LMS No. 6399 "Fury"

The London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) No. 6399 "Fury" was an unsuccessful British experimental express passenger locomotive. The intention was to save fuel by using high-pressure steam, which is thermodynamically more efficient than low-pressure steam.
== Overview ==
Built in 1929 by the NBL (North British Locomotive Company) in Glasgow, it was one of a number of steam locomotives built around the world in the search for superpower steam. The locomotive was a joint venture between the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), with Henry Fowler as Chief Mechanical Engineer (C.M.E.) and The Superheater Company with the latter having responsibility for constructing the complex, 3 stage Schmidt-based boiler. The LMS provided a Royal Scot frame and running gear. However, Carney shows that the frames for Fury were not standard Royal Scot frames, but longer. For the complex boiler, John Brown & Company of Sheffield forged the special nickel-steel alloy high pressure drum, and many boiler fittings were imported from Germany but otherwise all manufacture was carried out by NBL.
== One Death Onboard ==
After short runs during January 1930, a longer test run from Glasgow to Carstairs was scheduled for 10 February 1930. Approaching Carstairs station at slow speed, one of the ultra-high-pressure tubes inside of it burst and the escaping steam blasted into the coal fire throwing steam through the fire-hole door, killing Mr. Lewis Schofield of the Superheater Company. Subsequently, the burst tube was thoroughly investigated at Sheffield University, but no definitive conclusion reached. The boiler was eventually repaired, and Fury moved to Derby where a number of running trials were carried out until early 1934, mostly revealing significant shortcomings in performance.
== Rebuild ==
Fury's rods and linkages were then removed together with the indicator shelter and test gear when in 1935, it was rebuilt by William Stanier at Crewe Works with a more conventional type 2 boiler becoming 6170 "British Legion", the first of the LMS 2 and 2A boilered 4-6-0 locomotives. Despite the accident, Fury was primarily an economic rather than a technological failure. Although tolerating the trials from Derby, Stanier didn't devote much effort to rectifying the faults Fury displayed, no doubt because of his many other work pressures and development of the LMS Turbomotive. Nevertheless, Fury never earned revenue for the LMS and in fact "Fury must have travelled more miles under tow than under its own steam". As many other experimental locomotives showed, the theoretical benefits of ultra-high steam pressure locomotives were hard to realise in practice. Fuel is only one part of the operating costs of a steam locomotive, but maintenance is very significant, and introducing extra complications always increased this disproportionally.
== Another Locomotive that was plagued with the same problem ==
In France, the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée had bought a Schmidt system 4-8-2 locomotive (no. 241.B.1) and in 1933 this too burst an ultra-high-pressure tube. The failure was investigated and if a single conclusion could be reached following both incidents, it was that inadequate water circulation in the ultra-high-pressure circuit was responsible.
Category:High Pressure Steam Locomotives
Category:Steam locomotives
Category:Tender locomotives
Category:Locomotives
Category:Built in 1929
Category:Experimental locomotives
Category:British locomotives
Category:British Rail locomotives
Category:United Kingdom
Category:North British locomotives
Category:Standard gauge locomotives
Category:4 foot 8 1⁄2 inch gauge
Category:British steam locomotives
Category:Rebuilds
Category:Scrapped locomotives
Category:Locomotives involved in Boiler Explosions
Category:Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain
Category:LMS locomotives