Gresley K3 vs Hughes Crab

[Mickey]

You are knowledgeable on steam locomotive affairs Hatfield Shed but I only acquire my knowledge regarding steam locos in particular by watching railway dvds. With regards to the BIG GARRETTS (as I call them) I was watching a dvd on the Midland railway and from what I remember about the dvd was that those big Garretts were put to use on the Midland on coal trains from Toton yard down to Cricklewood in north London and I believe they were relatively successful but they weren't a total success often 'running hot' (axle boxes) and the cracking of the locos main frames were another feature so when the B.R.9F 2-10-0s appeared they took over from the Garretts and were a lot better locos although they had a shorter life span.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey&Hatfield,the Garretts were a success worldwide,&labour cheap in those countries,most overseas locos had two(2)fireman or were oil burning,the LMS(derby)were warned of the fitting of the 4F style axleboxes by the Gorton company which led to most failures, the frames possibly noticed @ works overhaul?a nightmare for the fireman to work, life made easier by the revolving coal bunker on some class members, but no 9F could ever match the number of wagons in tow by them up or down on the Toton to Brent mineral workings,the LNER Garrett only had the one fireman like the LMS variant & needed two(2) O1's to do the same work,with quite a few fireman ringing in sick after finding out they were rostered on for the Worsborough Banker job with the Garrett not much fun &exhausting work & then home to bed &"no dancing that night sally" in the Railwaymen's working club I would think!,the oil burning conversion proving highly unsuccesful,& I think 69999 offered to the Midland for Lickey banking.

[Mickey]

Hi Mickey&Hatfield,the Garretts were a success worldwide,&labour cheap in those countries,most overseas locos had two(2)fireman or were oil burning,the LMS(derby)were warned of the fitting of the 4F style axleboxes by the Gorton company which led to most failures, the frames possibly noticed @ works overhaul?a nightmare for the fireman to work, life made easier by the revolving coal bunker on some class members, but no 9F could ever match the number of wagons in tow by them up or down on the Toton to Brent mineral workings,the LNER Garrett only had the one fireman like the LMS variant & needed two(2) O1's to do the same work,with quite a few fireman ringing in sick after finding out they were rostered on for the Worsborough Banker job with the Garrett not much fun &exhausting work & then home to bed &"no dancing that night sally" in the Railwaymen's working club I would think!,the oil burning conversion proving highly unsuccesful,& I think 69999 offered to the Midland for Lickey banking.

Classic stuff jj I like the thought of 'firemen ringing in sick if they were rostered on the Worsborough banker' that's a laugh ha ha ha... I have seen amateur film footage from the early 1960s shot on the 1-37 Lickey Incline and sometimes it is actually torture watching a slow moving 40-50 wagon goods train usually hauled either by a Black 5 or a Hughes 'Crab' and being pushed in the rear by a B.R.9F 2-10-0 up the hill from Bromsgrove to Blackwell at a walking pace it's actually painful to watch!!.

The thing is you never saw any 'fat firemen' in any photographs from the steam days even during the final few years of steam until 1968 it kept a man fit shovelling 5-6 tons of coal a day as well as the other associated manual jobs with being a railway fireman.

I read a few years ago about the Midland Railways 'small engine policy' ends up turning out the 0-10-0 'BIG BERTHA' for the Lickey banking jobs which was the BIGGEST steam loco the Midland Railway ever turned being built at Derby I believe?.

[Hatfield Shed]

Hi Mickey&Hatfield,the Garratts were a success worldwide,&labour cheap in those countries,most overseas locos had two(2)fireman ...

They certainly were. I have footplated one going up the Vic falls escarpment in Zimbabwe, 3'6" gauge but as large as the LNER's U1. That's a longer haul up a 1 in 39 than the Lickey and she went up at a steady 15mph with a long train behind, bogie tank car as water bowser, ten Pullman style coaches and then a couple of dozen empty bogie wagons. The two firemen worked continuously, and it was something to watch any small coal being drawn off the shovel by the draw through the firehole. Full regulator except when checking some slight slipping, and about half the gear, injector on all the way up and a three quarter full glass was maintained, and a pale grey smoke throughout, real textbook stuff. (A distribution of 50 Zim dollars at the top was greeted with great joy. At the official exchange rate at the time that was £4.)

[John Palmer]

What a great memory to have! And what a testament to the design that the combination of such a load and such a gradient were still not enough to 'beat the boiler'! An uncle of mine, who started his railway career on the GWR before emigrating to Africa to work on East African Railways, was always highly complimentary when speaking of the Garretts.

Even though there were aspects of its design that were open to criticism, the Midland's Lickey banker must surely also be treated as a success, insofar as it fulfilled the task for which it was built for some 36 years and accumulated a mileage of nearly 840,00 in so doing. An unusual feature was the fitting of two crank axles to the locomotive. Drive from the two inside cylinders was to the middle (i.e. third) axle, but the second axle also had to be cranked in order to provide clearance for the internal connecting rods.

[Hatfield Shed]

... And what a testament to the design that the combination of such a load and such a gradient were still not enough to 'beat the boiler'! ...

The senior driver (who was probably nearer 60 than 50 and much older than the driver - I think in the UK he would have been ranked as a footplate inspector) told me that with a good thin and hot fire, and the glass nearly full ahead of the climb there was no difficulty provided that rail adhesion was good, a steady speed was maintained and the coal was distributed little and often around the whole firebed; and that last was what he watched and instructed on the whole way up with two very young firemen. He told me that in torrential rain it would have been a very different story, about half the speed and lots of slipping from the leading engine, which would need to be checked. For those conditions they would have switched to diesel traction.