T. Henry Turner
Appointed Chief Chemist & Metallurgist to LNER in 1931. Significant
contributor to discussions of Institution of Locomtive Engineers. In discussion
on Glascodine's (J. Instn Loco. Engrs,
1936, 26 ,Paper 350) paper on buffing Turner advocated the
use of rubber in shear. He could be very sharp in his response to what he
regarded as poor metallurgical practice: for instance, he was highly crritical
of some of the techniques advocated by Cox in his paper on Locomotive wheels,
tyres and axles (J. Instn Loco.
Enrgs, Paper 346) in a long contribution
to the discussion where he noted the inappropriate use of copper, rather
than zinc, as an interlayer between the tyre and rim and noted the destructive
nature of molten white metal with hot steel where it cut like a knife. His
interests were exceptionally broad: he
contributed to a not very exciting paper on railcar development on British
Railways noting that the front end should be sloping to avoid turbulence
when two units passed at speed. He was also damning of the failure to employ
Buck-eye couplings on the railcars.
said that the Author had omitted two conditions of operation which should
be mentioned, in view of the statement that the public motor coach did "ride
rather well" Surely there was no public motor coach in which a passenger
could write at 60 m.p.h., as was done regularly in the ordinary mainline
coaches of a train.
Discussion on
Papers
Cox Paper
457
T. Henry Turner (151) said the Author's
paper helped us to study the way we had come, with a view to our deciding
where to go from here. After considering what had been done in other forms
of transport as a guide to what -night have been done with railway steam
locomotives, he concluded that liquid fuel, high speed engines, rotary motion
and reduction gears stood out as a challenge. It was notable, therefore,
that the paper referred to no experiments to replace crude run of mine coal
during a decade when ships, buses, cars and aeroplanes turned to liquid fuels.
Perhaps the next paper before the Institution would make it possible to follow
two other such features-rotary motion and reduction gears-on the L.M.S. turbine
locomotive.
Sanford, D.W. (Paper 451) The relationship between smokebox and boiler
proportions. 40-53. J. Instn Loco
Engrs., 1945, 35, 60
“ Theory may be likened to a candle and experience to the sunlight,”
said it would be desirable to know something more about what had been found
by experiment, and therefore he would like to ask the Author, with the aid
of the Research Department or the Institution staff, to add to the Paper
a bibliography, and line sketches of typical blast systems. There were so
many that it might be difficult to choose representative ones, but he felt
that the Institution should be able to present some historical background
to a Paper of this kind. He would like to ask what had been found with regard
to the need for circularity, and to what extent it was possible to depart
from circular chimney or nozzle without getting into trouble. If it were
possible to depart from it, then it would be very simple experimentally-and
possibly the testing plant at Rugby would undertake it later-to arrange a
locomotive with manual control of the size of the nozzle and of the chimney.
If it were possible to depart from complete circularity an arrangement of
the type shown in the accompanying sketch (Fig. 5) might be tried. That would
be simple with the chimney, but not so simple with the blast nozzle. He would
like to ask what was known with regard to the need for circularity of locomotive
chimneys and blast nozzles and whether tests had been carried out with
manually-controlled variable ones; H. Holcroft (61-2) asked why quite small
leaks into the smokebox had such a major influence on steaming and Sanford
in reply could give no sound reason;
Graff-Baker, W.S. Considerations on bogie design with particular reference
to electric railways. J. Instn Loco
Engrs., 1952, 42, 349-50. (Paper 513)
Discussion: 350-1: The Author had rightly said that the problem must be
considered in regard to the bogie plus the rail. The road vehicle never had
to go backwards for the same distance and at the same speed, and that was
one of the features which had to be considered in the design of the bogie.
The "toe-ing in" or castoring action possible with some other types of vehicle
could not be considered in bogie design for rail vehicles. A train feature
that applied to the electrical bogies for two-thirds of the systems in Britain
was that thev must'conduct electricity. Four-rail systems were relatively
few in Britain; so that the current was likely to flow through the components
of the bogie.
Uneveness over rail joints and lateral track irregularities could both be
reduced by butt-welding the rails. At the time he had joined the railway
service, civil engineers had been afraid of lateral deformation of the track
and catastrophic deformation of the track in hot weather. It had been definitely
proved that they were dangers about which there need be no worry, where long
welded rails were used. He knew of no case where the long welded rail had
been catastrophically deformed. The only rails that had so deformed, in railway
experience, were those in which there were expansion joints. From French
work which had been done on the subject, it would be seen that use of the
expansion joint was courting catastrophic deformation under thermal expansion
in the hotter parts of the year. Hence, there was no reason why rail joint
bumps should be considered inevitable. The Author had spoken of axles having
lasted longer than they should have done according to theory. Probably that
was due to the absence of corrosion. Experience had shown that the average
mainline axle would fail by corrosion fatigue in a relatively few years,
if it weFe machined. Experience equally showed that thorough painting would
preserve it for very many years. Corrosion could shorten the service life
to a quarter of what it might have been. Before very expensive pneumatic
tyres were adopted, with their greatly increased friction, he hoped that
Mr. Tritton’s recommendation would bear fruit, and that the rubber-spring
wheel-centre would be considered. With that there was little friction and
little unsprung weight. Four or five years previously, when he had approached
the biggest rubber undertaking in Britain, they had seen no reason why the
success which had been achieved in the tramcars in the United States,
Switzerland, and Sweden should not be matched in largerscale wheels, or why
the trouble with heat from braking should not be overcome.
The lateral stability of the bogie deserved further experiment. Vertical
rigidity was obviously necessary, but by design of the sides so that the
one would contract and the other expand (which was possible), he was certain
that the winding up which took place in the frame at the expense of abrasion
of the rail could be avoided. If roller bearings were used, however, provision
would have to be made in the shops to ensure that electric currents did not
pass, because it was clear that, in certain of the electrified lines, arcing
had been occurring from the race to the rollers.
Vandy, W. The production of steel wagons.
J. Instn Loco. Engrs.,, 1953,
43, 534.. (Paper No. 526) .
Turner was in his element commending LNER welding practice
Wise, S. Why metals break. Rly
Div. J., 1971, 2, 182-3.
T. Henry Turner, M.Sc. (182-3) raised the
following points:
1. Transverse Fissures. The slide of a rail fracture shown by the Author,
concerning which Professor A. G. Smith had asked for information, should
be classified as a transverse crack or two-stage failure. (Four illustrations
typical of these failures can be seen on page 25 of the Rail Failures
booklet that Mr. Turner produced in 1944 to standardise reporting, description
and classification. The printed booklet was later issued to all British Railways'
civil engineers by the Railway Executive in 1948.) This transverse fissure
had a smooth, round or kidney-shaped patch which sometimes exhibited a silvery
centre. Its nucleus may be a 'shatter crack' or inclusion, or the fissure
may be associated with wheel burn or weld deposit.
2. Clinks. Mr. Wise's illustration that interested Professor Smith was comparable
with the 'clink' rightly feared by steelmakers and engineers. Turner had
worked with the huge masses of steel needed for the electrical generator
'rotors' in the early 1920s. Cooling from molten state and forging to machine
shop temperatures, the outside steel solidified and hardened while the middle
of the mass had still to lose heat and shrink. Thus it sometimes happened,
if the cooling was not very slow indeed, that contraction stresses, concentrating
on ingot centre impurity weaknesses, caused the formation of an internal,
transverse, convexo-convex lens-shaped fissure by a sudden 'clink'. This
could occur when the large steel forging was at rest, and was in no way affected
by external forces. Consequently the practice of trepanning a three-inch
hole right through the centre of the longitudinal axis was adopted. If the
core came out in one piece there was probably no clink, but to add certainty
they developed a long-range microscope that was subsequently named a boroscope.
American rails had so many of these transverse, at first invisible, fractures
that special railcars were made by Sperry to detect invisible fissures in
rails in their tracks so that they could be removed before fracture. Continental
rails had less of this type of rail failure, their rail heads having relatively
smaller masses of steel. In Britain where rails were mainly made from open-hearth
steel, and where climatic extremes of temperature were less on steelmaker's
rail banks than in America, there were extremely few transverse fissures
in steel rails.
3. Nature of Metals. When puzzling about why metals break engineers must
try, like metallurgists, to have in mind the fundamental nature of metals.
With the very rare exception of noble metals like gold, the Creator made
our metals to have strong affinity for oxygen, sulphur and other elements.
Found in nature as earthy material compounds of several elements together,
metals were only extracted with much difficulty from their earthy or stoney
ores. Metals used by engineers naturally reverted to brittle compounds;
dissolving in acids, corroding in moisture, tarnishing and blackening in
sulphur fumes, oxidising at flame temperatures. Although nickel and copper
differed in their modes of straining, the Author had rightly concentrated
on what he had observed in steels because most mechanical engineering was
steel, ca~t) iron or their alloys.
4. Rail Bolt Hole. The Author's illustration of a fracture at a steel mil
fish-plate bolt hole could be a memorable lesson. The civil engineer had
drilled a hole in the rail web leaving a sharp edge that concentrated rail
impact stresses. More important it concentrated corrosion because moist
sulphurous air corroded the sharp-edged steel from both sides. It was foolish
to expect paint, tar or oil to sit protectively on any sharp edge. Smoothly
rounding-off the bolt hole edge increased the life of the essential zinc,
paint or other anti-corrosive, and so reduced the loss of steel at a stress
concentration area that was no longer a point. That was an important lesson,
but since 1933 we have known that flash-butt welding of rails avoids bolt-hole
corrosion, stress concentration and 70 per cent of rail failures.
5. The Environment Matters. In considering "Why Metals' Break", Turner said
engineers must now remember that during the past 30 years many outstanding
advances in practice have been brought about by altering the environment
in which metals work.
There is much less metal loss in furnaces and machine shops because control
of furnace atmospheres has revolutionised heat treatment of metals.
Control of boiler water chemical treatment made Mr. Bulleid's famous locomotives'
steel fireboxes last for more than a dozen years instead of failing in six
months. Control of ships' boiler waters greatly increased the availability
of warships and merchant vessels. Control of the chemical treatment of land
boilers made possible the present giant electricity generating plant boilers
on which we all depend.
Control of anti-corrosive in summer as well as winter coolants for internal
combustion engines has done more than anything else to increase the useful
life of road vehicle motors. Control of air pollution brightened towns, increased
their sunlight and also appreciably reduced the atmospheric corrosion of
our metals.
Robson, A.E. Railcar development on British
Railways.. J. Instn Loco Engrs.,
1962, 52, 113-114. refers to Renault railcars and its influnce
on A4 and bluntness of BR product, also it lack of Buckeye couplers.
In response to Paper No. 686
om automatic train operation he proposed automatic passenger
operation: Automatic Train operation was obviously the first step, but then
somehow it had to be arranged for a "slug of passengers" to be shot into
it. Why not fence the edge of the platform and have sliding doors if the
stopping of the train could be arranged accurately? At present, the eight-deep
crowd was most dangerous, especially for those standing on the edge of the
platform.
Mr. Turner did not think it was impossible that the aircraft system of taking
a bus-load of people from the ticket office to the plane in which they were
going to travel, could be adopted at some stations in the future. At present,
the journey from St. Pancras to Charing Cross, for example, necessitated
a very long walk in station passages, and quite clearly this was not what
the paying passengers wanted. If we could not have passengers "containerised",
he thought there was probably something we could do in automatic passenger
operation to match automatic trains.
Lynes, L. and Simmons, A.W. Brake equipment
and braking tests of Southern Railway C.C. electric locomotive.
J. Instn Loco. Engrs., 1944, 34, 345-95.
(Paper No. 448) Turner asked whether the Authors could add to the most
interesting data they had already given, the chemical composition of the
brake blocks and tyres, and also the chemical composition and hardness of
the rails over which the trials were run. There were many sorbitic rails
on the Southern Railway and some of them might have hardnesses approaching
those of the Continental martensitic rails on which wheels readily skid.
There were some unusual American brake blocks now on locomotives in this
country, and they were producing strange results in wear on tyres ; but he
assumed that in the Authors’ case ordinary grey cast iron brake blocks
had been used. Both the chemical composition and the hardness of brake blocks,
tyres and rails should therefore be added for completeness of the record
if possible. He was very interested in the simple tumbler shock recording
instrument described in the Paper. He did not remember having seen anything
like it before, and if it was new, perhaps the Authors would say who invented
it. As for the noise of vehicle impacts on braking, this was not a good
advertisement for the railways, as anyone who slept within sound of goods
trains bumping their wagons together would be well aware. Perhaps one day
a Noise Abatement Society would force the railways to abolish the three-link
coupling, even if nothing else could do so. The damage to freight of such
noiseycreating bumping was often overlooked, but the department with which
he was concerned frequently had to investigate cases where either rough shunts
or abnormally hurried stoppages at signals caused damage to valuable freight.
That point should he borne in mind by anybody who was trying to develop better
braking systems. There was need for improvement in the whole of the train,
and he hoped that the Authors, spurred on by Mr. Bulleid, would not stop
at the locomotive, but would go on to deal with the continuous braking of
freight trains.
Warder. S.B. Electric traction prospects for
British Railways. J. Instn Loco.
Engrs., 1951, 41, 38. (Paper No. 498)
asked whether the Authors could add to the most interesting data they
had already given, the chemical composition of the brake blocks and tyres,
and also the chemical composition and hardness of the rails over which the
trials were run. There were many sorbitic rails on the Southern Railway and
some of them might have hardnesses approaching those of the Continental
martensitic rails on which wheels readily skid. There were some unusual American
brake blocks now on locomotives in this country, and they were producing
strange results in wear on tyres ; but he assumed that in the Authors’
case ordinary grey cast iron brake blocks had been used. Both the chemical
composition and the hardness of brake blocks, tyres and rails should therefore
be added for completeness of the record if possible. He was very interested
in the simple tumbler shock recording instrument described in the Paper.
He did not remember having seen anything like it before, and if it was new,
perhaps the Authors would say who invented it. As for the noise of vehicle
impacts on braking, this was not a good advertisement for the railways, as
anyone who slept within sound of goods trains bumping their wagons together
would be well aware. Perhaps one day a Noise Abatement Society would force
the railways to abolish the three-link coupling, even if nothing else could
do so. The damage to freight of such noiseycreating bumping was often overlooked,
but the department with which he was concerned frequently had to investigate
cases where either rough shunts or abnormally hurried stoppages at signals
caused damage to valuable freight. That point should he borne in mind by
anybody who was trying to develop better braking systems. There was need
for improvement in the whole of the train, and he hoped that the Authors,
spurred on by Mr. Bulleid, would not stop at the locomotive, but would go
on to deal with the continuous braking of freight trains.
Papers
Boiler water treatment: a general review. Corrosion Prevention &
Control, 1956, 3, 37-40..
Langridge, E.A. Under ten
CMEs. 2011. page 135
Refers to THT as "a great talker, guaranteed to finish with a eulogy
of all things LNER"