LNER's 8 wheeled experimental express engines - LNER P2 

That may be true but one thing that we can all agree on is that when thomson redesigned the P2s shit hit the fan

@@dilophosaursniper5399 as well as rebuilding the A1. it wasnt terrible but like, really, you couldnt have built a new one?

@@A.i.r_K according to Simon Martin Great Northern just happened to be the A1 that was due for major overhaul when Thompson wanted to do the rebuild experiment. The loco just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The LNER post war was easily the worst off financially of the big 4 which is why they did the rebuilds so they couldn't really afford to build new locos so rebuilding the Gresley designs to make them easier to work on was really the only option the company had

@@A.i.r_K When Thompson rebuilt A1 great Northern it was down to the fact the locomotive was in a clapped out and worn condition. It was in such a poor state a complete rebuild was his only option. This also gave him a test bed for future modifications he would use in his own classes. He didn't really care for looks, but more for reliability and ease of Maintenace

@@A.i.r_K the lner was so poor at the time. They couldn’t build a new one. They had to make do with what they had.

Wait, you guys are building TWO OF THEM?! Well, that just made this Florida man's day!

@@fuzzyhead878 Yup, we are mad. 🤣

I think building a faithful P2 replica is slightly, dumb if I'm honest 😂. It's a flawed class and the A1 society acknowledging that rather than going down this 'Gresley is great with no flaws' idea is odd to say the least

Yes, I've heard of this 8th one you talk of. As you say SFA about its existence or why it's being built.

@@profcraneporter The big question is, what is a “faithful” replica? Each of the class was different. I like the idea of building a new member of the class, not a replica of a dead engine.

The LNER was the poorest of the big 4, gresley made it even more poor. He was a fool

@@Trainskitsetc He may have done. But at least they were poor… with style.

@@DTChapman1 ...yeesssss because that's the aim of a railway...

@@DTChapman1 they weren't just the poorest they actually never turned a profit, not one single year of the LNERs existence did they make any money... probably in no small part thanks to the silly persuit of speed and prestige rather than focusing on becoming more economically stable and repaying the debts they'd inherited at grouping.

@@Trainskitsetc seeking prestige is a very British thing,solving problems isn't a very British thing. So in this sense,Gresley succeeded

The reason for the crank axle failure was due to it being the same design as the gresely A1 and A3 for interchangeability which was fine for them but as for the P2 they lack beef to withstand its power

Y'know, I really should have expected to see you in this comment section, Crane, and yet I'm still surprised 🤦‍♂️😅

Grey-haired men playing trains.

@@EllieMaes-Grandad I'm talking about full size operational steam locomotives.

@@andrewchapman2024 So am I. I see too much emotion and too little sound business sense.

The LBSCR, or maybe it was the SER which came before it, had a class called slaughters.

The Wolf of Badenoch, the son of King Robert II, is infamous in Scottish history for having burnt down Elgin Cathedral. There are also many miffed people that the new engine is called Prince of Wales as his title in Scotland is Duke of Rothesay.

How about ... Isambard Kingdom Brunel .. That takes some beating. Little schoolboy me saw that locomotive fresh out of Swindon Railway UK works back in the 1950s looking like a brand new build. As it approached, I was expecting to see a Castle nameplate but it had been renamed. That Castle Class were impressive with four cylinders. I saw one at full chat through Swindon Railway Station heading "The Bristolian" outbound from London to Bristol. Until then, I had no idea a steam train with so many long coaches could travel so fast as it flashed through the station non-stop express style. The eight power pulse exhausts from the four cylinders merging into one glorious continuous sound at that speed. Had no idea what that name was about back then. I now know and IKB is top of my engineering heroes.

If you follow Hornby model railways at all, the P2 in it's original shape is actually one of the models they've been concentrating on over the past year.

Had they been shifted to the ECML during WW2 instead of being expensively rebuilt, it would have made much more sense. The matter has never been properly investigated.

@@EllieMaes-Grandad it seems to have been that the standard crank axle (shared with the Pacifics) was not strong enough for these powerful locomotives. Why a stronger one wasn’t substituted as an upgrade is beyond me, as I recall that the crank axles even gave trouble on the Pacifics!

Plus the fact that most of the LNER locomotives are Gresley design, Thompson don't have much of a choice on that one. History In The Dark did a video topic on him.

@Sam'll fix it I know the story, though I still think it would be interesting to hear train of thought's, thoughts on the story.

YT article about it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9R_vMqlM9JM.html

The only bigger loco that really worked for the UK was the 9F, which was better than the menagerie of other large locos built for niche purposes, and could also be used as a mixed traffic loco (although not advised due to the small driving wheels, even if it could do 100mph with them). It was just the right engine, at the right time.

@@mattevans4377 That too. The 9F’s are arguably the prettiest 2-10-0’s ever produced.

Railways in the Uk were into building their own motive power with individual regional companies having vastly differing views on what was required and unlike the US with seriously dedicated locomotive builders offering off the shelf products modified to suit. Gresley appears with the P2's to have taken a look into the abyss of horses for courses with a little twist of devilry added for spice. What was needed in Scotland was a locomotive with light axle weight, high tractive effort and good acceleration, top speed not being something that really figured in the equation with stations being in such close proximity on a route more up or down than flat, the tech already existed so what led him off on such a tangent no one will ever really know possibly the low predicted class numbers lent itself to some petty flights of fancy only he would know. Was the P2 a failure? in essence yes, let down by a lack of finality in design, could they have been a great locomotive. doubtful, they would not have fitted well into freight operations-basically being too big for the day and the only other route they might have served well on belonged to the midland railway that time frame was filled by the 9f years later which employed everything the P2 lacked, All is not lost with the build of a new old design but even there they have taken a box of what was, shook at severely and whatever fell out is what they are building again with added spice, will it work out of the box, doubtful it will but they will fix it eventually because its the only one they have to play with.

@@jamesedwards7241 In fairness, David Elliot has corrected in his design of P2 2007 the earlier problems with the pony truck that led to poor handling and crank axle faults, and the Lentz valvegear that was prone to wear will use better materials. Still a way to go but it's come on leaps and bounds since my visit, shortly after the frames were erected.

Economies of scale: nations built the engines which were most needed and worked best for them. The UK had the most comprehensive rail network on earth, one which reached every city, town, village, and hamlet. Gigantic 2-10-2's or similar engines would have been economic suicide. The Soviet Union also had big engines because they needed them.

They needed to be sliced apart with cutting torches, broken into scrap, and melted down. Which they duely were! Excellent result!

​@@PreservationEnthusiastok Mr/Ms. Killjoy

@@Combes_ Scrapping polluting steam locomotives is a very beneficial activity to help protect the environment and recycle the metals.

@@PreservationEnthusiast L.D. Porta, ever heard of him? I doubt it

Luke I Want To Talk About Steam Engines

It should have been called Duke of Rothesay. That is the title of the first in line to the throne in Scotland. Prince of wales is an English title and never used in Scotland. Prince Charles was known as the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland and Prince of Wales in the rest of the UK.

@@derekferguson385 Yes, good one, but I was giving a big 👍 to Phil the Greek because I loved his very un PC nature 😊. Oh and the P2 was originally designed to run from Edinburgh to Aberdeen

It's supposedly fast and slightly boorish, so it applies to Jezza. On the other hand it's May who says "oh cock" every other word.

I wonder what trains May and Hammond would be?

Same with Canadian locomotives but sadly there are speed limits that didn't allow them to go full speed

Wheel slippage is always an issue with locomotives having an non-driven trailing axle (i.e. 4-6-2) as weight balance transfers rearward under load. Having an additional driven axle helps compensate for this propensity.

Many years earlier, Gresley built a couple of P1s. Superb loco's, they were 'too good' and could haul more loads than the infrastructure could cope with.

The French and Germans also built loads of Mikados for heavy passenger express work and they certainly weren't alone in doing that.

The Doncaster project will never be realised.

For just a minute I thought you were refering to the AD60s, but it turns out they're about 500 lb lighter.

If you go to the steam/machinery museum in scorsby in Melbourne's east there is a 12 inch gauge miniature heavy harry. It's every bit as impressive as the real one when you consider one bloke built it in his shed.

It's a theory that has been proven to be utter bollocks which historians, who have looked through the LNER's records at the NRM, confirm doesn't hold any truth. Raven was nearing retirement and actually suggested to a nervous LNER board that Gresley was the best long term choice as CME. As Gresley was relatively young and therefore likely to be in post as CME for quite some time thus limiting the opportunity for further promotion, the ambitious Thompson quit and joined the Royal Commission, just as Stanier left the GWR for the LMS and Bullied left the LNER for the Southern. Thompson rebuilt the P2s to improve their availability which was sadly truly dreadful and needed to be improved for the heavy wartime workloads being placed on the UK's railways. On the issue of being Raven's son-in law, Thompson felt that he had been held back in the LNER because he was Raven's son-in-law but also that he didn't hold Raven in high regard professionally stating in one interview (after Thompson's retirement) that Raven had very little engineering knowledge stating that he "scarcely knew the difference between an engine and a tender".

The Doncaster one will never get beyond owning the frames it has at this point.

@@EllieMaes-Grandad A shame if true, but, how can you be so certain? I mean, I do doubt it will ever be finished myself too.

@@bobingabout I've met the people . . .

@@EllieMaes-Grandad That's a good way to be certain.

No one is being built at darlington and another is being built at Doncaster

They never pulled the Scotsman, it went: 1934 Class A4 > 1958 Class 40 > 1962 Class 55

@@twinboo529 There’s literally a photo of one pulling it.

LNER apple green , just like the P2s had when they outshoped

Not quite the only ones, there were the two P1 class 2-8-2's also designed by Gresley, for freight use.

@@cr10001 the LNER P1 are actually very different engines compared to the P2.

Not the only 2-8-2. GWR had several 2-8-2 tank engines as well

@@rayhankazianga6817 Oh yeah.

The lner actually proposed a *4-8-2* Known as the I1, but wasn't built due to WWII, and his eventual death

It’s been like 10 years and they’ve only cut out the frame sheets. That’s never getting finished.

Really I did not know that!

@@georgeoliver8300 Really? Yikes. They might as well have donated the frames to Darlington.

@@mlp-hot-rod5824 Grey-haired men playing trains - great people, but ego comes into it.

They were tried there and did a good job. Odd that they never remained there, especially in WW2.

@@EllieMaes-Grandad I wonder what it would be Like if the LNER Mountain concept (4-8-2) was built

@@TheSudrianTerrier653 A mistake of even greater proportions?

um aCtHuAlLy, he was saying eight DRIVING wheels; a loco with eight driving wheels is often referred to as an “8-coupled” engine.

BR 50 being german 9F or other way around.

@@davidty2006 german

Its a type of valve gear It’s what makes the machines move

I actually like his B1 and K1, very neat locos. Have you read Wartime CME by Simon AC Martin, totally debunks the anti Thompson narrative we've been fed all these years..

@@vickielawless haven’t but really want to Honestly the B1s and K1s are very nice engines