Lancashire & Yorkshire 0-8-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 30 (Locobase 9079)

Data from George L Fowler, Illustrated Locomotive Dictionary, 1st Ed (New York: The Railroad Gazette, 1906), p. 504. See also"Eight-wheeled Coupled Goods Engines: Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway", Railway Engineer, Volume XXI, No. 9 (September 1900), p. 257.

These mineral engines designed by Aspinall, but built by H A Hoy, were the backbone of mineral traffic on the L & Y. They had high-mounted boilers mated to relatively small and shallow Belpaire fireboxes. The straight running board only just cleared the cranks on the coupled wheels.

The RE article holds interest because it places the design within its operating environment when considering its success.

"The disadvantage of loading these large engines to their full hauling capacity on level sections is that such long heavy trains, uncontrolled by a continuous brake, tend rather to retard than to facilitate the general traffic. They have to approach signals very slowly, and backing into relief sidings causes great delay."

The author noted the saving grace of the L & Y's siding layout -- "loops with points [switches] at each end."

Braking systems then in use limited the value of the great pulling power. One cngine indeed handled 98 empties and 2 brake vans from Goole and returned with 60 loaded wagons, he reports. But the usual train usually amounted to just 27.

"The length of the empty train could hardly have been less than 533 yds.," the author observes,"and the weight of the full train- is given at considerably over 1,000 tons. Such a train would be very unwieldy to manage with only the engine and van brakes, and if such trains become common they will have to be fitted with a continuous brake."

Such continuous-brake systems would soon be fitted on most British railways because the increase in demand proved unrelenting.

"The particulars given above indicate that there would be an enormous economy in favour of the large engines," the author summarized, "but the average number of wagons per engine is no criterion unless 27 be the maximum number allowed per engine on the section, and which is very unlikely seeing that 40 is the general load allowed in most parts of the country."

The boiler was considered "small" before much service time had passed and at least 80 of the class was converted with larger boilers and superheaters. Steamindex ([]) reports on other deficiencies as described in several of the studies the site reviews. Hoy used a steel alloy of his own devising in constructing the firebox stays, which later failed and led to a widely publicized boiler explosion in 1901. He then introduced corrugated fireboxes. At a later date, the Bridge Stress Committee singled out the 30s for their unwontedly high hammer blow.

One was made over into a compound shown in Locobase 2276.

Class 30 - compound (Locobase 2276)

See Ahrons (1927) for data.

Designer was George Hughes, who used a divided-drive arrangement similar to that favored by Webb on the L&NW. He laid out the design first using one of the 30-class locomotives that had come on the road several years earlier. (Locobase 9079). Coal savings were reported to be in the range of 25% and the class in general was considered quite successful.

As with most Anglo-Saxon railways, however, the compound on a rigid wheelbase never caught on and only 10 of these were built from scratch.

Class 30 - simple-expansion (Locobase 20005)

Data from "Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway", The Locomotive, Volume XVII (15 June 1911), p. 147. See also Steamindex's summary at []

George Hughes told The Locomotive that he had "merely adapted" the type of boiler built for his four-cylinder Ten-wheelers (see Locobase 2307) and placed it on the running gear and frame originally developed by J A F Aspinall for his 0-8-0 mineral engines (Locobase 8406)

It retained the earlier design's Belpaire firebox, but had 417 sq ft more heating surface area and 13 long tons (13.2 metric tons) heavier. A photo shows the resulting large, cylindrical boiler dominating the short wheelbase and small drivers of the coal hauler. According to steamindex, the L&Y built two "lots" of 20--Lot 66 in 1909/1910 and Lot 74 in 1917 and rebuilt eighteen of the original 0-8-0s and fourteen of those that had been delivered with corrugated firebox.

Forty of the class were fitted with superheaters to join the 115 newly built class 31 locomotives described in Locobase 20156.

Class 31/7F (Locobase 20156)

Data from "Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway", The Locomotive, Volume XIX (15 August 1913), p. 182. See also Steamindex's summary at []

Locobase 20005 shows the very successful saturated-boiler class 30 eight-coupleds Chief Mechanical Engineer George Hughes started building in 1910. Aware of the benefits of superheating, he almost immediately began modifying the design by installing a Robinson superheater. Hughes had run trials and found that superheating seemed most effective when used in relatively low-speed service with few starts and stop. Long-haul mineral trains fit that bill.

The result was a near duplicate that retained the Belpaire firebox and 10" (254 mm) piston valves while improving water and coal consumption rates. Obviously pleased with the result, Hughes had Horwich Works produce nearly ten dozen new class 31s and modify 40 class 30s from 1912-1920. (A few years later, Hughes produced for the LMS 60 updated

All 155 were taken into the LMS when the railroads grouped in 1923. Retirements left only 11 for British Rail to place in class 52 in 1948.

Class 32 / 7F (Locobase 20963)

Data from "Horwich-Built Eight-Coupled Mineral Engine, London, Midland and Scottish Railway", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XXIX [29] (15 October 1915) , p.. 286.

In the early LMS days, when operating staff and designers were finding their feet, George Hughes produced this powerful eight-coupled, all-adhesion goods locomotive. He based the design on the superheated 0-8-0s produced from 1912 to 1920 (see Locobase 20156),. The newer boiler decreased small tube count by 24 to accommodate four more flues to house his patent superheater design, which had top and bottom headers.

Like all British 0-8-0s, these were slow-drag engines. The 7Fs could haul 1,000 tons at an average speed of 15 mph (24 kph).

Class 392 (Locobase 10231)

Data from "New Goods Locomotive with Corrugated Firebox, L & Y Ry," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol VII (June 1902), p. 98-99. See also Charles S Lake, "Special Features in the Design of Locomotive Boilers and Fireboxes," The Engineering Magazine, Vol 26 (1903), p. 225-226 and Samuel Rendell (M. I Mech.E), "The Steam Locomotive: Fifty Years Ago and Now", read Saturday, 13 January 1906 and published in the Transactions of the Manchester Association of Engineers 1906 (January to March).

Participating in the brief period in which the stayless corrugated firebox seemed a good alternative to all of those leaking stays that normally braced a rectangular firebox, H A Hoy produced this large 8-coupled. It had a corrugated, cylindrical firebox supplied by Leeds manufacturer Deighton Flue and Tube Company.

Like the Vanderbilt boilers in use in the United States, Hoy's boiler was claimed to have three advantages over regular fireboxes: simplicity in construction, avoidance of screwed stays and copper fireboxes, and a greater area of free water circulation.

Charles Lake, writing in 1903, described its construction:

"The shell of the firebox is 6 feet 9 3/4inches diameter inside, and the firebox itself takes the form of a cylindrical corrugated flue, 9 feet 11 l/2 inches in length and 5 feet 1 l/2 inches diameter outside. The corrugations are 1 l/2 inches in depth, the ribs having their centres spaced at 6 inches apart. The material used is steel, 3/4 inch in thickness."

"The crown of the firebox shell rests on the top of the boiler barrel owing to its centre line being 5 1/4inches below that of the barrel. The centre line of the corrugated flue is lower again by 7 1/8 inches than that of the firebox shell."

Lake then offers some comments and rebuttals: "The extreme length of the firebox would lead one to suppose that difficulty would be experienced in properly firing it, but the men who are employed to run the engine distinctly state that such is not the case.

"They further assert that it is a much easier matter to keep up a good head of steam with this engine than with those fitted with the ordinary pattern box."

Experience would suggest that the complication and variation wasn't worth the candle after all. Although 21 were built with the vessel, Rendell's notation to a table he submitted not 4 years later, "It is not in contemplation to build any more at present". 14 would be rebuilt with a larger boiler in 1911.

Class unknown (Locobase 8406)

Data from Samuel Rendell (M. I Mech.E), "The Steam Locomotive: Fifty Years Ago and Now", read Saturday, 13 January 1906 and published in the Transactions of the Manchester Association of Engineers 1906 (January to March). See also Charles Lake, Locomotives of 1907 (London: Percival Marshall & Co, 1907), presented on [], last accessed 31 January 2009.

21 of these engines (Locobase 10231) were originally delivered with circular, corrugated fireboxes. Others were delivered with Belpaire fireboxes.

It appears that it is this latter design that was credited with an 800-ton trailing load at 20 mph. It was a divided-drive locomotive in which the inside, LP cylinders supplied by slide valves drove the crank of the second axle while the outside, HP cylinders filled by piston valves drove on the third axle.

Lake describes the valve motion as follows:"...[m]otion is imparted to the four valves by means of one set of gear of the Joy type for each pair of valves, viz., one high-pressure and the other low-pressure, this being effected through the medium of a two-armed rocking shaft. These valves travel together in the same direction, while the pistons move oppositely to one another."

A starting valve admitted live steam to LP cylinders to move the train from rest. The mechanism was "...an extremely simple one, comes into operation when the driver places the reversing lever in either full forward or backward gear, and its action is positive and automatic, and cannot be tampered with."