The Night Mail

[AndyID]

47 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

"Looking", yes.  But an evolutionary dead-end.... 🤪

 

Rather similar to

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_2602_Class

 

 

I'm not exactly sure why but you don't see too many models of that one 😄

[Hroth]

8 minutes ago, AndyID said:

I'm not exactly sure why but you don't see too many models of that one 😄

 

Its a pity that no one has attempted it.  A Kruger would look very striking mincing around a layout....

 

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Depends on how much room you have.

Many people don't have room for a Shed...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:66534_on_container_train.jpg

🤪

 

 

 

Some of us do..... 

 

Jamie, who did go up and down stairs and walked halfway homor so it seemed.  However I did get paid a complement.  At one point we got herded into a jetway, before the last set of stairs, and had to wait a while. I just sat cross legged on the floor. Some lady in her 50's commented that she wished that she could stildo the same.  l was quite pleased with that.   It was a rather bumpy landing at Limoges though, I thought we were at Leeds Bradford. 

 

Jamie

[Oldddudders]

36 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Its a pity that no one has attempted it.  A Kruger would look very striking mincing around a layout....

 

No loco with such uncompromising looks could possibly "mince"!

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

There was a time when that company had some really quite civilised-looking engines:

 

Is that Mike (The Stationmaster) standing a the bottom of the loco steps?

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[rockershovel]

Regarding Krugers, I always think locos with outside frames and inside cylinders look ungainly, it's the side-rods flapping around at the extreme limits of the loading gauge. 

 

As for the inside framed front bogie.....

 

City class 4-4-0 make it work by having full length outside frames and running boards designed around the arc of the cranks. Those Kirtley 0-6-0 look rather dignified too... but the Krugers appear to be constructed from too many unrelated components. 

[Hroth]

5 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

No loco with such uncompromising looks could possibly "mince"!

 

I was mainly thinking of the effect of 4'8" drivers with outside frames moving at 20 or 30 mph. It wouldn't look dignified!  In more "modern" terms, consider the waddle of an 08 shunter* at its maximum speed...

 

The more conventional Aberdare class of similar vintage and dimensions didn't look any more promising

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2-6-0_GWR_Aberdare_Official_Photo.jpg

 

though in final reboilered form they looked more purposeful, even with outside frames and tiny drivers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swindon_Station,_with_an_ancient_'Aberdare'_class_2-6-0_passing_geograph-2522990-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg

 

Being before Churchwards tenure as CME, both Krugers and Aberdares are ascribed to Dean, though there's little doubt who's mind was behind them!

 

* And that 08s have comparable size driving wheels to both Krugers and Abadares.

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Hroth
Extra thort about 08s

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

As for the inside framed front bogie.....

 

A Dean 7' coach bogie.  The history of this is that Wigmore Castle, a 2-2-2 designed originally as a 'convertible' (from broad to narrow gauge) derailed in Box Tunnel because of apparently too much weight on the leading axle.  The solution was to lengthen the running plate and fit the Dean 7' bogie, resulting in the Dean 8'6" Single, which one would hardly describe as anything other than an extremely handsome engine!  All subsequent outside frame locos with 4-wheel leading bogies featured the same Dean 7' coach bogie,

 

 

12 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Being before Churchwards tenure as CME, both Krugers and Aberdares are ascribed to Dean, though there's little doubt who's mind was behind them.

 

Apparentl, (though I read this in one of Tuplin's fictional novels, so don't take my word for it), Dean in his later years had gone a little senile, and there was a period of several years before his death when he was nominally still in his post and came into work every day, but was incapable of carrying out any significant function.  Churchward, as Assistant CME, was the de facto head honcho, and his ideas regarding taper boilers began to appear in this period.

 

One can almost follow a progressive line of development, clearly begun by Dean and continued by Churchward, but the exact point at which Dean ceased to have any meaningful input is not clear.  It goes late Broad Gauge practice/Wigmore Castle/Dean 8'6" 4-2-2/Duke 4-4-0/City & Atbara 4-4-0/County 4-4-0/Saint/Star (and subsequent Collett Castle and King classes)

[Hroth]

I think calling it "senility" was a bit harsh, Dean certainly suffered from ill health in his latter years as CME, retired in 1902 and was dead by 1905.  I suppose anything that the GWR developed from the late 1890s to 1902 could be called "Dean, strongly filtered through Churchward"!

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Hroth
Spelin

[The Johnster]

29 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

* And that 08s have comparable size driving wheels to both Krugers and Abadares.

 

Yes, but the fixed wheelbase of Krugers and Aberdares is much longer and more conducive to reasonable stability at the kind of speeds these engines usually operated at, up to around 40mph.  An 08 has a wheelbase comparable to a Hunslet Austerity but a higher centre of gravity, a perfect storm of poor riding. 

 

Actually, my own experience with 08s suggests that the ride is in fact excellent, until the loco starts to move at which point matters deteriorate rapidly.  An old Cardiff Docks driver once told me that he knew when he was off the road (they were off the road a lot over the dock) in some of the darker reaches at night, because the ride improved.  The springing visible on the side frames which looks like shock absorbing equipment is, in fact, shock amplification equipment, and the wheels,despite appearances, are square.

 

Kruger and his missus both had very high-pitched boilers, though, and probably weren't the best riding of engines.  The Aberdares look a bit of a mess but were successful in that they pulled the trains they were supposed to pull at the speeds they were booked to pull them without any serious problems and lasted many years in service.  The next stage in heavy freight power on the GW was the 28xx, which was still in production during WW2 and, had Marylebone not put it's foot down with a firm hand in the 50s, would have continued in production at Swindon instead of 9Fs.  The 28xx completely overshadowed the Aberdares and were superior in every respect, a paragon of a loco, but the Aberdares put in good service and were by no means the worst heavy freight horses of their day.

[Hroth]

That the 08s originated with the LMS 350hp diesel shunters of the mid-30s shouldn't be forgotten and explains a lot about them...  🤪

 

 

 

 

[jamie92208]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Regarding Krugers, I always think locos with outside frames and inside cylinders look ungainly, it's the side-rods flapping around at the extreme limits of the loading gauge. 

 

As for the inside framed front bogie.....

 

City class 4-4-0 make it work by having full length outside frames and running boards designed around the arc of the cranks. Those Kirtley 0-6-0 look rather dignified too... but the Krugers appear to be constructed from too many unrelated components. 

Have a rather nice Kirtley2-4-0 with outside cranks that a friend built for me. After I'd fitted the platforms on Green Ayre I ran it into the station and it started walking along the up platform on it's cranks.  I'd miscalculated the loading gauge.  It did manage to walk quite a way though. 

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

As from today, the Brecon Beacons national park will officially change it's name to Bannau Breicheiniog National Park.

 

Apparently this change is to distance the word Beacons, with the connotation of  signal fires and therefore wood burning, and smoke and pollution to being a more green and conservation minded area.

 

The area will be known in future as the shortened,  Bannau.

 

Brian and others from Wales will raise their eyebrows skyward and see this explanation as another Taffia led piece of moronity.  Let's give it a Welsh name and claim green credentials in doing so.

 

The big flaw in the change is the fact that when Bannau is translated from Welsh to English it means.... 

 

Beacons!

 

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Happy Hippo

[Oldddudders]

So from where do the those appreciating the Beacons, and spending money in local businesses, come? Are they all Welsh-speakers? I get fed up with references to Eryri, which I happen to know is Snowdon, because there is a loco of that name on the mountain railway. It's as if Wales dreams of a Hadrian-ish wall, to keep those vile English out, and regards the secrecy of its own unpronounceable language as a substitute.

 

Introspection and narrow-mindedness never helped a nation prosper, as Brexiteers are discovering! 

[New Haven Neil]

Ah, 'The Wall'.  My old dad, who was a warden of Durham Cathedral, used to tell visitors from a well known large country out west that the Bishop of Durham had it built to stop the Scots/Border Reivers from nicking the lead off the cathedral roof.  Hook, line and T shirt.

[Happy Hippo]

14 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

So from where do the those appreciating the Beacons, and spending money in local businesses, come? Are they all Welsh-speakers? I get fed up with references to Eryri, which I happen to know is Snowdon, because there is a loco of that name on the mountain railway. It's as if Wales dreams of a Hadrian-ish wall, to keep those vile English out, and regards the secrecy of its own unpronounceable language as a substitute.

 

Introspection and narrow-mindedness never helped a nation prosper, as Brexiteers are discovering! 

Your thinking of Offa's Dyke.

 

But we tend not to mention her, for fear of offending the professional wing of the easily offended brigade.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Happy Hippo

[jamie92208]

4 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Your thinking of Offa's Dyke.

 

But we tend not to mention her, for fear of offending the professional wing of the easily offended brigade.

Many years ago, an openly gay policewoman got posted to South Kirkby a rather non correct outpost. I went down one night to give a warning about not offending her,to the shift. To lighten the mood, I said that if anyone caused me have to investigate a grievance it would cost the offender a bottle of single malt.  We then turned out to a call and I went with one of the crews.  As we drove along I asked them where the boundary was between South Kirkby and South Elmsall. Elmsall Dyke boss, oh sh1t, came th reply. 

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Your thinking of Offa's Dyke.

 

He ditched her...

[Hroth]

46 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

So from where do the those appreciating the Beacons, and spending money in local businesses, come? Are they all Welsh-speakers? I get fed up with references to Eryri, which I happen to know is Snowdon, because there is a loco of that name on the mountain railway. It's as if Wales dreams of a Hadrian-ish wall, to keep those vile English out, and regards the secrecy of its own unpronounceable language as a substitute.

 

Introspection and narrow-mindedness never helped a nation prosper, as Brexiteers are discovering! 

 

They're already fortifying the borders.  Al the main roads into the Principality have speed cameras to catch all the English who aren't aware of the locally imposed "environmental" speed limits...

 

[Hroth]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, by that argument, all nineteenth-century British locomotive design was an evolutionary dead end.

 

On the GWR they were, once Churchward started developing his "standardised" locomotive classes in the early 1900s...  🤪

 

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

They're already fortifying the borders.  Al the main roads into the Principality have speed cameras to catch all the English who aren't aware of the locally imposed "environmental" speed limits...

 

I expect big arguments over the speed limit in Llanynynech:  The border runs down the centreline of the A483 so Shropshire wish to retain a 30 mph restriction on the southbound side whereas the idiotic Welsh Assembly want a new lower 20 mph restriction going north.

 

I don't believe it is legal to have  different speed restrictions in opposite directions on the same stretch of a single carriageway road.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Happy Hippo

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I don't believe it is legal to have  different speed restrictions in opposite directions on the same stretch of a single carriageway road.

 

Easily solved by installing a barrier down the centre of the road, surely?

[BoD]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Easily solved by installing a barrier down the centre of the road, surely?

… and then extending it up to the Dee and down to the Severn.  

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

So from where do the those appreciating the Beacons, and spending money in local businesses, come? Are they all Welsh-speakers? I get fed up with references to Eryri, which I happen to know is Snowdon, because there is a loco of that name on the mountain railway. It's as if Wales dreams of a Hadrian-ish wall, to keep those vile English out, and regards the secrecy of its own unpronounceable language as a substitute.

 

Introspection and narrow-mindedness never helped a nation prosper, as Brexiteers are discovering! 

 

Many year ago we were thinking about a holiday in the Balearics - we never did go in the end. But I recall the Rough Guide's comment on the islands' Catalan-language signage: the locals don't need the signs, the tourists follow the pictograms, so who is the Catalan for? The mainland Spanish-speakers, of course.

 

Araf! The first word of Welsh I learnt when driving in Wales.