Which was the worst 0-6-0 produced by the Big 4, 2251, J38, J39, 4F, Q or Q1

[John M]

On 08/11/2022 at 01:16, Compound2632 said:

 

 surely it would have been more economical to have done a 3F and put a modern boiler on existing the Dean Goods engine; maybe with new frames and cylinders?

 

Going back to the GSR the rationale for the relatively large scale re-building of pre-amalgamation (1925) 2-4-0, 4-4-0 and 0-6-0 classes with superheated boilers (with original motion & slide valves) from the late 1920s onwards was based on cost savings from reduced coal consumption (15-20%?) of critical importance on a railway that was struggling financially and dependent on imported coal. Some though not all superheated J15 or 101 Class were rebuilt with new stronger frames retaining existing cylinders and motion.

 

There would have been difficult to justify capital expenditure on building new locomotives for branch and secondary duties while the GSR was applying to a 1939 Transport Tribunal to close over 850 miles of such routes. 

 

In the end CIE the GSRs successor decided on dieselisation as a course of action during the late 40s as a result of the run-down condition and age of the steam fleet and difficult obtaining coal during the Emergency and coal shortages during the winter of 1947, the recommendations of the Milne Report delayed dieselisation for approximately 5 years.

 

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, rogerzilla said:

The Q is often derided as Maunsell's worst effort ...

To be honest, something's got to be "worst" in a thread like this - and nothing else Maunsell produced/rebuilt appears on that radar except the Rivers ( as mentioned ) or the Nelsons which needed Bulleid's attention and still suffered from a long grate that not all firemen mastered.

[whart57]

54 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Funnily enough the MOD was very much more up to date. But that was a political decision in respect of priorities.

 

 

And a culture of money being no objection

[whart57]

19 minutes ago, John M said:

 

In the end CIE the GSRs successor decided on dieselisation as a course of action during the late 40s as a result of the run-down condition and age of the steam fleet and difficult obtaining coal during the Emergency and coal shortages during the winter of 1947, the recommendations of the Milne Report delayed dieselisation for approximately 5 years.

 

 

The CIE too acquired a class (the class C Bo-Bo) to replace steam on lines that were heading for closure. They eventually found a use as push-pull motive power on Dublin suburban lines but most of the lines they were bought to run on closed in the 1960s

[John M]

11 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

The CIE too acquired a class (the class C Bo-Bo) to replace steam on lines that were heading for closure. They eventually found a use as push-pull motive power on Dublin suburban lines but most of the lines they were bought to run on closed in the 1960s

The 1950 Nationalisation of CIÉ provided a temporary reprieve for branch and secondary lines that would have otherwise closed, the 1958 Transport Act which required CIE to operate on a fully commercial basis allowed CIE to close uneconomic lines with minimal public consultation.

 

The re-engined C Class proved useful as CIE experienced an increase in rail passenger and freight traffic as the Irish economy improved from the mid-1960s onwards and the conversion of the AEC railcars to push-pull trains. 

[Nova Scotian]

On 09/11/2022 at 11:49, Flying Pig said:

 

Have a look at this video from 1966.  I was struck by the section from about 11:55 and how hopelessly old fashioned it seemed.  Not a pallet or forklift in sight, though surely they were becoming widespread by then?  Just lots and lots of manual handling touted as the brave new world.

 

Fella in the boom crane from this segment on looks like he's in an Austin Powers movie (eg. parody of generic henchmen from Bond type movies. It's the high collar black uniform!). 880 seconds in, 14:20, if the link doesn't start there immediately

 

Also the Q1 does not belong on this list. Probably the best 0-6-0 - power, power to weight, maintenance, cost and speed of production etc.

 

51 ton loco with that tractive effort is outstanding. Especially with proper size (ish) driving wheels - unlike the J38 which barely belongs on this list as the wheels are so much smaller (so pure freight rather than having eyes on mixed use, even if the rest may not have been great mixed use!).

 

Q probably the most disappointing. 4F the most limited for its inherent capability otherwise?

Edited November 11, 2022 by Nova Scotian

[Nearholmer]

TBH, I’m baffled why the Q keeps getting nominated as “worst”.

 

Were they unreliable? No.

Weedy? No, stronger than their predecessors, and stronger I think than the 4F that people compare them to, by virtue of a higher boiler pressure.

Expensive to build? No, cheap.

Expensive to maintain? Not overly.

One trick ponies? No.

Coal gobblers? Never heard that said.

 

They were certainly unadventurous, but in the context was that a bad thing?

 

Cut away a lot of details, and the crucial difference between the Q and Q1 was boiler pressure.

 

I don’t know all the not-SR locos well enough to have opinions on them, but if the Q was “worse” than them, I’d be interested to know by what measure.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

39 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I don’t know all the not-SR locos well enough to have opinions on them, but if the Q was “worse” than them, I’d be interested to know by what measure.

 

I suspect that animosity towards Maunsell's Qs is simply down to them being 0-6-0 and, by implication, old fashioned and unglamorous - not high on the enthusiasts' check-list of Southern locomotives. So folk look for excuses to run them down. (Much the same can be said re. the 4F.) The fact that they were appropriate engines for the work at hand doesn't enter into consideration. To me, they look like the distillation of 90 years of experience with inside cylinder 0-6-0s. 

[daveyb]

On 10/11/2022 at 04:35, whart57 said:

 

And a culture of money being no objection

More a need to match emerging NATO standards which gave the impression of money being no object. 

 

Pallets are still a bit of a bodge across the world... Look at the issues of trying to load 8 metric pallets into a 20ft ISO container... Or more annoying not getting 18 metric pallets into a 40ft ISO. It's only just too small!

 

The question not answered by the worst 0-6-0 tender engine is why that design lasted so long in UK compared with the rest of the world where much bigger tank engines were employed or the tender engines were confined to specific yards. I suspect frugality in the design house and ancient rivalry along with a pinch of not invented here.

Edited November 19, 2022 by daveyb
Addition and typing

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, daveyb said:

The question not answered by the worst 0-6-0 tender engine is why that design lasted so long in UK compared with the rest of the world where much bigger tank engines were employed or the tender engines were confined to specific yards. I suspect frugality in the design house and ancient rivalry along with a pinch of not invented here.

 

Rather, that the 0-6-0 tender engine was particularly well-adapted to its environment - the operating conditions of British and Irish railways being rather different to those of the rest of the world.

[Wickham Green too]

You could argue, of course, that British and Irish railways had grown up with the 0-6-0s as well as vice-versa !!?! ..... but that would need a new thread that would go on and on and on and on and on

[whart57]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Rather, that the 0-6-0 tender engine was particularly well-adapted to its environment - the operating conditions of British and Irish railways being rather different to those of the rest of the world.

 

Really? In what way?

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Really? In what way?

 

In what way was it not?

[whart57]

In what way  were the operating conditions on British and Irish railways different to other world railways?

[D9020 Nimbus]

Obviously very different from North America. But not so different, I suspect, from other European railways. Generally speaking, it seems that in Germany locos were generally more powerful in relation to the traffic hauled; the most numerous tank engine type in Germany was the class 86, a 2-8-2T. Though note that while the GWR had a lot of 0-6-0 tank engines—including the largest class at nationalisation, the 5700/8750 , it had relatively few 0-6-0 tender engines. Both the LMS and LNER had large numbers of 0-6-0 tender engines, but not so many tank engines of that wheel arrangement.

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

If you are working loose coupled goods trains the extra brake force of the tender would help (be essential?). Not all tank engines had brakes on their leading or trailing trucks. AIUI loose coupled goods were a rather British phenomenon, at least in the later years.

[Compound2632]

In most European countries, and indeed the colonies, there was much more state involvement in the railways from an early stage. As far as I can make out, this, along with the absence of private owner wagons, made it much easier to mandate automatic brakes for goods wagons.

[LMS2968]

A wagon going a long distance might be remarshalled into different trains several times in the course of its journey. Coupling up and unhooking a normal British goods wagon was easy enough with a pole from outside the buffers; once you introduced continuous brakes, that changed and it was necessary to go underneath to bag them up, which was a far more time consuming process. Unfitted trains had certain advantages and continuous brakes in a goods yard, whatever their advantages on the road, were not an unmixed blessing.

[Wickham Green too]

21 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

... it was necessary to go underneath to bag them up, which was a far more time consuming process. ...

Not to mention even more hazardous.

[Compound2632]

25 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

Unfitted trains had certain advantages and continuous brakes in a goods yard, whatever their advantages on the road, were not an unmixed blessing.

 

3 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Not to mention even more hazardous.

 

These points were thoroughly aired during the Royal Commission on Accidents to Railway Servants, 1899-1900. Automatic coupling was a hot topic, with an attempt being made to introduce a bill mandating it.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Loco size is a case of Horses for Courses IMHO, being an infrasturcture man. In the twilight of steam a Saltley fireman remarked to me "all we get now is 2-8-0's when a 4F could **** the job"

[whart57]

16 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Loco size is a case of Horses for Courses IMHO, being an infrasturcture man. In the twilight of steam a Saltley fireman remarked to me "all we get now is 2-8-0's when a 4F could **** the job"

 

That says as much about the jobs the railways were doing then as much as commenting on the motive power.

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, whart57 said:

That says as much about the jobs the railways were doing then as much as commenting on the motive power.

 

I don't think so. I would understand that Saltley man to be saying that jobs previously done by 4Fs were being done by 8Fs, not saying that there wasn't still also work for which an 8F was appropriate.

[TheSignalEngineer]

10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I don't think so. I would understand that Saltley man to be saying that jobs previously done by 4Fs were being done by 8Fs, not saying that there wasn't still also work for which an 8F was appropriate.

The trip in question was doing about 

15 miles on the flat from colliery to gasworks with about 30 16T minerals and booked about an hour, most of which was spent tailgating the one in front on a Permissive Goods line.

Next time I rode on it after steam finished we had real overkill - a 47 with a similar load and schedule.

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

15 miles on the flat from colliery to gasworks with about 30 16T minerals and booked about an hour, most of which was spent tailgating the one in front on a Permissive Goods line.

 

From Daw Mill Colliery?