The Last Stand of British Steam - BR Standard Class 9F

in the twilight years of British steam traction some of the most radical and efficient engine designs came to fruition and perhaps the most formidable of them was the unsung hero of the BR freight network the standard 9 F the 9 F was one of the final steam locomotive classes to be developed by British Rail in the years following World War two but despite the increasingly tight budget on which BR could create such engines the 9 FS proved to be strong capable machines that regardless of being built for a freight role often showed success in passenger service as well and were a perfect send-off for steam traction in mainline operation the 9 f as well as all the be our standard classes was born through a disagreement between the British Railways board and the British Transport Commission or BTC the BTC had been established by the government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee and was tasked with overseeing the repair and operation of Britain's war-torn canal railway and road haulage networks upon its formation in 1948 the British Rail board proposed to sweeping plan to electrify all mainline railways out of London as well as some more strategic through main lines that didn't serve the capital with a new fleet of highly advanced steam locomotives being built to provide interim replacements for the hundreds of aging steam classes inherited by Br from the previous big four railway companies some of which dated back to before the grouping Act of 1923 BT see on the other hand considered a more cost effective method of only electrifying certain main lines while steam on the non electrified network would be handled by a new fleet of diesel locomotives unable to reach a compromise BR steamroll at their own concept for full electrification and the creation of new interim steam locomotive designs thus the BR standards were born the first step to test the locomotive designs that had been inherited by be are following nationalization in 1948 and thus a series of exchange trials were undertaken to highlight which locomotives had the best qualities for dedicated freight engines the 1948 trials Illustrated that the designs of Robert riddles who had created a series of two a tow and 2/10 o heavy freight locomotives for the War Department during World War two had the greatest merits and would therefore form the basis of a new heavy Freight locomotive the WD austerity - a tow and two Tenno designs were based largely on the underpinnings of the highly successful LMS class 8f and cumulatively over 1,000 examples had been built between 1943 and 1945 while there was still a sizable number of vittles austerity and LMS 8f classes available for use on the BR network it was through the urging of the eastern regions motivepower officer LP Parker that a new dedicated heavy freight locomotive was to be developed the eastern region which took over the former routes of the London and North Eastern Railway or ller was among pr's more profitable areas due to the presence of the coal industry which covered the areas around Yorkshire Sunderland Newcastle Northumberland and southern Scotland with dozens of collieries and mines providing coal export that formed a large portion of the national GDP as well as domestic supply the creation of a powerful be our standard freight engine would help to make these operations faster and more efficient therefore but riddles who had been appointed mechanical engineer 4br was tasked with developing the be our standard classes including the 9f originally riddles intended to simply take the boiler of his mainline passenger engine the standard class 7 britannia for six two locomotives and implements a two eight two wheel arrangement however he soon determined that in a freight roll a two Tenno arrangement would yield increased traction and a lower axle load as provided by five coupled axles by distributing the adhesive weight over five axles the overall axle load was reduced to only 15 tonnes the use of five coupled axles however gave rise to the issue of a notably long wheelbase but these issues were solved by having the center driving wheels fitted with no flanges and those on the second and fourth coupled wheels were reduced in depth this enabled the locomote around curves of only 400 feet in radius a requirement for negotiating the tight corners of coal fields mines and dock yards otherwise the locomotive was supported by a one axle set of leading wheels and no trailing wheels regarding performance the 9f could haul up to 914 tons of freight at 35 miles an hour while exhibiting the highest possible fuel efficiency for an engine of this type efficiency and speed were the most critical parts of the locomotives operation especially when hauling coal trains as the engine had to undertake as many out and back trips between the colliery and the harbour or travel as far as possible during the eight-hour shift of the engines crew the 9 FS were the last of riddles be our standard designs to begin construction commencing from 1954 at BRS crew works total production for the 9 FS comprised of 251 locomotives of which 198 were built at Crewe between 1954 and 1958 while the final 53 were constructed at the former Great Western Railway Works in Swindon in addition to the standard fleet of 9 FS further attempts to improve the design were made through the fitting of Franco Krusty boilers a boiler type derived from the 1930s Italian design Kosti boilers differed from more conventional feedwater designs by having the heats remaining in the exhaust gases used to preheat the water supply for the main boiler using a secondary heat exchange mechanism essentially creating a second boiler while this wasn't to produce steam the intention of the feed water heater mechanism was to raise the temperature of the water before it reached the main boiler allowing for more efficient use of the exhaust gases in the steam production process for the nine FS ten of these engines were fitted with crosstie boilers in 1955 and differed visually from their regular class through a raised boiler height the removal of smoke deflectors and a generally higher profile unfortunately the crosstie 9fs did little to improve the already significant efficiency of the regular 9f class and also presented a series of design flaws aside from being far more complex and expensive to operate the removal of the smoke deflectors cause problems for engine crews as smoke obscured their visibility while a small smoke deflector was added later it did little to fix the problem and the crosstie boiler gear was removed from these engines between 1959 and 1961 with these locomotives being re-designated 8f due to their smaller boiler size other attempts at increasing the efficiency of the 9 FS was the fitting of a mechanical Stoker on three engines when they were built in 1958 and the equipping of locomotive number 9 - to five-o with Aggies allergic to that same year but neither of these modifications yielded any benefits the only edition that delivered improvements was the fitting of 92178 was a double blast pipe in chimney when it was built in 1957 and after testing all subsequent 9fs would be constructed with this fixture allowing the engines to steam more freely and generate higher power in terms of operations the 9fs proved to be one of the most efficient and reliable steam locomotive designs in history and perhaps the pinnacle of British steam technology as problem the engines delivered on their requirement to provide heavy haulage at higher than normal speeds and thus were employed across the UK on every region for freight the primary role of the nineth was on coal traffic in the northeast of England Scotland and South Wales but they were also adept on working mixed phrase perhaps their most surprising role was on passenger workings and it wasn't uncommon to find a 9 F deputizing for a regular Express locomotive during a run on the eastern region between Grantham and London Kings Cross a 9 F was clocked at over 90 miles an hour while working in Express and though the locomotives proved to run well at high speeds the B our management expressed concerns as to the potential wear of the plane bearing running gear and thus they were barred from operating on top expresses from 1960 several 9 FS were kept as standby engines at Cardiff Canton Depot to step in for class 7 Britannia zhan services between Swansea Cardiff and London Paddington while 9 FS could also be found working summer Saturday relief specials to the coast resorts of Yorkshire Dorset Devon and Cornwall unfortunately the 9 FS would prove to be the last steam locomotive designs to be built by British Railways as following the enactment of the 1955 modernization plan the BT C's proposal for a mixed replacement of diesel and electric traction meant that these brand-new locomotives were on borrowed time construction of 9 FS continued at Swindon until 1960 when the final locomotive built number 9 - 2 - Oh left the factory on March 18th of that year out shopton our standard lined green as opposed to the more conventional Freight black livery an internal competition among Western Region staff had been held as to a possible name for this final locomotive with the result being the christening of the locomotive evening star a symbolic suggestion made by three staff members based at Aberystwyth aldo common in Paddington evening star was the only nine F to wear a nameplate during its operation under British Railways although several preserved members have been given names following retirement rounding out the construction of steam locomotives in Britain after a hundred and thirty five years no new steam engine would be built after evening star until the creation of Ellen er peppercorn a1 replica number 601 63 tornado in 2008 while the original intention for 9f operations was to support a sweeping plan of electrification with the last members expected to be retired as late as the 1980s the first withdrawals of the type began as early as 1964 with the oldest members of the class having only 10 years of hard craft under their belts in that year 16 engines were retired followed by 65 in 1965 46 in 1966 and 106 in 1967 leaving only 18 units in service during the final year of be our mainline steinem operation the famous - - Oh evening star was withdrawn after only five years of service in 1965 but did have the distinction of hauling the final pint Express over the Somerset and Dorset joint railway between baths and Bournemouth before this service was diverted via Oxford reading and Basingstoke in preparation for full closure of the joint railway in 1966 the last 9f to be withdrawn from service was 92167 which was retired in July 1968 less than a month before the final steam operations under British Rail on August 11th of that year following withdrawal redundant 9fs were laid up in scrap yards across the UK while evening star was donated to the National collection and placed on display at the National Railway Museum in York thankfully several ex Western Region 9fs were sent to the wooden brothers scrapyard in Barrie South Wales where in 297 locomotives of all classes were to be broken up instead the developing loco preservation movement was able to rescue 213 of these engines from the cutters torch and thus eight additional 9s were saved from scrapping of the surviving members 9 2 2 2 Oh evening star had the shortest operational life of exactly 5 years while the longest was 92 134 which worked for 9 years and 6 months 3 are currently operational as of June 2020 while 9 2 2 2 O is on static display and the remaining 5 awaiting restoration in varying degrees of intactness due to the length of their wheelbase 9 FS have been banned from operating on the mainline network although 9 - 2 - Oh evening star and 9 - 2 O 3 Black Prince have both seen brief returns to their former stomping grounds as a testament to the performance of these locomotives their ability to haul heavy freight trains was exemplified greatly in September 1982 when in association with the aggregate firm foster yeoman 9 - 203 Black Prince hauled a 2178 ton stone train illustrating that the power of these engines far exceeds what was originally intended thanks again for watching this video if you enjoyed it why not leave a like and be sure to subscribe for more great content thank you very much take care and I'll see you next time

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 222,449

Rating: 4.9522023 out of 5

Keywords: emu, diesel, express, multiple unit, rail, train, electric locomotive, passenger, shunter, trains, dmu, branch, diesel locomotive, class, engine, mainline, railways, steam locomotive, locomotive, freight, railway, track, British Railways, BR, BR Standard, BR Standard Class 9F, 9F, Class 9F, 92220, Evening Star, 92220 Evening Star, 92203 Black Prince, 92203, BR Standard Class 7, Britannia, UK, England, Great Britain, Robert Riddles, BTC, United Kingdom, Coal, Tyneside, Mine, Colliery, Class 7, Modernisation

Id: mJVM_XWF9E4

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020