Vintage Kearns #5 Hor Bore

Doing what it was built for - nice

FWIW I think??? that's Gresley 3 cylinder block ( for the uninitiated / infidels - think Flying Scotsman )


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/f8/e6/1bf8e6eaca2290d08a654e5da2b8de50.jpg


Another biggie https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9b/9e/6c/9b9e6c80e2e34f0c4631e985ce1a2659.jpg

Limy Sami said:

Doing what it was built for - nice

FWIW I think??? that's Gresley 3 cylinder block ( for the uninitiated / infidels - think Flying Scotsman )


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/f8/e6/1bf8e6eaca2290d08a654e5da2b8de50.jpg


Another biggie https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9b/9e/6c/9b9e6c80e2e34f0c4631e985ce1a2659.jpg

Click to expand...

Nice, an old D-5 or D-6 wide bed and I think a standard D-5, could be a D-4. It's hard to be sure without being able to see the spindle dia,

Regards Tyrone

Tyrone, IIRC you were a bit of a Kearns man weren't you? ………………….I know Mark McGrath both moved and drove a few.

Limy Sami said:

Tyrone, IIRC you were a bit of a Kearns man weren't you? ………………….I know Mark McGrath both moved and drove a few.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've done my whack on the " Kearns " machines, especially some of those D types back in the day.

Regards Tyrone.

Tyrone,

It's funny you brought up the No. 5 Kerns HB. There is a newer one, No 5 Kerns-Richards HB here in my town. I've checked it out a couple of times in past years. Looks very similar to the one in the first picture. He added a No. 5 Richards NC, yes NC horizontal for X-Y drilling for flanges and such.
Cool machines! Never had a chance to run HBM in my earlier years, think they would have been a treat to operate!

Nice Kearns and love the pic. Minor correction- tis Gresley, but definately not an A1 or A3 Flying Scotsman type tho. Tis probably a 2-6-2 V2, less likely a P2. Have been very, ummm, intimately close to most parts of Flying Sctoman herself in the early 1990's before it was sold to that Biotech guy. The A1's had separate outer and inside cylinder castings and the inside casting was mounted way forward. During the early 1990's she was flat out a wreck deperately needing a proper overhaul.

There were a variety of locomotives in the late 1920's thru 1930's that used Gresley's conjugated valve gear to run the inner cylinder off outer cylinder valve gear. Included several LNER types, a few 4-6-2 2-6-4 Garretts for Africa, pre war Japanese 4-6-4's, as well as my personal favorite, the Union Pacific 4-12-2's of which one is preserved in California. (I think SP in California also ran a Gresley valved 4-10-2)

Please don't let my nit picking stop you from posting such great photos!

Regards,
Lucky7

4GSR said:

Tyrone,

It's funny you brought up the No. 5 Kerns HB. There is a newer one, No 5 Kerns-Richards HB here in my town. I've checked it out a couple of times in past years. Looks very similar to the one in the first picture. He added a No. 5 Richards NC, yes NC horizontal for X-Y drilling for flanges and such.
Cool machines! Never had a chance to run HBM in my earlier years, think they would have been a treat to operate!

Click to expand...

Hi matey, I worked on one of the early " Richards " NC machines back in the day. We were stripping out the old NC system and retro fitting a new 3 axis DRO on the machine.

I remember the machine was tape controlled with a large tape reader like a juke box and the scales were made of thin steel with lines etched onto the scale. The heads that read the scales were huge, about 4" cubed.

The early days of NC would be an interesting study for someone .

Regards Tyrone.

Big thank you Lucky 7 …….I was pretty sure it was Gresley, but my knowledge stops about there, ........I only put the Flying Scotsman in as a reference point for those who mightn't know who Gresley was.


And I definitely didn't know the Garretts used his valve gear,.....nor the Japs and Union Pacific.

Not Gresley locomotives. The photos were taken at Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows. See link below. I'd say early 1950s based on hairstyle (and the fact that they stopped building steam locos in 1956!) Their last batches of orders were for 2-cylinder locos, so the photo may relate to 3-cylinders locos for Argentina, built in the early 1950s. These:-

http://enuii.com/vulcan_foundry/photographs/locomotives/Publicity/Argentine%20Railways%20PS11.pdf

Vulcan Foundry Works Interior Forge Erection Shop Milling Slotting
Turning

Asquith said:

Not Gresley locomotives. The photos were taken at Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows. See link below. I'd say early 1950s based on hairstyle (and the fact that they stopped building steam locos in 1956!) Their last batches of orders were for 2-cylinder locos, so the photo may relate to 3-cylinders locos for Argentina, built in the early 1950s. These:-

http://enuii.com/vulcan_foundry/photographs/locomotives/Publicity/Argentine%20Railways%20PS11.pdf

Vulcan Foundry Works Interior Forge Erection Shop Milling Slotting
Turning

Click to expand...

I thought I'd seen that photo before and I thought Vulcan foundry when I saw it.

Regards Tyrone.

Oh well, crash and burn - again!

Bugger! :-)

If pic's taken in the 1950's it's too late for a LNER V2. And another problem with my guess: dug out an erecting drawing for a UP 4-12-2 and took a closer look at the OP's pic. Darn it all, the OP's photo is not cylinders for Gresley conjugated valve- if it was the piston valve bores must be in the same plane.

I don't know anything about Argentinian steam, but the pic of the three cylinder 4-6-2 Asquith mentioned shows Caprotti valve gear (and this is mentioned in the article). The mystery continues, as the OP's three cylinder block is not for Caprotti valve gear.

Next guess? (And now you've got me pouring thru books!)

L7

On edit: this cylinder block is odd- more inward canting piston valves than were usual by 1940/1950's, and what looks like two castings bolted together, not a monoblock. Eliminates the majority of three cylinder later era locomotives. Haven't been able to find anything by Vulcan that remotely resembles this. Is it possible the casting is from a Southern locomotive? A Mogul N1 or a W class? Both have inward canting piston valves like these amd other resemblances.

Lucky,

Caprotti - good point!

John