Some CC1 related questions

[Hod Carrier]

I'm probably not the target demographic for this forum on the basis that I am not specifically modelling the Irish rail network and that my fists of ham and fingers of butter mean that my skill-set extends solely to building in the oft derided medium of LEGO, so I'll try and keep this brief. However, I do have a few questions and I thought that this would be the best place to ask on the basis that the membership here present are the most likely people to know the answers.

I have just completed my own take on the CIE CC1 "Turf Burner" loco based on the sources I have been able to find online. However, there is still a fair amount of guesswork gone into the build that I would like to check in order to improve the model if necessary.

Yes I know, the ladder is too big.

One of the things I've noticed about the pictorial sources is that CC1 seems always to be presenting the same side to the camera. I have yet to find a reliable photo that unequivocally shows the opposite side and, as such, I have assumed that the two sides are mirror images and built the model as such. Likewise, there appear to be no photos showing the roof of the loco. I have included the boiler safety valves, twin chimneys and vents for the blowers at each end and placed them where it seems best, but apart from that I have left the roof smooth. Can anyone confirm if these assumptions are correct?

I would also like to build some rolling stock for CC1, but again I can find no pictorial evidence that the loco in modified form ever left Inchicore. All the photos of the loco running in steam seem to be while it was in original condition hauling scratch rakes of whatever was lying around spare. I'd like to build something accurate, a replica of an actual event if possible. Is it possible to get some direction on this? I'm certainly no expert on Irish rolling stock of the 1950s. Photos that I have seen appear to show some quite venerable-looking bogie compartment coaches with step boards, a 6-wheel full brake and even something a bit more modern (a "laminate", perhaps). I presume that the coaches would have been painted dark green at this point in time, but really any steer that I can get on these would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

[murrayec]

10 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

 Oh well. Maybe I'll just build some lined green "laminates" or similar and run a make-believe set in place of the Trial Train.

You've built an excellent looking model, you cant quit now- do build the laminates, it will be a superb train and a first in Lego.

I look forward to seeing more....

Eoin

[minister_for_hardship]

On 01/02/2021 at 11:00 PM, jhb171achill said:

 

I love these old railwaymen's stories - they all just show up that we're all human throughout the ages!

 

The two sets of reports of the accidental collision between CC1 and one of the early Sulzers confirmed that both locos were in fact stationary leading up to the moment of impact.

Edited February 17, 2021 by minister_for_hardship

[murrayec]

@Hod Carrier

The turf burner only lasted for it's trials, so any of the coaching used in the trials is applicable.

The sides were handed so it looks like only one side was photographed but both were!

More Info here;-

 

Eoin

[Hod Carrier]

Thank you Eoin for your quick reply and for the helpful links. Some of the images they contain I had not seen before, but I can now see what you mean about the "handed" nature of CC1 and have worked out how to differentiate between the two sides. One side has a single vacuum(?) tank between the bogies while the other has two. That's one alteration I shall have to make to my model.

I'm aware of CC1's short history, and it seems that the answer to the question about whether or not it ever left Inchicore in modified form is "no". I probably should have checked that first before selecting this iteration to model. Oh well. Maybe I'll just build some lined green "laminates" or similar and run a make-believe set in place of the Trial Train.

[Hod Carrier]

Thank you, Eoin. I will. 

I had just hoped to build something real and am just a tad deflated to learn that Inchicore had done with CC1 what we joke about in the UK with regard to signalboxes. However, railway modelling is often about building an idealised version of reality and showing the world as we would perhaps have liked it. I think that maybe we can give CC1 one last mainline run with an appropriate train, even if it is only in miniature.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Hod Carrier
Clarity

[jhb171achill]

Hod, remember "Rule 1", which states "it's YOUR layout"! You can run what you want........

Many here will be sticklers for as much accuracy as possible, while others like to just play trains! A past layout of mine had a narrow-gauge (009) line of the MGWR; not a thing like this ever existed!

Had the trial of this contraption been successful, it is likely that it would have operated on the Dublin - Cork line, so laminates would indeed be the order of the day.

I did a double-take at your model - I didn't realise it was LEGO! Now, that's a SUPERB job if ever I saw one.

Incidentally, for anyone interested, I found a large amount of material relating to Bullied's sidekick John Click in the NRM in York when I was over there delving into something else entirely, some years ago.

Had it survived into the 1960s, it would have ended up black and hauling Cravens!

Edited February 1, 2021 by jhb171achill

[airfixfan]

There are some rare photos of CC1 in Steam World article in March 1992 issue.

[murphaph]

I did a double take too. Didn't realise it was Lego looking at it on my phone. What a great job.

[Hod Carrier]

Thank you all for the positive feedback and for the leads. Trips to York are out of the question at present (damn that virus) but I will see what I can do about getting hold of that Steam World article.

Thank you all again.

[GSR 800]

Excellent and unique model from a unusual prototype.

There's quite a few threads across the forum regarding the turf burner, one recently included pictures of her next to one of the 800s, will have to dig that up.

There's also this model 

 I remember coming across a proposal for a 3D printed version?

 

[jhb171achill]

14 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

I'm probably not the target demographic for this forum on the basis that I am not specifically modelling the Irish rail network and that my fists of ham and fingers of butter mean that my skill-set extends solely to building in the oft derided medium of LEGO, so I'll try and keep this brief. However, I do have a few questions and I thought that this would be the best place to ask on the basis that the membership here present are the most likely people to know the answers.

I have just completed my own take on the CIE CC1 "Turf Burner" loco based on the sources I have been able to find online. However, there is still a fair amount of guesswork gone into the build that I would like to check in order to improve the model if necessary.

Yes I know, the ladder is too big.

One of the things I've noticed about the pictorial sources is that CC1 seems always to be presenting the same side to the camera. I have yet to find a reliable photo that unequivocally shows the opposite side and, as such, I have assumed that the two sides are mirror images and built the model as such. Likewise, there appear to be no photos showing the roof of the loco. I have included the boiler safety valves, twin chimneys and vents for the blowers at each end and placed them where it seems best, but apart from that I have left the roof smooth. Can anyone confirm if these assumptions are correct?

I would also like to build some rolling stock for CC1, but again I can find no pictorial evidence that the loco in modified form ever left Inchicore. All the photos of the loco running in steam seem to be while it was in original condition hauling scratch rakes of whatever was lying around spare. I'd like to build something accurate, a replica of an actual event if possible. Is it possible to get some direction on this? I'm certainly no expert on Irish rolling stock of the 1950s. Photos that I have seen appear to show some quite venerable-looking bogie compartment coaches with step boards, a 6-wheel full brake and even something a bit more modern (a "laminate", perhaps). I presume that the coaches would have been painted dark green at this point in time, but really any steer that I can get on these would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

Just seeing this - the carriages were the “test train” - a set of long-withdrawn passenger stock kept simply for doing load tests. They were elderly GSWR relics, and were still in the pre-1955 darker green, but so very badly faded that they were by now just a dirty nondescript greeny-dirt colour in appearance!

[DERAILED]

A while back I posted about CC1 on another thread regarding the stock that it hauled on its various test runs and since then Belfast artist, David Briggs, did this wonderful painting for me.

 

CC1 -The Turf Burner Trials - David Briggs.

First commission of 2021 ready to go to its new home! The setting for this painting is Inchicore on the mainline from Dublin to Cork. It has been the main workshops for the railways in the Republic of Ireland since it was constructed by the Great Southern & Western railway in the mid 1840’s. The castellated  facade on the right hand side of the painting fronted vast workshops, the smaller building on the left hand side of the view was until recent times a signal cabin.

In the mid 1950s the then Irish state transport company was CIE. They had already begun a process of  dieselisation  indeed one of their early diesel locomotives can be seen in the background approaching on the shed road. It is a Metro Vic A class - A57, one of a class of 60 that would undertake the bulk of mainline duties for many years, and prove very successful once re-engined with General Motors power plants., however the main featured loco in the painting is what is of interest here.

As a result of a late 1940’s report (the Milne report ) into the state of Irish railways the chairman of CIE Thaddeus C Courtney  ( in the painting with the camel coloured coat and bowler hat ) invited one of the committee who carried out the study, one OVS Bulleid  to join CIE as Consulting Mechanical Engineer ( later Chief Mechanical Engineer - CME ). Oliver Bulleid resigned as CME of the southern region of British Rail and moved to Ireland. He was one of the last of the famous CME’s of the steam era and although some of his ideas were questioned at times by his peers he was undoubtedly an able engineer and  designer.

Ireland had little suitable coal resources for steaming but did have abundant supplies of low calorific value fuel in the form of peat or turf as its more commonly known. Bulleid reckoned he could design and build a suitable locomotive that utilised this fuel and thus was born  CC1 - The Turf Burner. As this is  a narrative to give context to the painting I won’t go into the details of how it works but it makes interesting reading if you care to do your own research! Ultimately the project was not pursued just as with Bulleids other innovative project for BR ‘ The Leader’. You can do your own homework on that one too!

Our scene here then is CC1  passing Inchicore on a test train to Cork in October 1957 with a hotch  potch of available carriages ( purely to provide a load for the loco ) . The loco would ultimately be fully painted in lined green but during the trials was as is usual painted in workshop grey. Bulleid ( black coat,  red bow tie,  and bowler hat ) is explaining to the ‘ brass’ at Inchicore some technical point or other as the train, driven by a skilled and enthusiastic Inchicore works driver Michael Keely, passes heading west.

Bulleid designed and built other excellent rolling stock during his time in Ireland, however he tends to be remembered on both sides of the Irish sea for his more ‘outside the box’ type thinking and perhaps not concentrating on maximising the company’s effficient operating and therefore profit.  He was certainly a visionary but the steam age was coming to an end and so was his career, he retired in 1958 to Devon  and then Malta  where he died in 1970 aged 87. I think he was just born too late for his steam engineering dreams to be fulfilled.

[airfixfan]

4 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

Thank you all for the positive feedback and for the leads. Trips to York are out of the question at present (damn that virus) but I will see what I can do about getting hold of that Steam World article.

Thank you all again.

The photo I posted in another thread on this forum of CC1 beside 800 came from that Steam World article from March 1992. Try magazine exchange website

[Westcorkrailway]

3 hours ago, DERAILED said:

A while back I posted about CC1 on another thread regarding the stock that it hauled on its various test runs and since then Belfast artist, David Briggs, did this wonderful painting for me.

 

CC1 -The Turf Burner Trials - David Briggs

Absoutly love that

 

Im not sure i can show them here but anybody with Tom Ferris irish railways in colour, a second glance shows 2 excellent photos of CC1 and class K3 2-6-0 that bullied converted to burn turf as a prototype that looks really bizzare and butchered!

[Hod Carrier]

Thanks again to everyone for sharing your knowledge and expertise. I feel like I've learned so much in the past 24 hours.

@DERAILED Is that wonderful painting destined for your walls or is it headed elsewhere? I think you've given a fair assessment of both Bulleid and his work. With regard to CC1 at least, I don't necessarily subscribe to the view that the trial had been a failure but rather feel that it was an experiment that came too late. With dieselisation underway the time for an experimental steam locomotive had passed, even if it did guarantee energy security by burning domestically produced fuel.

On the rolling stock point, I have worked up a quick draft design for a "Laminate" by modifying a British Railways Mark 1 coach that I had previously designed. I think I'm heading in the right direction with it but would appreciate your expert opinions.

[murrayec]

@Hod Carrier According to Mr Shepherd's book- 'Click submitted a report to Bulleid at the end of the trials with the proviso that the report was premature as serious testing had not been carried out yet, he went on to say that the results of the first testing were satisfactory and some mods could be done to improve the loco'...... as you say diesel was coming in, Bulleid was leaving and senior management saw 'lucrative opportunities' buying into the diesel system so the project was mothballed and then later scrapped.

Mark 1's are pretty close, we did not have them here, though that you have the design done, it looks great- I'd go with that

Eoin

[Irishrailwayman]

Turf has very low calorific value and it would have taken a lot of it to power a loco so the trials were not a success. BTW I loved Lego as a kid and now am in to railway modelling big time since 2002! Well done on your modelling with Lego.

[jhb171achill]

The late Marcus Bailie-Gage of Dundalk Works was familiar with this project. He told me that Bullied's designs in Brexitland were received critically with very mixed reviews, as was CC1.

Crews complained of very intense heat in the cab, and firing the thing correctly was a bit of a knack, though to be fair to Oliver Bullied, familarity with the best technique would have come with experience, had they been mass-produced. Marcus recounted a tale in which during a trial run, Bullied was becoming increasingly frustrated with the genuine concerns of certain Inchicore "suits" and the loco crew; eventually, when asked about a new issue that tests were showing up as lacking, he "lost the head" and told them, "WELL, FIX IT!!!" before stamping off...!

I love these old railwaymen's stories - they all just show up that we're all human throughout the ages!

Given these plus other issues referred to in other posts above, it's probable it would have remained a one-off. While the dieselisation process was going on, there were still some in Inchicore who believed that steam could be satisfactorily continued in front-line use until the 1970s. The idea was to eliminate all the old and non-standard engines and standardise as much as possible what was left. It is likely that the three 800s would have been retained, plus the Woolwiches and enough J15s for lighter duties......

So, in "00"; a black 800 with a CIE "roundel" on its tender, anyone? No, I wouldn't dare either.

[Hod Carrier]

1 hour ago, murrayec said:

Mark 1's are pretty close, we did not have them here, though that you have the design done, it looks great- I'd go with that

Thanks Eoin. That's most helpful.

This isn't the same as my Mk1 design, but given their outward similarities (and the crudeness of LEGO in portraying subtle differences in detail and shaping) I just used it as a starting point and designed outward from there. 

[WRENNEIRE]

Some pics that may be of interest, thanks to Brendan Kelly,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Westcorkrailway]

2 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

So, in "00"; a black 800 with a CIE "roundel" on its tender, anyone? No, I wouldn't dare either.

Just the thought of that livery sends a shiver down my spine.....it would "work" (granted not well) but maebh in Green is the only way to go

[jhb171achill]

12 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Just the thought of that livery sends a shiver down my spine.....it would "work" (granted not well) but maebh in Green is the only way to go

Agreed!

[GSR 800]

13 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

I love these old railwaymen's stories - they all just show up that we're all human throughout the ages!

Given these plus other issues referred to in other posts above, it's probable it would have remained a one-off. While the dieselisation process was going on, there were still some in Inchicore who believed that steam could be satisfactorily continued in front-line use until the 1970s. The idea was to eliminate all the old and non-standard engines and standardise as much as possible what was left. It is likely that the three 800s would have been retained, plus the Woolwiches and enough J15s for lighter duties......

So, in "00"; a black 800 with a CIE "roundel" on its tender, anyone? No, I wouldn't dare either.

Former GNR locomotives continued to be refitted in the late 50s and early 60s, often with the sky blue GNR livery freshly repainted if I'm remembering correctly. I'd find it likely you'd have something similar with the likes of the 800s, maybe a few of the luckier Woolwiches. Main question would be if they bother with a roundel or not!

for anything like a j15, black, almost certainly, Cork already did it with the odd loco they got to repaint and most were near enough black with filth regardless.

Turburner in black n tan or supertrain, there's an interesting thought..

[murrayec]

I reckon Bulleid was on the right track to developing efficient steam locos regardless of the type of fuel, but senior railway management and prominent engineers of the day stifled his endeavours!

Engineers like LD Porta of Argentina, David Wardale of UK/South Africa/China, Alan J Haigh of UK, to name a few, have developed record braking locomotives using steam under all types of fuel. The main difference to their designs was to eliminate the 'old engineering designs' that the locomotives engineers used in the past and develop new ideas which were not well accepted, and still not- but they have proved that steam as an efficient power system for locos can go on!

Some of Porta's steam engines still run today in Argentina's mountains, David Wardale's locos also run in SF and China, his 'Red Devil' in SA has been recently restored and is running well. And AJ Haigh's design for an efficient Hunslet steam loco on the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway has broken that railway's record for efficient running.

If only Bulleid had continued with CC1 .........!!

Eoin.

Edited February 2, 2021 by murrayec

[Hod Carrier]

@WRENNEIRE Oh, I say!! Now those images are just the job. Many many thanks for posting these, as I think they are the only images I have seen of the roof of the loco and are of enormous help. 

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, murrayec said:

If only Bulleid had continued with CC1 .........!!

Eoin.

.........we'd have steam-powered Luas's, and the beautiful smell of turf smoke hanging over the salubrious settings of D4, D6 and D18!

[KMCE]

9 hours ago, murrayec said:

senior management and prominent engineers of the day stifled his endeavours!

Wow,  that sounds like my job every day!!!!

[Hod Carrier]

On 2/2/2021 at 12:17 PM, GSR 800 said:

Turburner in black n tan or supertrain, there's an interesting thought..

You really shouldn't be giving me crazy ideas like that, you know.

 

[Westcorkrailway]

25 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

You really shouldn't be giving me crazy ideas like that, you know.

 

Actually.....black and tan looks pretty superb on CC1.....I'm pleasantly suprised!

[Galteemore]

43 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

You really shouldn't be giving me crazy ideas like that, you know.

 

That’s wonderful! Really nice work and a tantalising glimpse of what might have been...

[jhb171achill]

On ‎13‎/‎02‎/‎2021 at 11:45 AM, Westcorkrailway said:

Actually.....black and tan looks pretty superb on CC1.....I'm pleasantly suprised!

Had the thing lasted, it's most likely it WOULD have ended up like that!

If the very last steam engine ever repainted (late 1962) had lasted only a year and a bit more, it would have ended up with a CIE "roundel" on its tender, probably (though I think the tan would be a step too far) and been plain black instead of dark grey.......

[jhb171achill]

2 hours ago, minister_for_hardship said:

The two sets of reports of the accidental collision between CC1 and one of the early Sulzers confirmed that both locos were in fact stationary leading up to the moment of impact.

And neither of the drivers were even there when they weren't watching what they were doing..........

[David Holman]

Only just found this thread and very good the Lego model is too. Really remarkable what can be done when you put your mind to it.

 Speaking of remarkable things, in the latest Railway Modeller is a review of KRModels 'GT3' - the English Electric gas turbine 4-6-0. Clearly they must believe there is a market for such a beast (and very nice it looks too), so maybe an rtr Turf Burner is not so far fetched after all, especially when KRModels are actually planning to do a Leader...

Edited February 20, 2021 by David Holman

[PRM]

Hey Cod, Is final design of the lego inglenook complete? Is it available assembled for sale?

[PRM]

Hey Cod, Is final design of the lego inglenook complete? Is it available assembled for sale?