STEPHENSONS THE PLANET LOCOMOTIVE

[Malcolm LippiattParticipant @malcolmlippiatt57337]

REVERSING MECHANISM & VALVE GEAR

[Malcolm LippiattParticipant @malcolmlippiatt57337]

Hi,

I'm looking for information on the working & construction of the reversing gear and valve gear of Stephensons PLANET locomotive. I''m unable to get any concrete info from the videos available on youtube and there seems very little written text available.

[WearyParticipant @weary]

'A Century of Locomotive Building by Robert Stephenson & Co. 1823/1923', by J G H Warren, publisher David and Charles/Heritage ISBN: 978-1-4463-0586-7 has quite a bit of information about these locomotives. Pages 286 & 287 have detail drawings of the valve-gear for the 2-2-0 version. The drawing on page 286 is an elevation and end-view/section drawn at approx. 6mm to the foot, page 287 has various components including some parts for valve-gear drawn at 10mm to the foot and 15mm to the foot. There are also drawings of some of the valve-gear components and layout (I think for the 2-2-0 version) on page 278 drawn at 12mm to the foot. There is also a written description of the valve-gear and working on page 286.

There is a sectioned drawing of the 0-4-0 version showing the valves and valve-gear on page 283 at 6mm to the foot.

There are a number of more general views of the Planet loco's in the book.

All the above drawings are (reduced) copies of period originals from various sources and referenced so that you can go to the original documents if necessary (and if they are accessible!).

I see that the National Railway Museum has a number of 'Planet' drawings dotted around on their listing of drawings available from the Robert Stephenson & Co. archive. These will be copies of original drawings. A look through these may turn-up something useful

Regards & Best of luck,

Phil

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

A couple of other ideas that might be worth following up with a quick email or similar:-

I am pretty sure that the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester has a working replica of the Planet so they might be a source of info.

Kind of think the Science Museum in London built a scale model but that was several decades ago.

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