Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[auldreekie]

And a further reprise on the subject of the Poultney locomotive. It was patented in 1925 in several countries, including the UK. The sole licencees and makers were to be the Yorkshire Engine Co Ltd, and they put out a booklet on "The Poultney Patent Locomotive." Vernon also reproduces (if rather faintly) a broadside line-drawing of a standard gauge proposal using this patent -a 4-8-2+0-8-0. By adopting the photographic and stylistic lineaments of its broad gauge cousin along with the dimensions of the line drawing (which are just about readable from the print in Vernon's book), Atlantic might well find he had something to scare the pants off any Lincolnshire poacher. I wish I hadn't thought of that last bit...

Vernon also says that the YEC booklet had drawings of ten example locomotives and two tenders, so that might be worth pursuing in archival sources, of which the YECo archives are (or were until recent years) held by the Sheffield Archives.

auldreekie

[Saint Johnstoun]

Perchance Mr Robinson could have taken up the idea and this would have been the result.

LNER O5 with steam tender.doc

O5 steam tender

(108 KiB) Downloaded 147 times

[auldreekie]

Ye Gods.....

That and the Lincolnshire poacher would make a terrifyting double-head!

I wonder if Robinson's thoughts were inspired by the Poulteney patent debate (the timing might have been about right) ....

auldreekie

[Atlantic 3279]

Oddly enough, that 4-8-0 in the original picture that I posted is also a 5' 6" gauge beastie, a Yorkshire Engine Co / Babcock & Wilcox collaboration for Spain if the account I've read is correct. As I've been kindly shown by another party, there is possibly a survivor too, wearing an awful lot of hydrated ferrous oxide and two Yankee style boiler-top sandboxes, in outdoor "preservation" in Spain. Apparently it's a three cylinder loco too, so as we knew anyway Gresley & Raven were correct on the matter of how many cylinders a loco should have. The grate, wide at the rear and narrow at the front, to "suit poor quality coal" is a however a novelty I've not encontered before.

[auldreekie]

Your 4-8-0 looks and sounds like the ex Norte superheated 3-cylinder 4-8-0 of series 4301 to 4316, which Lawrence Marshall has as "built by Babcock and Wilcox 1923", and to which he ascribes "poor steaming qualities", so that they ended up dragging heavy coal trains in Galicia (L G Marshall "Steam on the RENFE" page 172). Interesting, given the rationale which you report for the trapezoidal plan of the firebox. That firebox shape is perfectly clear from Marshall's three-quarter view photograph

The YECo proposed broad gauge steam-tender 4-8-2+2-8-0 is portrayed as looking so closely like your 4-8-0 that it would appear very likely, the gauge being taken into account, that there wasa hope of selling the concept to the same Spanish customer. It's virtually impossible to tell from the published broadside viewside, but it would be reasonable to assume that a trapezoidal firebox was likely to have been adopted in that loco also. However, the line drawing in Vernon of the projected standard gauge 4-8-2 (also with steam tender) differs in a number of respects, and looks as if it was intended to have a round-topped broad rectangular-based firebox a la Gresley pacific.

The trapezoidal-plan firebox was a feature of several French locomotives notably the Chapelon pacifics. Good quality coal was, to say the least, not a characteristic feature of life on the French railways. Nevertheless, Chapelon managed to coax pretty miraculous results out of these and other machines.


auldreekie

[Atlantic 3279]

I'm thoroughly grateful to all who have contributed to solving that loco mystery. What I'm still slightly uncertain of, looking back through previous postings, is the Poultney wheel arrangement and the cylinder disposition under the tender. I presume the (mock up?) image that apparently exists definitely shows a 4-8-2 loco portion to this beast. Is the tender definitely eight-coupled (I think I saw a 6 in one previous post, possibly a typo error) plus a pony truck? Is the pony truck at the front/inner end of the tender, i.e. by the loco cab, or the outer end to suit reverse running? Also, are the cylinders for the tender near the front, where they would presumably have least trouble with cooling of steam supply and exhaust (but maybe some annoying tendancy to fill the cab with steam from the drain cocks) or are they at the rear/outer end of the tender?

[auldreekie]

Reply delayed whilst I dug out my copy of Tony Vernon's book.

The image does look like a works-grey photo, but it could be a very well-executed mockup (it would have convinced me) possibly using the works material for "your" ex-Norte 4-8-0. I shall have a further excavation in the not-very-likely hope that, if this machine existed in the flesh, my "information-system", such as it is, may have caught a glimpse of it..... Don't have high expectations.

The Poultney broad-gauge machine's wheel disposition is 2-8-2+0-8-0. That is, there is definitely NO pony truck on the tender, all of whose wheels are coupled. But there is a pair of carrying wheels on the loco chassis under the cab-front. That does not, of course, preclude the possibility of other versions of this machine having been planned.

The cylinders for the tender are near the front of it, directly beneath a "rearward-facing" supplementary cab, suggesting that routine backwards running may have been contemplated.

The Poultney standard-gauge dimensioned drawing answers your points the same as above, EXCEPT that the locomotive has a leading bogie, so that it represents a 4-8-2+0-8-0.

Hope this helps. One of any of these on the front of a rake of GC bogie coal wagons might be enough even to temporarily silence the Yorkshire wallet of another of your interlocutors.....

auldreekie

[auldreekie]

Two further thoughts.

1. You could'nt, could you, possibly be getting a wire crossed with the rebuilt "River Esk" and "River Mite" on the 15" gauge Ravenglass and Eskdale (which were also Poultney designs, I think, 2-8-2+0-8-0 and 4-6-0+0-6-4 respectively if memory has for once worked aright)?

2. If you really want to feast your imagination on a monster, Wiener (page 372) has an American proposal for a 2-6-6-2 Mallet with a a two bogie tender, of which the rear bogie is to be propelled by a rack steam engine.......

auldreekie

[Atlantic 3279]

That all clears up my doubts nicely thanks. I'll shall have to see if I can get a copy of the relevant book, or find another means of seeing the photo of the broad gauge Poultney.

I suspect the change from 4-8-0 for the YEC / Babcock / Norte 3 cylinder loco, to 2-8-2 for the otherwise similar Poultney may have been (at least partly) for the purposes of accommodating a larger grate and ashpan, if comments I've seen about the Norte's poor steaming are correct.

[auldreekie]

Ah. You posit a degree of rationality unsupported by decades of evidence.....

Drawn a complete blank in Spain on the steam-tender job. I suspect it never existed in the flesh. Which, M'lud, will be the cue for Perry Mason to come forward with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Mr Mason, the floor is yours.

(Hope none of your interlocutors is a Mr P Mason, who takes this the wrong way...)

auldreekie

[auldreekie]

I'd e-mail a pic of the page in Vernon, but the reproduction there of both locos is pretty poor. I fear it's a case of: with my photographic abilities and Lord Snowdon's forensic skills we all be up the well-known creek without the proverbial.

auldreekie

[Atlantic 3279]

Back to modelling, for a moment at any rate: Here's that resin "apron" replacement for the A4 body now painted up in matching black, and I've even managed not to gum up the pre-fitted sprung buffers with paint!

I won't reveal at this stage why the BR green body is sitting on a chassis with red wheels.

[mick b]

Post war version coming up ??

[S.A.C. Martin]

I suspect another W1 is in the works...

[davidwest]

I agree with Mick or possibly a 1948 - 50 liveried version?