Thread: Steam Restoration

I am currently reading a book by Julian Holland titled "An A-Z Of Famous Express Trains".

It deals mainly with the steam express trains that ran in Britain up to about 1965 and Diesels after that. It is mainly detailing running times and where the express ran from and where it runs too. Unfortunatley it is light on technical details on the locomotives but it makes mention of the Pacific class of loco.

Apparently there are various Pacific classes in Britain ranging from the Light Pacific up to Standard "Britannia" Pacifics. The "Flying Scotsman" was at one time hauled by a Pacific class loco, I assume one of the larger ones.

The Australian Pacifics, except for the first 5 were manufactured in Australia. I don't know where the first five were made, I assume Britain.p.s. Wrong, they were made by Clyde Engineering of Granville.

I don't know if this info helps, but it probably confuses even more. I am no expert, only an interested amateur on railways.

More details on the Aussie C38 Pacific class loco's. I note 3801 to 3805 where built by Clyde Engineering of Granville.

New South Wales C38 class locomotive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When you compare the two locos side by side the Aussie loco is a bigger engine then the English one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4

Originally Posted by numpty

Did anyone watch the recent series of Hairy Bikers Restorations, where they travelled around Britain visiting restoration teams rebuilding some of the historic steam driven machinery etc.

A question. Not being well read on steam per se, but the last episode featured a loco 3802. Maybe one of the more learned could enlighten me as to whether this loco is related to our beloved 3801. It did look smaller, but I thought the first 2 numbers referred to it's class?

Thanks in advance
Perry

Hi Perry, all,
The class and numbering system for locomotives is not constant throughout the world. Like car rego plates, each rail/state system had its own numbering system, until the modern age when the rail systems started interchanging rollingstock and private operators were allowed access to the network.

In NSW, from 1924 onwards (prior to 1924, things are properly frustrating to explain), we had a 4 digit numbering system, with 3801 being the 1st member of the 38 class, whilst 3830 is the 30th member of the 38 class. The two digit class number is also often preceded by a letter, in this example C38, where C=3 for the number of driven axles. Currently operational locos in NSW include 5917, the 17th member of the D59 class, for example. Some loco classes had more than 99 members, so the D50 class comprises numbers from 5001 through to 5280, but all 280 of them are considered D50 class locomotives.
The big Beyer Garratts, such as 6029 are of the AD60 class, being an Articulated D (four driven axles per unit) loco. There are also Z prefixed classes (Z12, Z17, Z19 etc), to denote locomotives superceded prior to 1924 but kept on the books for secondary roles.

In Victoria however, they used a letter or two for the class, so on the 5'3" broad gauge they have K183, though there were only 53 members of the K class in Vic! The Vic numbering system appears illogical to this NSWelshman...

Move to Tasmania, and the K class was a pair of Beyer-Garratts of 2' gauge, vastly different from the Vic K class. At least the Tas numbering system was logical, with locos numbered K1 and K2, in a class of two examples. These two Garratts once worked the railway line now 4WD track past Montezuma Falls near Rosebery...

So...
3801 is a steam locomotive in NSW, 3802 was a sister steam loco to 3801, (albeit scrapped in the 60s) in NSW and also concurrently a 'Red Rattler' power car for the Sydney network, whilst the "Middle Jonesville and North Western" may have had a 3802 numbered box car and the "Ferrocavil de Isla Nublar" may have had a diesel shunting engine numbered 3802. No relation excepting coincidence.

But they all run on rails using flanged wheels!

Originally Posted by numpty

Did anyone watch the recent series of Hairy Bikers Restorations, where they travelled around Britain visiting restoration teams rebuilding some of the historic steam driven machinery etc.

A question. Not being well read on steam per se, but the last episode featured a loco 3802. Maybe one of the more learned could enlighten me as to whether this loco is related to our beloved 3801. It did look smaller, but I thought the first 2 numbers referred to it's class?

Thanks in advance
Perry

I thought it was a very interesting show and presented well