Talk:Locomotives of the Midland Railway

Attribution of locos to designers

There seems to be some inconsistency here. Midland Railway Class 3F 0-6-0 has been attributed to Fowler. Fowler did rebuild them but they were introduced by Johnson so I think they should be attributed to him. What do others think? Biscuittin 16:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Johnson's original 0-6-0 engines (built 1875-1902) had a B class boiler, 4'1" diameter with round-top firebox; the pressure was originally 140 lb/in² but later engines were 150 lb/in². These were later classified 2F, and their 1907 numbers were 2900-3764.

The first MR locos to fall within what was later known as the 3F classification were Johnson's "2736" class of 1903 ("3765" class after 1907). The crucial change from the earlier locos was the use of a larger boiler of higher pressure (4'8" diameter, 175 lb/in²). Deeley did not arrive until 1905 so Johnson must get the credit.

Johnson's "2736" class used the H class boiler, and Deeley continued to use this for new construction until no. 284 in 1906 (later no. 3814). For the 3815-34 batch in 1908, he used the H1 class boiler (designed for the "Flatiron" 0-6-4T), although this differed little from the H boiler - it had 242 tubes instead of 258.

Deeley's rebuilds of various engines in the 3130-3764 block from 2F to 3F used the round-top 4'8" boiler (H, H1 or HX).

Fowler's superheated 0-6-0 (class 4F) arrived in 1911; this had a Belpaire firebox (G7s boiler), but earlier locos did not begin to receive Belpaire boilers until 1916. These were of two sizes: the G6 boiler was 4'1" diameter, the G7 was 4'8" diameter. The use of the Belpaire firebox (G6 and G7) instead of round-top (B, H and H1) did not affect the classification, although it is true to say that most 2Fs had a round top firebox, and most 3Fs ended up with a Belpaire firebox. These Belpaire rebuilds were all saturated, with three exceptions: 3792, 3806/28 were given the superheated G7s boiler in 1922-3, but reverted to saturated (G7) in 1928-9.

So, although Fowler introduced the Belpaire firebox to the Midland, he didn't introduce class 3F. I'd go with Johnson. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:17, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you have any refs for this, because if it's to go into the articles, they'll be needed. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:41, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

True, which is why I've confined it to the talk page. That lot is mostly from notes I've made over the last 30 years on A4 paper. Unfortunately I didn't record my sources, except for Baxter's "British Locomotive Catalogue", a copy of which I do have somewhere. I don't think that book covers everything though. I seem to recall a title "Derby Works and Midland Locomotives", don't remember the author. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:25, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

That page Midland Railway Class 3F 0-6-0 is wrong; Go with the engineering classifications rather than the power classifications. 6 coupled freight engines of the Midland are bloody complicated and it takes a lot of reading and understanding to appreciate them properly. If you try to write an article without understanding them, you'll just create a mess. Tony May (talk) 23:40, 21 March 2011 (UTC)