David Hey's Collection Memories of BR Steam Days

This makes me think that my unfavorable comparison of British steam to North American steam in the 20th Century was the result of my lack of knowlidge. You see an awful lot of modern steam power here.
http://www.davidheyscollection.com/index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Would you care to elaborate on your (former) "unfavorable comparison" in case any of us can help with information?

My impression was that most trains in Britain in the 20th Century were pulled by comparatively smaller locomotives, tank engines. This video shows rather large tank engines however
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9f-QWLHm7k" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
Here are photos of a Southern Pacific cab forward and a Pennsylvania Railroad K4s for comparison with British Rail.

Ah, I see. Tank engines were used extensively on small branch lines, and there were indeed many of these until the Beeching cuts. But mainline passenger engines, particularly from the 1920s onwards, were relatively large and fast Pacific and 4-6-0 types. Goods (freight) engines varied in size up to the 2-10-0 9F at the end of the age of steam, with a brief flirtation with Garratts a few years earlier, but Britain never had anything on the scale of the huge US freight locos such as Big Boys and Challengers - there was no need. Britain did build a lot of very large Garratts for overseas railways.

Talking of large tank engines, I recently came across this photo of a Holden 0-10-0T tank engine, built for the commuter services out of east London which feature with different locos in the video you link to. Incidentally, this is where I grew up, travelling to secondary (high) school by train every day from 1966-72 between Ilford and Gidea Park on the Liverpool Street to Shenfield line. Sadly by then it was all electrified so I never saw steam on that line. We did see diesel traction on the occasional goods trains, often the distinctive but not very successful Class 15.

In the early 1900s, the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was threatened by the City & North Eastern Suburban Electric Railway - a scheme for an electric railway which would compete with the GER's lucrative commuter traffic. In order stop this proposal in Parliament, the GER's Management ordered James Holden to produce a locomotive that could compete with an electric railway. The locomotive had to accelerate a 300 ton train to 30mph in 30 seconds. The 0-10-0T No. 20 'Decapod' was Holden's response to this challenge. In tests, the Decapod appears to have met the acceleration goal, and the electric scheme was defeated. Source

johnthefireman wrote: Sadly ... I never saw steam on that line.

That's the benefit of being an old guy. I did see the K4s' in action. I'm an east coast guy so I never saw the cab forwards in the flesh.
The quote about the Holden Decapod speaks of "GER's lucrative commuter traffic." I'm not old enough to remember when commuter traffic was lucrative. I work on a commuter railroad and fares are sky high, (except by comparison with Amtrak,) and we need millions in subsidies in order to operate. We do have fine equipment.
That Holden decapod is a odd looking loco, (top photo,) with a Wooten firebox? Apparently it did the job. I guess after it defeated the electric railway scheme, it was no longer needed. Back to business as usual. Here's a Wiki article, which casts doubt on the supposed test results. Also, it's drivers were so close together would have required strengthening the lightly built GER bridges. After the tests in 1903 it was rebuilt as 0-8-0 goods engine, but was no better than the ones already on hand and was scrapped in 1913. Photo of the rebuilt engine below.
http://www.lner.info/co/GER/decapod/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GER_Class ... ebuilt_as0_(Boys%27_Book_of_Locomotives,_1907" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
The other Holden locomotive for the GER in John's quote, is a seven foot single, built in 1898 and scrapped in 1909. Oil burners, these ten singles were eventually converted to coal. Their "design was totally non-standard, and clearly based upon the 4-2-2s of the Midland and the Great Western Railways." Gooch designed the first GWR single in 1846. Trains got too heavy for them. Here's a Wiki on them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GER_Class ... 3_No10.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
For info on the Great Eastern Railway see this: http://www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php? ... mid=46#p43" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's an article on James Holden. Among other things, he built the first hostel for enginemen in London in 1890. In the US, railroad YMCAs served that function. Photo of James Holden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Holden_(locomotive_engineer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Philip:

My apologies for changing the subject but I found your comment regarding the "sky high" fair very accurate. I live in Red Bank and this past Saturday, I took my party of three into the city for the day. Rather than take the North Jersey Coast Line and pay a total fare of $96, I drove to Metropark and the total for the three of us was $64.50 (not including tolls, gas and station parking). I considered the difference big enough to warrant driving up to Metropark. Of course, you get the added benefit of more frequent service on the Northeast Corridor Line. That paid dividends coming home at night when we missed our NEC train but had to wait only 17 minutes until the next one whereas we would have had a full hour on our hands waiting for the next coast line train.

Now for a note back on the topic of BR steam, I've developed a real affinity for the LMS/BR "Black Five" and that has become my favorite British steam locomotive class. They remind me of our own GP7s and 9s in the sense that they are versatile enough to do almost anything asked of them.

Bob

Thanks Bob. I worked Bank tower a few times when there was one= the former Jersey Central strong arm. One time I was working there, and I lined a Bay Head train for the Southern Secondary. The engineer, Benny Eckman, took the signal, and when he saw that he was going wrong, backed right out, with out a word, earning my undying gratitude. The way the interlocking was set up, westbound to the Southern Secondary was normal.
Ordinarily I'd look up the "black five," but I have a personal problem now, that precludes railfanning.
Philip

My first extensive visit to the UK was in the spring of 1966, with the object of riding behind the last of the steam to Bournemouth and the first of the electrics from Euston. There were Black Fives everywhere there was still steam, including three in steam in the yard at Bournemouth at the same time. They seemed to be used for anything and everything, and I thought they were a very good-looking engine.

philipmartin wrote:Thanks Bob. I worked Bank tower a few times when there was one= the former Jersey Central strong arm. One time I was working there, and I lined a Bay Head train for the Southern Secondary. The engineer, Benny Eckman, took the signal, and when he saw that he was going wrong, backed right out, with out a word, earning my undying gratitude. The way the interlocking was set up, westbound to the Southern Secondary was normal.
Ordinarily I'd look up the "black five," but I have a personal problem now, that precludes railfanning.
Philip

Hi, Philip.

Thank you for sharing that interesting story from your days at BANK.

Regarding the Black Fives, the Wikipedia page is fairly informative and a good place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Stanier_Class_5_4-6-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Best regards,
Bob

[quote="Earle Baldwin"]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Stanier_Class_5_4-6-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thank you, Bob. I'll have a look. Selling tickets to groups of several people, I have occasionally seen them decide to drive to NY when they heard the price.
I think that the Stanier Black Fives are similar to Pennsy engines. The taper of the fire boxes and boilers are similar. The Pennsy copied European design, but the reverse also happened. K4s' dated from 1914 but Stanier's Bak Fives dates from 1937, if I read Wiki right, so it might be a case of Stanier copying Altoona. The K4s' and G5s, were not maids of all work, but primarily people movers. The G5s' were like the K4s, but shorter and 4-6-0s like the black fives.

philipmartin wrote:That's the benefit of being an old guy.

Well, fortunately I'm old enough to have seen a fair bit of steam, particularly on the west coast main line and around the north west of England, which was the last bastion of steam in UK, on frequent visits to my grandparents up north right up until 1968 when steam was finally phased out. Black Fives have been mentioned; I would have seen a lot of them. But by the time I went to grammar school in 1966 and started travelling daily on the old Great Eastern line out of Liverpool Street, unfortunately that line had already lost its steam interest.

Obviously, the "Big Boy", and others, were much bigger than typical steam locos in the UK. However, the UK had its grand locos also. A very large steam locomotive was designed for the Wath route, through Penistone, with heavy coal trains through the Woodhead tunnel to Manchester and other points east; I think it was designated the U1, which was replaced by electrification of that route later on. I wonder how that compared to the "Big Boy", in terms of size, horsepower, etc.. Sam

I Googled "British locomotive U1, and there is plenty of infornation on it, even a video of it running light. It's a custom made Garrett, a bit peculiar looking. Here's a Wiki link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_U1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, the U1 was a Garratt, the solitary example on the LNER. The LMS also had 33 Garratts. But Garratts never took off generally in the UK.

[quote="johnthefireman"]The LMS also had 33 Garratts. [/aquote]
It sounds like an extensive operation. Here's a Wiki link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Garra ... 224566.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Photo from Wiki: LMS 2-6-0+0-6-2 Garratt brings a long coal train up from Toton Yard to Brent Sidings (Cricklewood). Those freight cars are much smaller than North American. We have 100 ton hoppers. Those couplers, "hook and screw" I'll call them couldn't last on an American coal drag.