BR Modernisation policies and subsequent investment

[coppercapped]

Without going into tedious detail about the rights and wrongs of steam versus diesel or kinds of classes introduced.

There must have been something seriously wrong when new BR standards flooded into say Mid Wales to run existing services , in the same timetable , with existing pre- war stock when the real exam question was "what does the railway need to do , to meet the new British economy post 1945. Fiennes was a genius - did a very good job on the Anglia area with the Shenfield and main line TT, good effort on local trains - abnd a fair crack at knocking out marshalling yards which were desired , but met no real purpose in a rapidly changing world with liberalised motor transport.

But then - look who ran the early BR ? - a load of superannuated military bods - whereas the pre war companies had good commercial managers who strove hard on limited funds for a better railway. Post war - the cash was largely wasted.

To certain extent I agree with you, but the first set of BTC and RE management weren’t so distant from the railways , but some of them were certainly not go-getting businessmen! The first Chairman of the BTC was Cyril Hurcomb, a civil servant who had helped formulate the Bill which became the Transport Act. The first Chairman of the Railway Executive was Sir Eustace Missenden, an ex-Southern Railway man. Hurcomb retired in 1953, his replacement was General Sir Brian Robertson. So there was only ever one military bod!

The performance of a business or indeed of any organisation is less dependent on ultimate ownership than it is on the objectives and incentives laid before the directors and the senior management. If these objectives and incentives are nebulous, ill-thought through or contradictory then the organisation will flounder. This was the case for all those industries nationalised by the 1947 Transport Act - the structure the Act set up could not set clear targets for its constituent businesses - and so began the railways’ long slide to being very nearly superfluous to modern life.


PS. I wouldn’t class Fiennes as a genius, but he might have appeared so in comparison with some of his peers! He was certainly a clear sighted manager who could analysis issues and reach conclusions and find solutions, communicate well and inspire his team. He was more go-getter than administrator - which is what made him so unusual in the BR of the time. I attended a couple of lectures he gave soon after he retired from BR - he was a very good, entertaining and informative speaker.

 

[ScottyStitch]

I realise I've come to this fascinating discussion late on, but I'm wondering: Regarding the OPs question about youthful steam engines being withdrawn after only ten years or so, would the Clean Air Act, in it's various iterations, have contributed to this at all?

Just throwing that out there.....

 

[ChiefPlanner]

To certain extent I agree with you, but the first set of BTC and RE management weren’t so distant from the railways , but some of them were certainly not go-getting businessmen! The first Chairman of the BTC was Cyril Hurcomb, a civil servant who had helped formulate the Bill which became the Transport Act. The first Chairman of the Railway Executive was Sir Eustace Missenden, an ex-Southern Railway man. Hurcomb retired in 1953, his replacement was General Sir Brian Robertson. So there was only ever one military bod!

There were a few others in fairly high places ! - Maj General Slim I believe who got lost in 222 allegedly trying to find the Officers Mess and amazingly was in charge of External Relations. No doubt they were looking for second careers after WW2 - and had man management experience all right.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
PS. I wouldn’t class Fiennes as a genius, but he might have appeared so in comparison with some of his peers! He was certainly a clear sighted manager who could analysis issues and reach conclusions and find solutions, communicate well and inspire his team. He was more go-getter than administrator - which is what made him so unusual in the BR of the time. I attended a couple of lectures he gave soon after he retired from BR - he was a very good, entertaining and informative speaker.

Lucky you to have met him ! - a good writer and a man with "passion" all right - a few old boys who knew him as young managers said he was very approachable to all. He had a good innings - shame he got on the wrong side of politicians.

 

[Taunton]

Rumour that Beeching hoped that Fiennes would follow him one day as BR Chairman. Would never have worked though. BR chairmen needed to be bum-lickers to politicians and civil servants. Fiennes couldn't have done that for a moment.

One of the issues of nationalisation was that it was seen by governments of the 1950s as a route to develop the railway supply industry, outside the BR workshops. These traditionally had a large base of work for overseas railways, principally Commonwealth ones, but a lesser contribution to the UK market where the railways had done much of the baseload themselves and only went to outside manufacturers when they were full up. So there was political pressure applied for each and every one of them to have a go.

I suppose the worst example were the 1960 railbuses, where an order for about 20 trial units was divided among 5 manufacturers, a number of which had no real prior railway experience, including one which was a German import (generally viewed with distaste in the 1950s). The first 100 25Kv electric locos were similarly divided between five builders, with five separate sets of electrical equipment. The still recalled early failures (transformer explosions) of 25Kv emus in East London and Glasgow were actually confined to just one manufacturer's design, again a number of competing designs had been bought. The accident report continues the theme of the period, that it was good to give different manufacturers experience of new technology.

Of the manufacturers, BRCW seem to have done consistently good designs, it was a shame they went out of business, while the largest builder of the era, North British, consistently produced poor designs. Experience with the D6300s that made it to Taunton showed an awful, almost amateurish build quality.

 

[Searchlight]

I think I am clearer as to what you're getting at, but I still don't see the Pilot Scheme having happened 10 years earlier. One thing I left out was fuel availability. Light oil was expensive (cf. petrol rationing until 1955). One reason the GWR were interested in gas turbines was to burn heavy oil, which was much cheaper. This was also what they used for their oil-fired steam experiment - which was sort of semi-forced on them by the immediate post-war coal shortage and the government earmarking Welsh coal for export only. But once the NCB started to get into gear sorting out the clapped-out collieries the coal shortage was sorted, whereas the oil shortage went on for much longer. The government lost interest in oil and went back to backing coal, and the oil-fired steam locos were converted back to coal after only a year or so burning oil, both because oil was now more expensive than coal and because the maintenance costs of the oil-burners were greater (the higher temperature of the oil flame, and the speed with which it can be turned up and down, gave the firebox and boiler a much harder time from thermal stresses than coal).



ETH can be tapped off the main generator, but on most ETH-fitted classes it isn't, because of difficulties with regulation and the like (AIUI the ETH 31s do tap it off the main generator, and more or less let regulation go hang, but most installations are a bit better than that). The ETH conversion on the 45s for instance involved removing the original auxiliary generator and replacing it with a much larger one capable of providing both ETH and locomotive auxiliary supply, together with the associated regulating equipment in place of the original steam heat boiler equipment. Other locos have separate main, auxiliary and ETH generators.

The mechanical layout problem is much simpler on a DE because the generators are (semi)rigidly coupled directly to the engine's output flange, and the system is basically a compact cylindrical lump sticking out of one end of the engine; fitting a bigger/extra generator for ETH simply means finding room for a slightly longer lump. The typical arrangement on a hydraulic was to have a short cardan shaft connecting the engine output flange to the input flange on the transmission, and a further cardan shaft taking drive from an auxiliary output flange on the transmission to an electrical machine which did double duty as auxiliary generator and starter motor. With the auxiliary output being on the cab end of the transmission, the dynastarter ended up crammed in with the equipment cupboards behind the cab, or, even worse, under the cab floor. A replacement machine capable of supplying ETH would have needed to be much larger to handle the power, and siting it would have required an extensive rebuild.

I don't really know to what extent the introduction of aircon was foreseen and planned. I have a vague idea that its development was forced by safety concerns about opening windows when the HST was on the drawing board, and this being about the same time as the Mk2ds were being made it was introduced into them at least partly for proving purposes. I certainly think that without the HST we'd not have seen it until much later, since in the British climate there's not much call for it most of the time.

Steam powered aircon isn't actually a completely daft idea You could have an absorption-cycle cooler unit, and an ejector to circulate the air. No moving parts, either, so it should be highly reliable. I haven't done the sums on how bad the steam consumption would be, but I would hazard a guess that it wouldn't be as bad as all that.

It was common practice on Continental railways to feed ETH from a small diesel gen set in a luggage van next to the loco. This arrangement meant a train could be hauled by any loco type, with no reduction of traction power.

 

[edwin_m]

It was common practice on Continental railways to feed ETH from a small diesel gen set in a luggage van next to the loco. This arrangement meant a train could be hauled by any loco type, with no reduction of traction power.

In Britain the unions would probably have demanded an extra member of staff to sit in the van and keep an eye on it.

 

[Searchlight]

In Britain the unions would probably have demanded an extra member of staff to sit in the van and keep an eye on it.

Maybe the chap who had to fiddle with the B***** Steam Generator?
What exactly was the issue with those boilers??

 

[Pigeon]

In Britain the unions would probably have demanded an extra member of staff to sit in the van and keep an eye on it.

Well, we did have the ETHELs. What was the manning deal with those?

Maybe the chap who had to fiddle with the B***** Steam Generator?
What exactly was the issue with those boilers??

I wish I knew. I think substandard/underspecified components had a lot to do with it, but it is still odd that there were different designs from different manufacturers and none of them were any good.

 

[Oswyntail]

Fascinating period of history, not only on the railways. I have often wondered if a factor in the comparison between UK and continental railways is that we were not "occupied" and then, more importantly, "liberated". So, rather than having much of our critical infrastructure deliberately targeted and destroyed, we were much better able to repair damage. This, in turn, meant that a high proportion survived and, being British, we "made do", and bumbled on. Without the need to reconstruct totally, we didn't really rebuild at all. This fitted in nicely with the fact that we were bankrupt but didn't receive as much rebuilding "aid".

 

[ainsworth74]

This fitted in nicely with the fact that we were bankrupt but didn't receive as much rebuilding "aid".

As far as I'm aware we were one of the top, if no the top, recipient of aid from the United States after the war.

 

[coppercapped]

As far as I'm aware we were one of the top, if no the top, recipient of aid from the United States after the war.

Absolutely. One of the books on my shelves is Norman Davies' 'Europe - A History' (Pimlico 1997). On page 1064 he writes:

On 5 June 1947, at a Harvard Commencement speech, Truman's Secretary of State, General George Marshall, unveiled plans for a European Recovery Program. "It is logical", he declared, "that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace". In contrast to the 1920s, the USA was offering to finance Europe's recovery in the interests of the common good. The Marshall Plan ran for four years, from 1948 to the end of 1951. It dispensed a total of $12,500 billion to 16 participating members. To manage the funds, it required the establishment of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which insisted that recipients increase production, expand trade, and make 'counterpart contributions' of their own. Although one quarter of Marshall Aid was earmarked for Britain and one-fifth for France, it was available to allies, neutrals, and ex-enemies alike. It has no peer in the history of enlightened self-interest.

So, you are correct, Britain was the single biggest recipient, receiving twice as much as West Germany. The trouble was - it was wasted. Little was invested in business as in Germany through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, a rolling fund for industrial reconstruction, but absorbed in general government revenues. Essentially, we blew it.

 

[Senex]

So, you are correct, Britain was the single biggest recipient, receiving twice as much as West Germany. The trouble was - it was wasted. Little was invested in business as in Germany through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, a rolling fund for industrial reconstruction, but absorbed in general government revenues. Essentially, we blew it.

Indeed we did, but where did all the money go? If the total was $12.5 bn and a quarter was earmarked for us, that was an enormous amount at the time. What was it spent on? I didn't start travelling to mainland Europe until the late 50s, but one of the things I remember from then is how much had been built afresh after war destruction in countries like France and Germany, whereas here (because we had not suffered the same degree of destruction) the impression was still of a much older industrial landscape just carrying on. The dollars certainly did not seem to have gone into infrsatructure or the industrial base. Could we have done with a politician like Ludwig Erhard in this country?

 

[coppercapped]

Indeed we did, but where did all the money go? If the total was $12.5 bn and a quarter was earmarked for us, that was an enormous amount at the time. What was it spent on? I didn't start travelling to mainland Europe until the late 50s, but one of the things I remember from then is how much had been built afresh after war destruction in countries like France and Germany, whereas here (because we had not suffered the same degree of destruction) the impression was still of a much older industrial landscape just carrying on. The dollars certainly did not seem to have gone into infrsatructure or the industrial base. Could we have done with a politician like Ludwig Erhard in this country?

I can't say that I have studied this period very deeply - it certainly covers my childhood and as a result I have difficulty in regarding it as 'history'!

Anyway, there seem to have been several reasons for the lack of investment in industry and infrastructure and the emphasis which is laid on each reason depends on the political point of view of the observer! The following list gives some of the expenditures, but as I have not seen an accurate breakdown of the amount spent on each item, and when it was spent, I can't make any judgement as to the importance of each. Maybe someone here has the figures?

• Re-armament as a result of the Iron Curtain and Cold War, this included spending large amounts on developing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems
• the Welfare State was consuming more money than anticipated
• rehousing and population dispersal - the 1946 New Towns Act led to the building of Stevenage (designated 1946), Crawley, Hemel Hempstead, Harlow, Newton Aycliffe (all 1947) and 8 others by 1950 all bankrolled by central government
• maintaining an imperial presence around the world
• paying dividends on the Government paper issued to the dispossessed shareholders of the industries which had just been nationalised
• supplying food and fuel to the shattered economies and the refugees of Western Europe - at least until 1947-48.
• the cold winter of 1947.

There were also other influences. One of the clauses in the Anglo-American Loan Agreement of 1946 was that Sterling was to be made convertible, and in view of the state of the UK economy as soon as it was made convertible there were runs on the pound. These lead to the devaluation of the pound from $4.03 to $2.80 in 1948. Another was that by the end of the war, some 55% of Britain's GDP was directly concerned with the production of war goods and paying the military. Shifting production to a peace-time footing took time and was not easy, especially as the markets in Western Europe had effectively ceased to exist and central Government controlled supplies of raw materials.

I think even Erhard would have had problems, especially as he was essentially a free-marketeer and the then British Government was anything but!

 

[Senex]

• Re-armament as a result of the Iron Curtain and Cold War, this included spending large amounts on developing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems
• the Welfare State was consuming more money than anticipated
• rehousing and population dispersal - the 1946 New Towns Act led to the building of Stevenage (designated 1946), Crawley, Hemel Hempstead, Harlow, Newton Aycliffe (all 1947) and 8 others by 1950 all bankrolled by central government
• maintaining an imperial presence around the world
• paying dividends on the Government paper issued to the dispossessed shareholders of the industries which had just been nationalised
• supplying food and fuel to the shattered economies and the refugees of Western Europe - at least until 1947-48.
• the cold winter of 1947.

And for all except the last we had genuine choices. I suspect history may judge us rather harshly on several of those.

I think even Erhard would have had problems, especially as he was essentially a free-marketeer and the then British Government was anything but!

Absolutely! That was the point of my comment.

 

[Taunton]

Maybe the chap who had to fiddle with the B***** Steam Generator?
What exactly was the issue with those boilers??

Well they didn't need to be that large, it was only low pressure steam for carriage heating, not for traction. There was nothing really off the shelf so they were custom designs. They weren't used for 6 months of the year or when the loco was on freight or in the depot (although the worst problems were in the early days when not many diesels were on freight). The technology was very different to what a steam loco carried.

Worst problems the Western had with them :

Can't get them to light when required.

Flame going out, combination of carbonising the burner (low quality BR fuel) and the vibration from running.

Scaling of boilers and pipework, they didn't have a washout regime like steam locos did.

Not directly under supervision when operating as back in the engine room.

Auxiliary component failure. They had pumps for both oil fuel and water as these were carried under the frame, these would fail, blow fuses, etc, along with a host of other auxiliaries.

Regulation of steam supply never worked properly, just generated too much or too little.

Squeezed into a tight space, a nuisance for the fitters to work on.

Inadequate training of both fitters and the firemen whose responsibility they were.

Running out of water, and poor provision for replenishment en route (steam loco water cranes couldn't reach the underframe filling points).

Underframe water tank leaks due to poor/cheap design.

Water in tanks and pipework froze overnight in winter.

Each manufacturer (Swindon, North British, Beyer Peacock etc) used a different design with different spares and operating techniques.

Need I go on ....

 

[Senex]

Lucky you to have met him ! - a good writer and a man with "passion" all right - a few old boys who knew him as young managers said he was very approachable to all. He had a good innings - shame he got on the wrong side of politicians.

I met him too -- very approachable and very ready to enter into discussion. Strong opinions very strongly expressed, but no sense of the senior man trying to slap down the much younger and very inexperienced people talking to him.

 

[Searchlight]

Well they didn't need to be that large, it was only low pressure steam for carriage heating, not for traction. There was nothing really off the shelf so they were custom designs. They weren't used for 6 months of the year or when the loco was on freight or in the depot (although the worst problems were in the early days when not many diesels were on freight). The technology was very different to what a steam loco carried.

Worst problems the Western had with them :

Can't get them to light when required.

Flame going out, combination of carbonising the burner (low quality BR fuel) and the vibration from running.

Scaling of boilers and pipework, they didn't have a washout regime like steam locos did.

Not directly under supervision when operating as back in the engine room.

Auxiliary component failure. They had pumps for both oil fuel and water as these were carried under the frame, these would fail, blow fuses, etc, along with a host of other auxiliaries.

Regulation of steam supply never worked properly, just generated too much or too little.

Squeezed into a tight space, a nuisance for the fitters to work on.

Inadequate training of both fitters and the firemen whose responsibility they were.

Running out of water, and poor provision for replenishment en route (steam loco water cranes couldn't reach the underframe filling points).

Underframe water tank leaks due to poor/cheap design.

Water in tanks and pipework froze overnight in winter.

Each manufacturer (Swindon, North British, Beyer Peacock etc) used a different design with different spares and operating techniques.

Need I go on ....

Nuff Said! Bad Management !!

 

[Taunton]

I would observe that the US long used steam heat after dieselisation, in fact for longer than BR, from the late 1930s (first volume diesels) to the 1980s (Amtrak's last traditional passenger cars), and had a lot better experience with it. One aspect was that the air conditioning that was pretty universal by then was also steam powered (yes, really, using the steam vacuum ejector cooling system on the coaches), as in final steam loco days, so it was in use 12 months of the year, and also the use of multiple locomotive units gave a resilience. One of the main BR boiler suppliers, J Stone of Deptford, teamed up with the largest US manufacturer, Vapor, to give the Stone-Vapor boiler, but that seems to have been no better than Spanner Boilers of Bracknell or the other British types.

 

[Searchlight]

I would observe that the US long used steam heat after dieselisation, in fact for longer than BR, from the late 1930s (first volume diesels) to the 1980s (Amtrak's last traditional passenger cars), and had a lot better experience with it. One aspect was that the air conditioning that was pretty universal by then was also steam powered (yes, really, using the steam vacuum ejector cooling system on the coaches), as in final steam loco days, so it was in use 12 months of the year, and also the use of multiple locomotive units gave a resilience. One of the main BR boiler suppliers, J Stone of Deptford, teamed up with the largest US manufacturer, Vapor, to give the Stone-Vapor boiler, but that seems to have been no better than Spanner Boilers of Bracknell or the other British types.

Thanks for that, Taunton. Of course the Americans are used to extreamly cold weather, so would make sure everything was well lagged, and wouldn t freeze up. Sounds like the British versions were built on the cheap, and were untried products?

 

[Taunton]

In the US northwest, and also of course with the real winter experts, the Canadians, the steam supply and lagging was sometimes insufficient to reach the rear of the substantial long-distance trains, and thus additional heater cars with boilers installed (often from locos withdrawn from passenger service) were marshalled on the rear of trains.

When it comes to not freezing up (which was the issue which really hit BR diesel heating boilers in the bitter 1962-3 winter in Britain when many locos were new), a different US/Canadian approach applied. Diesel engines were run continually, without shutting down, often for weeks at a time (diesel fuel there was way cheaper), and at loco depots it used to be normal to find a line of them just thrumming away. The GM engine, in particular, for all its legendary reliability and service between overhauls, had a longstanding water leak issue, inside the engine room was often awash up to the drain holes, with the coolant being topped up multiple times a day, to the extent that anti-freeze was not practical because of the cost, so they used plain cooling water. If you did need to shut down in winter, there was a substantial coolant drainage to be done before things froze up, working round everything such as cab heaters. The steam heater would be included in this.

There were some, such as Stewart Joy, Beeching's Chief Economist, who said that the BR Modernisation Plan should have just sent away for the GM catalogue, without being aware of all these issues. Joy was an Australian, so although knowing of GM diesels over there, wouldn't have an awareness of these winter issues.

 

[Searchlight]

In the US northwest, and also of course with the real winter experts, the Canadians, the steam supply and lagging was sometimes insufficient to reach the rear of the substantial long-distance trains, and thus additional heater cars with boilers installed (often from locos withdrawn from passenger service) were marshalled on the rear of trains.

When it comes to not freezing up (which was the issue which really hit BR diesel heating boilers in the bitter 1962-3 winter in Britain when many locos were new), a different US/Canadian approach applied. Diesel engines were run continually, without shutting down, often for weeks at a time (diesel fuel there was way cheaper), and at loco depots it used to be normal to find a line of them just thrumming away. The GM engine, in particular, for all its legendary reliability and service between overhauls, had a longstanding water leak issue, inside the engine room was often awash up to the drain holes, with the coolant being topped up multiple times a day, to the extent that anti-freeze was not practical because of the cost, so they used plain cooling water. If you did need to shut down in winter, there was a substantial coolant drainage to be done before things froze up, working round everything such as cab heaters. The steam heater would be included in this.

There were some, such as Stewart Joy, Beeching's Chief Economist, who said that the BR Modernisation Plan should have just sent away for the GM catalogue, without being aware of all these issues. Joy was an Australian, so although knowing of GM diesels over there, wouldn't have an awareness of these winter issues.

Very interesting! I understand BR resorted to the no shut-down technique on its diesels, to some extent? This was because of problems with the batteries running down (especially in cold weather) preventing start-up in the mornings......Engines would be ticking-over all night, causing some complaints from nearby residents! This was an expensive solution though.

No doubt Stewart Joy was a competent bean counter, I have his book.......But, I don t agree with some of his "solutions". Buying USA locos would have been politically a no-no. The government wanted to support British industry. Bit different now, of course! Now, we would buy from the Chinease!