60532 blue peter wheel slip Durham October 1994 not my video, mearly one that i found and thought it should be shared. copyright goes out to the owner of this video.
the official calculation of speed of that wheelslip was 154mph, also it was worked out at £800 per second of the cost of damage during that wheelslip. Truly awful!!!
The initial damage was done back at the station, when they overfilled the boiler, then when it started slipping, water was forced back into the regulator valve and jammed it open. And you're right about the inexperienced drivers, as they hadn't been trained specifically on Blue Peter, and didn't know about it's sensitive boiler.
LNER Peppercorn A2 Class 60532 Blue Peter 1994 accident: On October 1, 1994, during the first run of a preserved steam locomotive from Edinburgh to Newcastle and York, 60532 suffered extensive damage during a catastrophic uncontrolled wheelslip. During an unscheduled stop at Durham station, the inexperienced footplate crew overfilled the boiler. As the train departed south across Durham viaduct an initial slip was poorly controlled by the driver, who then reopened the regulator too early, probably worried about stalling on the bank up to Relly Mill. The force of the initial slip caused the boiler to prime, carrying water over into the regulator valve and jamming it open. This allowed passage of steam through to the cylinders, perpetuating the slip and accelerating the driving wheels. When the driver attempted to wind the reversing gear back into mid-position to halt the slip, the force of the motion spun it into full-forward position, and the driving wheels reached a rotational speed of 140 miles per hour before the cylinder covers blew off and the motion disintegrated. The driver suffered major injury to his arms, as a result of the screw reversing lever whipping around when he released it. The accident brought to light the importance of train crews being trained on the specific locomotives they were driving, rather than simply a common general instruction on steam locomotives. Neither the driver or fireman had ever worked 60532 before, and were unaware of the locomotive's sensitivity to priming, which led to the accident. Source: Wikipedia.com
What I think is maybe the railway didn’t have any experienced crews and had to put them into the footplate and didn’t tell them about her being sensitive
I've watched this video several times now over a few years and this is the first time I've noticed the sparks coming off the driving wheels. Absolutely red hot. Wow. Just wow.
Sparks don't imply that the bulk of the wheel itself is red hot. A spark is basically a small fragment of extremely hot or burning metal. The tiny fragments (potentially just dust) are extremely hot, but the wheel itself isn't _that_ hot.
@@zrspangle its was not their fault, it was common for the A1 locomotives for the water on the boiler to serge forwards, and if This happends the throtle and reverser cant be closed, it more of a flaw on design than a flaw on the driver side
It took 18 months to repair the damage and Blue Peter returned to main line service in November 1996. She ran from Edinburgh to King's Cross for a 40th anniversary special of the eponymous TV programme. Main line certificate expired in 2001 and she remained at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway until the end of its 2002 season. The latest news is that she's been bought by Jeremy Hosking and will hopefully be running on the main line again by 2020.
@@SirFloofy001 “The driver suffered a major injury to his arms, as a result of the screw reversing lever whipping around when he released it.” Broke both his arms.
Jeeesuuus-first time I've seen this.How close did BP come to destruction.Thank goodness it was able to be repaired-had a great Valentines day trip in 1998 behind it on the S&C.Hope one day we see this magnificent engine running again.
Reading all the comments about this. I just love all the "arm chair" experts on here. What they would have done, or the driver should have done this or that. Tragic mistake, at least no one was killed or seriously injured. I for one, hope the train crew made a quick recovery.
Sadly i believe the driver was seriously injured, arm injuries when the thing he tried turning to combat what was happening spun back and smacked his arms
The driver should have operated the locomotive in a way that didn't wreck it! There were so many things wrong it's difficult to know where to start. There are also several plausible versions of what happened and in the absence of an official accident report nobody apart from those directly involved knows exactly what took place. In fairness to the driver he was put in a situation he wasn't competent to deal with but the first thing that jumps out of the video is the amount of unnecessary whistling. That's just him or the fireman showing off - "Look at me, I've got Blue Peter to play with". Instead the crew should have been concentrating on what the loco was doing, in particular the driver should have been ready to control the slip as soon as it started. It's completely predictable that a large-wheel Pacific will slip when starting a heavy train on a gradient. The loco seems to have primed and the driver failed to deal with that properly. It has also been claimed that he failed to lock the reverser and when it spun out of control due to the slipping he was so busy trying to avoid the handle that he didn't close the regulator. By the time another person on the footplate managed to close the regulator the damage had been done.
@@UnitedWars I don't know (and don't really care) how that particular crew came to be on the footplate but they should never have been there.The driver apparently admitted he hadn't driven a steam loco for 30 years.
This is what a friend of mine that had just been relieved from the foot plate of blue peter there at Durham. (short version)Expereanced engine crew changed out at last minn.New crew took over WITHOUT proper breifing about blue peter.Reason for crew change-unknown. The damage- rtn cranks badly bent,left front driving wheel moved on axle,back and front of valve covers broken,side rods bent,outher motion bent or broken.All driving boxs damanged due to pounding. The driver broke a finger while trying to center the engines valve gear,NOT both arms. After 18 months of repairs blue peter is again running ,but idle at this time. Got to hand it to those Brites. They dont give up on there steamers like we would have here in the states. This info was relayed to me in Dec.-2013 by an expereanced driver who was there and have no reason to disbelieve or dout this info.(Please excuse the spelling errors) MRF.
However Union Pacific are overhauling a Big Boy which I want to see, also funny there are about 10 locomotive being rebuilt in the UK like Claud Hamilton, Patriot, F5, Night Owl and many more.....
madrabidfireman But think about it how many Battle of Britain and Merchant Navy class pacifics there are. But I feel your pain as my favorite steam engine the Claud Hamilton was not saved
+madrabidfireman there were some usa locos that did not even live that long many though were experamentals so only one or two built, and cut up with in just 5 years or so for some, but there was one very famous loco that has fame and as much infamy and that is the Pennsylvania Railroad T1, they were streamliners but not as gracefull looking as some, they were not even 10 years old before they were out of service and cut up, they were very powerful and if you are not well read up about them they say they had notorious wheelslip due to the high power on two sets of 4 driver wheels, they could get out of synch and run wild, they are also said to be faster then the tornado class that holds the world record, but the pennsy did not officially test this, but there are stories I have heard and read from the old railroaders that say they have gone over 126 mph in a steamer, I even have one on video where it is claimed, on my walbash cannonball run videos riding and excursion train from around where I live that was pulled by npk 765 last summer. but yea some steamers did not see much use before they were phased out and cut up, even though the steamers produce power at speed better then at low, and were great for pulling fast runs but maintanance and crewing them were a very large cost of running them.
I hope BR were forced to pay compensation to NELPG for the damage their crew caused to Blue Peter. BR should have known that steam loco's are very individual, but they just told a crew with no experience of an A2 to drive her, without giving them proper instruction. The driver was given wrong advice on how to handle her, and this was the result.
Try building locomotives that aren't disasters waiting to happen with shitty "regulators" and a tendency to "prime" along with being lightweight slipping pieces of shit that are either damn near slipping or damn near stalling at all times.
I saw Blue Peter destroy itself from the vantage of the turret in Wharton Park above the station. She started off well, we were all concerned as the A2's were always banked south out of Durham (so I'm told) and this was the first time a steam engine had stopped at Durham heading south in preservation.
Can recall 60009 Union of South Africa wheel slipping drawing away from Durham Station from a standing start.Relegated to non-express by then usually shunted out by a 676** class engine.Could get on footplate sometimes as they took on water.Hope it wasn't us putting coins on the track that caused it 🤭
soon sheets of sparks spraying back beyond the tender, smoke reaching up to what seemed to be 150-200ft above the stricken loco. The red hot rims of the drivers on the opposite side of the loco were visible between the rings of fire of the near side wheels. The roaring sound filled the air, then nothing. Someone nearby said “I wonder if he’ll have another go” but Blue Peter was going nowhere.
@LondonMuckShifters as it says in the intro, this slip has entered railway folklore as the Durham Slip. What happened on the footplate of the loco remains a mystery. Its believed that a extreme case of priming happened, forcing the regulator rite over and breaking the drivers arm. Another speculation is that the driver did open it rite up, after notching it down. Again priming will have caused the regulator to stay open while not being able to shut the regulator.
@TAMWORTHFAN Its valve gear was completly destroyed. The rods were bent, and one of the rods where flug off the assembly and ended up in the 4 foot of the other line.
SRPS RAILTOUR. I WAS a steward ON THE BUFFET COACH and all Stewards were involved helping with the evacuation of passengers back to the station.. There were many parts and bits of the loco picked up and brought back to the crews coach. Huge damage to the track that all had to be replaced before any other trains were allowed through !!
Suddenly sirens sounded and a fire engine appeared alongside the loco on Redhills. A resident had phoned them fearing the loco was about to explode, understandable as the sight was awesome enough from a distance let alone outside your window, it must have been terrifying. We soon followed to find the valve gear had disintegrated, I have photo’s but they are poor due to the low light (must scan them).
Great video and I would say this is a great opportunity to add some engineering controls that would prevent this from happening again! we have great men that can repair or rebuild anything.
the R/H leading driving wheel moved on the axle, both sets of outside motion compleatly destroyed, cylinder and valve covers destroyed, the grinding sound from1min 40 is the motion destroying itself, also the whisling sound after the loco stopped slipping is the sound of steam escaping from all of the shattered cylinder and valve covers.
caused by the engine being driven on the reverser without the vacuum lock in (i.e. one hand on the reverser and one hand on the regulator ready to quickly snatch it shut if a slip occurred) most LNER locos are driven on full second valve adjusting the reverser accordinly. What occurred here is the loco primed and carried water over into the cylinders which A) jammed the regulator open and B) created incredible pressure which snatched the reverser out of the drivers hands and destroying the loco
yes. that is correct. tried to force the cold regulater back, and it pushed back under pressure and broke both arms, and while wheels spun around 140mph, both cyclinder heads blew off/exploded and made it unable to go.
The slip forced water into the regulator valve and jammed it open. Then the driver tried to wind it into mid gear, but when he released the reverser wheel, it spun all the way to full forward. Thats what happened at 1:38.
Good grief, that went on for quite a while, much longer than I would have expected after reading the description of the event. That would have been nightmarish to have been standing near the head end on the ground when it occurred! Note the sparks around 1:33, I assume from driver contact with the rails?
Yes I agree with you opening the taps would help (why I didnt say that I dont know as I drive steam locos) but trying to wind a loco back into mid gear in this situation is possibly a sure fire way to broken arms (I wouldnt want to try it and have never had to try it) also putting the brake in in that situation may have caused even more damage bearing in mind the wheels spun on the axles.
A couple of friends were aboard, and they had come to a halt in sight of one of their houses, it was over 3 hours later when they got home. The rails bore dips in them where the driving wheels had eaten into the surface such was the fury. Just a few seconds, to cause so much damage. The most spectacular site I have ever seen, but a crying shame, and no doubt being on the footplate must have been awful.
It has been known for the coupling rods of loco’s to detach in such circumstances and act as pole vaults tipping the loco on its side, thank god this didn’t happen on this high embankment.
I've heard stories of old semi trucks who's universal joints would snap, the free spinning drive shaft could then plunge into the road below and then turn the whole truck over on its side from the torque of the engine.
Was at Doncaster 1970 when they renamed her Blue Peter. My father was a fitter engineer for LNER, British Rail, and serviced the Flying Scotsman, Mallard etc.
As with so many of the LNER Pacifics, 532 was named after a racehorse. Blue Peter, owned by Lord Rosebery, won the 1939 Derby and 2000 Guineas. The locomotive (Doncaster works 2023) entered service in March 1948 and carried the name 'Blue Peter' from new.
@@paulcaswell2813 Thank you Paul for the info. My dad may or may not have had any dealings with Blue Peter. He was part of the team, but did not come back from WW2 until 1946, so I suspect he may not be involved with it. Interesting.
I don't know for sure but it certainly seams that was case after reading many reports about it. Think it took three people to try and wind the reverser to mid gear. I think the experinced drivers would of dealt with it better. The damage was done when the driver opened the regulater even further to try and shut it.
@Nigel16032009 The driver couldn't close the regulator because of the steam stuck in it so when he did it slammed back open breaking the drivers arm and this usually happens because it is too cold because the same thing happens to are engines but it was the drivers fault he broke his arm because he should have been told to leave it until the steam lets him close it rather than forcing it closed
Heartbreaking to watch but I for one am glad I was not on the footplate that day. The driver must of been panicking when the regulator got stuck open. The that much steam in the steam chest it was nearly impossible to to wind the reverser to mid gear.
i am from a preserved line (tha battlefield line railway at shackerstone) and today i got told its up for sale at £1million add that to the over hall cost ya probibly looking at £1.2million to get her back in steam......but if so i for 1 wouldnt have it bk on the mainline after seeing this!!!
@mamodsteam It was incompetent footplate crew that caused the problem, the loco IS a good runner The driver did not put the latch on the reverser which allowed it to spin when the loco lost its footing and the force of steam filling the boiler prevented them from closing the regulator. I suggest you learn your facts before making comments like that about the engine and the main line. My dad was on support crew that day and he had to pick up the mangled motion!
It must of been a horrible experience for all concerned. Thank goodness no one was seriously hurt and the damage to the loco all though serious was not permanant. Just prooves how dangerous a steam loco can be in the wrong hands. Incidents like this are rare thank goodness.
@@DistanceNsVeterans The driver tried to stop the runaway by winding the reverse back to neutral. When he unlocked the control to so, the forces coming from the engine were so high that it wrenched free from his grip and smashed his hands and arms.
In steam days, stopping trains usually had a banker to help them get started. But at the point of the incident here, the banker would have finished its job and would be returning to its siding by the North Box. In years of watching steam at Durham, I have never seen a loco lose its feet just there.
At a STATION? Yeah. Right. Here's an idea. Don't put piece of shit lightweight leaking junkpile scrapyard reject locomotives in front of twice as many cars as they can handle and don't put your stations on HILLS and CURVES no less and damned sure don't use a lick of common sense in any aspect of your "railroading". Ever. Just learn to tell good lies and make up lots of tall tales about speed records and the good old days and just live in the past.
Clearly the thing was fucked up to begin with and was leaking steam like an SOB somewhere on the right side. Just another scrapyard reject with a big "trust" and a bunch of backdoor laundered "public funds" and a fancy-ass paint job on what wouldn't even bring good scrap steel price and all so a bunch of foamers who may have been "railway employees" at some point but sure were never "railroaders" and other foamers who didn't even want to get THAT close to maybe getting their hands dirty or associating with the "working class" out there in the railyards and probably had government desk jobs can all play TOY TRAINS with the REAL THING when they get to be elderly retired children instead of just adult children. GO PLAY WITH THE CHOO CHOO!!!!
@@billcobbett9259 Deeremeyer1 seems to have suffered a sudden catastrophic build-up of mental pressure followed by an uncontrollable discharge of verbal steam.
I watched the video again today. It is in the Pentrex video Last Of The Giants Volume 3: Sherman Hill. In the video they interview engineers and firemen that worked on the Big Boys and one told of the throttle of a Big Boy getting stuck and couldn't be shut off, and that it cut through the rail. The only other specific detail given was that it occurred at Borie, Wyoming. No engine number or year was given.
Obviously the train was moving if the throttle was open and if the train was moving and the throttle was open on a Big Boy, it's going to keep whatever was moving moving and not "cut through the rail". DP units in the mountains can get "stuck" in notch 5 or 6 if the "trailer" loses communication with the leader going over a hump and especially with tunnels/turns and if the engineer sees the lost communication and goes "by the book" to see what's going on like the book says but the FRA book instead of the smart train handling book and he just goes into dynamics and stops quick while the front end is still pulling pretty hard dragging the back end over and doesn't go into emergency because if he DOES get comms back someone still has to go reset the emergency in the trailer, he can end up with a trailer back there in notch 5 or 6 pushing like a sumbitch until the melting rail gets hot enough to get "sticky" and one or more traction motors start slowing down and throwing speed difference/locked axle faults and the unit shuts down 2 traction motors on one truck or one on each truck and safety's out. Especially if he just makes minimum reduction that the rear locomotive might not even "see" in its brake pipe pressure setting because being at the other end of the train that minimum reduction at the front end might only be half as much at the rear and when it's still in a throttle notch and its brake handle is still in handle off and its main reservoir is still good and such and last it knew for SURE its leader was still in Notch 6 and maybe it just saw Notch 5 "flash" for just a second before comm loss, it's back there pushing. Don't take long for 216 tons of GE AC power to spin down through the rail but they only go so far and then they kick out or possibly before sending the conductor for a walk they shut down the lead units. You can hear a GE in Notch 6 maybe 110 cars behind you but only 75 or so as the crow flies because of a curve and maybe a hill pretty easy. And if you hear it powered, the damage is done. Pull the emergency brake handle and it'll keep running at least half-throttle for 15-30 seconds because that's built-in breakaway protection but then it should go to idle. It usually doesn't do anything to locomotive wheels. Those bastards are so hard it takes carbide cutters on the wheel true machine to profile them and you can take a few tenths of an inch per revolution max. Rail is really soft by comparison, lol. Especially once it starts glowing. It doesn't happen much but it does happen and to guys doing it "by the book". That's one situation where you break the FRA rules and if you lose comms you slowly notch down but keep some power on and make a full service application. That'll definitely drop the brake pipe at the back end enough for it to know the brakes came on and notch down or go to idle and to make sure you notch down all the way, ease into dynamics and then go to release. When you go to release that trailer will drop main reservoir pressure as it starts helping pump the brake pipe back up and GEs have electric air compressors and they take a couple hundred horsepower to start and then drop off to 50 or so when they're pumping. That combination of events will kick it into idle or at least pull enough power out of it that it's not going to spin the wheels and if it sits there with released brakes and rising main reservoir and some throttle on but no traction motor is turning, it'll safety out and set a locked axle fault on the motor that's getting the most juice and has the smallest wheel diameter programmed in (most torque output) and if cutting that motor out doesn't free up enough power to turn something it'll cut the next one in line and if they're both on the same truck or one is on each truck it'll go offline all by itself. Or you keep creeping along slowly and keep your hands off the brake and dynamic handles and just let it crawl and "think" and eventually it's going to bounce a signal off the right rocks or a weak one will get through enough for it to see a "mismatch" and the trailer will go to idle then, too. But you've still got your connection. The leaders road number is programmed into the trailer and vice versa and they're both set on one of the half-dozen or so DP frequencies and they'll ignore everything else and as long as you're rolling you're not digging holes. It might be back there spinning but it won't do that for long either. It knows how many motors are online and how much HP it's making by the amperage and voltage and it knows how many traction motor rpm that should equal at a given throttle notch and if it's too high, it'll throw faults and if its too low and isn't increasing, it'll add power to the max for the notch and something will spin or speed up or stay the same and if things stay the same then it "thinks" its just working hard and it'll keep working hard. That's a change they had to make in the DP software because when UP started paying fuel savings bonuses to engineers some of the guys who knew a little about the DP systems would throttle up and get up to whatever speed they were going to run uphill empty heading west across Nebraska and especially from North Platte to Cheyenne or Morrill and then they'd kill the DP radio and leave the trailer back there pushing like a sumbitch and notch back the leader and MU units a notch or two and save ALL KINDS OF FUEL. Because they only kept track of how much fuel they put in the leaders to do their fuel consumption checks. Kinda hard on those old 7FDLs trying to push a whole train in Notch 7 or 8 while the leader is in 6 or 7, lol. And in the Rockys where the comms losses could end up with a spinning locomotive sitting there digging holes they started putting two units on the head and a pair of DP units mid-train so if THOSE somehow ended up "stuck in gear" in a comm loss situation they were going to move something, lol. And having them that much closer made a hell of a difference. Kept the BP pressures much closer together and helped make sure the trailers got the "message" even with a minimum reduction. Of course that only left the train crew with one spare "outhouse" instead of two and they started checking fuel in the leader and the front DP unit too. Of course good train handlers save fuel the way good truck drivers and anybody who knows how to get good fuel economy with any vehicle does. Don't speed up just to slow down just to speed up. A steady 50 mph will get you someplace exactly as fast and with less fuel than "averaging" 50 mph over the same distance spending half your time at 60 and half at 40.
I think with two sets of motion working independently, the risk is actually quite great that this could happen. I don't know if the BiGBoys had any safeguards to prevent that.
@@deeremeyer1749 you write a lot but this can happen when pulling off, any locomotive is capable of this (modern locos with "traction control" excepted). A big boy stuck with the regulator wide open would eat through a rail with little effort due to the weight on the drivers.
Did the safety valve open automatically due to a sudden rise in boiler pressure after the cylinders failed or did the crew open it manually (if that's possible) to vent the boiler once they knew the loco was dead?
(sleeming88) The crew can't affect the action of the safety valves in any way. The steam flow during the slip must have been colossal and this would have given the fire a tremendous boost and the loco must have maintained boiler pressure. As soon as the steam flow ceased the still-hot fire would have temporarily raised the pressure very quickly so off go the safety valves. This was a normal occurrence during steam days if the pressure was well up but under rather less insane conditions of course. I wonder how much of the fire was left. I also wonder how much water was left in the boiler after that horror show. BTW you can't empty the boiler without first dropping the fire which is always a priority.
My understanding is the boiler was overfull, which was the root cause of the events that followed. At least with the modern rocker grates that Peppercorn put in they could dump the fire quickly.
The massive loss of steam looks to me as although the 'lead plugs' dropped. These are a 'last resort', put in a boiler should pressure rise even more than the normal safety valves can cope with.
@@paulcaswell2813 that's not what they're for. The plugs are a warning device to alert you that the water level in the boiler has dropped below the crown of the firebox. Something that did not happen in this case.
In 1994 portable video recording equipment was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. If you wanted to do it, you had to carry a purpose-built device that was too large to fit in a pocket; some of the older ones (at the time) were the size of a small briefcase, but even the newest ones were the size of two fists. We take a lot of documentation for granted today since everyone has a video recorder in their pocket. This is a VERY recent development, in the whole scheme of history!
If the driver had been able to shut the regulator or get the engine into mid gear it would of almost completely stopped the flow of steam which would of stopped the slip but the regulator was jammed open by the water and the engine refused to forward gear.
@@deeremeyer1749 shut off the air?? Its a steam locomotove, it had water locking the regulator open, there have been reports of when this happens that it takes the strength of two to shut it again.
That loco is now in tornadoes livery the apple green livery and British railways on the tender and that loco will surely be coming back into steam soon
@@thebrummierailenthusiasts5329 I HOPE NOT plus they’ll have the experienced crews this time 💀 it took about over a year to fix the damage after that wheelslip and plus Blue Peter reached 140 mph by wheelslip but that never counts anyways
Something as bad as this? To my knowledge, never, and I'm 75 and always been a steam nut. There have been a few bad slips but always eventually controlled. Occasionally a section of rail has needed replacing but no engine has wrecked itself in this manner.
532 was one of the A2s equipped with an MLS multiple-valve regulator. A very atypical arrangement for a British loco at the period, although the BR Britannias used the same arrangement.
The crew did what little they could to slow or stop the slip. If they couldn't close the regulator, then it LOOKS like the fireman used the sanders and opened the cylinder cocks.
I would love to see it back on the main line after seeing this video of it as it was crew at fault not the loco. You can hear him after the 1st slip opening up the throttle right after it causing it to slip again (normally you would wait to make sure it has completely got grip again) Any steam engine can have this happen to it with crew who don't really know what they are doing
It primed. Shitty locomotive design and as shitty "regulator" that once the engine was running away started sucking steam out of the boiler so rapidly that as boiler pressure DROPPED the boiler made MORE STEAM. Pressure INHIBITS BOILING and with those pieces of shit in a hard pull on a hill where they're always ready to slip or stall they're always running max steam pressure with the relief blowing over specifically to prevent this type of situation. They're a joke and unlike a GOOD locomotive with a THROTTLE that controls steam delivery to the cylinders in conjunction WITH CUTOFF so it's changing valve gear timing and valve opening along with steam flow to the cylinders with in a locomotive or any other steam engine is really nothing but hot compressed air and with those retardedly huge drivers with the little tiny "stroke" with the crank pins so close to the axle centers because they were still using "ancient" single-ended cylinders so the engine has more torque with the piston being pushed backward AND less torque with the piston going forward because the rod takes up piston area means the engine is never "balanced" and if you have enough steam on to get enough torque on the forward strokes you've got TOO MUCH pushing back which is when you actually need less torque anyway and want more control so as the pins come around and up over center the piston is trying to STOP THE WHEELS with the pins fully forward. A complete clusterfuck all the way around made worse by the stupidly light weight on those huge drivers which have as much surface area and as light of unit loading and as little traction as you could possibly get. Not to mention the front "bogies" aren't suspended while the drivers are in a half-assed manner and the front bogies which on a GOOD LOCOMOTIVE are just there to guide the front end of the locomotive and should carry only enough weight not to "hunt" which ALSO is controlled by how they're "pinned" to the locomotive"by putting the pivot point slightly FORWARD of the center of the bogie truck so the front of the frame is "pulling" the bogies under power on straight track and easing back and coasting into corners it's "pushing" the bogies. I could also mention how absolutely asinine British railway construction is and how they seem to have a thing for putting as much curvature in their track as fucking possible and how intelligent railroad engineering ALWAYS "wastes money" to "save degrees" and ESPECIALLY ON HILLS but yet on those British railways it seems like every fucking hill has a curve. They're not even smart enough to sight stations on straight sections for fuck's sake. Nothing more fucking ridiculous than leaving a station loaded UPHILL and INTO A CURVE and of COURSE none of the fucking idiots putting those "toy trains" together apparently has any clue about matching power to trains. No sir. They sell as many fucking tickets for the toy train rides as possible and then put cars on accordingly and end up running one "long" slipping, sliding, stalling and struggling piece of shit excursion train with at least two more cars than it can COMFORTABLY handle and at least three more than SAFETY and COMMON SENSE and the ability to do basic math and basic business sense and realizing its a lot smarter to sell tickets for the cars it can handle easily and leaving another car or two cars or two and a half car's worth of wannabe riders waiting for the next one would all come in handy. And if the fucking "professionals" running the RAILWAY and/or "heritage railway trust" or whatever the hell it is (who are probably in that cab playing real railroader just like most foamers who want to play with choo choos but never badly enough to get their hands dirty and sure as hell aren't there in a country full of former steam locomotive "drivers" who even when good professionals HAD TO START SOMEWHERE) are dumb enough and irresponsible enough to turn "amateurs" loose with a fucking TRAIN full of PEOPLE on a main line like that and its all going down in a country where APPARENTLY WHISTLES ARE ONLY FOR BLOWING AT FOAMERS ALONG THE WAY SOMEWHERE and aren't for signaling that a train is going to be moving and CROSSING BELLS are completely non-existent and they still use VACUUM FUCKING BRAKES TODAY, then I'd say it's more of a "systemic problem" rather than whatever dumb and unfortunate SOB happened to be at the "throttle" in that fucking piece of shit and was tasked with the job of getting and old STEAM LEAKING PIECE OF SHIT (notice the big clouds of steam right from startup all along the right side where SOMETHING was definitely leaking a LOT) like that up and out of a station on a fucking hill and on a curve and on wet track with way too many full passenger cars full of foamers behind too stupid to realize "we've just got too many cars and people behind this locomotive and this could be dangerous if we ever get going and have to STOP much less if this pile of shit up front SPINS OUT and we go BACKWARD down a hill" like in at LEAST two horrible "historic" train wrecks in Jolly Old England and too stupid to worry about their own safety or anyone else's and too caught up in riding the choo choo to notice what a giant pile of shit is pulling them not being capable of moving a handle "well enough" to keep enough steam going to the cylinders without too much. The fact is he did a HELL of a job getting that POS as far as he did and clearly he wasn't out of the woods yet and it was either stall and MAYBE NOT BE ABLE TO STOP THAT PIECE OF SHIT FROM ROLLING BACKWARD ESPECIALLY IF HE RAN OUT OF STEAM AND THE VACUUM "EJECTOR" COULDN'T "EJECT" and the only way you keep any overloaded vehicle from stalling on a hill is GIVE IT SOME THROTTLE. Of course because of how shittily those locomotives are designed, when boiler pressure drops you get MORE BOILING AND MORE STEAM AND THE PRESSURE SHOOTS RIGHT BACK UP AGAIN AND THEN DROPS AND SHOOTS UP ETC ETC ETC. Especially when you have such an overall piece of shit you have to have a "blast tube' to aid the draft just to get enough steam to start out like that. The thing about good locomotives and good engineers and good firemen is that they only put on and put to use as much steam as is necessary for the job at hand. Nothing like having 250 psi of steam when you're having trouble pulling a hill and really only need about 125 and if you HAD 125 you could open the throttle up and LET IT LUG and maybe adjust your cutoff a little to help get it "timed" right for make a little better use of the steam. Of course GOOD LOCOMOTIVES integrate the CUTOFF CONTROLS and THROTTLE CONTROLS all into one handle. And they have AIR BRAKES that you can actually use to help CONTROL WHEEL SPIN in a "slippery spot". That's actually pretty common practice railroading in hills. Keep a little load on everything and keep the engine working fairly hard and steady which keeps the pistons and rings SEALED UP and increases overall efficiency and also keeps the locomotive and boiler full of water for jerking and pulsing forward and backward and the water from sloshing around and keeps a good stead draft in the firebox and a good head of water over the crownsheet and then you can run LOWER WATER LEVELS and get "drier" AND "hotter" steam that you can actually control the flow of and don't have to worry about "priming" and if you're REALLY "good" you can actually run the locomotive through all phases of operation and loads and terrains and such without every running out of steam AND without having the safety valve blowing the fuck off as you're trying to CLIMB A HILL. Of course THAT's on the dumbass "fireman" and stupid-ass "rules of thumb" for such and such locomotive and how many shovels per mile and blah blah blah blah like all coal and shovels and shovels full of coal and miles and locomotives and trains and loads and boilers are "identical" and you can just fire the boiler by your watch or mile posts or some shit. Of course again GOOD LOCOMOTIVES by the "modern era" had "automatic stokers" and weren't feeding CHUNKS of fucking coal into the firebox and the ENGINEER could "fire the boiler" while the "fireman" could pay attention the water level and pretty much stopped being a "fireman" or at the very least became a FIREMAN/OILER and was in charge of making sure lubricators were full and functioning, the coal and water feed systems were working correctly, kept track of fuel and water use and in his spare time helped operate the fucking train and kept his eyes everywhere the engineer couldn't keep his. And of course that was on the job training to be an engineer and it was a matter of getting enough engineers to sign your card after convincing them during many, many "training sessions" and "drivers education classes" and lots and lots of grunt work and going above and beyond to make the engineer's job easier and the train safer and maintaining the locomotive WITHOUT stepping on the engineer's toes or getting in the way that was required to get "promoted". Of course lots of guys found out being the engineer wasn't nearly as much fun and nearly as easy as it looked. And its never "fun" for a professional. Enjoyable? Yes. Pleasurable? Yes. Fulfilling? Yes. Fun time? Hell no. When I see videos of these clowns "on the footplate" making their dumbass coal shovel breakfasts in pure foamer heaven and maybe even as long-time "railroaders" but who only ever drove desks as administrators, suddenly its no mystery while shit like that locomotive ends up on the lines over there and why a country so backward in general is ESPECIALLY backward in railroading. Vacuum brakes and buffer and chain couplers and fancy paintjobs on rolling scrap metal hauling hundreds of people down the rails and probably with boilers that wouldn't pass even a static cold air pressure test in the U.S. at half pressure much less a hot steam test even if they passed the visual inspection of the stays and sheets. Someday one of those time bombs will go off.
+RedZobe Actually "High Speed Gordon" came before this. "Gordon the High Speed Engine" was published in 1987. Blue Peter's mishap happened in 1994. "High Speed Gordon" was based on an incident with a Duchess at Kilmarnock in 1961.
Motion wheels and axle boxes damaged. Drivers' finger broken. although soem reports say his arm was broken because it was caught up in the rapidly spinning screw reversing lever which he unlocked when he realized he couldn't close the regulator.
Ouch as soon as i heard what happened to the driver when he tried to wind the valve gear back to norm but it swung back violently thus whipping round the drivers arms and braking them i just heard him screaming in my head
I'm sure that driver was ticked off the list of experienced steam drivers after he did that !!🤣🤣🤣🤣"no more steam driving for you old chap remember BP?!??!????"😬😬😬😬😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒
Does it really help to run the wheels that fast when they're slipping? I would think that once they start slipping, turning faster won't give much more traction force. Wouldn't they have been better off to run it just a bit faster than when they first started to slip?
It wasn't intentional. The regulator stuck because the boiler was over full and the driver tried to put her in neutral but there was so much pressure that the reverser span into full forward gear. Nothing the crew could do about it once at that stage.
Hmm. so nothing about opening drain cocks, winding towards mid-gear and getting some brake in ? Better still keep an eye on, and supervise fireman so you are aware of how hard you can drive a loco.
Adding to this it was autumn with all the attendant difficulties of the season, and wet rails. As I said she started well, on crossing the 2nd arch (the one with a noticeable dip in it) she slipped slightly, but it was soon arrested. Off she went to the far end of the viaduct and all hell let loose, smoke and steam headed skywards and soon the wheels began to glow getting red hot,
+SonicDashie759 basically the engine lost grip on the track, probably because the rails were wet. As the wheels began to slip, water from the boiler got the wrong side of the regulator valve so it wouldn't close, meaning the slip got more violent until the engine's motion (The rods on the side) thrashed it's self to pieces. Hope this is a straight forward enough explanation.
+SonicDashie759 The driver opened the regulator too far and the wheels lost their grip, like a car on an icy road. Well, you just take your foot off the pedal. But regulator handles are not like car pedals - they don't just spring back - they need to be heaved shut just as they need to be heaved open. The regulator is a long handle that is often quite stiff. In this case the regulator could not be closed once the slip had started because of the tremendous flow of steam which dragged loads of water with it. But that's not all. The crucial point is that the water got into the cylinders where there is only a very small clearance (less than half an inch) at the end of each stroke and water is incompressible. The pistons in effect were slamming into a brick wall at each stroke with the result that all the rods got bent and the ends of all three cylinders were cracked, which explains the huge clouds of steam roaring out of the front of the engine. The slip only stopped because the valve gear had got so badly bent that the timing was lost. The driver had no more than a second or two to react and slam the regulator shut before the slip really got going and but it seems he wasn't quick enough, poor fellow.
+mighty Kirby That may have been tried but the regulator was probably full open or nearly so anyway. I suspect the regulator could'n't be moved at all against the huge steam and water flow once the slip had got going and that all that could be done was to try and wind the reverser into mid-gear by which time the slip had done its damage. In steam days on BR this never happened, as far as I know, the crew always managing to shut the regulator before the loco was damaged though there was sometimes damage to rails.
+Rosie6857 No, he reacted accordingly- but the boiler had primed and jammed the regulator wide open. He then tried to stop the engine by moving its timing to neutral instead of forward- but by then the engine was pounding so furiously that it lashed the mechanism backwards and broke his arm, coming to rest wide open. From there only two things could have stopped it- the engine flying apart from running as flat out as steam can possibly get, or the boiler running out of steam. In this case, the engine literally flew apart. Blue Peter was laid up for months while it was rebuilt.
+SonicDashie759 I'm assuming you are familiar with a car doing a burnout- intentionally making its wheels spin on the road by hitting the gas really hard. What happened here was the driver gave the engine a little too much steam and the engine spun its wheels, accidentally though. They recovered, but then opened it up again far too soon. The valve controlling the steam to the engine got stuck wide open, and the engine again lost its grip on the rails. Then in an effort to stop it, the driver tried to put the engine in neutral. On a car this would only let the engine run faster- but steam engines don't have gears, they change direction by changing the timing of the engine. Instead the runaway engine yanked the controls the way it wanted to go, breaking his arm in the process. It ended up flat out in both pressure and timing, with no grip on the rails and going as fast as it could possibly go until it broke apart.
