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Journal of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers
Volume 54 (1964)

The IMechE virtual library is accessible (full papers, all diagrams, photographs, extensive tables, etc).at www.imeche.org.uk.

Journal No. 297

Arthurton, R.I.D. (Paper No. 653)
Auxiliary services on electric rolling stock. 15-71.
Meeting held on 17 February 1964 at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: President, S.B. Warder in the Chair.
London Transport practice and experience. After a brief section on the 600 volt control and lighting system now almost superseded, the advantages and selection of a low tension DC lighting, control and battery system are discussed and a description of generating and regulating apparatus follows. This section then deals with the simultaneous generation of an AC. supply for fluorescent lighting, with London Transport service experience with motorgenerators and alternators and with the prospects of producing low tension supplies by means of static equipment. Subsequent sections of the Paper deal with low tension wiring and fusing, with inter-car and inter-unit coupling equipment and with the supply, storage and distribution of compressed air. The evolution of lighting in the passenger saloon is developed at some length and minor lighting services are also referred to. A section follows on heating and ventilation, and door control systems are dealt with chiefly in relation to developments in the last decade. Minor, but nevertheless essential, services considered include speedometers and mileage recorders, communication systems and windscreen wipers.

Awasty, H.D. (Paper No. 654)
Railway electrification in India. 72-97. Disc.: 273-81.
Joint Meeting with Institution of Electrical Engineers Power Division held at Savoy Place, London, W.C.2, on 22 April 1964 at 5.30 p.m.: Chair taken by C.D. Wilkinson, Chairman of the Power Division. who introduced S.B. Warder, President of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers to the meeting and who chaired it

Journal No. 298

Summer meeting in Sweden. 101-21.
With technical visits in Stockholm, Viisteras and Katrineholm 3rd-l0th May 1964
Encouraged by the magnificent support by the members on the occasion of the Summer Meeting in Switzerland in 1962 and the President having many friends in the Swedish State Railways Organization and in Swedish Industry, it was natural that the Council should select Stockholm as the venue for the 1964 Summer Meeting. The acceptability of this choice from both technical and social points of view was evident by the fact that 130 members and their wives and friends attended.
The highest possible compliment was paid to the Institution when it received an invitation to send a delegation to the Royal Palace, Stockholm, for an audience with His Majesty King Gustav VI, S. B. Warder (President), J. F. Harrison, (Past- President),. G. Collingwood, (President-Elect), and M. A. Crane (Vice-President and Chairman of the Visits Committee), represented the Institution, and together with E. Upmark (Director General of the Swedish State Railways), were very cordially received by His Majesty on the morning of 6 May. The King, who takes a keen interest in railway matters, especially electrification, chatted at some length with the delegation on railway progress in Britain and railway problems in general. He enquired closely into the activities of the Institution and its programme in Sweden. The audience concluded with the presentation of a silver George II-style tankard, engraved with the Institution device, to His Majesty by the President.
The party travelled by air from Stansted on Sunday 3 May 1964 returning by air on the following Sunday, two Viscounts having been provided under charter with British United Airways for the flights; the Institution is greatly indebted to the Hawker Siddeley Group for their kind assistance in connection with the flight arrangements and the excellent luncheon which was served on each flight.
Technical visits were made to ASEA at Vasteras on 4 May. SKF and SKV at Katrineholm on 5 May, Swedish State Railways at Hagalund on 6 May, SAB at Vartan where the resilient wheels were inspected and the Stockholm Underground Railway on 8 May.

Wise, S. and E S Burdon (Paper No. 655)
The dual roles of design and surface treatment in combating fatigue failures. 142-215. 18 diagrams. Bibliography.
Discussion:
General Meeting of Midlands Centre held at Midland Hotel, Derby, on 18 April 1962 at 19.00, the Chair being taken by A.B. Boath (Associate Member). Began by refering to August Wöhler's observations on the breakage of rolling stock axles on the Royal Lower Silesian Railway in the 1850s.
K. Cantlie (182) said that many years ago, he was for a time assistant to Biernacki, a Pole, and one of the most remarkable and temperamental C.M.E.’s India has ever known. The railways had always kept a careful check of the lot or cast numbers of all axles, so that if more than two or three broke due to spreading cracks, all the axles in that lot were withdrawn. Two axles of one lot had broken in quick succession and Biernacki examined them. “The trouble with these axles”, he said, “is not the steel, but their shape. These axles are parallel and have no extra flexibility at their centres. Wohler did not go far enough-have you read Wohler? No? Then read him at once-he (Wohler) suggested that we should reduce the diameter of axles below the diameter of the wheel-seats to lessen the stress concentration there, but did not make the deduction that this reduced concentration was mainly due to increased flexibility of the axles. We shall test this. We will turn down the centre of the axle below that of the wheel-seats, but will also taper the axle towards the centre and I think that that will stop the trouble.” This was done and, for the next four years at least, there were no more breakages. Perhaps the Authors would say whether they were on the right track or not.
T. Henry Turner (187-9) said that the subject chosen by the Authors was long-worded, “The Dual Roles of Design and Surface Treatment in Combating Fatigue Failures”; it was very important to locomotive engineers and it had a long history. The Authors may know who first used the word fatigue in connection with metal failures: Turner did not. He could find no reference to the phenomena in Biringuccio’s classic dated 1540 and he suspected that the susceptibility of metals to progressive failure was first really appreciated and named after a multiplicity of similar railway axles made comparison easier.
In a metallurgical dictionary one will now find subheadings to fatigue, such as, Fatigue-life, Fatigue-limit, Fatigue-properties, Fatigue-ratio, Fatigue-resistance, Fatigue-strength, Fatigue-strength reduction-factor K₁, Fatigue-range, Fatigue-tests see Endurance-tests, and so on. Clearly the subject has grown in complexity since Wöhler’s systematic imitation in the laboratory of factors that were apparent in railway axles. Fifty years ago the Wohler test was widely known and imitated. The National Physical Laboratory could undertake such tests and when Mr. Turner was the only metallurgist employed by Metropolitan-Vickers he took some test pieces machined out of their turbine discs to be tested by Dr. Gough, at Teddington. He was surprised that the Authors did not mention Gough’s work; they have ’ mentioned his assistant, Dr. Hankins, who stayed with him (Mr. Turner) in Doncaster when he stood in for his chief in giving a lecture on this subject before the 1939-45 War. The Authors have also not mentioned Professor Haigh, but for whose work on fatigue we might have lost the 1914-18 War.
For that reason he regretted that Table 4 (specific surface treatments) had been included in the Paper; we must, he said, remember that we galvanize to prevent corrosion. To test, as in Table 4, hot dip zinc galvanized specimens in the absence of the very corrosion, that was the raison d‘etre of the galvanizing, can give tragically misleading results. If Professor Haigh’s zinc coating of the minesweepers’ paravane cables had not increased their life in service in the sea, we would have lost the 1914-18 War.
The first Paper Mr. Turner read to an Institution, just forty years ago, dealt with fatigue that occurred without any corrosion, in the clamp ring at the end of an electricity generating rotor. Since then most of the cases of fatigue that he has had to investigate have been greatly influenced by corrosion and he gave many examples of them in his Paper 452 to this Institution in 1945. The Author’s references to the importance of engineers doing something to prevent corrosion are therefore welcome, but have they taken their own medicine? Have they completed Fig. 2 by running fatigue test pieces in a carefully chosen series of corrosion inhibiting liquids or vapour phase inhibitors?
It has long been known that the front axle of the tender of a steam locomotive suffered excessively from corrosion fatigue because of the fireman’s slaking of his coal with water that dripped on to the axle. Thirty years ago he had to investigate the corrosion fatigue fractures of the driving wheels of the Pacifics that became the fastest steam locomotives in the world. Flexing of the wheel rim between the spokes was made apparent when at the request of Sir Nigel Gresley, Professor Coker carried out some tests with his novel photo-elastic apparatus, using plastic models of the driving wheels. Knifing to gauge produced a dead sharp right angle inner corner of the tyre that was in tension between the spokes and water could penetrate between tyre and wheel. The chip-crack-freeness of the inner machined surface of the tyre was obviously desirable, where the tyre touched the wheel and was stressed in tension, by shrinking and by bending in service.
As regards Fig. 3, one wonders whether 0-Compression has been tested. It is known that tension opens surface cracks so it is no surprise that fatigue is most troublesome on specimens stressed in tension. Mr. Turner could not recall having seen a series of compression fatigue tests.
Surely Goodman and Gerbers “laws” should be called guesses or hypotheses. Axles are simultaneously stressed in bending and in torsion, but it is probably true that they are most often saved from fatigue failure by painting.
Railways’ components are frequently run at temperatures different from those used by the laboratory fatigue tests; are these temperature differences significant in the fatigue lives ? The Authors’ reference to wheel-axle press-fits seems to make no point of the damage done to the surface by the tension stresses on the surface as the two parts are pressed together. Is there any record of similar components mated by shrinking, by freezing, the axle before it is inserted into the hub of the possibly warmed wheel? As for the baffle plates, one wonders whether they might have survived if dished and welded only on the concave side.
L.W. Taylor (189) said the object of the Research Department at London Road, Derby, so far as he was aware was to improve locomotive serviceability. There was regrettably one aspect which had been mentioned regarding a particular type of locomotive which was directly affected by what seemed to be an unnecessary defect. He referred to the split water tanks on Type “4” diesel locomotives on the Midland Lines. The availability in the Derby district of Type “4” locomotives was about 82 per cent, but he suggested that it would have been 6 per cent better but for split water tanks. They had had split tanks on this particular type of locomotive for about 8 to 12 months and 6 per cent were stopped today because of them. It appeared to motive power staff that not enough had been done, and if it were being done it was not being done quickly enough. All that had been done as far as he knew was that the welding had been thickened or cracks were being welded over, and now they were having further splitting on locomotives that had already been out of service for long periods of time for the same defect. This particular tank was hung on four brackets which were not, so far as he could see, jig welded to the chassis; they were welded to a particular point. The brackets which were welded to the tanks were not jigged and the tank was put up to the pick-up points on the structure. The fitter then bolted the two parts together and in all probability induced static stresses into the tank, even whilst the locomotive was not running.
Why could not something be done such as inserting a flexible rubbensed connection between the two? Would that have the effect of reducing creep through from the structure into the tank of vibrations of the engine or from the track, and in any event cutting out the possible stresses put in by the artisan attaching the tank? This particular tank had six or seven connections of various sizes-water in and water out, all of which were all-welded connections from the upper structure. Various sizes and various shaped pads were welded at irregular points along the tank, adding further stresses to the tank assembly. Why not have some flexibility between the structure and the tank, also between the tank and various piped connections, all with the extremely important aspect of improving locomotive availability?

Journal No. 299

Collingwood, G. [Presidential Address]
The advancement of the science and practice of locomotive engineering. 224-46. 12 illus.
Author was Chairman of the Vulcan Foundry and began with a historical introduction which noted that with the notable exception of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (which constructed locomotives in its own workshops at Shildon) early locomotives were supplied by independent builders. It was only in the 1840s that railway companies started to construct locomotives: the Liverpool & Manchester at Edge Hill from 1841; the Hull Works of he Hull & Selby Railway in 1842; Nine Elms in 1843; Cowlairs in 1844; Crewe in 1845 and Swindon in 1846. Then quotes from Gooch's Diaries to note how he had been an apprentice under Charles Tayleur at the Vulcan Foundry, Willans & Robinson mobile generating sets; Midland Railway “Paget” locomotive which was inspired by the installation of Willans high speed engines at Derby Works, turbine locomotives including he collaboration between, Stanier and Sir Henry Guy on the LMS turbine locomotive (cites Bond's paper (No. 458)), roller bearings (first applied to bogie freight wagons on the Eastern Bengal Railway: see Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs, 1908, 171, 227), English Electric diesel-electric railcar “Bluebird” of 1933, GT3 (gas turbine locomotive), rubber suspension, notably the contribution of W.G. Craig paper Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1857, 4, 45 (who used Moulton's Prepared India Rubber), several drawings at Swindon and the 9ft singles.

Sahai, P. (Paper No. 656)
Some aspects of diesel and electric traction on Indian Railways. 258-68. Disc.: 268-72.
At the time diesel traction was relatively new, but soon enough for nine major faults to be listed: turbo-superchargers, cylinder head cracking, leakage of coolant due to failure of neoprene seals, breakage of tee pipes at exhaust manifolds, leakage of oil seals, cylinder liners (chromium plating), cracking of centre pivot castings, traction motor roller bearings, and traction motor armature shaft pinions. Heavy electric locomotives also experienced a wided range of faults: 12 are listed, the first being rapid wear of contact wire and grooving of the pantograph contact strips (mainly from the exhusts from steam and diesel traction).

Journal No. 300

Ware, J.C. (Paper No. 657)
Ventilation and heating of railway carriages. 298-327.
Ordinary General Meeting held at Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, SWl, on Monday 19 October 1964, at 17.30. G. Collingwood, , President, was in the Chair.

Mohan, Chandra (Paper No. 658)
Vacuum braking of heavy freight trains on the broad gauge, Indian Railways. 328-65.
Inaugural Meeting of the Lucknow Branch of the Indian Centre A meeting of the Lucknow Branch of the Indian Centre was held in Lucknow on 31October 1964: Mr. R. Krishnamurti, Chairman, .
Indian Railways today were the largest system in the world using the vacuum brake, the system having been adopted after detailed trials in 1889. Fitting of vacuum brake equipment was also made obligatory on broad-gauge freight stock in the early years of the 20th century. Despite this good beginning, vacuum brake equipment itself had not undergone any change, with the equipment in use today remaining practically the same as in the 1920s.

Journal No.301

Koster, J.P.
Development of railway technique and operation [Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture]. 379-404. 15 illus.
Ordinary General Meeting held at Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, on Monday 8 March 1965: Mr. G . Collingwood, President in the Chair. The Chairman said that the Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture founded in memoT of a former President of the Institution and an engineer of world-wide eminence was regarded as a very special occasion for the Institution.
Lecturer was President of the O.R.E. and Managing Director of the Netherlands Railway Company. For many years before his appointment as Managing Director of the Netherlands Railway Company in 1958, Mr. Koster was Chief Engineer of the Netherlands Railway Company in charge of the workshops and responsible for all rolling stock.
It is of no use thinking of building new railway lines to any extent as no railway administration will be able to and no government IS expected to be willing to bear the costs of new lines unless very important reasons may force them to do so.
Compared with road and canal a double-track railway is the cheapest to build, takes the smallest ground surface and has the largest transport capacity. To increase this capacity we must first find ways, starting from existing practice, to work up to the optimal use of tracks, stations and yards. This means that we must improve our technique of establishing time-tables and also improve our methods of control of operation

Ribbons, R.T. (Paper No. 659)
Recent developments in locomotives used by a heavy industry. 406-64. 20 illus., 3 diagrs.
Ordinary General Meeting held on Monday 16 November 1964 at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London: Mr. G. Collingwood, T.D., was in the Chair.
The Steel Company of Wales at Port Talbot had a railway system all of its own. With 39 diesel shunters and 126 miles of rail track it handled 315,000 tons of material each week. Described earlier in Paper No. 551.
Seventeen years have elapsed since the Company took delivery of its first diesel shunter. There followed four other basically different locomotive designs, each having its own good features and each its own problems. Thus an unusual opportunity existed for comparing the design of various shunting locomotives and for determining which features suited the working conditions best.
A very large number of modifications and design changes have been made to enable the locomotives to work more reliably and at lower maintenance costs. Some of the more recent developments which are described involve the use of new inventions and man-made materials not available when the locomotives were built. It is suggested that by adopting new ideas and materials, locomotive manufacturers can follow the lead given recently by motor car designers and produce loccmotives requiring only infrequent servicing or attention

Loach, J.C. (Paper No. 660)
A few permanent way matters of interest to rolling stock engineers. 465-90. 6 illus., 10 diagrs.
Ordinary General Meeting of the Midlands Centre held at Midland Hotel, Derby on 12 November 1964 at 19.00: Chair being taken by E.J. Wilson.
Figure 9 showed the rail damaged on the Western Region by a 2-cylinder 4-6-0 which had been reported for its very rough riding and, at the shed, it was suspected that “there was something wrong with its balance weights.” It was sent as a “light engine” to Swindon with a speed restriction of 25 m.p.h. Actually its speed rather exceeded 60 m.p.h. and Fig. 9 shows in what condition the rails were found afterwards: several miles of re-railing were necessary.  Wheel burn was caused by slipping.

Journal No. 302

Perry, P. (Paper No. 661)
Southern Region electric multiple unit stock maintenance. 499-540. 12 illus., 5 diagrs.
Ordinary General Meeting held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London on 14 December 1964 at 17.30: A.W. Manser (Vice-president) was in the Chair.
Deliberate policy of taking full advantage of the lasting power of robust, well designed, well made electrical and brake equipment to entail a minimum of expenditure on maintenance and then only to meet the proved needs of the equipment.

Wilkes, E.G.M.  (Paper No. 662)
The appearance and amenity design of rolling stock. 541-60. Disc.: 561-85. 16 illus.
Ordinary held 18 January 1965, at Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London: G. Collingwood, President, in the Chair. In the case of diesel locomotive cabs, full size mock-ups were made in a few early instances, by the manufacturers, but they were crude and only partly successful. In one case the mock-up was even panelled in sheet metal so that it defeated the whole object of the exercise. No mock-ups were made for the later locomotives and this fact, together with the distances separating the consultant designer’s offices from the manufacturer, made it difficult to attain the necessary refinement of detail or to supervise the engineer’s interpretation of the design.
The blue Pullman and the Glasgow Suburban Electric trains were among the first completely new carriage designs since the war and mock-ups played their part in the success of both. The manufacturers of the Glasgow train, with a background of motor industry methods, went to the extreme of producing three mock-up carriages (one of each type) complete in every detail. All the development work of interiors and exteriors was based on these mock-ups and their value was firmly established.
The third completely new train was the XP.64, and on this occasion the industrial designers themselves made full-size mock-ups of first and second class compartments, a second class open saloon, and a toilet and entrance vestibule. It so happened that they, too, were familiar with the motor industry and had been in the habit of making mock-ups of their own designs for many years, and thus the techniques were understood and the facilities available. On completion the drawings and mock-ups were sent to the British Railways Works at Derby who engineered and constructed the actual train. The carriage designs for the XP.64 were intended for standard main line locomotive-hauled stock, and right from the start the designers avoided unnecessary variations of major components. Thus it was realised that the tooling costs for the second class glass fibre seats would only be justified if all mouldings were identical. All body shells, windows, and doors are standard and only three types of ash tray are used-a wall-mounted version, and narrow and wide armrest versions. It was also considered highly desirable to reduce the types of passenger carriage and concentrate on comfort and amenities. Passenger requirements for any given type of train are fairly consistent and clever use of materials, colour, and finishes can give ample visual variation.

Burley, W. (Paper No. 663)
Impressions on the new Tokaido Line, Japanese National Railways. 585-95. 7 illus., diagr.
Ordinary General Meeting of the Scottish Centre held at St. Enoch Hotel, Glasgow on 16 December 1964, Chair being taken by H.J. Arbuthnott.