Whiffed Crosti boilered locomotive

[PR19_Kit]

Inspired by my 'new old' book traded with Steel Penguin at Telford I dug out a project I've had for the last 40 years or so. 

I was always fascinated by the ten Crosti boilered Class 9F locos British Rail built in 1955. With two boilers, one above the other, and a chimney half way down the right side of the boiler(s) they looked like NOTHING BR had ever built before. I once saw one of these passing through Luton with a long train of coal wagons, and seeing the exhaust coming from the side of the boiler just amazed me.

In the late 70s I bought a white metal conversion kit from Crownline to convert the standard Hornby Class 9F into a Crosti, but as usual it joined my VAST pile of 'projects' and I only ever got as far as dismantling the standard 9F, and the project has sat under my work bench (in three different houses....) ever since then.

To show what I mean about its weirdness here's some pics.



A standard 9F with normal chimney and smoke deflectors




A later Crosti 9F, main chimney on the side and lighting up chimney in the normal place. No, I don't know why one driving wheel is missing......




The other side of a Crosti, showing the smoke box for the second boiler

So I'm going to carry on with the conversion you might think? No, as that wouldn't be a Whiff, would it?

In the Barnes book he shows two interesting locos, one a smaller Crosti boilered Class 5 4-6-0, and the other a conventional boilered Class 8 2-8-2. The latter looks very good to me, and I figured why not convert my 9F to a 2-8-2 and add the Crosti bits as well?



The Crosti boilered Class 5 4-6-0




The Class 8 2-8-2

This isn't going to be a quick build, there's lots of work involved and I fully suspect it'll take a year or so, but I've got all the bits, bar a trailing truck perhaps, so there's no heavy financial outlay involved.

Looking through the box of parts I find I've got TWO smoke generators as well! Perhaps I was thinking of having both chimneys smoke? 

[zenrat]

What scale, and will it be a powered model?

[PR19_Kit]

It's British 00 gauge, which means a 1/76 scale bodyshell, and yes, it'll run as the basic 9F is a powered model.

I'll post some pics of the raw material later.

[chrisonord]

I take it the wings will fold along the sides of the boiler for when it goes through tunnels and bridges?
Chris

[PR19_Kit]

I take it the wings will fold along the sides of the boiler for when it goes through tunnels and bridges?

Just for once this WON'T have longer wings, or any at all really. 

[Hobbes]

What was the purpose of the second boiler? Reheating the steam between the high-pressure and low-pressure cylinders?

Oh, and if we're going to have an OO rail layout on the table, you should bring your APT model.

[scooter]

A later Crosti 9F, main chimney on the side and lighting up chimney in the normal place. No, I don't know why one driving wheel is missing......

Looks like a fascinating build.  And drivetrain is missing on that side, so the drive wheel's probably off for maintenance/replacement.

[nighthunter]

Very Cool! Would love to see one done in N-Gauge.

[PR19_Kit]

What was the purpose of the second boiler? Reheating the steam between the high-pressure and low-pressure cylinders?

Oh, and if we're going to have an OO rail layout on the table, you should bring your APT model.

Almost, the lower boiler PRE-heated the water before it went into the upper main boiler. It was meant to be more coal efficient but it didn't work too well with British coal. The Italian railways used Crostis quite extensively, some with twin pre-heaters, one each side, and lower, than the main boiler, and it worked quite well  for them.

My APT's hardly a Whiff though, but it would work well on the Project Cancelled table, if a little large. 

As for an N gauge version, ouch! I did an N gauge RW Crosti 9F many years ago, but sold it on. It wasn't too difficult using the Minitrix 9F as a basis, but I suspect it'd be easier with the current Dapol one.

[NARSES2]

Interesting looking loco.

Some British Steel plant had twin boilers which were used to pre-heat the water. Never knew it had been used on a loco though. I like the comment re British Coal. We had some operational problems with it prior to the coal strike when we were finally allowed to use imported coal, mainly from Australia and Canada. Not only was it better for our purposes it was cheaper  Won't say anymore as it all gets a bit political.

[PR19_Kit]

Welsh coal was by far the best for BR locos, but there wasn't enough of it to power all the steam engines on all the regions. naturally the Western Region got most of it..............

Here's some 'before' pics, and I'm already getting that 'bitten off more than I can chew' feeling......... 

I must have bought an extra detailing kit for a 9F too as there's LOTS more parts than are mentioned in the instructions. Good thing it's going to be a Whiff......



I'd already stripped off some of the detail parts, as well as the motion, but the boiler will look about the same eventually. The tender will become the later high capacity version as the bits are in the conversion kit anyway.




It's a tender drive loco as you can see, that was much easier in those days as the motors were larger, plus a 9F needs to show daylight under the boiler to look right.




All the bits and pieces, Crownline didn't skimp on their kits one bit. Most of the etch stuff is from the detailing kit, and the small plastic bag contains a zillion hand rail knobs!

As it'll be a 2-8-2 I'll need a trailing truck so I've bought a new one from a Honby Britannia off eBay, which should fit right in. Once I've sawn off a BIG chunk of the chassis that is!

[NARSES2]

Impressive Kit 

Welsh coal was by far the best for BR locos, but there wasn't enough of it to power all the steam engines on all the regions. naturally the Western Region got most of it..............

99% of our coal was for coking, the remaining 1% was crushed and injected into the blast furnace, and we were really after particular chemical compositions more suited to iron and whence steel making. Most UK coal was not ideal in this regard. Until I joined British Steel I thought coal was coal 

[kitnut617]

When me and Mrs Kitnut were still in the UK, we used coal in the fire place of the flat we rented. It gave off really evil smelly yellow fumes up until it got hot. Then once at that temperature you didn't notice it. Over here though in Alberta, I've had to do projects for coal mines and I've been told it's the cleanest coal for burning found anywhere. It's best for coal-fired generators (steam boilers).  I wonder if it's the type of coal Kit mentions further up about Canadian coal.

Where I live and I mean right where I live, we're about 500 metres above a massive coal field, stretches for miles in every direction. And at about 3000 metres is oil ----

[NARSES2]

When me and Mrs Kitnut were still in the UK, we used coal in the fire place of the flat we rented. It gave off really evil smelly yellow fumes up until it got hot.

Living in London we had to use smokeless fuel from the mid fifties ? After the great smogs, but I do remember visiting the family up north and they were still burning coal well into the 70's. I can remember the first 125 trains with sliding doors, when the doors opened at Newcastle the first thing that hit you was the coal smoke smell.

Over here though in Alberta, I've had to do projects for coal mines and I've been told it's the cleanest coal for burning found anywhere. It's best for coal-fired generators (steam boilers).  I wonder if it's the type of coal Kit mentions further up about Canadian coal.

I was always told it was very clean which is why it was in such demand, but even with Canadian coal there were many different types, each with it's own particular chemical characteristics and of course like most Aussie and US coal it's open cast which takes the cost down.

This is all taking me back to when I had to redesign our coal receipts/consumption form (Form 1100 became Form 1101) to accommodate all the imports. We had two pages just to cover all the different types of Canadian and Australian coal whereas we'd got the UK coal on about ten lines

Very sad I know, but I became quite an "expert" on it and six months touring the works discussing coals and their uses appears to have stuck  It was also my first solo project.

[Old Wombat]

Nothing sad about knowledge, Chris. Ever!