BR 9F 92203 'Black Prince' pulls a 1000 tonne ballast train solo. Just listen to her RAWR! Taken at the East Somerset Railway's Quarry Gala at Merehead Quarry. Filmed 22nd June 2008.
Im no expert but they were designed to pull extremely heavy loads. i think Tyne Dock iron ore trains were some of the heaviest they pulled but i have no doubt they might have pulled this sort of load once or twice! hope this helps.
Nothing beats that bark. I’ve ridden behind black prince and even heading a long passenger train on the steep gradients of the Poppy line where she can be seen in action regularly, nothing seems to be too heavy for her. A superb locomotive.
Saw these locos many times at Leicester on the Corby Freight Tipplers, including the 92020-92029 'Crosti' Boiler engines in the mid 50's - Great sight I still remember.
Kenneth Craig: It is 'Black Prince' that is the record holder. 2158 tons from a standing start. This meant filling the firebox with 1/3 of a ton of coal, which was white-hot all the way through with the draught. The fireman was taken to hospital for treatment of burns caused by the radiant heat from the firehole door. The diesel on the back is there for braking purposes only.
The fireman was Pat Goodfellow. He never actually went to hospital. His elbow was burned through to the bone and he just went home and was tended by his wife. I only know this because he was my dad and I remember that day. Always an amazing story to hear it first hand. Black Prince was his favorite loco to fire
Although built as a goods engine, the 9F is a very handsome engine. They also performed perfectly as a passenger engine as well. The British load record of over 2100 tons was achieved by a 9F. Many thanks.
Wow goes to show how much power a 9f has just fantastic all them trucks n a dead diesel on that probably there for keeping breaks off and for pulling it back to other end long live steam 😁😁😁
The zenith of steam traction. These beauties could haul heavy mineral to express passenger trains. With 5 foot drivers any one of the 9F's could top 90 mph and at that speed the piston and rotational speeds were equivalent to that of the Mallard on her record breaking run of 126mph. Yet Mallard only did that speed once - any one of the 250 9F's could do 90 on any given day.
I wonder what the average freight train tonnage was back in steam days. We used to ask for 1000 tons for braking and giving 1522 something to do. I think our biggest train was 2200 tons up the 1.5% Rolla Hill on an excursion.
Lovely, I saw her many times when she was at the GWR, but pulling half a dozen BR1s at 25 mph was like putting a Lion in cage. Sadly we will never see them run on mainline again. I do wonder if we would be allowed to run one in Eastern Europe or South Africa, would love to see and travel on one at 90 mph with full rake of carriages.
great,i can remember haig colliery,near me,before it closed in 1986,with its steam winding engine,sounding like this,(ov without thd slip),when it was under load winding coal in skip winders to surface,i used to sit & listen to them for hour,s,then boiler,s would let steam off,when they made to much,engine,s are still there but they sit dormant now,happy memories,
I fixed the leaky superheater on the prince ! And a load of stays. It's going to need re staying in a few years time , they are down to the smallest size that they can be re died.
BRILLIANT! I used to watch these in my teens hammering through Roade Cutting....NOTHING was like that sound,magic to your ears. P.S. A bipod would be better.
It thought for a moment this was the video from about 25(?) years ago when BP pulled over 2100 tons here at the quarry. We viewed if from the other side of the line then. The driver for that day was Dave Massey, an ex-S&D man himself who sadly departed some years ago for the great engine shed in the sky. I'm sorry to say that Pat Goodfellow, the fireman that day only recently joined him. Pat had lived in Canada for some years although would come back for a week at the ESR each year.
@WatchdogDisciple Because no cows! British lines are fenced throughout. Some tramway engines, running partly on roads, had cowcatchers, but they were the exception.
@justandy333 A 9F is on record for producing 2400 drawbar horsepower at 40 mph & 55% cut off with full regulator. To put that into perspective, a class 47 diesel produces 2080 DBHP all out. A Western diesel hydraulic, 2000 DBHP, & a class 60 freight diesel rated at 3100 hp, with a design top speed of 62 mph, has a DBHP of 2415.
Where exactly ARE the "cylinder pressure relief valves" located and why do you need them when there's already pressure relief valves where the "cylinder pressure" is highest. Which is inside the boiler? Pressure drops any time a fluid moves through tubing. There's no way around it. That's caused by friction and in the case of steam, lost heat just adds to the loss. Those "pressure relief valves are water drains and they're often opened when shitty locomotive designs are struggling to start loads and the slow cylinder strokes and poor valve gear timing cause a lot of the steam to condense while its in the cylinder. You either open the valves to drain that water out or at some point you're going to break the engine. Period.
well, to be honest, in countries where they actually worked their steam engines hard, In blighty, given how powerful those are, they worked remarkably light trains most of the time
@Nigel16032009 i have one now but i had forgotten it that day! So unfortunately that's all i have cause i don't think there's any software available to add a tripod in!
It wasn't designed to haul 1000 tons trains around, in fact it was only designed to pull 900 tonne trains but in practicality some 9f's could pull trains of 1300 tonnes. So to answer your question, yes it would have been seen as an excessive load in it's day.
Officially, but I think it was likey the builders already knew that they were going to be the last engines they'd ever build so I think the builders pulled out all stops with the result being the 9f's
That's some interesting ballast and even more interesting ballast cars you use over there. Hell, the ballast appears to be invisible and the cars are standard coal hoppers. Ballast cars are designed to drop the ballast OUTSIDE the rails for obvious reasons. Amazing how fast that thing takes off with 1000 tons all of a sudden when it slipped almost immediately when first starting that EMPTY "1000-ton" train. Oh wait, having a diesel-electric locomotive on the back helps.
This isn't correct. Whatever the history and reason for cowcatchers the fact is that they were very rarely used in Britain, so few as to be almost non-existent.
Because unlike your clumsy American locomotives, we don't need them. Also, as we don't operate through prairies, there is little chance of wildlife hitting the track. And cow catchers are ugly.
Because we don't need them railway lines are fenced throughout unless it's a Dock railway or rare branch line that goes along the road only then do they have cow catches
These locos were regulalry hauling loads way in excess of 1,000 tons in BR steam days. The iron ore trains were just one example, the Stanlow oil trains another. Back in the early 80's Black Prince recorded the heaviest load ever hauled by any BR steam loco with over 2,000 tons.
Well up to the task it was designed to perform. It's good to see and hear an engine working hard and getting on with the job. I'll bet the fire was jumping on the grate!
It's funny how the more wasted energy there is (heat and noise) the better it seems. An electric will do the job using far less energy, and far more efficiently. But nowhere near as impressively.
Excellent demonstration of the traction issues encountered with design-max payloads; sanding consistent with that required in the United States might have helped. American Locomotive Company put two sand domes on each of their 2-8-2 Mohawks (much larger than Baldwin Mikados), 4-6-4 Hudsons and 4-8-4 Northerns for several major roads in the U. S. (e.g., Union Pacific, New York Central).
"Although it is stated that the UP FEF series were designed to safely operate at 120 mph (190 km/h), no one really knows how fast the final 4-8-4 could go" (Steve A. Lee). The Corn Belt Rocket program tested FEF 3s to near failure, the 150 express followed. These were USRA wartime austerity engines. Still like the UK fast locos better than the USA dragons. They they look better, more natural at speed they just... should be fast. The UP monsters were exactly that.
@sherbydip The very last load to be pulled by a 9F before they were taken out of service was about 400 tonnes. If thats 1000 tonnes, then thats the heaviest train a 9F has pulled to date O.O But i highly doubt that it is pulling that much. Way too heavy
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I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say that there's nothing to beat the sound and smell of a steam train.
Fun fact: The center driving wheels of a 9F have no flanges in order for them to get around tight corners.
That’s power. A skilled footplate crew too. What a fantastic bark. I’ve ridden behind black prince on the north Norfolk railway where she is now.
I was part of the team involved in building this fleet of wagons at Marcroft Engineering,
in Stoke on Trent in 2000.
Im no expert but they were designed to pull extremely heavy loads. i think Tyne Dock iron ore trains were some of the heaviest they pulled but i have no doubt they might have pulled this sort of load once or twice! hope this helps.
Also Birkenhead Docks - Shotton steelworks were one of the heaviest flows.
What a sound. Magnificent!
Nothing beats that bark. I’ve ridden behind black prince and even heading a long passenger train on the steep gradients of the Poppy line where she can be seen in action regularly, nothing seems to be too heavy for her. A superb locomotive.
Saw these locos many times at Leicester on the Corby Freight Tipplers, including the 92020-92029 'Crosti' Boiler engines in the mid 50's - Great sight I still remember.
Kenneth Craig: It is 'Black Prince' that is the record holder. 2158 tons from a standing start. This meant filling the firebox with 1/3 of a ton of coal, which was white-hot all the way through with the draught. The fireman was taken to hospital for treatment of burns caused by the radiant heat from the firehole door.
The diesel on the back is there for braking purposes only.
The fireman was Pat Goodfellow. He never actually went to hospital. His elbow was burned through to the bone and he just went home and was tended by his wife. I only know this because he was my dad and I remember that day. Always an amazing story to hear it first hand. Black Prince was his favorite loco to fire
did you also know that a 42xx could in theory haul 1000 tons up a 1in40 incline, ofcourse that's just in theory sadly
great video, i love 9f's beautifull engines.
Great vid,thanks for posting !!!
A 9f doing what is was built for . Lovely
one of my favourite train models. the br 9f is a collossus.
Beautiful engine
Although built as a goods engine, the 9F is a very handsome engine. They also performed perfectly as a passenger engine as well. The British load record of over 2100 tons was achieved by a 9F. Many thanks.
+kenneth craig Funnily enough that was also Black Prince. :)
deafyboy86 i just love black prince pure strength and stamina
9fs could apparently achieve 90mph which is very impressive for what it I
kennethbcarrots craig
The GWR 2-8-0 2806 was the first UK loco to haul in excess of 2,000 tons, long before the 92xxx were thought of.
9f pulling iron ore to summers steel works superb
its an impressive feat. although i would recommend investing in a tri pod. keep making vids though!
My absolute favourite Locomotive
Rest in Peace David Sheppard.
a lovely sound an engine happy at work fantastic
id forgotten it! i was well anoyed with myself but from now on i always take my tripod!
Good to see a 9F pulling what it should!
This train carried 2,108 tons of ballast
I got a ride on the footplate when I went to the Gloster and Warickshire Railway in 2006. Great Loco!
Boy o boy that is something else beautiful
Looked like an American diesel on the end.
Wow goes to show how much power a 9f has just fantastic all them trucks n a dead diesel on that probably there for keeping breaks off and for pulling it back to other end long live steam 😁😁😁
The zenith of steam traction. These beauties could haul heavy mineral to express passenger trains. With 5 foot drivers any one of the 9F's could top 90 mph and at that speed the piston and rotational speeds were equivalent to that of the Mallard on her record breaking run of 126mph. Yet Mallard only did that speed once - any one of the 250 9F's could do 90 on any given day.
I wonder what the average freight train tonnage was back in steam days. We used to ask for 1000 tons for braking and giving 1522 something to do. I think our biggest train was 2200 tons up the 1.5% Rolla Hill on an excursion.
I saw this loco on a low loader North bound on the A34 a couple of weeks ago
Would this be deemed a rather excessive load for a 9F in its day? or were they regualrly hauling loads like this?
Lovely, I saw her many times when she was at the GWR, but pulling half a dozen BR1s at 25 mph was like putting a Lion in cage. Sadly we will never see them run on mainline again. I do wonder if we would be allowed to run one in Eastern Europe or South Africa, would love to see and travel on one at 90 mph with full rake of carriages.
love the crisp bark of her exhaust
that S160 would not have been in the race the 9F was the best loco Riddles designed
Must be tremendous forces on the driving rods.
great,i can remember haig colliery,near me,before it closed in 1986,with its steam winding engine,sounding like this,(ov without thd slip),when it was under load winding coal in skip winders to surface,i used to sit & listen to them for hour,s,then boiler,s would let steam off,when they made to much,engine,s are still there but they sit dormant now,happy memories,
I fixed the leaky superheater on the prince ! And a load of stays. It's going to need re staying in a few years time , they are down to the smallest size that they can be re died.
As I think she's just had major firebox work you'd be correct on your estimate
Magnificent!
9F "class 37's? Hold my beer"
😁😁😁
A great vid, nearly as good as a 'Kreigslok'!
BRILLIANT! I used to watch these in my teens hammering through Roade Cutting....NOTHING was like that sound,magic to your ears.
P.S. A bipod would be better.
Sheer Brute strength magnificent
A Powerful Railway Engine Moves Confidently On railway track
Listen to the jingle the rumble in the roar
Lucky you.
Great Video
Magnificent!! and I'm a Deltic fan! 9F's are the one of the best steam engines ever along with the Greseley A4's
Just what the doctor ordered - real medicine this is
That fire must of been Angry as hell!!!
It thought for a moment this was the video from about 25(?) years ago when BP pulled over 2100 tons here at the quarry. We viewed if from the other side of the line then. The driver for that day was Dave Massey, an ex-S&D man himself who sadly departed some years ago for the great engine shed in the sky. I'm sorry to say that Pat Goodfellow, the fireman that day only recently joined him. Pat had lived in Canada for some years although would come back for a week at the ESR each year.
I first saw this train in Bath 1980
I've always thought a Britannia whistle would be better suited to a 9F than the one that sounds like a pannier tank.
Cracking exhaust sound. Love spaceships and Black 5s myself.
@WatchdogDisciple Because no cows! British lines are fenced throughout. Some tramway engines, running partly on roads, had cowcatchers, but they were the exception.
@justandy333 A 9F is on record for producing 2400 drawbar horsepower at 40 mph & 55% cut off with full regulator. To put that into perspective, a class 47 diesel produces 2080 DBHP all out. A Western diesel hydraulic, 2000 DBHP, & a class 60 freight diesel rated at 3100 hp, with a design top speed of 62 mph, has a DBHP of 2415.
nice wheel slip
Not often do you see cylinder Pressure relief valves opening like that!
Where exactly ARE the "cylinder pressure relief valves" located and why do you need them when there's already pressure relief valves where the "cylinder pressure" is highest. Which is inside the boiler? Pressure drops any time a fluid moves through tubing. There's no way around it. That's caused by friction and in the case of steam, lost heat just adds to the loss. Those "pressure relief valves are water drains and they're often opened when shitty locomotive designs are struggling to start loads and the slow cylinder strokes and poor valve gear timing cause a lot of the steam to condense while its in the cylinder. You either open the valves to drain that water out or at some point you're going to break the engine. Period.
well, to be honest, in countries where they actually worked their steam engines hard, In blighty, given how powerful those are, they worked remarkably light trains most of the time
I didn't know they even had such a thing. Most of my experience is with pre 1930 American steam tho.
@Nigel16032009 i have one now but i had forgotten it that day! So unfortunately that's all i have cause i don't think there's any software available to add a tripod in!
Was David Shepherd on the regulator or the footplate at the time?
Scary sound
It wasn't designed to haul 1000 tons trains around, in fact it was only designed to pull 900 tonne trains but in practicality some 9f's could pull trains of 1300 tonnes. So to answer your question, yes it would have been seen as an excessive load in it's day.
Officially, but I think it was likey the builders already knew that they were going to be the last engines they'd ever build so I think the builders pulled out all stops with the result being the 9f's
I miss steam trains on mainline
It was also for the brakes as the wagons are air-braked and the 9F isn't (or wasn't at the time anyway)
Working hard. Like it was built to do.
@sherbydip black prince holds the haulage record at 2158 tons from a standing start; so, a mere 1000 tons is easy.
I think it was 2198 tons that black prince hauled back in 1982
I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can
Thats how it was done fellas back in the old days, nothing like a bit of fire under the boiler!!!!
I'm surprised about new development of such mighty machines after WW2.
pega17pl we had coal and very little of our own oil, so steam lingered longer than it should've done.
Neil Dahlgaard-Sigsworth to give you an example the Americans still used oil to burn in the fire boxes of their steam trains
That's some interesting ballast and even more interesting ballast cars you use over there. Hell, the ballast appears to be invisible and the cars are standard coal hoppers. Ballast cars are designed to drop the ballast OUTSIDE the rails for obvious reasons. Amazing how fast that thing takes off with 1000 tons all of a sudden when it slipped almost immediately when first starting that EMPTY "1000-ton" train. Oh wait, having a diesel-electric locomotive on the back helps.
I think it was also for the brakes too, as the wagons are air-braked and the 9F isn't (or wasn't at the time anyway)
The real reason is that since Britain had the first railway network, all of our cows were horribly butchered before the cowcatcher could be invented.
This isn't correct. Whatever the history and reason for cowcatchers the fact is that they were very rarely used in Britain, so few as to be almost non-existent.
Well up to the job! But why has the word "pulls" got an apostrophe????
Grief that looked easypeesy for the prince
Black Prince is going out of service for repairs just now,
@bennymilk so the train can be pulled back into the quarry so they can do more run pasts.
Looks like Murdoch from Thomas and friends.
Ok Great Britan I love you guys and Black Prince is my fav loco of your engines and no offence but seriously why no cow catchers?
WatchdogDisciple why would we have cow catchers we have no reason to have them
Because unlike your clumsy American locomotives, we don't need them. Also, as we don't operate through prairies, there is little chance of wildlife hitting the track. And cow catchers are ugly.
Because we don't need them railway lines are fenced throughout unless it's a Dock railway or rare branch line that goes along the road only then do they have cow catches
@justandy333 Even 8f's (2-8-0) were regularly to be found at the head of 1000 ton trains. A 9f could handle 1500 tons.
This is what I call heavy metal!! Brilliant to see!!
nice she could have done more if the cilinder pressure relif valvs wernt blowing but then the clinders could have exploded :P
These locos were regulalry hauling loads way in excess of 1,000 tons in BR steam days. The iron ore trains were just one example, the Stanlow oil trains another. Back in the early 80's Black Prince recorded the heaviest load ever hauled by any BR steam loco with over 2,000 tons.
Very Very impressive! 5*
(btw please ask Father Christmas for a tripod next year!)
WHO SAYS THAT STEAM ISN'T AWESOME??
0:31 thats Black Prince doing a wheel slip
For goodness sake...buy a tripod!! Otherwise fantastic subject matter!!
What's up with the locomotive in front of her? She looks very American.
the little loco at the back is an alco the loco she passes is a class 50 and a 37
USRA 2-8-0. Yes American lend lease (?) from WW2
It's a S160 the yanks version of our austeritys they where built for use in Europe during the war
USA 160's EAT YOUR METAPHORICAL HEARTS OUR. And also 1:00 DAMN!
Well up to the task it was designed to perform. It's good to see and hear an engine working hard and getting on with the job. I'll bet the fire was jumping on the grate!
nlo114 I
Please explain what aspects of locomotive operation as show in the video cause a fire to "jump on the grate" and why.
@justandy333 They used to pull double this of coal and iron around south wales. real monsters they were!
Hells bells what a beast !
Good but hold the the camera still
It's funny how the more wasted energy there is (heat and noise) the better it seems. An electric will do the job using far less energy, and far more efficiently. But nowhere near as impressively.
Roar , not RAWR
Excellent demonstration of the traction issues encountered with design-max payloads; sanding consistent with that required in the United States might have helped. American Locomotive Company put two sand domes on each of their 2-8-2 Mohawks (much larger than Baldwin Mikados), 4-6-4 Hudsons and 4-8-4 Northerns for several major roads in the U. S. (e.g., Union Pacific, New York Central).
@justandy333 The WD 8fs could haul 1000 tonnes at 40 mph, so the 9f would more than likely be capible.
"Although it is stated that the UP FEF series were designed to safely operate at 120 mph (190 km/h), no one really knows how fast the final 4-8-4 could go" (Steve A. Lee).
The Corn Belt Rocket program tested FEF 3s to near failure, the 150 express followed.
These were USRA wartime austerity engines.
Still like the UK fast locos better than the USA dragons.
They they look better, more natural at speed they just... should be fast.
The UP monsters were exactly that.
why the shitty diesel on the end?
Brake power
sounds like the prince got a bit carried away with itself at 1.25
@sherbydip The very last load to be pulled by a 9F before they were taken out of service was about 400 tonnes. If thats 1000 tonnes, then thats the heaviest train a 9F has pulled to date O.O But i highly doubt that it is pulling that much. Way too heavy
The 9fs could pull that there is a record of this locomotive pulling over 2000 tons during BR days
There's far from shitty about an imported true American SW1500 switcher!
@dunge0nmaster hmm thats your oppinion. You're wrong, but at least you have your oppinion :-)