Never heard of this one before, wonder why it didn’t catch on, maybe maintenance?
Further information, if interested.
Pretty amazing how the 4 diesels could be brought on line individually, and acting like a 4-speed system.
I suspect it cost more than they thought it was worth; which was probably the reason the diesel electric caught on - cheaper than steam and far easier to get going…
The officials didn’t convert from because they hated steam - they just wanted something CHEAPER!
I think the latter more than the former. A steam loco shed had a staff that kept the engines raked out, lit and hot, ready for the fireman who signed on early to get the loco ready. All payroll dollars that went away with the diesels.
I agree. I was amazed when I read about that invention. However, an electric transmission is much easier and has fewer moving parts - just look at the maintenance schedule for a Tesla!
Interesting stuff here: Paxman History Pages - The Fell Locomotive
I found the note at the end rather enlightening:
The Fell Locomotive - British Railways No 10100
some notes by John Cove, formerly a Director of Davey Paxman & Co.
This locomotive employed for the first time in its horsepower range an entirely mechanical drive. The gearbox was the brainchild of Colonel Fell and design of the locomotive was coordinated for his company Fell Developments Ltd via a committee that met at regular intervals as the project took shape. Paxmans were represented on this committee and I believe that Geoff Bone (Managing Director of Paxman, 1954-64) mainly attended meetings. However, I also sat on this committee but only briefly in the later stages when the performance of the locomotive was being evaluated.
The engines were mechanically supercharged rather than turbocharged but otherwise operated on a somewhat similar principal to the Hi-Dyne engines in that they were very heavily supercharged for high starting torque but this was reduced to normal proportions as the loco picked up speed.
The heart of the locomotive was the gearbox and this was the essential invention of Colonel Fell. The principle on which this gearbox operated is described in the previous article on this page.
The locomotive was extensively tested and did prove the viability of an entirely mechanical drive for a locomotive of this power. However, in retrospect it is my opinion that a mistake was made in deciding that everything on board should be mechanically driven as this led to a complex and troublesome arrangement of long shafts driving auxiliaries such as the radiator fans. The positioning of the radiators at the ends of the locomotive also caused problems. Air supply to and from the trailing radiator which was partially blanked off by the attached carriage was marginal at best, and cross connections to compensate for this, coupled with the need to include cooling for four main and two auxiliary engines resulted in a very complex system that gave a lot of problems with air venting and overheating.
Finally there was the problem of the AEC auxiliary engines and the Rootes blowers they drove to supercharge the main engines. In the station, with maximum boost required for starting the train from rest the noise from these was hideous, especially as it was added to the noise caused by the radiator fans and six engines also running. At that time a number of competitors were running various other prototypes on British Rail and when the Fell locomotive passed them their service engineers always made a point of ostentatiously blocking their ears!
Despite the fact that the viability of its mechanical drive was proven the Fell locomotive did not succeed in producing further orders. An unfortunate accident caused severe damage to the main gearbox at a crucial time and this probably influenced BR’s decision not to proceed with the Mark 2 version which Fell Developments Ltd proposed.
The failure had relatively small beginnings. The gearbox suffered the failure of a bolt in its upper part. I cannot recall whether this was attributable to faulty design, materials or workmanship but the main point was that the broken bits passed all the way down through the gear train and rendered most of the gear wheels unfit for further service. The locomotive was returned to BR’s workshop where it was built and stripped for investigation but that was effectively the end of the project.
The Mark 2 locomotive was thus never proceeded with and I do not know how it would have turned out.
My personal opinion has always been that the prototype locomotive tested was somewhat before its time and a Mark 2 locomotive could have been greatly simplified and improved. About the time the prototype was doing its test running large torque converters were becoming available in sizes to suit the Paxman engines. If the engines could have been fitted with these they could have had normal turbocharging and the AEC engines and Rootes blowers could have been eliminated. Then there would have been room in the centre of the locomotive for side mounted radiators and this would have eliminated the cooling problems. Such a locomotive would have been much quieter too. But it was not to be.
John Cove
April 2005
For those who remember, Ralph Brades from the UK built a working model (Gauge 3?) of this engine around 2010.
There were several prerequisites for Ralph to consider modelling something:
- Ridiculously complex
- Articulated (preferably)
- Ugly
- Impossible to build.
I’m gonna have to hunt down his build thread, looks like his website is gone.
Cheers
N
1 Like
Bruce,
Did you put that on the dry erase kitchen white board so I can review it in the morning?
Actually it doesn’t matter anyway as I’m going to jail soon as I saw this today !!
I’m a dead man ! I know it’s 69’ long !!~!!
