground breaking at this time, it is the last time they ever were; small c conservatism reigned supreme to the end of steam.

[rockershovel]

I would hardly say the GWR were “ground-breaking”. They didn’t develop the classic South Wales 0-6-2T type, but inherited it. Similarly the general pattern of 0-8-0 types at 55-60 tons (loco only) increasing to 2-8-0 and 2-8-2 types on the 70-80 ton range was very much “industry thinking” on BOTH sides of the Atlantic around that time, and the GWR certainly kept abreast of American (and French) thinking...

[john new]

As I see it as a retired manager, the GWR's most innovatory piece of thinking was in managing development efficiently. They were well ahead of the BR standards in having a range of properly tested, design interchangeable, standard boilers etc. IIRC they also had new ideas for build techniques, like frame alignment, before other companies copied and adopted the same techniques. Business efficiency when so many of the other companies were making one offs or ploughing on with weak designs. That may not have appeared as innovatory but was for the time..

Edited September 15, 2018 by john new

[The Johnster]

I think it's fair to say that the GW was, in Churchward's time, ground breaking by British standards; most development was taking place in France and the US and British companies were not reacting well to the increase in loads brought about by corridor stock or the increase in goods, especially mineral, traffic.  Most CME's would have preferred to design inside cylinder 0-6-0s and 4-4-0s, because they were familiar with and felt comfortable with them.

[Northmoor]

As I see it as a retired manager, the GWR's most innovatory piece of thinking was in managing development efficiently. They were well ahead of the BR standards in having a range of properly tested, design interchangeable, standard boilers etc. IIRC they also had new ideas for build techniques, like frame alignment, before other companies copied and adopted the same techniques. Business efficiency when so many of the other companies were making one offs or ploughing on with weak designs. That may not have appeared as innovatory but was for the time..

Agreed - the GWR innovated not by going off in a technically different direction every ten years, but by steady evolutionary development.  If what they had worked, they didn't innovate, unless the innovation was a sufficient improvement to justify the change. Something many rail companies now would do well to learn.  It's not like GWR locomotives were lacking in performance; the Castles were still as effective when the last were built as anything equivalent from the other Big Four companies.

 

Beyond locomotives, they were a company not afraid to close loss-making routes or before 1923, to use their corporate might to force out competitors.

[brack]

I'd suggest that the NER was seeing further than the GWR in the years between the turn of the century and grouping. Perhaps not in steam design, but operationally, wagon design and electric traction. They even built batches of bogie 40 ton air braked coal hoppers in Edwardian times. They too looked closely at the US and Eric Geddes had been a stationmaster for the B&O and worked on the railways in India (our colonial systems were often more advanced than our domestic ones in terms of adoption of new technologies - less inertia and more influence from other countries).

Sadly much of what they did was later undone (often of necessity) by a financially weak LNER. The GWR had a huge advantage in that it's main routes and loco stock didn't change much at grouping so it was able to continue and finish off what it had started.

Had the NER been able to finish what they started we'd have seen mainline electrification and block freight trains of air braked bogie vehicles with knuckle couplers widespread across their system in by the 1920s (100 years on and we're still not there, but everyone knows that is what we ought to have). Unfortunately WW1, the loss of Raven and Geddes to important roles in the war effort and the economic change post war rather got in the way, then they were grouped into the LNER and never were in a situation to do much.

[Gibbo675]

As I see it as a retired manager, the GWR's most innovatory piece of thinking was in managing development efficiently. They were well ahead of the BR standards in having a range of properly tested, design interchangeable, standard boilers etc. IIRC they also had new ideas for build techniques, like frame alignment, before other companies copied and adopted the same techniques. Business efficiency when so many of the other companies were making one offs or ploughing on with weak designs. That may not have appeared as innovatory but was for the time..

 

 

I think it's fair to say that the GW was, in Churchward's time, ground breaking by British standards; most development was taking place in France and the US and British companies were not reacting well to the increase in loads brought about by corridor stock or the increase in goods, especially mineral, traffic.  Most CME's would have preferred to design inside cylinder 0-6-0s and 4-4-0s, because they were familiar with and felt comfortable with them.

Hi Folks,

 

Both of the above posts highlight very well the advancements made at Swindon by G J Churchward under W Dean in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. It is fair to say that the GWR locomotives of that period were very probably the most technically advanced and standardised fleet, not only in this country, but in the world.

 

The only comment I would be able to add to the above is that as locomotives became larger under C Collett the type frame construction became unsatisfactory for power and speed outputs leading to cracked frames and also that the degree of super-heat would not cope with what the boilers might be expected to produce compared to similarly sized locos of other railways. This state of affairs was directly due to such a standardised system of engineering which would have to have been completely uprooted and changed so as to improve the breed.

 

In a way that actually happened as steam was got rid of for diesels, yet GWR locos worked as intended until the mid 1960's with little or no modification which is testament to the basically sound design principles employed throughout the fleet seventy years beforehand.

 

I have to admit I'm a Horwich man and not overly keen on Greasy Wet and Rusty engines !

 

Gibbo.