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Nostalgia

Bazzzer said:
I think the K1s were OK, and the O1 rebuilds of the O4s. The Gresley P2s were too long for the curved Scottish route they were put on. Unfortunately the A2s they were rebuilt to had poor adhesion, and I remember two of them having great difficulty starting from Plat 6 on successive Sundays in 1959. It seemed as if Mons Meg 60504 would never get away, but it did eventually.
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In English?
 
60501 to 60506 were the Thompson A2/2's and all 6 had been scrapped by 1961.
Not sure if that was due to the problem mentioned by Bazzer.
When the Lincoln-Grantham line was used because of maintenance we used to take a football and go and spot between Coleby and Boothby Graffoe on the back straight of the long gone Blankney Hunt point to point racecourse, so we only saw the engines at speed.
 
Bazzzer said:
I think the K1s were OK, and the O1 rebuilds of the O4s. The Gresley P2s were too long for the curved Scottish route they were put on. Unfortunately the A2s they were rebuilt to had poor adhesion, and I remember two of them having great difficulty starting from Plat 6 on successive Sundays in 1959. It seemed as if Mons Meg 60504 would never get away, but it did eventually.
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Tbh I was never a fan of Edward Thompson I read an interesting article once that when Gresley died suddenly it was assumed that Peppercorn would become the new chief mechanical engineer for the LNER because he was very much a pupil and admirer of Gresley but his unassuming nature and modesty and the fact that Thompson was completely the opposite plus he had some high up connections meant that he was named chief engineer.

Thompson was apparently a very difficult character and very domineering and there are many accounts that he was difficult to work for and unpopular. Thompson just seemed determined to undo many of Gresley's good works and as Merthyr said the K1's were largely redesigned by Peppercorn before they went into service. I have no problem in saying the B1's are a great loco but to me that is Thompson's only real contributon to the LNER.

Look at AH Peppercorn's legacy the magnificent A1's and A2's which were beautiful modernisations of the legendary A3's and A4's.

I always think it a travesty that there aren't more mainline LNER loco's persevered. I know we have 6 A4's but just one A2 "Blue Peter" and one A3 " Flying Scotsman" is tragic! Unbelievable that no A1's survived and but absolutely brilliant that we now have 60163 Tornado!

Unfortunately steam was gone from BR by the time I was born.
 
Casperimp said:
Tbh I was never a fan of Edward Thompson I read an interesting article once that when Gresley died suddenly it was assumed that Peppercorn would become the new chief mechanical engineer for the LNER because he was very much a pupil and admirer of Gresley ...
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I'm not intending to be an apologist for Thompson but ...

Gresley seemed to be obsessed with 3-cylinder locos for almost all purposes, which meant there were more things to go wrong. As well as the obvious Pacifics (and W1 4-6-4), there were K3 2-6-0, V2 2-6-2, O2 2-8-0, V1 and V3 2-6-2T, K4 2-6-2, V4 2-6-2, B17 4-6-0.

I imagine with the lack of regular maintenance in wartime (Gresley died in 1941), the added complexity and inaccessibility of that third cylinder could well have led his successor to want something simpler (and cheaper).

On the LMS and GWR new locos at that time were all 2 cylinder, the WD locos built during the war had 2 cylinders, as did the BR Standard locos.
 
Casperimp said:
I have no problem in saying the B1's are a great loco but to me that is Thompson's only real contributon to the LNER.
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I think it's been said that if anyone with no knowledge of steam locomotives (mentioning no names!) was asked to draw one it would look like a B1.
 
Merthyr Imp said:
I think it's been said that if anyone with no knowledge of steam locomotives (mentioning no names!) was asked to draw one it would look like a B1.
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Yes I think they would.
In my youth I used to volunteer on The Great Central Railway at Loughborough ( I still have my membership to this day) and during that time Mayflower was one of the mainstays of the steam services. Then as now she was painted in LNER green and looked every bit the quintessential steam locomotive.
 
Casperimp said:
Yes I think they would.
In my youth I used to volunteer on The Great Central Railway at Loughborough ( I still have my membership to this day) and during that time Mayflower was one of the mainstays of the steam services. Then as now she was painted in LNER green and looked every bit the quintessential steam locomotive.
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Pistons pumping away. Engines powering through tunnels.
 
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