The Catastrophic Failure of Fowler's Ghost 

I've got this image in my head of Brunel staring at a plan of his first 7ft gauge loco and thinking "hmm, don't like this, too narrow. I know, I'll bung on an extra quarter of an inch."

Does anyone else just click 'like' on Jago's videos before they even start? Never been let down yet.

I suspect that she didn't explode because she wasn't making much steam anyway, just a hunch. BTW we have in German a wonderful word for a boiler explosion: Kesselzerknall. It literally means "kettle-kerboom".

“The ghost ……. was busted” 🤣 Another simply brilliant, interesting and enjoyable episode. Thank you 👏👏👍😀 Andrew

It sat for more than 3 decades before being scrapped. Compared with similar broad gauge engines (few of which lasted more than 20 years) I would say it simply lived quietly in exchange for a longer life.

For the last 18 years I have managed a Highland property which was once part of Sir John's (truly enormous) estate here in Wester Ross and until a few years ago was owned by a descendant of his. Many pieces of the filigree cast iron designed and produced for the Metropolitan Railway are in evidence as drain covers, boot scrapers, doorsteps and what-have-you around the house and gardens and rarely a month goes by without another bit being dug up somewhere. A few miles down the road, the old Braemore House stables (listed) are tiled and decorated the same as the original underground stations. Fowler also wanted to bring the railway to the far northwest of Scotland, along with one or two of his mates who owned some of the few bits that he didn't. Happily, but slightly surprisingly for the times, - they failed.

I have always felt that the drawing of the Metropolitan train with the GWR loco (8:09) grossly exaggerates the width of both track and rolling stock. Having now seen the photo of Fowler’s Ghost, perhaps it’s not so grossly done after all.

One might say that, on having his engine fail to be a success, Fowler gave up the Ghost... I'll just leave now :P

In my 1927 edition of “ The chronicles of Boulton’s siding “ there are is a chapter which includes information about the loco and some drawings . While the first loco was a failure , he had plans to build a second prototype. There was a sort of second one , which the book describes as an electrical loco the size of a goods truck . It is saId to have got “got stuck” or failed between Kings Cross and Gower Street and was never seen again .

Feed water pumps, rather than steam or exhaust injectors, are a feature of condensing engines, as condensed steam warms the feed water too much for injectors, which rely on the temperature differential between cold water and steam/exhaust. Mind you, injectors used to jam too, causing similar panic, so there were generally more than one.

Due to the return to the office. I'm watching this on my way home on the train for the extra ambience. Hopefully this train wont become a spectral machine on the lube before I get off!

Keep up the good work fella and get well soon.

Fascinating. I wonder why Fowler felt it was necessary to develop the Ghost in such secrecy? Thank you Jago, I hope you're feeling better now.

I love you too Jago, so surprised no-one said it already. Hope you are feeling better soon.

I know I'm late to the party, but I just showed this video to my dad, he'd never heard of Fowler's ghost. This is the first time I've ever come across a railway thing my dad didn't know chapter and verse about. Well done Jago.

"Boulton's Sidings" is a story in itself - relating to Isaac Boulton's small/industrial locomotive hire/customisation/'Frankensteining'/re-building business in the Ashton Moss area of Ashton-under-Lyne. Fowler's loco ended up being transferred to the Beyer Peacock works in Gorton - a short journey, as both locations are a few miles east of Manchester. A few buildings of each of these old companies are still extant to this day.

I can't believe that Fowlers grave is in such a bad state of disrepair. I have a nasty feeling that his is not the only grave of a notable engineer, important railwayman, or other who built the industrial revolution to be in such condition. Maybe something needs to be done, along the lines of the War Graves Commission who look after the graves of all the war dead, wherever that may be?

Get well soon.

Hope you're feeling better Jago.

If the water gets to low then if the boiler is refilled whilst still hot that is when it goes bang. If the water is all turned to steam then the metal work starts to melt rather than exploding which is why they started to fit fusible plugs to steam engines to douse the fire if the water level in the boiler falls below the level of the crown sheet (the metal above the fire box). Many sources out the cause of failure with the condensing gear leaking.

_"The ghost was busted."_ Oh come on, that was painful. I think I got whiplash from such a rapid and utterly comprehensive cringe. 😂

Dangerous when he went wrong, Didn't Work Very Well When he went right, is going on my gravestone.

Sir John Fowler's brother in law was John Whitton, regarded as the "father of New South Wales Railways". The Menangle Rail Bridge on the Main South Line out of Sydney was designed by Whitton in 1863 and is only one of four remaining tubular iron bridges left in the world from the mid 19th Century. The other three are: Victoria Bridge near Penrith NSW (converted into a road bridge in 1907), Conwy Bridge in Wales, and the Victoria Bridge over the St Lawrence River in Canada. The 1850 Britannia Tubular Bridge in Wales was destroyed by fire in 1970. The Menangle Bridge still carries heavy interstate freight trains with an 80km/hour speed limit.

I wonder what the first, second and third bridges of Scotland were like...

I think there is a theory that allowing engineers the room to fail, so to learn from their mistakes, produces better engineers & engineering. I like that.

Yet another great tale, Jago ! Thank you !

As an idea, it was genius - using a storage heater for smokeless energy. What a pity it couldn't be made to work in practice.

Interesting bit of tech history, thanks Jago!

Another interesting video. As always. Cheers

Another brilliant video sir.

Hmm, Fowler's Ghost was a bold idea, but one that only really worked on paper. Still, it didn't affect Fowler's reputation too much, given his later work. On the subject of Metropolitan steam locos, is there a chance we'll get a video on them some day, Jago? I'd love to see a video on Met 1 and Met 23!

Jago , please Sir get well soon !

How about the love for chocolate chip cookies? It's, in my eyes, the purest form of love in existence!

I really enjoyed that. Thanks!

Great video very interesting. I love learning history about London trains. Hope you are feeling better now.

Thank you for another interesting and humorous video, Mr Hazzard.

Feel itttt! Made me chuckle when I'm feeling unwell myself

Cool story and video. Thanks Jago! Hope that you are ok now xx

Your voice sounded just fine. Hope you’re feeling/doing better!

another great video

One must recall the terror felt by enginemen when her water feed pump failed - then suddenly found that 'no provision had been made for summarily discharging several tons of incandescent bricks'! I believe somebody remarked that: 'She produced no smoke, but very little steam either.' Umbrage casting of the highest degree, there. 2:44 That's the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln _shire_ to you!

Sorry to hear you've been ill - very devoted of you to carry on with the recording! Hope you're better.

Fascinating bit of history - for all the successes, there had to be some failures!

At least they tried. We can be happy they didn't had Uranium and knowledge of reactors at that time. Otherwise we would had spoken about Fowler's meltdown.

Fascinating thank you.

Though I knew about Fowler I had not heard of Fowler's Ghost. So that was a first for me. Looking at it you can see the problem but it was an interesting solution. They only thing I can think of is having a much longer boiler for the extra water. But then I wonder if that would have just made for a bigger problem.

Ummm a particularly good video today Very nice

It would be interesting to see around the disused stations on the Metropolitan line, which only glimpsed from a passing train, that were removed from use on the route, when train speeds improved.

I can't ever forget this episode, it kind of haunts my mind.

As well as the Forth bridge, John Fowler also designed the Victoria Bridge on the Severn Valley Railway, and the Albert Edward bridge a few miles upstream at Coalbrookdale.

It was the Economy7 steam train.

Anybody else remember this from the BRS?

I (a Civil Engineer) once made the same mistake (3:10) of calling the ICE the 'Institute' of Civil Engineers (rather than its correct title of the 'Institution' of Civil Engineers). My Supervising Civil Engineer told me 'it's not the Women's Institute!' Not a nitpick, just an anecdote. Fabulous video as always.

Comprehensive explanatory video.

Love you too Jago❤️❤️❤️🚂

The engine must have been damn heavy and hard to get started with all those firebricks, if the ones in our now-removed night-store heater were anything to go by. [BTW, isn't "catastrophic" rather too strong a term? After all, there was no actual catastrophe. As the good Dr Johnson once said: "Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters". (If one can call sinking several thousand pounds - a hefty sum at the time - into a failed technology venture a "little matter".)]

I was thinking “you are the emergency water tank to my failed boiler feed pump”. But yours was better.😀

I wonder if the Metropolitan Railway now Metropolitan Line could still have ghosts. Except that it’s had a massive upgrade and the S8 Stocks that replaced the C-Stock and A-Stock. And perhaps the Metropolitan Line could of extended to High Wycombe. Taking over part of the Chiltern main line.

Wait you missed the love of trains.

If you look at the gravestone, it says that his wife was buried in the same plot... and her mother as well. Fowler seems to have been a decent chap, so what did he do to deserve the torment of having to spend all eternity next to his mother in law? That seems to be the very worst form of punishment.

Thanks for the interesting video. I'd not heard of this boiler design before. I suspect that the term 'combustion chamber' for the refractory heat sink between firebox and boiler is a misnomer since no combustion is intended to take place in this section.

Thanks, Jago. Prior to this, the only ilustration of the 'ghost' which I knew was the drawing which appears near the end of the film - which, oddly, shows it without a tender. I'm surprised the idea of a 'fireless' engine was tried; perhaps they didn't exist at that point? Dear me, it must have been a pretty bad lot if Isaac Watt Boulton coundn't do anything with it - he was a genius in the Heath Robinson mould, only in three dimensions.

8:04 ba dum tsss 🥁😄

similar to nuclear reactor meltdown, but with fire bricks holding on to all the energy and heat and no way of cooling or stopping things from going bad quickly, not good!

Fowler's 'Ghost' was very neatly summed up by C.Hamilton-Ellis's adaption of lines from the Hunting of the Snark "Bold, heroic was the motion, but the boiler failed entirely.

I have a permanent resentment against storing heat in fire bricks. My high school had “ heaters “ consisting of a block of fire bricks with embedded resistors. The resistors were powered up at night, using off peak power, the heat was “ stored “ in the bricks to the classroom during the day. Needless to say they didn’t heat anything. Likewise I cannot imagine early 19th century technology being efficient enough to transfer enough heat from the fire box to the bricks to do much good, combine that with having to restart the fire every time the train reaches the open, the fuel consumption of the thing must have been horrendous.

This prompted me to re-read the chapter in Alfred Rosling Bennett's 'The Chronicles of Boulton's Siding'. In 1922 he was able to see the drawings from Robert Stephenson &Co. dated Dec 1860. He states that with a conventional boiler and Gooch's condensing gear it would have been a useful engine. However, as it was, Ghost No.1 could never have succeeded with "Joseph Beattie's smoke-consuming combustion chamber run to death" and just firebricks supplying the heat. Rbt .Stephenson also produced an improved, but never built, second Ghost with front bogie supporting a huge double barrelled Flaman-type boiler. Twenty five years subsequently, there was an experimental battery loco and then an accumulator (Immisch type) loco (which distinguished itself by running away round the Circle Line), but none were developed pre electrification.

Your advertising features are becoming as finely wrought as the rest of your output. If ever stuck for time, just do the ad. We'll still watch.

I would guess that as long as you could have let the steam out in some fashion, you'd have prevented an explosion. The boiler would have got hot though so it may well have needed a long cool down time not to mention maybe causing some of the parts to warp or buckle. Definitely a "Whoops didnt think of that" moment. Possibly the engine was wrapped in an ethereal cloud of steam for a while?

Thanks for saying you love us

the tender doesn't count to the wheel numbering. making it a 2-4-0 because there is no trailing wheels on the power section behind the driving wheels. I say this because your description of how the numbering works could easily confuse the lamen.

At 2:45 it should be Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire not Lincoln. Kind regards, a pedant. (Great video as always, hope you are feeling better)

Its the Manchester Sheffield AND LINCOLNSHIRE Railway....you made the same mistake on your Marylebone video.....🙄 love the vids BTW xx

Clever idea - kind of like a storage heater. But yes, less space to make steam means less power. Shame it failed but worth a try. Better to try and fail than never try

"The Ghost was busted." A groaner for the aeons.

Duh, I can't believe I hadn't realised where the term "metro" came from.

I hope your Covid infection is passing and your felling better. I had it a couple of weeks ago. Nasty.

Jago, Jago! I am dismayed, yea even up in arms, that you, of all people a rail enthusiast, called the Forth Bridge the "Forth Railway Bridge". There's the Forth Bridge, the Forth Road Bridge and now the Jonny come lately Queensferry Crossing.

Why is called a funnel? Surely it should be a chimney?

I guess you could say that the 'Ghost' did not have guts to do it's job.

It seems that Beyer-Peacock, gave up the ghost.

The love I bare is for Trains and family

Yes - not a very good idea to have a Steam Loco inside a Tunnel!!! 😉🚂🚂🚂

Wait, wouldnt firebricks be heatbatteries??

Your videos are always interesting and well made! Now we need to get you a better microphone (or something) so it doesn't sound like your sinuses are clogged with mucus.

and the coolest obituary in all of history goes to...

who you gonna call? Isaac Bolton

Love it Jago, thanks. Hare Krishna :-)

The ghost was busted…..I saw what you did there

No 'Frankenstien's Ghost'?

Broad gauge..one day your time will come...

👍

Is this the same Fowler that built the railroad to Key West in Florida? If not, it is a very odd coincidence.

👍🏻🇬🇧

It's not the forth railway bridge, it's just the forth Bridge....

Imagine my disappointment in finding out that the video has nothing to do with the great Robbie Fowler.

A few thoughts on this loco engine design, especially after I watched a documentary [completely unrelated issue as you'll see] on Ch4(?) recently: The use of a 'combustion chamber with heat retaining firebricks is certainly akin to the modern car engine design of hybrid electric with battery storage, mainly for use at low speed on the city to reduce the higher pollution emitted when in low gear / at low speed. As an engineer myself, I worked on an ongoing project at college (back in the 90s) about employing large flywheels to do much the same for buses, though sadly not much came of it. The other thing I thougt of was the catastrophic consequences of the condenser system (the forerunner to the modern domestic boiler system to increase efficiency by 10-15%) and pumps through the firebox. The pump failure would be akin to the same on a nuclear power plant causing a 'meltdown' and explosion, rather like that at Chernobyl, as the recent documentary showed. Water and a severely overheated 'boiler' do not go well together. The use of fail-safe backup systems should ALWAYS be the norm.

Hardly a "Catastrophic Failure". Bit of a clickbaity title, dontcha think?

Is Jago Hazzard the next Fay Weldon? Will "The love you bear for a good VPN" become the new "Go to work on an egg"?

First!! Beat you Barber !!