LMS Route: Trent Valley Line

LMS Route: Nuneaton to Leamington

Nuneaton Shed: lnwrns3814

A frontal view of USATC S160 2-8-0 Class No 2153 which shows its utilitarian and austere appearance compared to British locomotives. The S160s were powerful and free-steaming locomotives, but their braking was poor when compared to British standards. A steam brake was used for the locomotive, but was woefully insufficient due to the long distance from the driver's valve and the brake cylinder. The S160s worked a lot of heavy goods traffic, but they had a high failure rate due to hot axleboxes, tubeplate fractures, and leaking firebox arch tubes. The hot axleboxes were directly due to the austerity measure of having grease lubricators on the axleboxes. The S160s did suffer one major flaw. The roof stay bolts on the firebox would heat and tend to fail due to metal fatigue, if there was low water above the crown of the firebox. Poor boiler wash-outs would result in a build up of scale in the crown. This all contributed to a weakening of the firebox crown, and eventual collapse. In a space of ten months, three UK S160s suffered a collapse of the firebox crown. The first collapse was GWR's No. 2403 in November 1943, and killed the fireman. This was rebuilt using the boiler and cab from No. 1688 (broken frames). The second explosion was No. 2363 on 12th January 1944, whilst hauling an Ipswich to Whitemoor goods train past Thurston. The engineman was injured, and the fireman was forced off the footplate by the explosion. The third explosion occurred in South Harrow tunnel on 30th August 1944 when No. 1707 was working a goods train from Neasden to Woodford. The third explosion was not investigated fully due to the fact that the S160s were being handed back to the US Army, although No. 1707 was eventually rebuilt.

Photograph courtesy of the LNWR Society. To order a copy of this photograph email photographs@lnwrs.org.uk and quote 'LNWR Society JMD404N'

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