THE BRITISH OVERSEAS RAILWAYS HISTORICAL TRUST
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Journal of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers
Volume 52 (1961)
The IMechE virtual library is accessible (full papers, all diagrams, photographs, extensive tables, etc).at www.imeche.org.uk. |
Barton, H.H.C. (Paper No. 631)
Monorails. 8-33. Disc.: 34-59. Bibliography.
Very extensive history back to Palmer's system installed. Traces history
of monorails from 1821, the date of the first and British patent specification,
to 1960s. It draws attention to the road congestion problem facing the public
and many authorities and emphasises the need for supplementary transport
facilities. It discusses the application of monorails and track-guided
rubber-tyred vehicles to this problem and describes some of their engineering
features. Monorail history may be grouped into three periods. The first,
from 1821 to 1900, was an experimental period from which two successful working
designs emerged to be used in revenue earning service. During the second
period, from 1901 until the end of World War II, further designs were developed
and some monorails were built experimentally although none was used commercially.
During the third and then present period the rapid growth of road traffic,
which in some cases has reached saturation, has led to further consideration
being given to the monorail and significant improvements to its design. Road
congestion has also brought to notice the rubber-tyred track-guided vehicle
which, with the monorail and the conventional railway, have been the subject
of urban transport economic studies. The Appendix lists 86 monorail and allied
schemes which have been proposed during these three periods. Forty-one have
been built or were building; seventeen of these had been put to commercial
use and twenty-four were built for demonstration purposes only. Individual
stystems included the Palmer,
Haddon, Behr,
Lartigue. There were several
demonstration systems of the Lartigue system including the Peg Leg Railway
between Bradford and Gilmore, Pennsylvania and another between Brooklyn and
Coney Island. Two further American systems were the Enos Electric Railway
and the Boynton Bicycle Railroad.
The Listowel and Ballbunion in
Ireland was well known. Eugen
Langen developed the Wuppertal Schwebebahn (suspended railway )which
linked Barmen, Elberfeld and Vohrwinkel. Brush constructed a car body for
a proposed Kearney monorail (supported
type) which would have connected North and South Shields by tunnel
George Bennie's Railplane system
was propeller-driven: there was a demonstration track near Glasgow, and a
proposal to link Blackpool with Southport. More recent systems tended to
opt for pneumatic tyres and included systems in Dallas and Tokyo. Two other
systems were described in detail: the Alweg which travelled along a beam
and the suspended Chateauneuf-sur-Loire system. Both were candidates to link
London Airport to Central London.
Discussion: Kearney (37) particpated.
At the meeting in Glasgow on 21 March 1962 E.R.L. Fitzpayne (29-50) participtaed
and he suggested that Glasgow airport might have been better located at Prestwick
rather than at Renfrew with a monorail connection to it..
Robson, A.E. (Paper No. 632)
Railcar development on British Railways. 60-99. Disc.: 99-145.
Author was Chief Mechanical and Electrical Engineer, British Railways,
London Midland Region.
Plan for the Modernisation and Re-equipment of British Railways, published
in 1955, included proposals for a 4,600 vehicle fleet of diesel multiple-unit
trains, including 300 then in use or on order. A programme of this magnitude,
which together with the associated maintenance facilities involved capital
expenditure in the order of £80 million, would not be embarked upon
unless the Commission were satisfied on the economic justification for it.
The fact is that consideration of this aspect of railway modernisation began
in 1951 when a number of senior officers were appointed by the Railway Executive
to consider and report on the scope for the employment of “light weight
trains” and to recommend areas considered suitable for experiment on
an appropriate scale.
T. Henry Turner.(113-14) stated that the front end
of the railcar should have a slope backwards at the top. It should be recalled
that when two steam locomotives passed one another at high speed there was
nothing like the usual shock to the passengers or to the driver when the
engines were Gresley streamlined “Pacifics”. If higher speed running
was to be operated blunt-ended trains would not be good. The Gresley design
was derived from Sir Nigel’s noting the chisel-shaped ends of the early
French Renault railcars. Instead of hitting the passing train an alarming
bump the air, displaced by the train, was deflected upwards. The newer Midland
Pullman had a handsome if somewhat less effective slope back. Could the Author
say how many steam engines had been displaced by his 4,600 railcars? The
year that the report was presented to the Railway Executive, on the scope
for the employment of lightweight trains, was that in which London suffered
the tragic “smog” that quickly led to the Clean Air Act. But for
the railcars there would have been one to two thousand more steam locomotives
bringing disrepute to the railways on account of the steam, black smoke,
sulphur and tarry grit that they emitted. The railcar programme had had a
useful psychological effect on many passengers as had been mentioned, but
the railcars had also been a very welcome boost to the railwaymen’s
morale: they saw new tools coming into use and no longer needed to feel
hopelessly out of date. Would the Author say why there was the little dotted
line in the diagram of the new cooling system (Fig. 23) that appeared to
indicate that the hot coolant was led from the cylinder into an air space?
There it would become aerated and in the absence of an inhibitor would accelerate
corrosion of the cooling system. Was the dotted line pipe essential to the
system? In 1956 he had been chairman at a session of a symposium dealing
with the internal corrosion of internal combustion engines. Three systems
of anti-freeze corrosion inhibition for the cooling water were there described
that soon after became recognised in British Standards. Each of them was
good but aeration did not help to prevent corrosion. Was it really necessary
to keep the screw coupling for these railcars? He had fought hard to get
the Buck-eye type of coupling at the time of Nationalisation because he knew
from his work in charge of the LNER laboratories that it had frequently saved
many lives. He therefore felt disappointed that the screw coupling had been
allowed to creep in again in the early railcars. In addition to the centre
coupling of the former LNER being safer he beIieved that it helped to use
the mass of the vehicles to damp down the lateral vibration from hunting
bogies which was so unpopular with f are-paying passengers.
Journal No. 286
Hughes, J.O.P. (Paper No. 633)
The design and development of a gas turbine locomotive. 180-217, Disc.: 217-39.
illus., diagrs.
GT-3: The advantages of a gas turbine as a power plant for locomotives
were identified as:
gives high power with compactness and light weight, together with excellent
reliability and a reduction in complication compared with other prime
movers;.
torque at standstill may be made several times that at the design speed so
that it is practicable to use a simple mechanical coupling to the wheels
with an appreciable gain in tractive effort at speed, very appropriate for
line service.
number of rubbing parts is few and the consumption of lubricating oil is
very small.
requires very little maintenance and gives a high availability,
offers possibility of burning lower grade fuels.
no water required.
The disadvantages are that efficiency of the simple cycle gas turbine falls
off substantially with a reduction from full power, and the cost per horsepower
was higher than for other prime movers. When the project began there were
a few gas turbine locomotives running in the world and some published results
were available, it was thus possible to study what had already been done.
With this knowledge and the advantages and disadvantages listed, it was decided
that by using a two-shaft recuperative open-cycle machine, and associating
it with a simple geared transmission of high efficiency, the combination
would give a useful locomotive from which further developments could be expected
to emerge.
Coates, P. (Paper No. 634)
The use of computers in railway engineering. 239-53. Disc.: 253-62.
Based on practice at Derby Works. Much of the calculating effort was
placed on analogue computers although digital computation was advancing
elsewhere.
Journal No 287
Alcock, John F. (Presidential Address)
Narrow gauge light railways. 269-90.
The paper is restricted to 2ft to 2ft 6in gauge railways. The main
aim of the paper was to describe Hunslet diesel locomotives together with
some electric locomotives. The Address also included an overview of steam
locomotive development on these gauges. The earliest narrow gauge steam
locomotives were placed in service almost exactly one hundred years before.
Success on the Festiniog Eailway being quickly followed by nearby industrial
railways and one of the first few was the Talyllyn Railway. Today we are
fortunate to have this railway still with us, for it is part of our history.
The adoption of a 2 ft. 3 in. rail gauge is believed to have been due to
the existing quarry wagons being of this gauge. The slate quarries of North
Wales had nearly all had their narrow gauge railways for years before the
locomotive was heard of but modernisation was on the way and Wales undoubtedly
claimed to be the first when it came to mechanisation with its increased
productivity.
In 1870 Hunslet despatched the 7½in. 0-4-0 locomotive shown in Fig.
3 and shortly afterwards similar locomotives were being exported including
the 8 in. 0-6-0 2 ft. 6 in. gauge type shown in Fig. 4, which was sent to
India in 1876. More powerful types were soon available and in 1878 the 10
in. 0-6-4 tank engine Beddgelert shown in Fig. 5 was sent to the North
Wales Narrow Gauge Railway. The pace of design and manufacture continued
to increase steadily and the turn of the century was a period of great
development, with something like 500 miles of track being laid annually.
Figure 6 shows a 4-4-0 type locomotive with 11½ in. cylinders built
in 1900 for the Kelani Valley Railway in Ceylon, seven of which were despatched
that year; No. 104 was in fact used over 50 years later in the filming of
“The Bridge On The River Kwai”.
Exports were broadened in many ways during the early 1900s. The Kerr Stuart
records show a very elaborate private steam rail motor coach for the Maharajah
of Scindia in 1904 built to 2 ft. gauge for use on the Gwalior Light Railways,
weighing 11 tons and fitted with an oil-fired Menyweather quick-steaming
boiler, a steam turbine-driven generator, not only for electric lighting
throughout, but also for two 12 in. electric fans. Figure 7 shows the first
locomotive sent in to Cyprus for the construction of their 2 ft. 6 in. gauge
railway in 1904 which remained in service in the harbour at Famagusta until
the line closed in 1951, whilst the lower picture shows the same locomotive
set up on a plinth and finally preserved to posterity. In 1906 the small
0-4-2 type tank locomotive shown in Fig. 8 was despatched to India for the
2 ft. gauge Howrah-Amta Light Railway and during the following 50 years Hunslet
alone supplied to this group 72 locomotives of various types which increased
in power continuously throughout these five decades.
One of the big achievements of this period was the building of the Otavi
Railway: a 2 ft. gauge line built between 1903 and 1906 in South West Africa
connecting the big mining areas at Tsumeb with the sea at Walvis Bay, a total
distance of 361 miles. A report at the time compliments the contractors on
building at the rate of 120 miles per year in a country where water had to
be carried at times up to 100 miles for a labour force of 750 Europeans and
500 natives and it is of interest to note that we have at the present time
locomotives for Tsumeb under construction.
Hunslet locomotives were supplied for military purposes to General Gordon
in 1885 and for Lord Kitchener’s famous and final advance on Khartoum
in 1898, but it was not until the First World War that we became involved
in mass production. Light railways became the standard method of supplying
the Army in France and a special 4-6-0 tank engine was designed with a maximum
axle load of only 3.5 tons for running on a 20 lb. rail. No less than 155
of these were supplied during the War for use behind the lines and a typical
operational unit is shown in Fig. 9.
Typical of the development over the years to which I referred earlier, Figs.
10(a and b) , show two Kerr Stuart locomotives supplied to the same customer
for the same railway over a thirty-year period. Figure 10(a) is an 8 in.
cylinder 4-4-0 tender engine supplied to the Gwalior Light Railways for 2
ft. gauge in 1895. Fig. 10( b) , however, is a 13½ in. cylinder 2-8-2
type tender engine supplied to the same railway in 1928. With a maximum axle
load of only six tons this indicates the developments which took place after
the First World War. In 1928 also we built a new 4-6-4 tank engine for the
Kelani Valley Railway in Ceylon. This is shown in Fig. 11 and was a great
advance on their previous locomotives; on 2 ft. 6 in. gauge with a working
weight of almost 50 tons and a tractive effort of over 13,000 lb., this was
a useful locomotive. About this time also the diesel locomotive made its
appearance, but I prefer to keep this as a separate section and so continue
with the story of the steam locomotive right up to the present day.
Steam construction during the Second World War was confined to standard gauge.
There was still a considerable amount of light railway but by this time diesels
were definitely the order of the day. After the war, however, there was still
a great deal to be done. In 1949 we built some 2-8-2 locomotives for the
2 ft. 6 in. gauge Barsi Light Railway in India with a 15½ in. cylinder
and a total working weight of over 60 tons in spite of a maximum axle load
of only 6.8 tons, whilst the tractive effort was over 15,000 lb. This general
class was originally developed by Nasmyth Wilson before the war and was also
later built by Bagnalls. Thirteen of these locomotives are in service altogether
and Fig. 12 shows one of the last supplied.
As late as 1959 the Dholpur Railway required something bigger and better
than they had had previously on a maximum axle load of only 5.5 tons and
for the first time we used aluminium for the cab and bunker (Fig. 13). Turning
now to some of the more outstanding locomotives, reference must be made to
the standard ZE Class 2 ft. 6 in. gauge locomotive for Indian Railways originally
designed and built between the wars by Nasmyth Wilson but built mainly since
that time by Henschels, Krauss Maffei and others. This is a 2-8-2 type tender
engine, 16 x 18 in. cylinders, total weight in working order of 65 tons and
a maximum axle load of 7.7 tons. These engines have a tractive effort of
over 16,000 lb. and there are about 50 of them in service. For the very large
locomotives of course the articulated types cannot be overlooked. On 2 ft.
6 in. gauge and again built for India between the wars, a very interesting
unit is the 2-6-2+2-6-2 Kitson Meyer type built for the Kalka-Simla Railway;
here we have a total weight of almost 70 tons with a maximum axle load of
8.45 tons and a tractive effort of 23,000 lb., but I have kept to the last
the really difficult design problems set up by the 2 ft. gauge and the lighter
axle loads. In 1940 we were approached by a cement works who had a 20-mile
single track 2 ft. gauge line laid with 35 lb. rails. They were putting down
a second kiln and so had to double their limestone intake over their railway.
They had already considered the possibilities of laying a second track or
completely relaying to a wider gauge with heavier rail but the cost was outside
what they were prepared to pay and we were asked whether it was possible
to produce a locomotive big enough to handle just double their previous
requirements. To a specialist firm accustomed to this kind of work a completely
new special design for one off only is not an unusual request, but it must
also be remembered that with a long background in this kind of work there
is invariably a good basis to fall back upon and we were able to use as a
basis the Kerr Stuart locomotive built for Gwalior in 1928 and so with various
modifications and modernisations we produced the 2-8-2 locomotive shown in
Fig. 14 with a much larger boiler and a tractive effort of 13,500 lb. Another
outstanding 2 ft. gauge railway is the South African Railways Avontuur Branch
which runs inland from Port Elizabeth for a distance of nearly 200 miles.
Van Staden's bridge on this railway is probably the highest 2 ft. gauge railway
bridge in the world standing as it does some 250 ft. above the river. There
is a very big yard at Fort Elizabeth where I recently saw seven or eight
of the largest 2 ft. gauge locomotives in the world under steam. The N.G.
tender engines with a tractive effort of over 16,000 lb. are exceptional
by any standard, but the Beyer Garratt N.G.G. 16 Class 2-6-2 + 2-6-2 is a
real leviathan. On 2 ft. gauge with a maximum axle load of only 6.9 tons
we have here a locomotive weighing over 60 tons with a tractive effort of
almost 19,000 lb. (Fig. 15) and it is interesting to note that no less than
26 of these locomotives are in service, the first being built in 1937 and
the last as recently as 1959. Large Beyer Garratt locomotives are also in
service on the 2 ft. 6 in. gauge Victoria Railways in Australia. Before turning
to diesel I would like to make a brief reference to the large number of efforts
made over a considerable period to produce geared steam locomotives. One
successful type was certainly the Shay articulated unit built mainly in America
by Lima before the First World War, whilst another rather special articulated
type designed and built by Avonside in the early 1930's had a four-cylinder
vee engine placed beneath a conventional superheated boiler with carden shafts
straight from each end of the engine to each bogie (Fig. 16). With a 6.5
ton axle load and only four axles, these locomotives gave a tractive effort
of over 12,000 lb.
Wood, F.H. (Paper No. 635)
Some features of design of diesel electric locomotives including the
‘Falcon’ locomotive. 291-309. Disc.: 309-16.
Presented before the Midlands Centre in Derby on 31 October 1962. Three
locomotives considered:
Type “2” AIA-AIA, in service on the Eastern Region of British Railways
and then fitted with Mirrlees 12-cylinder vee engines having an output of
1250, 1365, 1600 and 2000 h.p.
“Falcon” locomotive of 2800 h.p. Co-Co wheel arrangement fitted
with two Bristol Siddeley Maybach 12-cylinder diesel engines.
Standard Type “4” locomotive of Co-Co wheel arrangement 2750 h.p.
incorporating the Sulzer 12 LDA diesel engine
Journal No. 288
Macfarlane, I.B. (Paper No. 636)
Railcars in Australia with particular reference to the Budd Rail Diesel Car.
323-59. Disc.: 359-80.
Ray, R.K. (Paper No. 637)
Towards greater productivity on the railways. 380-90. Disc.: 390-3.
In India with assistance of the International Labour Organization.
Author was funded to study in the USA, mainly at Syracuse University where
case-study methods were being adopted.
Journal No 289
Maddison, T.B. (Paper No. 638)
Development of special wagons and containers for the bulk conveyance ot powdered
materials. 399-432. Disc.: 432-55.
The development of special vehicles and containers for the bulk transport
of powder and granular materials was rapidly becoming more of a science than
an art. When consideration is given to the lack of available data on this
subject, together with the lack of adequate testing facilities prevailing
in the past both for road and rail developments it is surprising that this
technique has reached such an advanced commercial stage.
The advent of the Development Unit on British Railways opened up a new
opportunity of furthering the advancement of these techniques, and the facilities
are now available at its workshop for pressure discharge testing of a large
variety of materials at different pressures. lines were provided, enabling
repeat tests to and fro to be carried out in rapid succession (shown
diagrammatically in Fig. 33) . Arrangements were in hand to provide a pipeline
1,000 ft. long to enable the best conditions to be established for long discharge
lengths with and without boosters of all types of powdered material from
the finest to ½ in. cubes.
Garratt, C.H. (Paper No. 639)
Main works repair of diesel multiple units. 456-87. Disc.: 487-96.
Mainly reflected activity at Derby Works. Outlined methods and procedures
evolved at a British Railways’ main Works for the main overhaul of diesel
railcars. Details given of examination and repair of bogies, underframes,
brakework, bodies, controls, engine cooling system, fire extinguishing equipment,
lighting installations and heating systems, and the final testing of completed
vehicles. The overhauling of power units and transmission was not dealt with,
as this activity had already been described to the Institution.
Fletcher, S. (Paper No. 640)
Recording and controlling faults on diesel electric locomotives. 511-39.
Disc.: 539-80.
Hunter, I.P. (Paper No. 641)
Development of the vacuum brake during the years of transition. 581-615.
Disc.: 616-55.
Author was Development Engineer, Brake Division, Gresham & Craven
Ltd. Paper divided into: freight train braking, locomotive braking,
and general developments,
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