Deltic scoop!

[ticketsmustbeshewn]

My knowledge of Britain's railway isn't bad but browsing through The Oxford Companion To British Railway History I discovered something that amazed me. The book literally fell open at 'Water Trough', I thought, what is there to learn about them? At the bottom of the entry it says that, 'Some remained in place after dieselization (sic) so the heating boiler tanks could be topped up on the move, enabling Deltic locomotives to run non-stop between Kings Cross & Edinburgh'.
Now I know they'll be many out there shouting, 'Flippin' 'eck Steve, didn't you know that', so spare me that I'd love to hear from someone who witnessed this event or from those equally amazed this happened. So use to seeing pictures and footage of steam locomotives using troughs, can't imagine a Deltic doing it, cheers, Steve.

[46232]

The scoops were two way so that they could pick up which ever way they were pointing, they were removed when the troughs were removed, the last was around 1968 I think, and a larger capacity water tank installed using the space that the scoop occupied and by reducing the size of the fuel tank. The tanks were removed when the Deltics were fitted with electric heating in the early seventies.


There's a shot of the prototype on troughs on Flickr, but I'm not sure if it was picking up at the time

https://www.flickr.com/photos/train-pix/5975297589/

Class 40s also had scoops for train heating, if you Google "Class 40s on troughs" you will see some images of them with overflowing tanks at Dillicar Troughs

[Master Cutler]

In the early days Deltics had Spanner Boilers which were quite thirsty when steam heating a full train.
However, the boilers were always troublesome and demanded extra attention during service intervals.

[ticketsmustbeshewn]

Thanks guys, that's what I like about railways, there's so many aspects (no pun intended) that there's always something new to learn. Found the pictures of Deltic and Class 40 using troughs
You learn something new everyday......then you die and forget it all!

[bramleyman]

I have to confess, that as a Deltic Fan myself, I never knew about them scooping up water, as did the steam loco's, so Thank you for enlightening me about this.