Great Western question....

Dunno if this is the run you meant, but....

There was a run (W. A. Tuplin describes it in GWR Saints and Sinners) in the early part of the century with a Saint fresh out of the shops - Lady of Lynn or maybe Lady of Lyon where they let it rip running light to see what it would do. C. B. Collett (designer of the Castles etc 20 years later) was one of those on the footplate, as well as (forget the initial) Harrington, a locomotive inspector.

They timed it with stopwatches at in excess of 120mph. Approximate corroboration came from signal box timings which showed 135mph, again approx.

Salvè "Christopher A. Lee" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

That'd be the one tho I thought it was Brunel that set it in motion, unless he made 180 years old :/ Now if I can only get this e-mail thingy to work properly.... Beowulf

My father and his brothers (all GW men) told me this same story. They gave it as a Saint ex shop down the Wootob Bassett line to Badminton.

Sounds a lot like wishful thinking to me, not just the top speed but while running light. A few coaches, say 3 or 4 would steady the loco without being a load that would make it impossible. I'm thinking of the Race to the North with the light weight trains towards the end of the silly seasons of 1888 & 1895.

Collett himself wrote to The Engineer magazine about it maybe 30 years later, which would appear to confirm it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. These chaps that are always going out with their Thrust-whatevers to break the land speed record, I always say to them, "you don't want to do it like that... you want something to steady the load if you're going that fast.... you should tow a nice caravan or two behind you on the Bonneville Flats... you can go much faster that way..."

I mean, don't these people understand basic physics?

Cheers, Steve

This is the actual vehicle used to test the rear wheal stearing system on Thrust SSC

Test the steering? I don't understand!

I thought that *was* the Thrust SSC. That's what the dealer told me anyway, when he let me take it out for a test drive down the A3. He said SSC was short for "Super Small Car".

Personally, I couldn't get more than 186 m.p.h. out of it, even when the towbar snapped and the caravan got left behind in the middle lane.

But then I *am* a cautious driver!

Cheers, Steve

Dropping in late on this thread...

Memory provoked by the original, but I couldn't answer it instantly: " it seems that an observer was worried about meeting another loco going in the opposite direction and Brunel replied that due to their great speed they'd force the other loco off the tracks... one hopes he was being humerous... anyway I read this many years back but cant remember more or indeed where I read it 8"

It was Brunel to Professor Babbage of computing engine fame, when they had almost met head on, after Babbage had been instructed to take his special train out on the "wrong line"...

"Brunel said in such a case he would have put on all the steam he could command, with a view to driving off the opposite engine by the superior velocity of his own."

From LTC Rolt "Red for Danger"

The offending driver was not Dr Dionysus Lardner, who gets mentioned in the previous section.

"Chris Brown" skrev i meddelandet news:NeUN5VAn58yEFwa+@x-track.demon.co.uk...

Thanks Chris for reasons I cant explain (senility?) I seem to have mixed the two stories together , the light engine story in my memory (whats left of it!) was a broad guage engine but I'm probably wrong there too :) but whatever...its still a fine acheivement . Beowulf

Lardner was a weirdo - he made an ass of himself over his comments about people being unable to breathe at 30mph when it should have been obvious even to him that they could still breathe in a strong wind. But in the US you can get a treatise on steam and its uses written later in life which is actually sensible.

It was a long time ago, but I remember reading a C. Hamilton Ellis account of problems with head-on collisions om early railways. This is accompanied by an illustration captioned "Ladies osculating". A similar situation occurred in the film "The Wrong Box", causing Sir Ralph Richardson to be ejected from the toilet compartment where he was having a crafty smoke.

In article , Christopher A. Lee writes

Oh yes. I have a copy of Dr Dionysus Lardner's "Steam Engine" (Fifteenth edition, of 1888) and, though the language and concepts are quite amazing, it reads as the work of someone experience and sensible. It is however centred on stationary engines, and perhaps it was with locomotives that the dear doctor let himself down.

That's what passes for a "finished" vehicle in Birmingham :o)

(kim)

Ah yes, but supposing you were to to travel at 30mph in a strong wind? :o)

(kim)

Depends whether it was a facing or trailing wind.

Are you talking about laden or unladen swallows? ;-)