The LNER Encyclopedia

Hi

So I must confess to my mind wandering during a very dull presentation today. It wandered to the thoughts of what if THompson never happened and supposed that Peppercorn had gone straight in after Gresley's death.

There were a few main themes I thought we could discuss here:

What would Peppercorn have done about the P2's north of the border? would he have rebuilt them as Pacifics or built new more powerful locos along the lines of 4 cylinders, duchess style.

Would Peppercorn have designed a mixed traffic loco like the B1, or built more V4's? and would that have actually left the LNER/BR worse off considering the success of the B1's.

Would he have preserved A1 Great Northern to protect it from rebuilding and to preserve Gresley's design and would that have meant no preservation for 4472 Flying Scotsman (or would BR have done it)?

What would he have done to resolve the LNER loco shortage post ww2? Would he have persevered with diesels sooner and at more length so the J45's would have been more common?

Or would there have been more of the ex WD locos j94's and the 2-8-0's and 2-10-0's?

How many more of the Peppercorn A1's and A2's would there have been?

Would all this money have been better spent on the infrastructure of the railway so that the existing locos could be better maintained and run on better track so pulling more trains more often to keep up with increased demands in the post ww2 economy?

I know this is all conjecture but I am interested to know what everyone thinks...

CVR1865 wrote:Hi

So I must confess to my mind wandering during a very dull presentation today. It wandered to the thoughts of what if THompson never happened .

The GE would have been a mess.

CVR1865 wrote:Hi

So I must confess to my mind wandering during a very dull presentation today. It wandered to the thoughts of what if THompson never happened and supposed that Peppercorn had gone straight in after Gresley's death.

There were a few main themes I thought we could discuss here:

What would Peppercorn have done about the P2's north of the border? would he have rebuilt them as Pacifics or built new more powerful locos along the lines of 4 cylinders, duchess style.

They would have been left in some siding as their crank axles broke (again) and then quietly scrapped after the war.

The GE would have been a mess.[/quote]

Supremely simplistic, I'm afraid - just listen to somebody like Richard Hardy or read Gerry Fiennes on the problems at Stratford, for instance, and I think you will readily realise the GE would have been in a mess, whoever was CME. Have just read the latest biography of Ned Thompson and don't think he was quite the villain he was made out to be, however

what were the problems on the GE? and what did thompson do?

Thompson inherited a legacy from Gresley that needed tip top maintenance. Prevailing wartime and post war conditions precluded that, so a building programme of utility locomotives had to be introduced and i think Mr T supplied the LNER with at least two classes that were actually needed and another nearly class that with a bit of work could have been developed further.
The B1 4-6-0s and the K1 2-6-0s filled an important gap and allowed many life expired classes to be withdrawn and the L1 tanks with a bit of development could have been much improved. The thing about these three classes was the amount of parts that were standard and interchangeable. I think the BRB would have been better advised to allow the K1s to grow to a class of about 100 locomotives and forget about building the standard 2-6-0 of the 77xxx class.
Of course Pep had a hand in the designs especially of the K1 but i think Mr T laid down the basics pretty well.
I have a pretty open mind on the Thompson Peppercorn debate and like discussing the merits and drawbacks that they had.

52D,
I agree with your sentiments. The state of the LNER post ww2 was pretty dire, the complex nature of the Gresley designs had really suffered in the war and there was a real need for something.

This is why I wonder at the problems mentioned at Stratford as they had inherited form the GE a lot of standardisation in comparison with other areas.

CVR1865 One of things i thought about was why didnt Gresley make some sort of effort to integrate certain GER & NER classes that shared the same Wordsell parentage sort of rebuilding J15 and J21 into one class and the 2-4-2s into another class this would have made sense at Darlington and Stratford and made sourcing of spares a lot easier. This could have happened before the J39s and a few more of this simple and easy to maintain class would have been useful.

52D wrote:CVR1865 One of things i thought about was why didnt Gresley make some sort of effort to integrate certain GER & NER classes that shared the same Wordsell parentage sort of rebuilding J15 and J21 into one class and the 2-4-2s into another class this would have made sense at Darlington and Stratford and made sourcing of spares a lot easier. This could have happened before the J39s and a few more of this simple and easy to maintain class would have been useful.

Because the LNER was never an integrated company. It was always run as five almost separate railways.

CVR1865 wrote:what were the problems on the GE? and what did thompson do?

I chose Stratford as an example of where, at the end of the war, things were particularly awful in a key GE location - shortage of men, materials, clapped out engines etc. and precious little better nationally. In referring to Thompson's alleged villainy, this is the usual charge levelled at him in respect of his alleged determination to undo all the good works of Gresley, a claim which doesn't stand much scrutiny. At Stratford, indeed, Thompson did a lot of good when he rebuilt the B12s and made a good engine even better. Gresley was a great man and I think he would have had to adapt his designs to wartime conditions if he had carried on.

My real interest of inquiry is the strategy of the LNER post ww2 without Thompson on the board. I realise the failings of a thompson bashing rant and in many ways that is too easy.

I just wondered what people would think the board and Peppercorn would have done in the circumstances given to Thompson.

I would think Peppercorn would have adapted designs, assuming there were the materials and workshop capacity, to take account of the vastly changed conditions in which the railways found themselves. Not sure he would have gone for 2 cylinder locos, but certainly conjugated valve gear would not be found in his designs and simplification would have been order of the day. After all, didn't somebody once say that his A1s were the sort of locos Gresley would have designed if he still been in office? Thompson's new biography (Oakwood Press) by Peter Grafton is well worth reading to get the measure of the man. The blurb for which says:

"Let the facts speak for themselves: of the locomotive work carried out whilst Thompson was chief mechanical engineer, 20 Gresley engines were rebuilt and four more modified from Gresley designs. Furthermore he did not make radical changes to the Gresley Pacifics and he continued with the ‘V2’ building programme until 1943. Is this the work of a man determined to be rid of Gresley? Nor must it be forgotten that Thompson also rebuilt several locomotives of both Robinson and Raven designs, but as far as can be ascertained, no one has sprung to their defence or accused him of trying to deface the image of these two engineers."

As you say CVR1865, many people who didn't know differently have written unfair things about Thompson, even if he was a completely different character to Gresley and, probably, Peppercorn.

I think the really interesting question here is what alternatives were there to Edward Thompson becoming CME in 1941. I understand, at the time of his death, that there were no plans for a successor to Gresley and it was expected that he would work on until the age of 70 (1946). It seems likely therefore that the mantle would have passed directly to Arthur Peppercorn at that time as Thompson reached the age of 65 in 1946 and therefore retirement.

I also understand that Ronald Matthews asked the LMS whether they could release Roland Bond and also an an approach was made to the Southern for Oliver Bulleid. Both of these moves being made prior to Thompson's appointment. If this is true it perhaps betrays a certain lack of confidence in Thompson's abilities?

The mind boggles over what OVSB would have got up to if he'd got his hands on the Doncaster Drawing Office!

At a risk of going off topic somewhat i too would love to know what legacy Bulleid as LNER CME would have left.

Regarding the post of hq1hitchin for 16 January, Edward Thompson did not rebuild the B12's. Nigel Gresley did this rebuilding of the B12's in the 1930's. Mr Thompson rebuilt a few of the B17's into B2's, giving them two outside cylinders instead of the the three cylinders of the B17's. This rebuilding made the B2's generally similar in appearance to the B1's. This rebuilding of the B17's may be what hq1hitchin had in mind.

Edward Thomson was a mechanical engineering graduate of Cambridge University. He was, therefore, a different kind of engineer compared with all the other railway mechanical engineers of his time. A characteristic of all the Cambridge-trained mechanical engineers that I have known is an air of supreme confidence, that can be misunderstood as arrogance. This may be why Edward Thompson has been regarded unfavourably over the years. I am not sure whether attending Cambridge makes highly confident engineers or whether only very confident people want to go to Cambridge in the first place. It could also be that the University authorities only accept confident people for their engineering courses. One thing is certain, and that is that Cambridge-trained engineers end up in most of the top jobs in the United Kingdom. I sometimes wish that I had gone to Cambridge instead of KCL, but there again, there have been many KCL engineers in top jobs too. Being a Londoner, I did not want to leave London and my girl-friend at that time in my life.

Sir Brian