This would explain why Thomas was the only useful engine out of his class. Cause he probably would've had these modifications made to him upon arrival on Sodor.

Not only did you fix the engine, you even used the parts bin of their owners, making the process as simple as possible. That's intelligent thinking.

Each steam engine was built with a specific purpose after all

I find it really funny that one of the complaints with the E2 were that their brakes were too good.

I think The Fat Controller would have most definitely put the money in to fix Thomas up. How else was he so confidant to grant him his own branch line, he certainly fixed him and knew that he could run the branch line with no trouble.

While I personally think Thomas is an E2 that was built specifically to not have the faults that the E2s were infamous for having, I still thought this video was very informative and well thought-out. Good work.

If only the E2 had a fair chance

Perhaps the problems lied with the size of the blastpipe in the smoke box. It was the same case for the GWR manors, they were heavy on coal and poor at steaming due to a slightly oversized blastpipe. Once the issue was corrected, they became much more efficient engines.

I guess the reason why Thomas worked so well was because he wasn’t just fixed he was FIXED

The boiler sounds like a Draughting issue. as the issue stated, opening the regulator all the way would blow burning coals out the funnel. this implies the coal was burning faster than it should have, and well, burning is a chemical reaction, oxygen plus carbon. ironically in this case though, seems there was too much airflow, and thus too much oxygen blowing through the firebox. a different boiler or perhaps one with a Belpaire firebox with smaller grating would've increased efficiency, and thus reduced the coal burning per mile.

Railfans regardless of being a TTTE fan: The E2s had numerous flaws that didn't make them really useful.

Technically, the boiler fix could solve both the fuel problem and the wheelbase problem. Since the new boiler won't eat up fuel as quickly, the E2 can go back to long-distance suburban trains instead of being confined to dockside shunting yards with sharp curves. It fixes one problem directly and completely relieves the engine of the other.

Considering the parts used to make a E2, I think Sir Topham would’ve done to Thomas what he did with Henry.

This was very interesting and informative! Now it makes me want to see someone put a what-if style modification of the E2’s into Trainz simulator to the specifics you mentioned… That, I would love to see

Thank-you for a very informative and well-done video. It's given me an idea or two.

Honestly, I'd like an E2 working replica with the modifications you've thought of.

The boiler issue might be an easy fix, depending on what exactly is the problem. If it is draughting that's the issue that wouldn't be too onerous to solve. The wheels and cylinders being poorly balanced is another matter. If it's simply a balance weight imbalance that's not as bad of a problem, but on the other hand changing the wheel or cylinder size would be quite difficult. I can't see how a size imbalance is the problem (I would normally expect weighting issues and poor suspension), but giving a locomotive larger wheels is very difficult. It is easier to give a design smaller wheels, but that would still require extensive modification of the frames. Larger wheels simply don't fit well with less than a near complete rebuild, probably including new frames. For the cylinders, while it is possible to change cylinder sizes, the inside cylinders mean this is difficult. Depending on how the cylinders are mounted it can range from a (relatively) simple replacement to needing entirely new frames (especially if the cylinders are cast integral to the frames or frame stays). This would not be a small job to fix and wouldn't be worth it for a small class of old steam shunters when there are much higher priorities. I do agree the draughting should be looked at, and thinner flanges on the center axle would help (that is a matter of replacing tires, not the wheels themselves).

When you mentioned the boiler, I was thinking the same thing of thinking of giving a new design.

About the wheel base, the 9F's actually had their middle two drivers of their 5 sets flangeless to allow the locomotive to negotiate curves. Also, a point about steam locomotive boilers is that it needs to be able to not only generate and maintain pressure but also retain heat to reduce coal and to more efficiently heat the water (reducing the over-consumption of water but this is a major problem on many locomotives). The problem with the boiler was that it was not retaining the pressure that was required for the locomotive (this might mean that the locomotive boiler was rated and given a much higher Boiler PSI then it was capable of creating on its own.) This means that the locomotive's boiler PSI would have had to be lower and the use of either slightly larger cylinders or superheat (a technique that basically superheats the water in the boiler which results in a much higher steam pressure for less coal and water) to compensate for lower pressure. Also, for braking, the problem with couple breaking when sudden stopping is down to the use of vacuum brakes which has a much quicker response to quick braking then the Westinghouse brakes. This is because the engineer had to use the locomotive brakes if there was no connection for the air brakes which results in the locomotive being able to stop but the truck cannot. (This is why most yards maintain a much lower speed then branch or mainlines due to the fact that until the end of steam, not all trucks were equipped with air brakes)

If you don't completely understand what they said about how to fix them, here it in in a nutshell: