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CC1's Frames

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Jawfin

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Quite sobering to think that the underframe and bogies were still knocking around the back of Inchicore in the mid-70s. Heritage protection doesn't seem to have been a strong point of CIE, unless it was by accident!

Hey, Ivan, That's hardly fair!

 

CIE DID GIVE the RPSI No.186 in 1965/6, then her sister 184 and No. 461, I could go on .......

 

CIE in the 1960s and 70s was amazingly co-operative with the preservation movement.

 

Anyway, WHAT would you have done with the underframes? Ireland wasn't a rich country in the 1970s, and it takes money and effort to maintain these things. Both were, and always have been, at a premium in the Irish preservation scene.

 

Leslie

(by the way, a RPSI founder member and a member of the committee throughout the 70s and 80s)

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....Ireland wasn't a rich country in the 1970s, and it takes money and effort to maintain these things.....

 

That's precisely the point. People often moan that more should have been done to preserve more Irish steam, but where's the money and commitment? People had other priorities.

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A few points..... indeed, CIE didn't ever exist to preserve anything and I would echo the comments that they always cooperated very well with any preservation group which showed that it was responsibly and properly organised. It is, though, a shame that CC1 and other things weren't preserved. This, however, is the fault of short sighted governments and possibly their subsidiaries that looked after tourism stuff.

 

As to the lining on CC1, it looks eau-de-nil in those pics all right, but it's a bit faded when those pics were taken. I suspect it's the same light yellow (or dark cream?) used to put cabside numerals on locos.

 

(The tender "snails" were eau-de-nil, but cabside numbers pale yellow!)

 

I would agree that initially it was standard loco grey, or something extremely close.

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The reality is, as many existing and even more proposed preservation projects have discovered, there just isn't the critical mass of railway enthusiasts in this country, and above all not a critical mass if them with both the money and the inclination to throw large sums of it about, to make many preservation projects succeed.

 

It's not a case of "someone" put up the money, and, sure the thing'll run itself.... unfortunately, but there we go. The good news is that in the modelling world, anything and everything - real or "what-if"'s is possible!

 

The technical details of CC1 have survived. Could anyone, I wonder, build a working turf fired 31/2 inch gauge version?

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  • 1 year later...
A few grains of turf carefully placed near the electric heater! :-)

 

Can anyone elaborate on the Turfburner a little bit as I didn't find this info going back through the thread. Obviously it ran on turf which doesn't have very concentrated hydrocarbons like coal or anthracite. Was this the sole fuel? How long did it take to get this thing started in the morning? Did the boiler operate at the same pressure? what was performance like? Was it the only one? Did it see service or mainly experimental?

Thanks,

Kevin

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I have London Area IRRS book on the Turf Burner somewhere, mainly technical with diagrams of the fuel, drafting and steam circuits.

 

The Turf Burner appears to have been designed to burn either peat or oil. The design of the loco had a lot more in common with a Double Fairlie than the Leader. CC1 had a small double ended boiler and central firebox in the area around the cab rather than the Leader's large conventional (by Bullied standards) steam locomotive burner.

 

The boiler was designed to burn pulverised or milled turf on a fluidised bed in a similar manner to in a power station, peat was fed to the firebox by screw conveyor from bunkers located fore and aft over the bogies. Oil firing equipment appears to have been designed but never installed.

 

The boiler appears to be distinctly odd with short and what appear to be rectangular barrels off a large central firebox. Engines presumably enclosed units mounted on the bogies with enclosed chain drive to the wheels.

 

While CC1 appears to have proved the concept for a modern mixed traffic steam locomotive design, the requirement for 50 turf burning locomotives for seasonal beet and cattle trains envisaged in the 'modernisation plan" had disappeared by 1963 along with the requirement for most of the C Class diesels

 

A considerable level of investment in time and money would have been needed to develop CC1 into a reliable loco at a time the long term future of the railways were in serious doubt.

 

While labour was probably cheaper South Africa, India & China concentrated on improving the firing of proven designs rather than trying to -invent the steam locomotive.

 

Going back to the story of CC1s frames and the buried Macroom loco, New Zealand preservationists have a history of pulling locos out of rivers and restoring them to working order http://www.plainsrailway.co.nz/stock?page=locos. Mainly because of an independent pioneering spirit with no expectation of official or Government support things get done rather than talked about.

Edited by Mayner
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Buried Macroom loco? Pray tell.... if I've heard that one at some stage I must have forgotten all about it!

 

Similar urban legend was doing the rounds about one of the WCR's near-useless Bagnall tanks. Came off-road and ended up in boggy ground, photo was taken of aftermath.

Story was embellished over the years and if was assumed that the loco sank further into the bog and never recovered. But of course we can account for its later career and eventual scrapping.

 

Another story concerned a submerged Admiralty loco 'somewhere' on the bottom of Cork Harbour.

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  • 1 month later...
I cant see a reason why britain would put it on rails if it was of Bullied design.:P But wasnt it unrealiable?

 

It had teething troubles, probably could have been made more successful in a 'Mark 2' redesign, but CIE had tired of tinkering with it and besides diesel was the way of the future. Once Bulleid left, the project was destined to be shelved anyway.

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What would have happened if coal was,for some reason plentiful?how much longer would steam last?would the "turf burner" never been built? would more steam engines have been preserved?

 

For that answer, look to the UK. Coal was plentiful but steam was nonetheless gone by 1968, because diesel was still more economical.

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What would have happened if coal was,for some reason plentiful?how much longer would steam last?would the "turf burner" never been built? would more steam engines have been preserved?

 

Steams problem wasn't turf, it was diesel and electric. The new forms of traction killed steam stone dead. Turf power was just tinkering with outdated technology.

 

Additional coal supplies would've made no difference in steam preservation as far as I can see. Old hat technology, died out in line with the rest of the developed world.

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Apart from outposts like China where labour was cheap as chips and coal was bursting out of the ground or India and places in Latin America where labour was also cheap and an impoverished economy where railways had to 'mend and make do' even there steam was living on borrowed time and ultimately going the way of the dodo.

Edited by minister_for_hardship
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Well Warbonnet it might make a difference as because sliedh gullion was handed to the UTA it was insured a longer life which gave it a chance to be preserved. I believe if more locos had just managed to the late 60s they might have been given a chance due to RPSI railtours.Also at the end of the 70s it was recoarded that some locos had very low scrap value which would have made them much cheaper to purchase by the RPSI or UFTM

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