Trivia: Train types where significant withdrawals took place before the last ones were built

[Deepgreen]

I find myself thinking of the 9Fs, with their scandalously short life - were any/many withdrawn before the 1961 completion of 92220?

 

[norbitonflyer]

Many of the EPBs were built using recovered components and underframes as well - apparently there were LSWR axleboxes knocking about until well into the 90s!

And some of their EE507 traction motors were recovered for use in Class 455s, so may still be around today.

I find myself thinking of the 9Fs, with their scandalously short life - were any/many withdrawn before the 1961 completion of 92220?

Accoirding to Hugh Longworth's comprehensive listing, 92220 entered service in March 1960. The earliest withdrawals appear to be May 1964 (92034, 92141/142/143/169/170/171/175/176/177)

 

[talltim]

Thing is with the exported 66s, there’s nothing to say they won’t ever come back to the UK

 

[Deepgreen]

And some of their EE507 traction motors were recovered for use in Class 455s, so may still be around today.


Accoirding to Hugh Longworth's comprehensive listing, 92220 entered service in March 1960. The earliest withdrawals appear to be May 1964 (92034, 92141/142/143/169/170/171/175/176/177)

Sorry - meant 1960. Glad that none were withdrawn before it though! BTW - good to see Norbiton gaining prominence through your moniker - my father lived there before moving to New Malden, where I grew up.

 

[shodkini]

I suppose the best example is Ffestiniog Double Fairlies, where 4 have been withdrawn [in 1882;1933;1971 and 2018] , 2 are still working [built in 1879 and 1992] and one is under construction. [The most recent withdrawal was only built in 1979]

 

[Fireless]

Of the 19 class V250 (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/V250) EMUs built, only nine of the 16 units ordered by the NS (dutch railways) had been delivered before the whole class was withdrawn from service due to various issues.
The NMBS/SNCB/NGBE (belgian railways) even cancelled the order for their three units before any of them was delivered.

 

[E27007]

There were steam locomotives scrapped at LNWR Crewe, due to a senior officer with a major grudge, issuing malicious instructions to condemn locomotives not life-expired, simply present at the Works for overhaul, his activity was not discovered for a considerable time. It may have been those Precedent locomotives you refer to.

That was Trevithick, grandson of famous Trevithick and son of Trevithick the ex-loco superintendent of LNWR Northern Division. Think he was the works manager under Whale. Went round condemning Webb Compounds whenever saw one in the works. Curious as believe he was a friend of Webb. Unfortunately he scrapped them too soon and left a crisis from shortage of locomotives. Said to have cost him the CME job when Whale retire



I have been looking for details to complete the story. Do you have the details of numbers / names and dates of scrapping of the locomotives affected by the Trevithick incident?
Also what action was taken against Trevithick when his malfeasance came to the attention of the LNWR?

 

[Merle Haggard]

This seems to be a variation on a story I read somewhere.
At Crewe, tenders were separated from locos because of the different duration of overhaul. The story I read concerned a works manager who walked around the tender sidings, marking them for break-up in an apparently random way regardless of condition. This then created a shortage, making for difficulty when engines emerged from the works to be re-united with tenders.
On the subject of Trevithick; one of the first loco books ever published was The L&NWR Locomotives, Simple & Compound (1899). This consists mainly of anecdotes and opinions, and includes ones about the Crewe Superintendent, Trevithick. These were quite biting, but my copy has an addendum at the front, which includes almost (but not quite) a withdrawal of the remarks and mentions that 'a worthy member of the famous family is still connected with the line', and that 'we quoted the opinion of a man who was something of a Tartar and certainly a hater of most railway officials'. Sometimes strong opinions come over as facts with the passage of time; another little booklet, again contemporary, very favourably compares the loads and performance of Webb compounds (working solo) on expresses at Tamworth LL with that of Midland Railway ones passing overhead with similar loads but requiring two locos. to keep time. Again, Webb compounds have received a bad press in modern times and Webb has been vilified but this seems to be more the result of a modern author's opinions. However, if someone has written 200 books and a thousand articles, as well as being a company director, one might expect the time for unearthing and researching primary data might be limited...

 

[317 forever]

The last DMS entered service in 1978, less than a year before mass withdrawals started. There were a few odd ones withdrawn even earlier.

Also, Dart withdrawals commenced well before the last ones were ordered or built.

 

[Journeyman]

Also, Dart withdrawals commenced well before the last ones were ordered or built.

The FS Ford Transit buses in London were built in three batches, with the second and third batches replacing the first and second. That counts!

 

[317 forever]

The FS Ford Transit buses in London were built in three batches, with the second and third batches replacing the first and second. That counts!

Yes it does. This was a less familiar part of London Transport to me at the time. Were they on routes C11, H2 & P4 for example?

 

[Journeyman]

Yes it does. This was a less familiar part of London Transport to me at the time. Were they on routes C11, H2 & P4 for example?

Something like that. I never got to see any in the wild, I wasn't quite old enough to go that far on my own at the time.

 

[webbfan]

That was Trevithick, grandson of famous Trevithick and son of Trevithick the ex-loco superintendent of LNWR Northern Division. Think he was the works manager under Whale. Went round condemning Webb Compounds whenever saw one in the works. Curious as believe he was a friend of Webb. Unfortunately he scrapped them too soon and left a crisis from shortage of locomotives. Said to have cost him the CME job when Whale retire



I have been looking for details to complete the story. Do you have the details of numbers / names and dates of scrapping of the locomotives affected by the Trevithick incident?
Also what action was taken against Trevithick when his malfeasance came to the attention of the LNWR?

Brian Reed, "Crewe Locomotive Works and It's Men" starting page 131. He wasn't the only person involved but did do the actual selection. As said he wasn't promoted to CME as everyone including himself expected when Whale retired. Instead was promoted a couple of years later and moved to Earlstown.
For numbers, names etc have a look at Baxters "British Locomotive Catalogue 1825-1923, volume 2B". All details in there, but you would have to see exactly which engines were scrapped then. Reed does show a graph of rate of scrapping with a steep gradient during the Whale years.

At Crewe, tenders were separated from locos because of the different duration of overhaul. The story I read concerned a works manager who walked around the tender sidings, marking them for break-up in an apparently random way regardless of condition. This then created a shortage, making for difficulty when engines emerged from the works to be re-united with tenders.

Don't think so. it's true they had fewer tenders because overhauled engines were given next tender available rather than tenders waiting for engines. Can't remember details but was decided to increase the number of tenders by purchase of either engines and tenders or just tenders from war department and use just the tenders. So various photos exist of Claughtons with a ROD tender.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Don't think so. it's true they had fewer tenders because overhauled engines were given next tender available rather than tenders waiting for engines. Can't remember details but was decided to increase the number of tenders by purchase of either engines and tenders or just tenders from war department and use just the tenders. So various photos exist of Claughtons with a ROD tender.

The reason given for attaching ex R.O.D. tenders to Claughtons was to increase the water capacity when they were transferred to the Midland Division, because of the bigger distances between troughs there. Even the LNWR's last tenders carried only 3,000 gallons (the MR was 3,500), the canny company avoiding conveying un-necessary weight. The (distinctively different) ex Claughton tenders displaced ended up, at the end, on 0-8-0s.
Ted Talbot's Eight Coupled Goods Engine book does say, about the purchase of 75 'ROD' engines (for £340 each, delivered to Crewe!), that 'The reason for the purchase was to obtain the tenders, as there was a "considerable shortage of tenders on Division A at the time"'. He doesn't explain the reason for the shortage.

 

[webbfan]

The reason given for attaching ex R.O.D. tenders to Claughtons was to increase the water capacity when they were transferred to the Midland Division, because of the bigger distances between troughs there. Even the LNWR's last tenders carried only 3,000 gallons (the MR was 3,500), the canny company avoiding conveying un-necessary weight. The (distinctively different) ex Claughton tenders displaced ended up, at the end, on 0-8-0s.
Ted Talbot's Eight Coupled Goods Engine book does say, about the purchase of 75 'ROD' engines (for £340 each, delivered to Crewe!), that 'The reason for the purchase was to obtain the tenders, as there was a "considerable shortage of tenders on Division A at the time"'. He doesn't explain the reason for the shortage.

Vague memory having read that LNWR ordered extra boilers for various classes after the war so would have spares. It was the boiler that took the longest time for overhaul, by giving an overhauled engine one of the spare boilers it was out of the shops sooner. Hence required more tenders.
Suspect timing of purchase of extra tenders and the move of Claughtons to Midland Division would suggest these events weren't connected.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Vague memory having read that LNWR ordered extra boilers for various classes after the war so would have spares. It was the boiler that took the longest time for overhaul, by giving an overhauled engine one of the spare boilers it was out of the shops sooner. Hence required more tenders.
Suspect timing of purchase of extra tenders and the move of Claughtons to Midland Division would suggest these events weren't connected.

This ties in with the overhaul of locos at Crewe being re-organised on a flow system (I think by Mr Beames) - called the 'Belt System' and a shorter turn-round which would, as you point out require more tenders.

Reverting to earlier comments, I've now found the reference to the apparently arbitrary marking of tenders for scrapping. It's in The LNWR Recalled, again edited by Ted Talbot and in the chapter 'The Locomotive Department' there's a section of first hand recollections of Crewe Works by W. Noel Davies. My memory was wrong in that it wasn't just tenders, but also engines that were apparently arbitrarily marked for cut-up. This was done by A.R. Trevithick, as you say - he chalked 'A.R.T.' to indicate his instructions, and the writer said he saw 'half a dozen tenders marked in this way in 5 minutes'. he also said 'The scrapping of useful engines went on merrily, faster than new ones were built'. The only one identified was the first passenger victim, 7' Single 134 Owl.
The article also gives the reduction in loco fleet, year on year, from 1903 to 1907, 1903-4 being 39, successive years being 33, 23 and 219 (1906-7). Of course, the number of locos scrapped is higher because it's the difference between old locos condemned and new ones entering service. The fleet reduction over these years was about 10% but traffic was increasing.
The result was described as 'The Great Shortage of Power 1908'; amongst other effects, the Northern Division running superintendent had what is now called a nervous breakdown. Trains were standing waiting engines to arrive on inward trains.
George Whale then issued an instruction that 'Engines are being used in the opposite direction instead of the homeward direction. This must cease, and steps taken to see these engines are promptly returned to their home station'. Of course, this just made matters worse, but it's the sort of apparently logical, but counter-productive, instruction from on high that will, I think, be familiar to anyone who has worked on the railway!

 

[webbfan]

It's in The LNWR Recalled, again edited by Ted Talbot

Wonderful book by Mr Talbot - as indeed are all of his books on the LNWR, a real pleasure to read.

"On the subject of Trevithick; one of the first loco books ever published was The L&NWR Locomotives, Simple & Compound (1899)."

Cotterell and Wilkinson - fascinating short book, full of facts and interesting comments ! Took a while to work out exactly what they meant by the insert on Trevithick. Pity they didn't write more. Theres an article by Harry Jack in LNWRS Journal vol. 8 no. 4, March 2016 p138 about the authors.

 

[30907]

The Southern Railway's 3SUB/ 4SUB stock was built in many separate batches between 1914 and 1949*. Many of the older ones were withdrawn during the 1930s and 1940s, often having major components, such as underframes, incorporated in newer ones. (these underframes were often relatively new, as they in turn had been built to carry superstructures recycled from hauled stock)

*Yes, I know the Southern Railway did not exist in either 1914 or 1949.

The amazing Blood and Custard site so far only has the detailed history of the units that survived to become 4Subs.
https://www.bloodandcustard.com/SR-AugSUB.html
I'm not sure off-hand how many of the 3-Subs were withdrawn before 1949 (bomb damage apart) though ISTR the LSWR-built ones went first (and some of the LBSCR overhead stock was repurposed as steam push-and-pulls!).

The question in my mind though is - do they really qualify as a type of train? I suppose having common electrical equipment and underframes would do?
But it's a bit like GWR pannier tanks of which there were IIRC 3 generations of essentially identical locos (I expect to be told the error of my ways soon...).

 

[XCTurbostar]

Class 67s couldn’t have been far off being withdrawn after the last one was delivered. The Mk1 hauled post traffic had dried up by 2005.
The only other one I can think of is 60s?

 

[Bevan Price]

According to E.L. Ahrons in "The British Steam Locomotive, 1825 to 1925" he suggests that whilst the Webb LNWR "compound" locomotives could (sometimes) give good performances, they were also seriously flawed. Whilst some visually looked like a 2-4-0 wheel arrangement, in fact the two driving axles were not connected, and rotated independently - making the true wheel arrangement 2-2-2-0.

Ahrons reported that they often had problems starting, and on occasions they could give the odd situation that the front axle was trying to move forwards, but the rear axle was trying to move backwards. With a desire to increase train loads from the early 1900s, it is perhaps not surprising that Whale chose to get rid of "troublesome" locos -- although perhaps too hastily, leading to shortages of locos mentioned above.

Some other locos with shortish lives were some express types with a single driving wheel (2-2-2 or 4-2-2), e.g. on GNR, GWR and MR. Whilst many were competent at moving light loads quite quickly, they also could not cater well for heavier trains - and were superseded by 4-4-0, 4-4-2 or 4-6-0 designs.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Yes it does. This was a less familiar part of London Transport to me at the time. Were they on routes C11, H2 & P4 for example?

IAN'S BUS STOP: The Ford Microbuses

Ford Strachans and Dormobile minibuses of London Transport: Drawings, Photos, Fleet History, Photo Index

www.countrybus.org

The first twenty, from 1972, were originally used on routes W9, C11, B1 and P4, but all those routes quickly became too popular and the FS class was replaced by the larger BS class (a very short "proper" bus rather than a large van). But some were then transferred to new routes H2 and PB1, and when they were retired in 1979 were replaced by a further six. In 1985 they were in turn replaced (on the H2 only) by a further batch of three, which lasted until a change of operator in 1989. There were differences between the batches, not only because of updates to the Ford Transit chassis-cab design but because three different coachbuilders were used for the bodywork.

 

[Peter C]

I might be completely wrong here, but wasn't the entire fleet of GWR IETs ("entire fleet" being around 2 units IIRC at this point) withdrawn the day after they entered service following issues found on the first day (i.e. air conditioning showers )? I think GWR IETs were still being built at that point, thus meaning the entire fleet was withdrawn (and then entered into service again) before the last ones rolled off the production line?

-Peter

 

[pdeaves]

I might be completely wrong here, but wasn't the entire fleet of GWR IETs ("entire fleet" being around 2 units IIRC at this point) withdrawn the day after they entered service following issues found on the first day (i.e. air conditioning showers )? I think GWR IETs were still being built at that point, thus meaning the entire fleet was withdrawn (and then entered into service again) before the last ones rolled off the production line?

I expect some other 'brand new' fleets fit a similar category, too (i.e. pulled from service through some fault that was subsequently corrected).

 

[norbitonflyer]

The amazing Blood and Custard site so far only has the detailed history of the units that survived to become 4Subs.
https://www.bloodandcustard.com/SR-AugSUB.html
I'm not sure off-hand how many of the 3-Subs were withdrawn before 1949 (bomb damage apart) though ISTR the LSWR-built ones went first (and some of the LBSCR overhead stock was repurposed as steam push-and-pulls!).

Hugh Longworth's comprehensive listing shows the last 4SUB vehicles to be built new were, in 1951, being three of the vehicles that made up unit 4754 (together with an older "augmentation" trailer originally built to convert an older 3SUB to a 4SUB). Withdrawals of vehicles formed from converted steam stock, (other than early withdrawals because of accident damage) had started shortly before nationalisation. Later vehicles were ordered but were built to 4EPB specification.

As late as the mid-70s, "new" 4SUBs and 4EPBs were being created by reforming older units.

A marginal example is the 2EPB class. The main production run ended in 1956, but two extra units were built in 1958 to replace early casualties, one of them having been the rear unit in the Lewisham disaster of 1957, written off when only 18 months old.

 

[swt_passenger]

I expect some other 'brand new' fleets fit a similar category, too (i.e. pulled from service through some fault that was subsequently corrected).

A few responses seem to have missed the “significant withdrawals” (ie plural) aspect of this, which I think implies a number of locos or MUs going back to the ROSCo offlease unexpectedly.

I don’t think the OP was really after individual damage write-offs either, such as Greyrigg. What else could they have possibly done?

 

[norbitonflyer]

I'm not sure tempoaray withdrawals to fix teething troubles, such as the IEP, really count unless the withdrawn members of the class never re-entered service.

When the first member of Bulleid's "Leader" class was withdrawn in 1951, the other four were still in various stages of under construction. They were never completed.

 

[341o2]

I think you're right that the whole of the RT class were never in service all at once, but a small number of pre-war RTs were transferred to the Country Area for use on a route with a bridge that had a weight restriction, and continued running after the last of the post-war examples had been delivered.

Weren't there a batch with Cravens bodies which had 5 window bays, then the lighthouse version (route number in roof box) which were early casulties. Arguably, the RTL and RTW were Leyland versions, while there was also the short lived SRT class, where an RT body was mounted on an STL chassis. Universally unpopular because the extra half ton meant poor braking, in fact, a test was carried out to try and stop one in Longmore Ave, Barnet at the foot of the hill. Despite a full brake application, the driver was unable to stop.

 

[Taunton]

But it's a bit like GWR pannier tanks of which there were IIRC 3 generations of essentially identical locos (I expect to be told the error of my ways soon...).

Where shall I start?

I believe the first of the GWR Castle class (albeit rebuilt Stars) locos were withdrawn before the last Castles were built.

Very close. The first Castle withdrawn was 4009, built in 1907 as you say as a Star, rebuilt as a Castle in 1925, and bizarrely later renumbered as 100A1 and named Lloyds (100A1 is a Lloyds insurance expression for 'perfect condition', and there were some common directors between the GWR and Lloyds) withdrawn in March 1950 - so not so perfect then. The last new Castle, 7037 Swindon, was built in August 1950, so an overlap of just a few months. Apparently early withdrawals were on the grounds of frame condition, which started to get weak, particularly the ones that have been chopped about in the Star conversion.

Nearest to what the original enquiry was about is possibly the GWR 52xx class of 2-8-0 tanks. These were built up to 5274 by 1926, and then another 20 in 1930 up to 5294, but these were never used as such. They were then rebuilt as the substantially larger 72xx 2-8-2 tanks with much more coal and water space, 7200 to 7219. In the mid-1930s the last 20 original locos, 5255 to 5274, in use for about 10 years by then, were likewise rebuilt into 7220 to 7239, and thereafter brand new locos continued the series. But after these had all been built and the newest 2-8-0Ts got rid of, it was then decided that more 2-8-0Ts were required as well, so a new batch of 10 of them were built in 1940, repeating the use of numbers 5255 to 5264, which of course has caused confusion ever since.

 

[Doomotron]

If things had turned out differently, the Class 458s might have been withdrawn before the last 458s/460s were built.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Taking Mark 1 rolling stock as a whole, the very last to be built were the power cars for the three extra 4REPs built in 1974. (The trailers were converted from hauled stock, but the motor coaches were new). Withdrawal of redundant hauled Mark 1 stock had started several years before.