North African railroads

[PMN1]

Regarding the converted GWR engines, it sounds frankly idiotic to convert something running around in coal-rich Wales (perhaps even pulling coal trains) to oil firing when the engines could have been running just as well on plentyful and locally available coal. Conversely, a few years after 1946 British railroads were fully nationalized, so the engines could by then have been sent to less coal-rich parts of the country, meaning that converting them back to coal firing may not have been all that clever, either

There is a page on it in Adrian Vaughan's 'Railway Blunders'...he attacks the government stance on railways in virtually every 'blunder' so its possible he is making more of the success than was....

[Jon G.]

This is a very narrow subject, albeit one with broad implications. But let's try sticking to it.

There is a page on it in Adrian Vaughan's 'Railway Blunders'...he attacks the government stance on railways in virtually every 'blunder' so its possible he is making more of the success than was....

Railway literature is full of embittered nostalgics, Vaughan sounds like he might well be one of them. Does he address why the War Office selected the Stanier 8F as their standard train engine?

Superficially, this machine might well fit the 'blunder' category - somewhat underpowered for its size due to its not very big boiler, the rigid wheel lay-out of its tender meant that it didn't ride the track very smoothly, and also apparently it didn't have as much brake power as it ought to.

On the other hand, the Stanier was cheap and easy to build (especially the 'austerity' version; any decent-sized RR workshop could build it), could be operated by crews used to different machines (such as the NZ RR men who operated it in North Africa) without too much trouble, and apparently wasn't all that demanding regarding water quality used, for example.

Those factors combined meant that the 8F was never in short supply - NZ RR troops retreating before Rommel's 1942 advance into Egypt could 'just' blow up train engines which they couldn't evacuate and not worry too much about where the next engine would come from; conversely, a German diesel engine immobilized by Desert Air Force bullets would represent perhaps as much as 20% of Axis tractive power lost right there, with no easy replacement in sight.

[PMN1]

This is a very narrow subject, albeit one with broad implications. But let's try sticking to it.

There is a page on it in Adrian Vaughan's 'Railway Blunders'...he attacks the government stance on railways in virtually every 'blunder' so its possible he is making more of the success than was....

Railway literature is full of embittered nostalgics, Vaughan sounds like he might well be one of them. Does he address why the War Office selected the Stanier 8F as their standard train engine?

Superficially, this machine might well fit the 'blunder' category - somewhat underpowered for its size due to its not very .

No but he does have a go at the government for the way it 'compensated' the railway companies for the extra loads it was carrying (in both wars..).

Engines converted to oil burning seem to have been the Hall class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_4900_Class

Collett had been replaced by F.W. Hawksworth in 1941 and Hawksworth created a modified version known as the Modified Hall Class which remained in production until 1950. One of Hawksworth's modifications in changing the design was to equip it better to cope with the low quality coal available during the war. If anything the situation worsened after the war, leading to serious consideration being given to oil firing. Beginning in 1946 with No. 5955 Garth Hall the GWR converted 11 of the class to burn oil. Within four years, however, they had all reverted to coal.

[Dili]

http://dati.acs.beniculturali.it/SecondaGuerraMondiale/

> Fronte Africa Settentrionale

> page 234,235,236 and 237 of 244

several photos of Axis rail locomotive being disembarked from MFP and prepared for service in Marsa Matruh 1942.

Here is one the cabin being mounted:

[john_g_kearney]

This photograph was taken by a member of the RAF's 40 (Middle East) Air Stores Park, which landed in Egypt in November 1941. The unit then campaigned in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Other photographs from the same source were taken in Egypt and Libya only.

The bridge appears to have undergone only one demolition - there is no sign of a repair to the bridge subsequently itself being demolished.

Any thoughts on location of the photograph please?

John.