What a beautiful machine that belonged on display and not scrapped, a testament to both steam and diesel contemporaries in design. It’s a shame we never got Gas Turbines to work as efficiently as they perhaps could’ve.
They never would have. Even the most modern aircraft jet engines are very fuel-hungry at low power. This isn't a problem for aircraft or ships but is for ground vehicles which is why piston engines have remained the dominant engine type for rail and road vehicles.
This technology is 100% alive butt in an other setting. Modern Combined cycle electric power plants use the same technology. The gas turbine creates torque, heat and steam to run an electric generator. These "small" CC power plants can be turned on and off in a short nottice when peak demand is required. Also modern Sewage treatments plants use the methane gas of the sewage as fuel for one and they get "free" electricity and heat for all the processes they need to treat the sewage.
The thing is for better start/stop efficiency you'd almost certainly end up with a well sized secondary powerplant that would serve low load demand. However this would add complexity and the added weight of such equipment would diminish the power to weight advantage over diesel locomotives. The interesing thing off-course is that the turbo diesel turns this idea on it's head. Where the diesel engine replaces the combustion chamber of the gas turbine and the turbo starts working under high load conditions.
Probably would have been suitable in US or Russia where start-stop is less frequent. Idle fuel consumption is the big issue with turbines, you have to keep them running at relatively high rev. This is why car and tank application also failed. Engineers want to have toys and sometimes they are lucky to get money to build big ones...
I heard that. They should have preserved The GT3 albeit as a static exhibit. The National Railway Museum would have loved to have this locomotive in it's collection.
I received for Christmas 1969, as an 11 year old boy in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, a 'railways of the world' sorta book. There was a photo of this BR GT3 in that book, it always fascinated me. Thanks for your great video about an English locomotive that has intrigued me for 55 years.
Union Pacific liked the GE built GTEL units they had. But they had the entirety of the thinly populated and generally arid Mountain West to operate them. An environment where their inefficiencies were minimized.
@@kge420 The issue was corrosion of the turbine blades. This was caused by the use of VERY low grade Bunker C fuel, which at the time was a waste product and therefore ludicrously cheap (it also had low power density/BTU). To try to combat this, an experiment was run with burning propane instead, but the superior performance and reduced maintenance were not enough to offset the increased cost of acquisition and handling the fuel. What ultimately killed the turbines was that improvements in refining and the plastics industry meant that Bunker C stopped being a waste product and became useful in other applications. That drove fuel prices up, and meant that the GTELs were no longer viable.
If the loco had have been tested on non-stop express runs between London and either Glasgow or Edinburgh, maybe the GT3 would have demonstrated better fuel efficiency than its original short-hop runs on slow track. The ECML was a 100mph line in most places even in the early 1960s. It would be interesting to see a gas turbine concept today, especially with European High speed rail and high bypass turbines. Results could be more promising - given that the technology has evolved, and using electric hybridisation could achieve greater fuel efficiencies. Using electric traction at low speeds for leaving stations but once underway starting the turbine and using that for high speed, non-stop runs between long-distance destinations. What do you think @Ruairidh MacVeigh?
Aw, she's a beaut! I love hearing about weird one-off prototypes like this, this is the kind of stuff I like to see. What a shame that she never left prototypical stage, though. I'm sure this would be a phenomenal locomotive!
A similar story to that of the Brush diesel prototype, D0280 "Falcon". That too was a very capable loco, but was judged too complicated in the light of further advances in diesel technology. A very sad outcome, imo and, once again, not the correct decision by BR.
Saw it through Wigan NW on a northern service - sounded like a jet engine and the inside of a textile factory combined. The livery was striking. Leyland Motors spent time and money trying out gas turbine powered HGVs. Same efficiency issue arising.
The gas turbine- mechanical nature made this a relatively simple machine and therefore a bit more successful than the 2 GWR examples, 18000 and 18100. But all gas turbine locomotives suffered from the fact that they were inefficient under partial load, and the wear and tear caused on the turbine and heat exchanger from the use of cheap heavy fuel oil. Turbine blades needed replacing quite often and no. 18000 suffered a fire in the heat exchanger caused by soot and tar residu formed under partial load when the temperature was too low to keep the heat exchanger clean.
Definitely has echoes of the APT project. Such a strange looking beast. It's funny how the designers had their steam engine brains on when they came up with this design. There was a loco you showed right at the beginning when talking about early electrification that I didn't recognise. Turns out it's the class 70. Could that be the UK's first ever electric locomotive? It would be interesting to see a video about that and what came after it (the 71).
Despite the footage being looped over/repeated, liked the close-up of the small cooling fan at the bottom front of the locomotive at 6:11, “look, this fan is being driven by the turbine and look at how fast it is at idle!” I recon a member of the test team had to watch that fan for a rough indication of the turbine spinning when it was being started
Thanks - classic case of 'too little too late' combined with 'wrong time, wrong place'. 1948 and in a larger country and the story might have been different: USSR, USA or Australia, this might have worked
this may be my favorite looking non coal-fired steam engine!!! I wonder what the cars would have looked like if designed for this loco? Sounds like they never even got that far.
I bet it sounded great as it charged around the country, with those 64 loudspeaker drive units mounted in the nose, 32 per channel! On a more serious note, that's the best potted history of GT3 I've ever seen. Well done, Sir.
The major problem for turbines was that they would run short distances with frequent starts and stops. This meant that they weren’t able to keep moving while using coal or other carbon based fuels to keep power and then resume running while using additional fuel during acceleration up to its maximum capacity. The American turbines were generally not economical enough to warrant further development with the notable exception of GE, and Union Pacific’s turbines.
The reason for the GE/UP GTEL locomotives' success was multi-fold. The Union Pacific lines had long stretches where the trains could run at a steady speed. For starting and stopping, a diesel engine onboard was used. And, as I noted above, they used a VERY cheap type of fuel.
Just a quick Note on Wheels: I don't know whether the GT3 Rode on Bulleid (most likely) or BoxPox Drivers, but while the two types are similar, they have subtle Differences in Design. Both were Hollow Cast to allow better control over Balance. Something I learned recently: "BoxPox" is pronounced "Box Spokes", I pronounced it as "Box Pox" for Years though!
I remember this swishing through Sevenoaks station one evening, totally unexpected. I had a large booklet showing the workings of the loco, first page whole machine then other pages, on a type of photographic paper, not sure how to describe that. Anyway I thought it was a fine looking loco and still do.
Very unlikely. There were two other turbine prototypes that did have the modern config and they weren't successful either. The problem was that turbines use too much fuel to run at idle or low power. This isn't a problem for aircraft and some ships but it's a big deal for ground vehicles that have varying loads going up and down hills/stopping and starting.
The concept of using gas turbines was not limited to locomotives, especially not in France. There were some “turbotrains” in service, and indeed the first trial TGV (TGV 001) had gas turbines, until they devised better ways of handling overhead electric at higher speeds.
If they went with a smaller more pwer efficient turbine, like they use in smaller aircraft and helicopters, with just enough power for use at constant speed, rather than ridiculously over powering it, the inefficiencies when nt low speed could be minimised, and perhaps batteries used to add extra torque on startup and acceleration and maybe up hills too. Using a 1940s gas turbine would be terribly inefficient at this pointin time!
Would it be more energy efficient than a truck or even a diesel if it was fully researched? Potentially it could run on byproducts like LPG or something since we made the actual product regardless we might as well get as much value from it as possible. That would be something I would be interested in for narrow gauge engines.
Not to be repeating myself to often, Switzerland was electrified totally and completely by 1913, that's nineteen thirteen. But then, we had no coal and no oil but a whole lot of water dripping down the alps.
Considering the entire country is less than 16,000 square miles, half the size of Lake Superior, I would hope so. In the US, our longest electrified stretch is something less than 450 miles.
And yet was Switzerland also the country which developed one of the first successful diesel-electric locomotives in Europe, the Am 4/4 of 1939 and a gas turbine-electric as well. In fact, the gas turbine no. 18000 of 1949 seen in this video was a Swiss built machine. No. 18000 is preserved at the Great Western Society in Didcot, but is on static display as the internals were removed long ago to turn it in some kind of test vehicle which went back to Switzerland and then Austria for tests.
Electrification was developed in CH before 1914 but there was still much steam operation in 1914. It was the severe shortage of imported coal during the 1914-18 war, and the inability to run effective train services in CH at times during that war, which caused a national decision to electrify every line and build hydro-electric power stations in some locations in theAlps to supply the power. Full electrification was completed before 1939 and proved its value in the Second World War; the country did not have to depend on Nazi Germany for its power supply. In WW2 petrol was severely rationed in CH, but people and goods could be moved around.
@@marc21091 And even a couple of steam locomotives got pantographs, a transformer and a giant immersion heater in the boiler so that they could run off electrical power as well during WW2. Surely a very inefficient way to use the electric power, so after the second world war these were converted back to coal firing. The advantage though was that these steam engines could operate short distances on non electrified lines when the boiler was cooked up to pressure. Despite the great scale electrification the last steam locomotives were not phased out before 1968.
Another fantastic but dead end in locomotive design. It would and should have been preserved... But one could also say that about the LMS "Turbomotive'. I mean I see the genuine design issues for a locomotive of the 1960s, fuel efficiency, cab at the back (a time when semaphore signalling was still widespread) and traditional locomotive wheel design, but BR never really liked non-standard designs, I mean the Deltics had a shockingly short lifespan. Not to mention the tilting train decades later.... It's easy to knock BR for being close minded, and whilst their conservative policy was technologically short sighted, so much of it had to do with maintenance in fairness.
Turbines could work if you could figure out how to keep them working at high RPM. But the problem there are they are stupidly loud and have really hot exhausts, so they have to idle down in stations. It’s possible that modern day Gas Turbines would be barely efficient enough to make it work, but most of the UK intercity network is electrified, so the concept is dead anyways.
So Frank Whittle, not getting a red cent for his effort, was basically publicly embarrassed by sticking the jet engine in a locomotive and a Rover car, but on the other side developing shite like the Airspeed Ambassador with weedy piston rattlers. And all that with the 15 years following World War 2. Cock up is an art form or a business model in Britain.
It didn't. There was a collection of locomotives housed in a shed close to York Station which I visited as a child in the 1960s, but it was on a tiny scale compared to the current NRM. As far as I can remember after sixty years it mostly contained pre-grouping locos, because anything later was probably still in traffic.
Similar to the SR Leader Class, GT3 was an experimental locomotive that had a gas turbine. They’re both designed to a fusion of steam and diesel appearance.
At least in the GT3, the driver and fireman/second man travelled in comfort with a clean carpeted cab, unlike in the Leader class where the fireman got the worst of the deal, stuck in the middle in a confined space where he fed the boiler. 🥵🏴
GT3 was an oil fuelled gas turbine engine. It had the same shape and chassis as a steam locomotive. Consequently nit-pickers can rightly claim that it was neither gas powered nor a steam engine. Those of us who know what was going on, however, are quite happy with the designation despite it being totally wrong. 😁
It ought to have gone to the National Railway Museum, but in the 1960s conserving our heritage wasn't much thought of ( witness the BBC wiping tapes of early Dr Who episodes, the insane destruction of Euston Station and many other acts of what seems to be today gratuitous official vandalism ).
GT3 had all the flaws of all turbine powered locomotives. It was only efficient when running at high speed. And I would every noisy all the time it was operating
Waste of money like Rover JET1 gas turbine car. They would better modernising the factory, same with GT3, English Electric would been making putting the money towards a more faster, powerful and efficient diesel Electric Train or duel "overhead catenary and a third rail" Electric train.
Hello Mr McV. I'm a fan of your channel, but have noticed a significant change in the commentary recently. Is this due to the use of AI? If so, I hope it's not because of some medical condition you are experiencing. Stay safe & well sir.
In theme of mismanagement and poor planning. Another expensive white elephant on rails. GT3 Grand Toad 3 California has been “building” high speed railway San Francisco to LA for many years. Pouring money billions of dollars in it and nothing to show. Oregon Washington I-5 Columbia River multi line bridge upgrade. Again pouring billions dollars in environmental studies. Five times fully drawn out project only be canceled by one or other governor of state. Now the traffic is so bad. They’re forced to build a wider bridge. - There’re hundreds of other projects around the USA, that led to nothing.
Bullied used Bulleid Firth Brown (BFB) wheels, which whilst resembling the American Boxpok wheels, are not formed of box sections. Boxpok is composed of sections fixed together to make a hollow shape, while the BFB is cast in a single piece, like a spoked wheel, the shape giving the rigidity needed. Poor quality research, again.
What a beautiful machine that belonged on display and not scrapped, a testament to both steam and diesel contemporaries in design. It’s a shame we never got Gas Turbines to work as efficiently as they perhaps could’ve.
They never would have. Even the most modern aircraft jet engines are very fuel-hungry at low power. This isn't a problem for aircraft or ships but is for ground vehicles which is why piston engines have remained the dominant engine type for rail and road vehicles.
This technology is 100% alive butt in an other setting.
Modern Combined cycle electric power plants use the same technology.
The gas turbine creates torque, heat and steam to run an electric generator.
These "small" CC power plants can be turned on and off in a short nottice when peak demand is required.
Also modern Sewage treatments plants use the methane gas of the sewage as fuel for one and they get "free" electricity and heat for all the processes they need to treat the sewage.
The thing is for better start/stop efficiency you'd almost certainly end up with a well sized secondary powerplant that would serve low load demand. However this would add complexity and the added weight of such equipment would diminish the power to weight advantage over diesel locomotives. The interesing thing off-course is that the turbo diesel turns this idea on it's head. Where the diesel engine replaces the combustion chamber of the gas turbine and the turbo starts working under high load conditions.
Probably would have been suitable in US or Russia where start-stop is less frequent. Idle fuel consumption is the big issue with turbines, you have to keep them running at relatively high rev. This is why car and tank application also failed.
Engineers want to have toys and sometimes they are lucky to get money to build big ones...
"The Abrams is a failure" is not one of the implied statements I would have had on my bingo card. But alright...
Yep
They did so well in Yemen and East Europe.@@Sir_David_Beatty
If by Eastern Europe you mean Ukraine, it's being misused at the doctrinal level in both conflicts.
Tank applications failed? The 10,500 or so Abrams produced suggests that's not at all correct.
@@VictheSecretgts found their way into theT80?
Ashamed that this turbine locomotive wasn’t saved for preservation
I heard that. They should have preserved The GT3 albeit as a static exhibit. The National Railway Museum would have loved to have this locomotive in it's collection.
You don't need to be ashamed. But it is a shame.
It’s a shame but at time was so much experimental stuff that can’t save it all
It could be rebuilt, like they did with Tornado providing the drawings are still somewhere.
I received for Christmas 1969, as an 11 year old boy in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, a 'railways of the world' sorta book. There was a photo of this BR GT3 in that book, it always fascinated me. Thanks for your great video about an English locomotive that has intrigued me for 55 years.
Union Pacific liked the GE built GTEL units they had. But they had the entirety of the thinly populated and generally arid Mountain West to operate them. An environment where their inefficiencies were minimized.
Weren’t they maintenance nightmares?
@@kge420 The issue was corrosion of the turbine blades. This was caused by the use of VERY low grade Bunker C fuel, which at the time was a waste product and therefore ludicrously cheap (it also had low power density/BTU).
To try to combat this, an experiment was run with burning propane instead, but the superior performance and reduced maintenance were not enough to offset the increased cost of acquisition and handling the fuel.
What ultimately killed the turbines was that improvements in refining and the plastics industry meant that Bunker C stopped being a waste product and became useful in other applications. That drove fuel prices up, and meant that the GTELs were no longer viable.
Saw that whilst it was on trial on the Former GC line out of Marylebone. Very exciting for a young lad!
I bet. Great memory!
this is the only GT3 that handles so well oversteer is non-existent
Handles like its on rails.
@@Taylor-mx1re That gets my vote for cackle of the day 😄
effortlessly Glides into curves.
If the loco had have been tested on non-stop express runs between London and either Glasgow or Edinburgh, maybe the GT3 would have demonstrated better fuel efficiency than its original short-hop runs on slow track. The ECML was a 100mph line in most places even in the early 1960s.
It would be interesting to see a gas turbine concept today, especially with European High speed rail and high bypass turbines. Results could be more promising - given that the technology has evolved, and using electric hybridisation could achieve greater fuel efficiencies. Using electric traction at low speeds for leaving stations but once underway starting the turbine and using that for high speed, non-stop runs between long-distance destinations.
What do you think @Ruairidh MacVeigh?
5:00 As a child I saw a photo in a book of the GT3 with these headcodes, I immediately thought, "They gave that loco a face!"
You're videos are so interesting I've learnt something I never knew about British rail
That was so interesting and was something I knew absolutely nothing about. Thank you!
Aw, she's a beaut!
I love hearing about weird one-off prototypes like this, this is the kind of stuff I like to see.
What a shame that she never left prototypical stage, though. I'm sure this would be a phenomenal locomotive!
A similar story to that of the Brush diesel prototype, D0280 "Falcon". That too was a very capable loco, but was judged too complicated in the light of further advances in diesel technology. A very sad outcome, imo and, once again, not the correct decision by BR.
0:07 What An Amazing Locomotive. Thanks Mate. X❤😊
Another fabulous video your talent is as fabulous as the train itself I never even knew gas powered trains were a thing till this awesome video ❤❤❤
Would have loved to hear how this sounded at full chat. Having seen the scale models videos it would have been pretty mad one thinks
Reminiscent of the fate of the Chrysler Turbine Car.
Fascinating as always and thanks again.
I expect you know there is successful working model of this engine I have seen at a model engineer exhibition, very impressed thanks for your video
Saw it through Wigan NW on a northern service - sounded like a jet engine and the inside of a textile factory combined. The livery was striking.
Leyland Motors spent time and money trying out gas turbine powered HGVs. Same efficiency issue arising.
Fine work as always.
A constantly great channel. Thank you Ruairidh.
The gas turbine- mechanical nature made this a relatively simple machine and therefore a bit more successful than the 2 GWR examples, 18000 and 18100.
But all gas turbine locomotives suffered from the fact that they were inefficient under partial load, and the wear and tear caused on the turbine and heat exchanger from the use of cheap heavy fuel oil. Turbine blades needed replacing quite often and no. 18000 suffered a fire in the heat exchanger caused by soot and tar residu formed under partial load when the temperature was too low to keep the heat exchanger clean.
Definitely has echoes of the APT project. Such a strange looking beast. It's funny how the designers had their steam engine brains on when they came up with this design. There was a loco you showed right at the beginning when talking about early electrification that I didn't recognise. Turns out it's the class 70. Could that be the UK's first ever electric locomotive? It would be interesting to see a video about that and what came after it (the 71).
I would have liked to hear it in operation.
Another extremely interesting post, thank you again.
Despite the footage being looped over/repeated, liked the close-up of the small cooling fan at the bottom front of the locomotive at 6:11, “look, this fan is being driven by the turbine and look at how fast it is at idle!” I recon a member of the test team had to watch that fan for a rough indication of the turbine spinning when it was being started
Thanks - classic case of 'too little too late' combined with 'wrong time, wrong place'. 1948 and in a larger country and the story might have been different: USSR, USA or Australia, this might have worked
This thing is DieselPunk af and I love it
Very interesting documentary - thanks!
this may be my favorite looking non coal-fired steam engine!!! I wonder what the cars would have looked like if designed for this loco? Sounds like they never even got that far.
I bet it sounded great as it charged around the country, with those 64 loudspeaker drive units mounted in the nose, 32 per channel!
On a more serious note, that's the best potted history of GT3 I've ever seen. Well done, Sir.
The major problem for turbines was that they would run short distances with frequent starts and stops. This meant that they weren’t able to keep moving while using coal or other carbon based fuels to keep power and then resume running while using additional fuel during acceleration up to its maximum capacity. The American turbines were generally not economical enough to warrant further development with the notable exception of GE, and Union Pacific’s turbines.
The reason for the GE/UP GTEL locomotives' success was multi-fold. The Union Pacific lines had long stretches where the trains could run at a steady speed. For starting and stopping, a diesel engine onboard was used. And, as I noted above, they used a VERY cheap type of fuel.
Just a quick Note on Wheels:
I don't know whether the GT3 Rode on Bulleid (most likely) or BoxPox Drivers, but while the two types are similar, they have subtle Differences in Design.
Both were Hollow Cast to allow better control over Balance.
Something I learned recently: "BoxPox" is pronounced "Box Spokes", I pronounced it as "Box Pox" for Years though!
It's brown. Like burnt toast or dirt. Brown. And it's not even the 70's yet.
but she meant to be a tech demonstration model. Ahead of her times!
I remember this swishing through Sevenoaks station one evening, totally unexpected. I had a large booklet showing the workings of the loco, first page whole machine then other pages, on a type of photographic paper, not sure how to describe that. Anyway I thought it was a fine looking loco and still do.
I often looked out for it on the GC but I never was lucky; only the usual Black Fives!
Had the designers chosen the same basic format used for diesel locomotives and with all wheel drive, the design may have met with greater success.
Very unlikely. There were two other turbine prototypes that did have the modern config and they weren't successful either. The problem was that turbines use too much fuel to run at idle or low power. This isn't a problem for aircraft and some ships but it's a big deal for ground vehicles that have varying loads going up and down hills/stopping and starting.
I wonder what happened to the Gas Turbine power unit?,,Many thanks great film
The concept of using gas turbines was not limited to locomotives, especially not in France. There were some “turbotrains” in service, and indeed the first trial TGV (TGV 001) had gas turbines, until they devised better ways of handling overhead electric at higher speeds.
nicely parroted.
Hello from Kansas 🇺🇲😊
you know how there's been the great rebuilding of Steam loco's these past years? Well can some absolute madlad decide to rebuild GT3?
That might actuaally be cheaper than a steam engine...
Just need to find the turbines.
If they went with a smaller more pwer efficient turbine, like they use in smaller aircraft and helicopters, with just enough power for use at constant speed, rather than ridiculously over powering it, the inefficiencies when nt low speed could be minimised, and perhaps batteries used to add extra torque on startup and acceleration and maybe up hills too. Using a 1940s gas turbine would be terribly inefficient at this pointin time!
It would have to be GT 4.....
@@smhorse Hmm Technically GT 5 since APT-E would be GT 4....
@@davidty2006 : quite so. It would be an updated replica, not a rebuild, since the original has not existed for decades.
Turbines Westward by Thos. Lee covers the history of Union Pacific's turbine program.
Now you've done Kestrel and GT3, will you also be making videos about White Lion, Falcon, and DP2 ?
I always thought that thing looked quite good haha 😆 could do with a smoother front streamlining, but not bad.
Would it be more energy efficient than a truck or even a diesel if it was fully researched? Potentially it could run on byproducts like LPG or something since we made the actual product regardless we might as well get as much value from it as possible.
That would be something I would be interested in for narrow gauge engines.
I think that only one locomotive beat GT3 to the "shortest lived" locomotive ... that being DHP1.
I know I stayed up to late when he uploads a video
Late? It’s only early evening here (Saturday)! 🤣🤣👍
@@xr6lad I’m Canadian and right now I posted that comment at 4 am
It's already quarter to four in the afternoon where i live
Not to be repeating myself to often, Switzerland was electrified totally and completely by 1913, that's nineteen thirteen. But then, we had no coal and no oil but a whole lot of water dripping down the alps.
Considering the entire country is less than 16,000 square miles, half the size of Lake Superior, I would hope so. In the US, our longest electrified stretch is something less than 450 miles.
And yet was Switzerland also the country which developed one of the first successful diesel-electric locomotives in Europe, the Am 4/4 of 1939 and a gas turbine-electric as well.
In fact, the gas turbine no. 18000 of 1949 seen in this video was a Swiss built machine. No. 18000 is preserved at the Great Western Society in Didcot, but is on static display as the internals were removed long ago to turn it in some kind of test vehicle which went back to Switzerland and then Austria for tests.
@@ericcriteser4001
Is that the former Milwaukee Road or Acela.
Electrification was developed in CH before 1914 but there was still much steam operation in 1914. It was the severe shortage of imported coal during the 1914-18 war, and the inability to run effective train services in CH at times during that war, which caused a national decision to electrify every line and build hydro-electric power stations in some locations in theAlps to supply the power. Full electrification was completed before 1939 and proved its value in the Second World War; the country did not have to depend on Nazi Germany for its power supply. In WW2 petrol was severely rationed in CH, but people and goods could be moved around.
@@marc21091 And even a couple of steam locomotives got pantographs, a transformer and a giant immersion heater in the boiler so that they could run off electrical power as well during WW2. Surely a very inefficient way to use the electric power, so after the second world war these were converted back to coal firing. The advantage though was that these steam engines could operate short distances on non electrified lines when the boiler was cooked up to pressure. Despite the great scale electrification the last steam locomotives were not phased out before 1968.
"....Napier Deltic has entered the chat ... " ;)
Actually scrapped at Wards Salford yard, not Sheffield.
Sent from Vulcan to Agecroft MPD thence to Wards.
dont forget the oil power steam loco
It used to turn up in books i would read as a child. I always thought it had eyes, like Thomas.
Yup, it has a sleepy funny face
It's cool in a steampunk (turbopunk?) kind of way.
It would have been profitable if they received royalties from Hornby.
Did I just see an LMS Loco pulling a CIE black and orange coach?
Thank you Rory dear.
This is not a gas powered steam train. It is a gas turbine powered locomotive. Steam is not involved in powering this locomotive.
Can do a video about the previous gas turbine engine,such as 18000,18100?
GT4 would be classed as the prototype HST locomotive… 🏴
Another fantastic but dead end in locomotive design. It would and should have been preserved... But one could also say that about the LMS "Turbomotive'.
I mean I see the genuine design issues for a locomotive of the 1960s, fuel efficiency, cab at the back (a time when semaphore signalling was still widespread) and traditional locomotive wheel design, but BR never really liked non-standard designs, I mean the Deltics had a shockingly short lifespan. Not to mention the tilting train decades later....
It's easy to knock BR for being close minded, and whilst their conservative policy was technologically short sighted, so much of it had to do with maintenance in fairness.
Turbines could work if you could figure out how to keep them working at high RPM.
But the problem there are they are stupidly loud and have really hot exhausts, so they have to idle down in stations.
It’s possible that modern day Gas Turbines would be barely efficient enough to make it work, but most of the UK intercity network is electrified, so the concept is dead anyways.
So Frank Whittle, not getting a red cent for his effort, was basically publicly embarrassed by sticking the jet engine in a locomotive and a Rover car, but on the other side developing shite like the Airspeed Ambassador with weedy piston rattlers. And all that with the 15 years following World War 2. Cock up is an art form or a business model in Britain.
Can you make a video on the PRR Class K4's & K5's.
Can you PLEASE do a video on the GE Class 70?
What was the strange grid of circles at the front?
Air intakes
To the list
Hi Ruairidh. Was the GT3 ever offered to the NRM (assuming the museum existed at that time)?
It didn't. There was a collection of locomotives housed in a shed close to York Station which I visited as a child in the 1960s, but it was on a tiny scale compared to the current NRM. As far as I can remember after sixty years it mostly contained pre-grouping locos, because anything later was probably still in traffic.
Didnt know it was mechanical traction, thought these were electric. Wonder if electric traction would of been more fuel efficient?
Similar to the SR Leader Class, GT3 was an experimental locomotive that had a gas turbine. They’re both designed to a fusion of steam and diesel appearance.
Leader was steam, not gas turbine.
@@joegreenwood6551 , thank you for your correction
At least in the GT3, the driver and fireman/second man travelled in comfort with a clean carpeted cab, unlike in the Leader class where the fireman got the worst of the deal, stuck in the middle in a confined space where he fed the boiler. 🥵🏴
@@macjim i question why the thing wasn't just oil fired...
It's neither a steam engine, nor a train.
The only GT3 that's racing on railways. And it's not a Porsche
I am confused by the terms "gas-powered" and "steam train". Can you clarify?
GT3 was an oil fuelled gas turbine engine. It had the same shape and chassis as a steam locomotive. Consequently nit-pickers can rightly claim that it was neither gas powered nor a steam engine. Those of us who know what was going on, however, are quite happy with the designation despite it being totally wrong. 😁
@@telhudson863 Your description led me to think it was a gas-fired steam turbine, which seemed distinctly odd. Hence my query.
😀😀😀
It ought to have gone to the National Railway Museum, but in the 1960s conserving our heritage wasn't much thought of ( witness the BBC wiping tapes of early Dr Who episodes, the insane destruction of Euston Station and many other acts of what seems to be today gratuitous official vandalism ).
Very good video but, as is often the case with your videos, it seems to start mid-sentence.
I don't get it. What was the steam for then.
Steam heating for passenger coaches.
uses steam engine chassis
So what did this loco use as its fuel source? Called a gas turbine, but was the word gas used as the Americans use the name for petroleum?
It used fuel oil.
It was a locomotive, not a 'train'.
Train or engine is the term more used in the UK than locomotive.
Travesty the GT3 was not preserved for history.. ;(
Alan Farrow
GT3 had all the flaws of all turbine powered locomotives. It was only efficient when running at high speed. And I would every noisy all the time it was operating
The Union Pacific GT locos were legendarily noisy - god to be alive to see and hear their rumbling across the mountains!
Waste of money like Rover JET1 gas turbine car. They would better modernising the factory, same with GT3, English Electric would been making putting the money towards a more faster, powerful and efficient diesel Electric Train or duel "overhead catenary and a third rail" Electric train.
The title is quite wrong. GT3 was powered by a gas turbine, not by steam. It was a locomotive, not a train.
Rule 16 BR 1950 Rulebook states that a locomotive is also a train
@@benmanicom9168 Yes, whilst travelling light engine (for the signalmen).
@@DeafIaint it's for the purposes of all rules not just for the signalman.
Pedantry is fun isn't it
The gt story is not over.especiallyas the turbine can be powered by hydrogen?😊
it's the mechanical transmission that is inefficient. you cant turn the turbine off at all.
Hello Mr McV. I'm a fan of your channel, but have noticed a significant change in the commentary recently. Is this due to the use of AI? If so, I hope it's not because of some medical condition you are experiencing. Stay safe & well sir.
It is a STEAM train if it is powered by PETROL
You speak like the comic book guy from Simpsons
I bet it was very noisy as well
Another example of the British Press' dishonesty leading to the destruction of a successful locomotive project after embarrassing management.
In theme of mismanagement and poor planning. Another expensive white elephant on rails. GT3 Grand Toad 3
California has been “building” high speed railway San Francisco to LA for many years. Pouring money billions of dollars in it and nothing to show. Oregon Washington I-5 Columbia River multi line bridge upgrade. Again pouring billions dollars in environmental studies. Five times fully drawn out project only be canceled by one or other governor of state. Now the traffic is so bad. They’re forced to build a wider bridge. - There’re hundreds of other projects around the USA, that led to nothing.
Gas TURBINE (jet) - not gas. NOT a steam engine
Bullied used Bulleid Firth Brown (BFB) wheels, which whilst resembling the American Boxpok wheels, are not formed of box sections. Boxpok is composed of sections fixed together to make a hollow shape, while the BFB is cast in a single piece, like a spoked wheel, the shape giving the rigidity needed. Poor quality research, again.
Mistakes happen, no need to be so rude.
Well I look forward in eager anticipation to your definitive video explaining the difference between BFB and 'poke wheels...
@joegreenwood6551 our presenter makes for too many simple errors.
@@alan-sk7ky no need already full explained.
Bulleid... not Bullied!