Hall vs Grange

[LMS2968]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Definite superiority in the accessibility department.

Inside Stephenson's gear for two-cylinder engines, inside Walscheart's for four cylinders?

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Chris M said:

YES ..... they DO all look the same !

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, OFFTHE RAILS said:

The Granges and Manors had a new type of cylinders - i.e. different to the Halls. The piston valve centre line was raised an additional 2 1/2"  above the cylinder centre line. This additional steam space is said to have contributed to the smoother running of the Granges relative to the Halls. (See the Rev. J. Gibson's book "Great Western Locomotive Design - A Critical Appreciation"). The Churchward 43xx 2-6-0 cylinder centre line was 2 1/2" above the driving wheel centres but Collet wanted cylinders in line with the axle centres on the 4-6-0s. So, to be able to use 43xx wheels and motion meant a revised cylinder type. 

Yes.  the big advantage the 'Grange' had over the 'Hall' was its bigger steam chest volume which made a significant difference, along with the slightly smaller wheels, on steep gradients. For example enginemen with experience of both types always preferred a 'Grange' for the climb out of Weymouth, especially on the heavy perishables trains.

 

The 'Grange' oddly was effectively the Collett rendition of what had been listed by Churchward as one of his proposed standard designs.  It was presumably displaced from construction by the development of the 43XX and thus the 5'8" coupled wheel 4-6-0 only finally appeared when ther Traffic Dept were pressing for 4-6-0 to replace the 43XX 2-6-0.

 

Very easy to tell a 'Grange' from a 'Hall' in side view and they looked slightly different head on as well.  impossible to confuse either with a 'Manor' from any angle (well that was what I found to be the case).

[The Johnster]

Quick ID guide:-

 

Hall - straight running plate, extension to cab roof.  Brass beading to splashers and leading edge of cab. 

 

Modified Hall - same but plate frames visible ahead of smokebox. 
 

Grange - running plate raised over cylinders, smaller driving wheels, loco lower ‘sit’ in general.  Happier driver (I admit this was not always immediately apparent, some drivers enjoyed being miserable). 
 

Manor - smaller loco, smaller boiler, shorter frames with rear splasher concealed more by cab. 
 

FTFY!

 

[Steamport Southport]

I read somewhere and I doubt I could find the source, that they wanted to rebuild the earlier Moguls due to poor quality steel due to using steel made during WWI. Leading to them being susceptible to cracked frames. This mainly affected the first 200 or so. They tried a few methods of trying to improve them such as weight distribution. But rebuilding was seen as being a better solution.

 

They planned on keeping the later builds as Moguls especially the 93XX series as they weren't affected.

 

The Granges and Manors were really new engines using a minimum of spare parts.

 

 

 

Jason

[John-Miles]

I once spent a couple of hours on a plane on the way back from Majorca sitting next to a retired driver from Goodwick shed. He said the Granges were the best engines he ever drove.

[JimC]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

The Granges and Manors were really new engines using a minimum of spare parts.

As I recall Cook states that about half the 43s were reused, but I don't think he says whether that was by weight, by value or by count!

[lapford34102]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Yes.  the big advantage the 'Grange' had over the 'Hall' was its bigger steam chest volume which made a significant difference, along with the slightly smaller wheels, on steep gradients. For example enginemen with experience of both types always preferred a 'Grange' for the climb out of Weymouth, especially on the heavy perishables trains.

The steam was always mentioned to me as the big advantage of the Grange over the Hall and and as you mention ideal for heavy Perpots from Weymouth up to Westbury. Wey crews would have liked to see more of them but with only 80 compared to 300 odd 49XX's there weren't enough to go round. Slightly OT but the odd Manor that appeared on the coast wasn't greeted with much enthusiasm.

Stu

[TheSignalEngineer]

58 minutes ago, JimC said:

As I recall Cook states that about half the 43s were reused, but I don't think he says whether that was by weight, by value or by count!

Crewe used pretty much everything metal from locos they scrapped even if they did enter through the building known as 'The Melts' and come out via the steel foundry.

 

(OK I'm outta here quick. 🚪🚴‍♂️)

[rodent279]

25 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Crewe used pretty much everything metal from locos they scrapped even if they did enter through the building known as 'The Melts' and come out via the steel foundry.

 

(OK I'm outta here quick. 🚪🚴‍♂️)

Wonder if any kettles steam locos got re-incarnated as class 47's?

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

Wonder if any kettles steam locos got re-incarnated as class 47's?

Not in any recognizable form ....... some other diseasel classes might have inherited ex-steam loco buffers - but not much else. ☹️

[TheSignalEngineer]

4 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Wonder if any kettles steam locos got re-incarnated as class 47's?

 

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Not in any recognizable form ....... some other diseasel classes might have inherited ex-steam loco buffers - but not much else. ☹️

Quite possible that some of the metal was used in new castings as there were a lot of steam locos being cut when the diesels were being built there.

[rodent279]

3 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Not in any recognizable form ....... some other diseasel classes might have inherited ex-steam loco buffers - but not much else. ☹️

Really? I suppose couplings could be re-used as well.

19 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Quite possible that some of the metal was used in new castings as there were a lot of steam locos being cut when the diesels were being built there.

Would melting ferrous metals from a steam loco produce the correct grade of steel/cast iron for things like brake blocks? I guess things like bogie frames would require a particular grade of steel, being a safety critical component subject to heavy stresses. In any case, would they be cast by an external supplier-Brush?

[Wickham Green too]

10 hours ago, rodent279 said:

... I suppose couplings could be re-used as well.

Would melting ferrous metals from a steam loco produce the correct grade of steel/cast iron ...

Couplings are subject to greater rates of wear and are a safety-critical component - so probably not re-used very often .... probably the occasional shed swap though.

 

Once a steam loco goes into the melt the resulting mix will be analysed by the foundry and can be adjusted with other grade scrap or raw additives to be cast as whatever grade is required.

[TheSignalEngineer]

6 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Once a steam loco goes into the melt the resulting mix will be analysed by the foundry and can be adjusted with other grade scrap or raw additives to be cast as whatever grade is required.

Crewe Works was one of the first places to use open hearth furnaces on an industrial scale. Later it was updated to two electric arc furnaces. 

It produced many of the castings the LMS needed for other departments, not just locos. In the early days it even rolled its own rails.

Edited November 30, 2022 by TheSignalEngineer

[Hal Nail]

Another small but I think significant difference is the cab front windows. The Hall had big sharp angled ones and the Grange the later, smaller more rounded off type.

 

Never looked up when the change in style happend but it was from the very high 5000 numbered Castles onwards - Granges, Manors, Modified Halls and Counties had the smaller type.

 

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Hal Nail

[Il Grifone]

There was a lot of financial fiddling expertise going on in the thirties. The GWR had to produce 'new' locomotives rather than 'rebuilds', hence new wheel sizes, sticking Duke boilers on Bulldog frames, etc.

 

The claim that GWR engines "All look the same" is down to 1. Getting it right the first time and 2. understanding what is meant by 'standardisation'. (BR standards were anything but....)

Edited December 3, 2022 by Il Grifone

[melmerby]

6 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

The GWR had to produce 'new' locomotives rather than 'rebuilds', hence new wheel sizes

Except the 80 Granges were "rebuilds" of 43XX, using the wheels and  motion of 80 withdrawn 43XX.

The 20 GWR Manors also used the parts from 20 withdrawn 43XX but the BR ones were all new.

All 300+ 43XXs were intended to be rebuilt as 4-6-0s but Hitler's aims interrupted that.

 

The Counties were an enlarged version of the Modified Hall, using a similar frame arrangement.

[Il Grifone]

That was my point. Rebuilds were passed off as 'new' locomotives. Granges had new boilers, so were new locomotives (at least on paper, which was was what mattered in high places).

 

Hitler would have been stopped earlier had we had the means. Chamberlain's "Peace for our time" merely served to buy us time to rearm. It was a close thing as it was. British weather saved us again.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Il Grifone

[Il Grifone]

Perhaps I should have said 'renewal' rather than 'rebuild'. The financial world has a different use of language compared to the engineering world....

It was something to with allocation of funds. There was plenty of cash available, but it was restricted as to how it could be spent.

We were saved from Hitler thanks to Chamberlain's "Peace for our time" which enabled us to rearm, develop radar etc. It was still close and we were saved by our weather yet again.

 

EDIT

Internet playing silly b------s. My post had disappeared so I rewrote it and then it reappeared. 😾

 

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Il Grifone

[JimC]

1 hour ago, Il Grifone said:

There was plenty of cash available, but it was restricted as to how it could be spent.

As I understand it there wasn't, and that was the point of the exercise.

In good times overhaul money (direct from revenue) could be used to upgrade locomotives to make them cheaper to run if there was a sound case. In the 30s revenue was poor and the money wasn't there, but there was money in the renewal fund, which was the money compulsorily put aside to replace life expired locomotives. So by upgrading the locomotives sufficiently to be considered a renewal the renewal fund money could be used.

 

There's a sort of hint that possibly TPTB were increasingly strict about what constituted a renewal in the 30s. Cook states that Collett wouldn't accept mid life upgrades of 2-6-2Ts with new cylinders etc as renewals, hence the wheel size, high pressure boilers etc. However I've seen entries in Loco committee minutes from the 20s where very extensive overhauls/repairs of absorbed locomotives at external companies were classified as renewals, so maybe policy changed. It  appears to me, incidentally, that the renewed 31/81 2-6-2Ts ran longer lives than their sisters which were not renewed, which does suggest the work was rather more comprehensive than a general overhaul: in what respect I couldn't guess.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by JimC

[JimC]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

The 20 GWR Manors also used the parts from 20 withdrawn 43XX but the BR ones were all new.

I do wonder about that... There's a reasonable amount of evidence to suggest that the GWR were not averse to using refurbished parts on new locomotives - and why not if they were good enough to serve without failure until the first heavy general. It seems not impossible that second hand parts from 43s withdrawn around the same time that the BR Manors were introduced (and the numbers match fairly but not very closely) were used. But unless the records of how many motion parts (say) were created are available and someone is inspired enough to cross reference I'm not sure we can ever know. 

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, JimC said:

It  appears to me, incidentally, that the renewed 31/81 2-6-2Ts ran longer lives than their sisters which were not renewed,

But they didn’t.  The 31xx were all gone by 1960 (3100 went in 1957, only 19 years after her renewal, following a ‘heavy contact’ with the buffers at Porthcawl, after which it spent a few weeks on pilot duties around Tondu before being sent to Swindon for evaluation, and scrapped), and there were Churchward 3150s in service into 1963.  The 81xx lasted until 1964 IIRC, but 61xx, an older design, lasted until the end of steam on the WR.  So did some 5101s, but these were of later build dates. 

[pH]

6 hours ago, JimC said:

It seems not impossible that second hand parts from 43s withdrawn around the same time that the BR Manors were introduced (and the numbers match fairly but not very closely) were used. But unless the records of how many motion parts (say) were created are available and someone is inspired enough to cross reference I'm not sure we can ever know. 

Would reconditioned parts have a new engine number stamped on them, or would they keep the existing number? 

[Miss Prism]

6 hours ago, pH said:

Would reconditioned parts have a new engine number stamped on them, or would they keep the existing number? 

 

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