SIEMENS WINS £1.5BILLION PICCADILLY LINE ORDER
BRITAIN’S BEST-SELLING RAIL TITLE July 2018
West Coast Railways’ Lake District lifeline ■ £5bn rail
investment for Wales
New trains, new identity, electrification and more
■ GBRf buys
16 Class 56s
CLASS 66 FREIGHT WITHOUT FRONTIERS
FRANCOCROSTI LOCOMOTIVES
ALTERNATIVE FUELS FOR TRAINS
WORLD’S THIRD OLDEST LOCOMOTIVE DISCOVERED ON TYNESIDE
PRACTICE & PERFORMANCE
MORE PRE-GROUPING
DELIGHTS Keith Farr concludes his analysis of the performance of 4-4-0 locomotives
I
designed before the Grouping in 1923 which handled passenger trains with aplomb before the introduction of larger 4-6-0 and 4-6-2 types by the ‘Big Four’.
T IS lunchtime at Bath (Green Park) station in 1958. The 1.10pm ‘all-stations’ to Templecombe, comprising three Southern coaches and a former LMS ‘2P’ 4-4-0, looks forlorn. But, tranquillity is broken by a shout from the ticket barrier to the guard: “Hang on Bill, we’ve got a passengerrr!” The 4-4-0 steps slowly out from beneath the overall roof and, exhaust beats well-spaced and coupling rods ringing, accelerates past the loco depot before slowing for the sharp turn-out to the former Somerset & Dorset line at Bath Junction. The track, now single, turns sharply left to rise at 1-in-50 to Devonshire and Combe Down tunnels, the grade and curvature bringing the ‘2P’ and its green cargo down to a very low speed; but, beyond the two tunnels and on to Midford Viaduct, double track is regained and the tempo rises – a little.
At Shoscombe and Single Hill Halt, we wait while a lady buys her ticket at the booking office up the slope; then, on to my immediate destination at Radstock to see one of the ‘Sentinel’ shunters serving nearby Tyning pit.
Midland characteristics
This was my only run behind a ‘2P’ working solo; usually they were pilots, one of which, paired with a ‘Jubilee’, attained 77mph descending from Sharnbrook Summit on the Midland Main Line. Cecil J Allen even reported 86mph behind such a pairing, expressing his concern for the crew hanging on to the 4-4-0! Did the ‘2Ps’ really assist – or did they sometimes hinder rather than help? A word is necessary about their origins. Following the Johnson 4-4-0s, the final Midland Railway ‘2Ps’ appeared during the Deeley/
Fowler period before the Grouping. Many were then rebuilt and the later LMS standard version was based on them, with coupled wheels of 6ft 9in diameter instead of 7ft 0½in; however, they retained such Midland characteristics as inadequate axleboxes, short-travel valve gear and tortuous steam passages, such was the influence of the Derby faction in the 1920s. My June article concluded with a run behind a LNER ‘D16/3’, slowly accelerating along the level between Ely and Cambridge with a cross-country express. Now we move north, from the great skies of the Fens to the limestone hills and dry-stone walls of the Pennines, where we find a rebuilt Midland ‘2P’ battling with the long gradients of the Settle & Carlisle. Not only was No. 432 on its own with the admittedly lightweight 11.45am St Pancras-Edinburgh express, but it was booked non-stop from Leeds to
Against an industrial background, a pair of (nearly) new ‘D11/2’ 4-4-0s – Nos. 6379 and 6388 – climb Cowlairs Bank soon after the Grouping. The locos were later renumbered as Nos. 62672 and 62681. Both locos were supposedly named on introduction in 1924, but there is no sign of name application in this photo. RAIL PHOTOPRINTS COLLECTION
14 • The Railway Magazine • July 2018
World Record
Officially the world’s longest-running railway series, established in 1901
PRINCIPAL DIMENSIONS OF RELEVANT CLASSES IN THEIR FINAL STATE LOCO CLASS
2P EXMR
Loco weight Boiler Pressure Grate Area Total Heating Surface Cyls (2) Coupled Wheels Nominal T E
53t 07c 160lb 21.1sq ft 1,404sq ft 20½in x 26in 7ft 0½in 17,585lb
D11/2 GCR DESIGN 61t 03c 180lb 26.6sq ft 1,752sq ft 20in x 26in 6ft 9in 19,645lb
3P EXCR
S EXGNR I
61t 05c 180lb 20.7sq ft 1,529sq ft 20½in x 26in 6ft 6in 21,435lb
53t 06c 200lb 22.9sq ft 1,366sq ft 19in x 26in 6ft 7in 23,125lb
TABLE 1: LEEDS-CARLISLE Train: Loco: Load: Date:
11.45 St Pancras-Edinburgh 2P 4-4-0 No. 432 193/205 tons gross c1925
Distance miles 0.0 0.8 3.1 7.5 11.6 13.8 17.0 21.9 23.2 26.2 29.9 32.8 34.5 36.2 39.5 41.4 45.8 47.5 52.2 53.5 58.4 61.6 64.7 71.5 82.2 85.1 97.6 103.1 110.3 113.0
Location
Impetus
From Skipton the line climbs more steeply, on gradients varying from 1-in-300 to 1-in-132, and here the former Midland engine fell to 37½mph in the Aire Gap, between the headwaters of the River Aire, flowing east, and the Ribble, bound for the sea near Preston. The downhill ‘breather’ to Settle Junction produced 67mph, providing impetus for the ‘Long Drag’ to Blea Moor. By Helwith Bridge, the 1-in-100 gradient had nonetheless lowered speed to 31mph, increasing to a brief 40mph on the short stretch of easy grade that follows. Plugging away through upper Ribblesdale, millstone grit-capped Pen-y-Ghent to the east, the ‘seven-footer’ then fell to 32mph at
Ribblehead before a slight acceleration across the famous viaduct. The final minimum at Blea Moor Tunnel was 31½mph, after a 14-mile climb chiefly at 1-in-100; Douglas Landau, an expert in such matters, puts the average equivalent drawbar horsepower (edhp) from Helwith Bridge to the summit at some 660, a fair effort for a ‘2P’, even with only 205 tons. However, two minutes had been dropped on the climb and, on the high-level continuation to the 1,169ft summit at Ais Gill, even 65mph at Hawes Junction (now Garsdale) did not prevent the loss of a further minute. Allowed to run freely down Edendale, No. 432 touched 75mph at Kirkby Stephen, winning back some of the lost minutes and coming to a stand at Carlisle in five seconds less than booked; but time would not have been kept had the speed restrictions at Shipley and Skipton been strictly obeyed. Moving north again we cross the Border, evoking personal memories of a visit to Scotland in 1959. On August 21 that year, in the centre of the Fife coalfield, Thornton Junction shed yard was a last resting place for doomed former North British Railway locos; but, at the station, a ‘B1’ 4-6-0 on an Edinburgh to Crail semi-fast had been exchanged for ex-NBR ‘Glen’ 4-4-0 No. 62467 Glenfinnan in pristine condition, and I hoped for something similar for the 5.45pm to Dunfermline (Upper). Motive power turned out to be ‘D11/2’ 4-4-0 No. 62677 Edie Ochiltree, built for the LNER, but to a pre-Grouping design. The journey to Dunfermline had character but little scenic or performance interest and, with its two non-corridors, ‘Edie’ had an easy task. Although Thornton Junction station itself was subsequently razed to the ground, and the coal traffic has disappeared, the route taken
Speed Gradient mph 1-in 633R 633R 52 310F 533R/273R 30* sigs L/334R L/290R 244R 247F/L Level 47*/50 L/213R 42 212F/132R 150R/300R 37½ 132R 214F 67 181F/L 100R 31/40 100R/L 100R 32 100R 35½/31½ 176R/100R 264F/264R 65 288F 165R/L 75 100F 61 176R/440F 74 120F -/52 264F/165R 66/56 220R/132R 67 132F 132F/120R
¶ Now Garsdale Schedule 135min. * speed reduced by brakes
Former LMS ‘2P’ 4-4-0 No. 40491 and ‘Black Five’ No. 44852 – both Holbeck engines – pass Crossflats, near Bingley, with the Down ‘Waverley’ from St Pancras on November 11, 1958. GAVIN MORRISON
Carlisle. The log (Table 1) first appeared in The Railway Magazine for February 1925 and the run was described by Cecil J Allen, although it is not clear whether he timed it himself. The load is quoted as 30 axles, perhaps six eight-wheelers and a 12-wheel restaurant car, weighing 193 tons tare against the 180-ton limit quoted by ‘CJA’ for a ‘2P’ on this service. Once clear of the purlieus of Leeds, acceleration was reasonable, with the 4-4-0 working its 205 (gross) tons up to 52mph before taking Shipley curve at what must have been an uncomfortable 40mph; adverse signals then reduced the rate to 30mph, costing about one minute. Incidentally, passing times in this relatively early log are quoted to the nearest five seconds, while ‘maximum and minimum speeds’ are ‘at or near stations shown’. No speeds are shown up Airedale, but the average from Saltaire, passed at 30mph, to Skipton (47mph) was 48.9mph, implying maxima well into the ‘fifties’.
LEEDS Holbeck Kirkstall Apperley Bridge Saltaire Bingley KEIGHLEY Kildwick Cononley SKIPTON Gargrave Bell Busk Summit HELLIFIELD Settle Junction SETTLE Helwith Bridge Horton Ribblehead Blea Moor Dent Hawes Jct¶ Ais Gill Kirkby Stephen APPLEBY WEST Long Marton Lazonby Armathwaite Scotby CARLISLE
Actual ms 0 00 2 15 6 00 11 20 16 30 20 10 24 25 29 40 31 05 34 25 39 15 43 25 48 20 51 35 53 55 64 35 73 10 75 30 82 20 85 45 88 55 95 05 104 20 107 00 118 10 123 45 130.45 134 55
TABLE 2: GLASGOWEDINBURGH Train: Loco: Load: Date: Recorder: Distance miles 0.0 1.6 6.3 12.9 17.3 21.8 25.0 2.5 4.7 9.8 13.8 19.0 21.1 22.3
Glasgow (Queen St)-Edinburgh (Wav) D11/2 No. 6400¶ Roderick Dhu 9/300/315 tons January 28, 1936 D S M Barrie
Location
Sched Actual Speed Gradient min m s mph 1-in GLASGOW (Q ST) 0 0 00 L/46R Cowlairs 6 05 41R Lenzie Jct 12 12 56 56 Level Dullatur 19 47 64 900R/L Greenhill Jct 23 23 54 66 Level FALKIRK 27 53 69 Level POLMONT 31 30 48 882F Manuel 4 30 53 L/882F Linlithgow 6 54 57 L/882R Winchburgh Jct 12 12 30 40*/25* 882R/960F Bathgate Jct 17 17 55 64 960F Saughton Jct 22 45 70 960F HAYMARKET 24 24 42 - * 960F/L WAVERLEY 27 27 27 500F/300R
¶ later, BR No. 62693
by No. 62677 now flourishes as part of the Edinburgh-Kirkcaldy-Dunfermline-Edinburgh Fife Circular service. While the LNER’s chief mechanical engineer (CME), H N Gresley, had a penchant for experimentation, manifested by his 2-8-2 adventure and the water-tube boiler 4-6-4, the company was never prosperous and the CME had to practise a policy of make-do and mend. For example, more power was needed for the Edinburgh to Glasgow expresses via Falkirk but, July 2018 • The Railway Magazine • 15
LOCOMOTIVE HISTORY
FREIGHT WITHOUT
FRONTIERS 20 YEARS OF CLASS 66 Two decades after the first examples landed at Immingham Docks, Ben Jones looks back at the development and the early years of the General Motors-built machines, and their effect on the railfreight industry in the UK and mainland Europe.
V
ery few locomotives can claim to have revolutionised the freight operations of an entire country, but since 1998 the UK railfreright industry has been changed beyond recognition by hundreds of Class 66s imported from North America. On a cold April 18, 1998, the first three machines – Nos. 66001/003/004 – were unloaded onto the dockside at Immingham after their long journey by rail and sea from General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division plant at London, Ontario, in Canada. Their arrival marked the beginning of the end for hundreds of ex-British Rail diesels inherited by the privatised freight operators in the mid-to late-1990s. Little did we know at the time that EMD’s JT42CWR design – better known as Class 66 in the UK and mainland Europe – would make such a huge impact on freight operations, both in the UK and, to a degree, in mainland Europe, where the type was at the forefront of crossborder open access operation in the early-2000s.
Inevitable
It was perhaps inevitable that the recently formed English Welsh & Scottish Railway
(EWS), which brought the three regional Trainload Freight companies and Rail express systems together under the ownership of Ed Burkhardt’s Wisconsin Central, would choose to buy American when it needed new locomotives. An order for no fewer than 250 3,200hp Co-Co diesel-electrics, priced at £375million, was placed with EMD, financed by Locomotion Capital (later Angel Trains) in May 1996. By early-1998, the first locomotives were ready – the fastest delivery of an all-new locomotive type by GM. Ed Burkhardt, then boss of EWS, accepted No. 66001 in Canada on March 23 of that year, after which it was shipped from the Port of Albany, north of New York, to Immingham. The locomotive was landed at the East Coast port on April 18 – the GM invasion had begun. It combined a Class 59 style bodyshell with the more modern EMD 710 series 12-cylinder engine used in the North American SD-70 and 201 Class diesels built by GM for Irish Rail, and introduced a number of novel features to the UK, including bogies with steering radial axles, US-style auto-couplers, and an on-train monitoring and recording (OTMR) ‘black box’. They were intended to replace more
First of the line: EWS No. 66001 stands out in the snow at EMD’s London, Ontario plant in early-1998. Alongside is a 6,000hp SD-90MAC – part of an order for more than 300 locomotives for Union Pacific. STEVE GRIMES Right: Dwarfed by two SD-90s, a partially completed EWS Class 66 inside the assembly hall at EMD’s London plant in 1998. The ‘66’ has been fitted with a temporary US-style standard knuckle coupler and pilot ready for initial testing in Canada. STEVE GRIMES
than 900 ex-Railfreight diesel and electric locomotives, from Class 31s and 37s to Class 47s, 56s and 58s. With a top speed of 75mph they were not envisaged as heavy haul machines, but were to be deployed on faster ‘Enterprise’ wagonload freights, intermodals and lighter bulk flows, leaving the Class 60s to handle the heaviest work. However, as we know now, the EWS ‘66s’ soon found themselves on all kinds of freight work, increasingly taking on the heavier trains as Class 60s fell by the wayside. In response to this need for greater haulage capacity, a re-geared version with higher tractive effort and lower top speed, designated Class 66/6, was adopted by Freightliner’s Heavy Haul division, with the first examples landing in the UK in 2000. Subsequent deliveries were made to Newport Docks in South Wales, with this route also adopted for Freightliner and GBRf locomotives, and EWS staff initially commissioning them on the dockside. Compared to the lengthy commissioning periods of many BR locomotives, most notoriously the Class 60s, the ability to simply start up ‘66s’ on the dockside and drive them
DRS No. 66303 charges along the West Coast Main Line near Linslade with a Stobart Rail/Tesco intermodal train on April 24, 2013. FRASER PITHIE
LOCOMOTIVE HISTORY
GB Railfreight’s No. 66722 Sir Edward Watkin was one of five delivered in Metronet colours in 2006 for use as part of a long-term engineering contract on London Underground’s sub-surface lines. All were given London Transport and Metropolitan Railway related names. No. 66722 and standard GBRf-liveried No. 66711 were stabled at March depot on March 25, 2009. BEN JONES
Fastline Freight was a short-lived operator which took delivery of five Class 66s for power station coal contracts in 2008. However, less than two years later, the company went bust and Nos. 66301-305 were transferred to DRS. In July 2010, the quintet was lined up at DRS’ Gresty Road depot in Crewe. BEN JONES
under their own power to depots to enter service was nothing short of a revelation. The frantic pace at which the EWS ‘66s’ were introduced is typified by the fact No. 66001 worked for the first time under its own power on May 21, 1998 and hauled its first revenue-earning train – the 04.00 Bentinck Colliery-Drakelow PS MGR coal – from Toton on June 2. Previous days had also seen the ‘66’ haul training trips from Toton to Peak Forest. While production-series deliveries started in July 1998 with the docking of Nos. 66003-005 at Newport, No. 66002 was retained in the USA for extensive tests at the Association of American Railroads’ test centre at Pueblo in Colorado. It finally joined its sisters in the UK on April 24, 1999. Even Railtrack, not known for its speedy approval of new vehicles, had given its blessing for Class 66s to operate across most of the network by August 14, 1998, subject to a route availability of seven (RA7). Over the next two years, 250 locomotives were delivered, with most going straight into service from commissioning at Newport. In August 2000, No. 66250 made its first public appearance at the Old Oak Common Open Weekend. 24 • The Railway Magazine • July 2018
They quickly ventured to all corners of the network, taking over international freight to and from Dollands Moor, Cornish china clay duties from St Blazey, long-distance power station coal flows, intermodal services as far north as Inverness, and almost everything in between. Kinder to the track than their predecessors, the ‘66s’ are permitted to visit many lines that previously required the retention of smaller types, such as Class 37s.
EWS looks abroad
Having established its presence in the UK, by the mid-2000s, EWS management was looking across the English Channel to France for new markets. The liberalisation of railfreight under European Union rules opened up the potential for open access operators to compete with SNCF, many of whose customers were dissatisfied with the service being offered by the encumbent. Euro Cargo Rail was established in February 2005 and gained authorisation to operate freight trains two months later. After a lengthy approvals process, requiring numerous modifications to meet French standards, extensive testing in Brittany and elsewhere and acres of paperwork, permission was finally gained to use modified EWS Class 66s in France.
EWS ordered 60 additional locomotives modified for European operation for its Euro Cargo Rail subsidiary in France. After the sale of EWS to DB Schenker, many of these have been moved to Germany, where they are used in the industrial Ruhr district and in Bavaria. On January 29, 2016, No. 247 051 passes Heimeranplatz station in Munich, heading east towards Muhldorf with a short chemical train. BEN JONES
No. 66125 was the first to receive all the necessary modifications. By November 2007, no fewer than 50 Class 66/0s were at work across the ‘hexagon’, reaching destinations from Calais to Ventimiglia on the Italian border, Hendaye on the Franco-Spanish frontier, and Basel in Switzerland. ECR’s business grew at such a rate – thanks to its greater flexibility and better service than Fret SNCF – that the ‘go-anywhere’ Class 66s were joined in 2008-10 by a batch of 60 JT42CWRMs, built specifically for mainland Europe. Numbered as Class 77 (Nos. 77001-060) they carried ECR grey livery and could be readily identified by their large roof-mounted air-conditioning units. Maintaining a comfortable temperature in Class 66 cabs had been an issue since the introduction of the class in 1998, but providing air-conditioning was far more critical in France, where summer temperatures regularly exceed 30°C in the south of the country. The unusually small profile of the ‘66’ within the European loading gauge allowed the units to stand well proud of the roof line. The ‘Class 77s’ have also been deployed in Germany – increasingly so since ECR became part of the DB Schenker empire in January 2009. DB transferred 32 over the border in 2010 to
replace older diesel-hydraulics and ex-Deutsche Reichsbahn Russian-built Class 232 diesel-electrics in the industrial Ruhr district and in Bavaria. Ownership switched from ECR to DB Schenker Rail Deutschland in 2013, and several more ‘77s’ have moved since, to become Class 247 under the German system. EWSR’s initial ambition was to double its freight business in the UK, but the operator has seen a significant reduction in traffic over the last two decades. This is partly explained by the loss of heavy industry in the UK, and the decline of traditional bulk traffic such as coal, steel and oil, but the operator has also lost out to smaller, more flexible rivals such as GB Railfreight in the fiercely competitive freight market. As a result, only around 150 of the original 250 Class 66/0s are still active with DB Cargo UK. Although the numbers fluctuate, 60 have been modified for use in France and a further 15 (Nos. 66146/153/ 157/159/163/ 166/173/178/180/189/196, 66220/227/237/248) have been exported to DB Cargo Polska in Poland. At the end of the initial 15-year lease period in 2013, DB Schenker chose to buy the 250 locomotives outright from Angel Trains.
Beacon Rail Leasing’s T66714 was originally one of a pair of demonstrators built for the Scandinavian market. It now works for CFL Cargo in Denmark. On May 27, it was stabled at Padborg on the German/Danish border waiting to pick up its next train. HOWARD LEWSEY
July 2018 • The Railway Magazine • 25
UNUSUAL LOCOMOTIVES
THE
FR FRANCOCRO CROSTI STORY
The Franco-Crosti preheater was a brave yet ultimately unsuccessful attempt to increase the efficiency of the classic Stephensonian locomotive. Robert Humm charts its development in Italy, Great Britain and elsewhere
I
mproving the efficiency of the steam locomotive by using waste heat to raise the temperature of the boiler feedwater was hardly a new idea. Joseph Beattie, locomotive engineer of the London & South Western Railway, tried something of the sort as early as the 1850s. His rather complicated locomotives were considered more economical than any of their contemporaries on other railways. Yet, in a country apparently blessed with limitless supplies of cheap, high quality, steam coal the additional expense and maintenance seemed hardly worth the effort. Beattie’s successor-butone, William Adams, had all the feedwater heaters removed in the 1880s. Circumstances were different in Italy, where practically all locomotive coal had to be imported, much of it from South Wales, at high cost and any measures to reduce consumption were to be encouraged. Italian railways were early adopters of compounding in 1890, and a number of two-cylinder and four-cylinder classes were brought into use, culminating with the imposing Gruppo 476 (2-8-2) Mikados of 1922. A different Italian approach to fuel economy was the development of the preheater. In passing it should be mentioned the distinction between a feedwater heater and a preheater is somewhat jesuitical. The technical writer Brian Reed pointed 38 • The Railway Magazine • July 2018
out the difference between the smokebox feedwater heater used in Germany and the USA and the Crosti version was merely one of size. The Franco-Crosti company preferred the term “preheater”, and it is what we shall use here. The principle of the preheater was relatively straightforward. Cold water from the tender passed first into a drum or drums where it was heated by waste gases from the smokebox passing in the opposite direction. It has been described as a contra-flow system in which the coldest water was heated by the coldest gases at the remote end of the drum, while at the smokebox end the hottest water was heated by the hottest gases. The drum was not a boiler as such (it didn’t “boil”), but internally resembled a boiler in that the gases travelled through a series of tubes before being ejected to atmosphere by means of a set of blast pipes at the cab end of the boiler.
The beginning
The locomotive engineer Attilio Franco experimented with the concept of the preheater before the First World War, but it was not until 1932, while working with Belgian locomotive manufacturer Les Ateliers Métallurgiques Tubize, he was able to put his ideas into practice. The outcome was one of the most unusual locomotives built in western Europe,
an ingenious articulated 3,000hp triple-section tank engine, the centre section of which carried a pair of back-to-back boilers in the fashion of a modified Fairlie. The twin driving controls were also in the mid-section. A large drum type preheater was mounted on each of the outer sections, connected to the boilers by flexible ducts, in which the flue gases raised the temperature of the feedwater to 160 degrees C. The entire locomotive was covered in a semi-streamlined casing, and given the maximum permitted speed was 60kph (37.5mph), this served no functional purpose apart from tidying up the general appearance. Wheel arrangement of this elephantine 12-cylinder equipage (Tubize works No. 2096) was 0-6-2+2-4-2-4-2+2-6-0 with a total length of 102ft. All up weight was 238 tonnes, of which 163 tonnes were on the coupled wheels. Tractive effort was above 83,000lbs. The locomotive was capable of traversing a 100 metre radius curve. Tests were carried out on the steeply graded Brussels to Luxembourg line where it took a 1,214-tonne freight train up a 1-in-62 gradient at 15 mph, and fuel consumption per tonne hauled was considered good in comparison with conventional Belgian locomotives. Despite this considerable measure of success the locomotive was set aside at the Tubize factory by 1935.
Left: In its original form, BR Crosti ‘9F’ 2-10-0 No. 92026 works an Up coal train away from Redhill Tunnel on the Midland Main Line. The location is where East Midlands Parkway station stands today, with Ratcliffe power station in the fields to the right. T G HEPBURN/RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON
Right: Shorn of smokebox numberplate, No. 92025 crosses over at Chinley North Jct to take the Peak Forest line with an Up mixed freight on February 17, 1967. Nine months later the loco was withdrawn. D L DOTT/COLOUR RAIL
A Crosti boiler is lowered onto the frames of a ‘9F’ at Crewe Works in 1955. BRITISH RAILWAYS/ROBERT HUMM COLLECTION
It was far too complex for everyday service, and with a grate area of 70sq ft, it required two firemen, and the driving positions had a restricted view of the road ahead. To conclude this opening chapter of the Franco story, the Tubize locomotive was seized following the German occupation of Belgium, and in 1943 converted into a pair of 0-6-2+2-6-2T four-cylinder shunters. This entailed a drastic and probably not cost-effective butchery of the middle section, including separation of the double fireboxes. The pair were put to work at the Deutsche Werft shipyard at Kiel. In the closing weeks of the Second World War they fell into Soviet hands and ended their days working in the Poznan and Krakow districts of Poland until the mid-1950s As a footnote to history, it might be added one Tubize sales catalogue optimistically included a diagram of a 6,000hp Franco with four boilers and four pre-heaters, intended for service in the USSR. The response of the Russian locomotive engineers, already burdened with experimental locomotives foisted on them by their academic engineering institutes, is unrecorded. Unsurprisingly, no Franco design of this type was commissioned by the USSR, nor brought into service by any other railway administration. We are also left with a tantalising reference to
The Crosti boiler in situ with the pre-heating boiler visible between the frames together with some complex pipework and other fitting. ROBERT HUMM COLLECTION
another might-have-been, a 2-8-2+2-8-4T singleended Franco design for the metre gauge Parana to Santa Caterina Railway of Brazil. As before, the pre-heater was to be carried on the front unit. Two were ordered in 1938 and Tubize may have started work on one, but the order was cancelled when the railway found itself unable to pay.
Developments in Italy and Germany
Readers might recall in The Railway Magazine for March 2014 I described briefly the Gruppo 670 cab-forward 4-6-0s, built originally for the Italian Rete Adriatica system in the early years of the 20th century. It was a successful class and some had been superheated (reclassified as Gr 671) but they were facing withdrawal in the late-1930s. One, No. 670.030, was set aside for reconstruction on Franco principles and renumbered 672.001. The cab-forward arrangement was retained, the preheater being mounted on a permanently coupled tender, water supplies being carried in narrow, full-height tanks flanking the preheater tube. In the fashion of the day both locomotive and tender were streamlined. The design was certainly more compact than the Tubize giant though it still had the disadvantage of articulated steam joints between the locomotive boiler and the preheater.
In comparative trials between No. 672.001 and other Gruppo 670/671 locomotives the former showed fuel savings between 14.25% and 20% and led to the widespread conversions of other Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) classes to the Franco system as a stop-gap prior to further electrification. The fate of No. 672.001 is not well recorded: it appears to have been taken out of service about 1941 or 1942 and was broken up in 1948. Attilio Franco had died in 1936 during a consultancy visit to Persia, and it fell to his younger colleague Dr Ing Piero Crosti to continue the development of the preheater principle and to apply it in a practical fashion. Crosti was an engineer of wide experience in the power generation field, having worked on hydro-electric schemes, and engines for aircraft and submarines. E S Cox described him as “a small round man of boundless energy and infectious enthusiasm”. The crucial step forward was Crosti’s realisation that mounting the preheater on a separate vehicle, with all the complication of flexible steam joints and much extra deadweight, was not necessary. All that was needed were two preheaters mounted each side of the boiler or, where space permitted in larger locomotives, a single preheater beneath the boiler. That would July 2018 • The Railway Magazine • 39