A (stupid?) question about locomotives.

[Anonymous]

Greetings from Australia.  This may be an idiotic question, but I'm a newbie.  It's something I noticed long ago and have always wondered why.  English locomotives, particularly the old LNER and GWR designs of the 1920s and 1930s almost always presented a very plain, "uncluttered" side view, while US locos were festooned with pipes and various equipment.  Continental European locos were usually somewhere in between.  By the way, I am not referring to the "streamliners" but to the ordinary run of main line locos. Why was this so?

A few facts about railways in Queensland, the state where I was born and raised.  My Dad was a roster clerk in the Queensland Government Railways, he sent out notices to drivers and firemen, that was up to about mid 1960, he was promoted to other positions after that.  The Queensland system is the largest narrow gauge one in the world, gauge is 3'6" or 1067mm.  Probably their greatest revenue now comes from coal hauling on lines leading to Gladstone and Mackay which are big coal loading ports.  Most of these lines are electrified, as is the approximately 700km (440 miles) from state capital Brisbane to Rockhampton.    

 

[jchnhtfd]

There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers -- and I hope this isn't one!

There are probably lots of reasons for the difference you have noted, but one of the major ones was the US/Canadian practice of buying accessory equipment from various 'outside' manufacturers and specifying that it be used on their engines -- and then requiring that it all be easily accessible for maintenance.  In general, the British designs didn't do this; first, there was usually less accessory equipment and second the designs were more integrated (not necessarily better, just different).  Some US/Canadian engines were very clean indeed in appearance.  They were also maintenance bears, since you couldn't get at anything without taking off a few tons of shroud first; they weren't popular.

[cabbage]

No. it is not a stupid question. It is actually one of the most significant identifications of a UK built engine. The reason that there is very little external plumbing -has to do with the number of workshops and skilled fitters that abounded in the UK during the early part of the 20th century / late 19th century. The type of valve gear used during this period is also significant. Towards the end of the Victorian era and early Edwardian era the Joy radial valve gear was quite common as was the Stephensons link motion.

BOTH of these normally operate using internal cylinders and thus the motion would be hidden between the frames. Later (post 1910) Walschaerts valve gear became more common (especially on GWR locos). The american Baker valve gear was never used on any UK domestic locomotive -but was fitted to NZ bound J class locos made by North British Locomotive Co. Messrs Beyer Peacock fitted ONLY Walschaerts and their designs were so standardised that it still possible to have a loco made for Malta as a source of spare parts for loco running in the Isle of Mann. During the period of the Rhodesian Sanctions parts from EAR + SAR garratts "found their way" onto Rhodesia Rail garratts....

UK locos are uncluttered because they were normally made by the railway company that ran them -they were items of pride. In the cut throat world of UK railway life the pretty engines got more customers...

The railway company design teams also tended to be very conservative -thus you can tell a Derby, Doncaster, Crewe or Swindon built locomotive... The european continental railway companies normally made and bought their locomotives, (often as "kits"), thus there is a great "Family" look about them. No-one knows how many designs Henschel und Sohn produced -but the look of them is distinctive. Only MAV (Hungarian state railway) produced its own locos to its own (very perculier!) designs in any large number.

The construction methods used by english companies differed from their US and European counterparts. The UK used a solid pair of plate frames -while the US and Europeans, (Germany especially), made fabricated bar frames. These were lighter but didn't have the space that was available for mounting all the acoutrements on -hence in the German case they mounted everything on the boiler.

This system makes a UK sourced loco easy to identify -even a RENFE or Angentinian loco shows the UK builders style.

A good question to ask!!!

regards

ralph

[cprted]

I am no expert an British/European steam locomotives so I could be dead wrong in everything I am about to say. Here goes anyway.

Along with everything else already mentioned, I think locomotives in the UK had a lot less appliances, regardless of where they were mounted. As far as I know, no UK locomotives had air pumps (trains used vacuum brakes), feedwater heaters, and only a few had feedwater pumps. Having these appliances and all the associated plumbing and such, made non-streamlined North American locomotives much more cluttered.

The advantage to having plumbing and appliances in easy to get at places (ie not underneath the cladding or between the frame) makes maintenance and servicing a lot easier because you don't have to take the darn thing apart every time something breaks.

[cabbage]

Depending on which railway company you were travelling with -you had either Westinghouse air brakes or vacuum brakes. At several large railway stations, (York and Carlisle Citadel especially), there were shunting engines fitted with BOTH sets -the Westinghouse connections were SQUARE and the the Vacuum connections ROUND. The Great Central was famous for having BOTH sets on its locos -also steam brakes. The locos would toot twice before braking to give everyone a chance to grab things that might fly off -such as cigars and brandy!!!

Feedwater heaters on UK engines did exist, again it depended on the company building them, but most boilers were steam injected with water -not pumped.

regards

ralph

[wjstix]

With shorter trains etc. they really didn't need the later additions. Most US steam engines built c.1910 were pretty clean, but as each technological advance came along, the RR added them wherever they could. If you can find a pic of a Duluth and Iron Range 2-8-2 from pre-WW1 and compare it to it's final Duluth Missabe and Iron Range incarnation c.1960, it's pretty astonishing all the stuff that was added!!

Another factor might just be size - UK railways were built in the 1830's-60's, so later equipment had to be able to fit thru the tunnels etc. built then too. In the US, we could just make things bigger (especially in the West) and not worry about size so much.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the replies.   The locomotives I grew up near did not have quite the "classic" profiles presented by the English ones.  Here are a few of them

 http://rides.webshots.com/album/49652372bTJfOR

If one of them looks American, that is because it is actually Baldwin built.   The "Australian Standard Garratt" introduced in the 1940s was not a great success I read, but the later Beyer-Garratt was supposed to be.   A 1952 promotional film from Beyer-Peacock for their Garratts.  Runs 16 minutes or so.

YouTube - Beyer Garratt Locomotives Round The World - Queensland.

That is right in my old stamping ground, though I was all of 3 years old when the film was made.   

That was then, this is now.  Things on the central railway are rather different now.  Electrified Emerald to Rockhampton,  the coal trains use three to five locos, Diesel or electric depending on the mine. This video is not on the central line but the full train came from there, heading for Gladstone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK82DwZnvfI 

Ken