Talk:The Coronation (train)

Milwaukee Road

Is it know what influence, if any, the Milwaukee Road's Beaver Tail parlor-observation cars had on the design of this train's car? Mackensen (talk) 12:30, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The book "Mallard and the A4 Pacifics" states that the design is derived from Bugatti Railcars. The photo in that book further look quite dissimilar to the rebuilt observation car as shown here... --213.61.92.101 (talk) 07:49, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

That's an indirect influence, not a direct one. The Bugatti Autorails were designed by Bugatti to his own theories on aerodynamics. Like most 1930s aerodynamics, especially in the US, they were based on aesthetics, not fluid dynamics. However Gresley had seen these in France and was influenced for his A4 design to use this two-dimensional prismatic shape.

As to the Coronation observation car, then this was intended to echo the A4s hauling the train, not for any other reason.(David Jenkinson History of British Railway Carriages,pp. 488–491) It was a singularly awkward layout internally and the last four seats had so little headroom that the were almost only usable by children. Hence the rebuild to raise the roofline, also making the windows steeper.

Streamlining was an odd business in the 1930s. It rarely improved aerodynamics, but it did give the 'Modernist' look and that was a selling point. The best aerodynamic improvement to the Silver Jubilee sets (also the Coronation) was supposed to be the covers between coaches, not the end treatments - and these had been added purely for looks. America in particular had streamlining done on the Loewy plan, sometimes giving awful aerodynamic results. Germany, and to a smaller extent the UK, were using wind tunnels instead - and Gresley had certainly done this for the A4s, with Prof Dalby doing the legwork at the NPL. The A4 streamlining, likewise the Bulleid Pacifics, was not done to lower air resistance, but rather to lift smoke and steam clear of the driver's sightline. Bugatti's prismatic approach made no sense aerodynamically, which Dalby knew even if Gresley didn't, but it did suggest to Gresley that it would lift smoke. In fact, Dalby then slightly rounded the edges of the A4 casing, fixing Bugatti's mistake. Supposedly an Autorail, unwashed in the war years, was its own wind tunnel, the patterns in the dirt at the tops of the side walls being rubbed in by the vortices they generated. Some of the US streamliners managed to be aerodynamically smooth, but then discovered what a problem this could be as smoke stayed glued to the boiler casings and the drivers couldn't see a thing.

Bulleid, unsurprisingly, had a similar approach to Gresley, the front of a Pacific being designed as a smoke lifter, the sides as a flat surface to improve costs by allowing an automatic carriage washer to be used. Servicing access was another matter though. Streamlining wasn't something he objected to, but nor had he made any effort to achieve it.

Only the LMS, the Germans, the Belgians and later the Hungarians, really took streamlined steam locos seriously. But the costs of doing so made it a doubtful process, and so many were de-streamlined almost as fast. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:13, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

In O.S. Nock's series of articles on Gresley, one of them

• Nock, O.S. (May–June 1942). "The Locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley Part VIII—The Streamline Era Begins". The Railway Magazine. Vol. 88, no. 539. Westminster: Railway Publishing Company. p. 147.

later reprinted in

• Nock, O.S. (1945). "Chapter Eight—The Streamline Era Begins". The Locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley. London: Longmans, Green & Co. p. 126. 16925.
• Nock, O.S. (1991) [1945]. "8 The streamline era begins". The Locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley (2nd ed.). Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 110. ISBN 1-85260-336-4.

there is a brief account of the NPL tests (including a table titled "Horsepower saved by streamlining") which suggests that Gresley was looking for an improvement in efficiency. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:24, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Colours

Whilst Wikipedia has several articles for various shades of blue, we don't seem to have articles for either garter blue or Marlborough blue, which is why they can't be properly linked. But to give an indication of what they looked like, I've found that paints of both of these colours are available for railway modellers from various manufacturers:

• LNER Garter Blue   and LNER Marlborough Blue   from Craftmaster Paints
• P52 L.N.E.R. Garter Blue   and P58 L.N.E.R. Marlborough Blue   from Phoenix Precision Paints
• RailMatch 622 LNER Garter Blue   from RailMatch

There appears to be a certain amount of disagreement. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:55, 1 May 2023 (UTC)