Jones Great Western Railway Pannier Tanks

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-84797-654-3
Verlag: Crowood
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

The name 'Great Western Railway' immediately conjures up images of Stars, Castles and Kings, the legendary express passenger locomotives that were the envy of the world in their day. However, the Swindon empire also produced extensive fleets of all-purpose tank engines - everyday reliable workhorses and unsung heroes - which were standout classics in their own right. The most distinctive and immediately recognizable type in terms of shape, all but unique to the GWR, was the six-coupled pannier tank. With hundreds of photographs throughout, Great Western Railway Pannier Tanks covers the supremely innovative pannier tank designs of GWR chief mechanical engineer Charles Benjamin Collett, the appearance of the 5700 class in 1929, and the 5400, 6400, 7400 and 9400 classes. Also, the demise of the panniers in British Railways service and the 5700s that marked the end of Western Region steam, followed by a second life beneath the streets - 5700 class panniers on London Underground. Also covers Panniers in preservation, plus cinema and TV roles and even a Royal Train duty. Superbly illustrated with 260 colour and black & white photographs.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jones, Robin

Leseproben

CHAPTER TWO

THE INVENTOR AND THE INNOVATOR

The first few decades of the Great Western Railway largely belonged to the epoch of locomotives with massive single driving wheels, gleaming oversize steam domes, stovepipe chimney, and cabs without roofs to protect crews from the elements. The ‘modern’ era of twentieth-century GWR steam is regarded by many as having begun with the appointment of George Jackson Churchward as locomotive, carriage and works superintendent, a title changed in 1916 to the more familiar chief mechanical engineer.

George Jackson Churchward, who many argue was the greatest steam locomotive engineer of the twentieth century.

Having served an apprenticeship in the Newton Abbot works of the South Devon Railway near his birthplace of Stoke Gabriel near Torquay, and under Joseph Armstrong in Swindon Works, Churchward quickly rose through the GWR ranks during the period of the great transition from the broad- and mixed-gauge era to the standard-gauge epoch. Starting at Swindon as a draughtsman, he became carriage works manager, then works manager, and in 1897 was appointed chief assistant to locomotive superintendent William Dean.

Five years later he was promoted to the top job, and left a legacy that extended long beyond the boundaries of the Swindon-Paddington empire. In very broad terms, he was to the GWR in the twentieth century what Brunel and his locomotive engineer Daniel Gooch had been in the nineteenth: indeed, some consider him to be the greatest British steam engineer of all.

His first big success was the ten-strong City class of 4-4-0s, created by adding a new GWR standard No. 4 boiler with a sloping Belpaire firebox to an existing Atbara-class chassis. One of them, No. 3440 City of Truro, was unofficially recorded as reaching 102.3mph (164.6km/h) while descending Wellington Bank in Somerset with the ‘Ocean Mails’ special on 9 May 1904. It went down in legend as the first steam locomotive to break the 100mph (160km/h) barrier. For the GWR, Churchward came up with designs for 2- and 4-cylinder 4-6-0s that were substantially superior to any locomotive built by rival British railway companies.

Churchward brought to Britain many refinements from American and French steam locomotive practice in his drive to produce faster and more efficient machines. He took on board the Belpaire firebox and adapted it, rounding its corners, tapering its sides and sloping its top from front to rear: by doing so, he not only strengthened it, but provided greater circulation and heating potential next to the boiler. His seventy-three-strong 2900 or Saint class, his first 4-6-0s introduced in 1906, were the finest express locomotives in the country for many years. Their design, which began with the building of three prototype 2-cylinder 4-6-0 locomotives in 1902 and 1903, paved the way for the much later LMS ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0s and British Railways Standard 5s.

He devised the 2800 class of heavy freight engines, which were not bettered for many decades – and then he went one better than the Saints with the 4000 or Star class. He designed an experimental locomotive, No. 40 North Star, built as a 4-4-2 for comparative trials with 4-cylinder De Glehn compound locomotives that the GWR had bought from France. The trials reinforced Churchward’s faith in the balanced 4-cylinder layout, but he decided that he would produce the subsequent class with simple steam expansion, and with the 4-6-0 arrangement of the Saints. It is an understatement that the seventy-six Stars bettered even the Saints, and in their day were well ahead of the pack in terms of performance.

His choice of outside cylinders for express locomotives was not standard in the Britain of his day. The lines of the Stars, Saints and other Churchward classes are immediately recognizable as twentieth century, as opposed to the ‘antiques’ that preceded them. During his time in office, Swindon Works doubled in size.

The keynote Churchward policy was the standardization of locomotive parts, in particular boilers. It allowed components made for one type of locomotive to be fitted to several others, thereby increasing efficiency both in manufacture and maintenance and cost effectiveness. Churchward also introduced the first Pacific, or 4-6-2 locomotive to Britain, in the form of No. 111 The Great Bear, in effect a large Star, which appeared in 1912 on the Paddington to Bristol route.

What has all this to do with the origin of the 57XXs, you might ask. The answer lies in Churchward’s successor, Charles Benjamin Collett, who took over when he retired in January 1922.

Charles Collett

The son of a journalist, Collett was born on 10 September 1871 near Paddington station. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors School in London, and then attended London University. Afterwards he worked for marine engine builders Maudslay, Sons & Field of Lambeth.

In May 1893, Collett became a junior draughtsman in the Swindon drawing office. Four years later he was placed in charge of the section responsible for buildings, and in 1898 he became assistant to the chief draughtsman. Promoted to technical inspector at Swindon Works in June 1900, a few months later he became its assistant manager. However, he had to wait twelve years before he was elevated to the post of manager. There, he watched Churchward’s developments at first hand, and implemented them. He also developed a thorough understanding of works production, and saw where improvements could be made. He received the OBE for his efforts of producing munitions during World War I. Then in May 1919, he became deputy chief mechanical engineer.

Charles Benjamin Collett, the chief mechanical engineer who, in honing decades-old designs to new levels of perfection, produced some of the GWR’s best locomotives of all time.

Didcot-based 57XX No. 3650 catches the rays of the setting sun as it crosses Freshfield Bank on the Bluebell Railway on 18 November 2012. TOM HAWLEY/3650 GROUP

GWR 4-6-0 No. 6000 King George V on display at the Steam Museum in Swindon. Collett’s Kings were the most powerful of all GWR locomotive types and the class became the flagship of the company, yet they were in effect an enlargement of his Castle class, which in turn was an innovative development or enhancement of Churchward’s Star, rather than an altogether new design. Collett took the same approach when he designed new pannier tanks. ROBIN JONES

Churchward’s great success had been in dragging the GWR out of the post-broad-gauge era into the twentieth century, and he came up with designs that some considered were years ahead of their time. When he retired, at a time when revenue was falling and costs rising, the GWR was not seeking another great locomotive designer to fulfil the company’s immediate needs. What was required, however, was a man who would consolidate Churchward’s achievements while also modernizing production. At the time, these characteristics were seen as crucial.

Herein lies a real railway enigma. Under Collett, the finest GWR locomotives of all were produced, the Castle 4-6-0s and the ‘super Castles’ or Kings. Yet both were hardly original in concept, as the Stars and Saints had been. Collett inherited Churchward’s standard designs and took them to the next stage of evolution… but without coming up with radical new ones of his own. In doing so, he was a great innovator rather than an inventor in the mould of his illustrious predecessor. Herein lies the hallmark of Collett, who oversaw the zenith of GWR locomotive design and building.

By the 1920s, a requirement for a more powerful engine than the Stars arose, and Collett responded by enlarging the Star boiler to give a greater evaporative rate. The Star cylinders were increased in diameter, and the nominal tractive effort was raised to 31,625lb (14,345kg). That made Collett’s ‘new’ Star, or Castle, the most powerful in the UK. The following year the GWR proudly displayed No. 4073 Caerphilly Castle, which emerged from Swindon in 1923, alongside no less than the Flying Scotsman at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.

Collett argued successfully that had the 19½-ton axle-loading restriction of the Castles been raised to 22½ tons, an even more powerful engine could have been produced. GWR general manager Sir Felix Pole gave the green light for the Kings to be produced, and the first, No. 6000 King George V, appeared from Swindon Works in June 1927.

At 136 tons, the Kings were the heaviest 4-6-0s ever to run in the UK, and at 40,300lb (18,280kg) also had the highest tractive effort of any of them. Their weight meant that they were restricted to certain routes, but they certainly captured the public’s imagination and reinforced the image of the GWR as ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’. They were the ultimate development of Churchward’s 4-cylinder express design.

Better Swindon workshop methods and practices brought in by Collett reduced manufacturing costs, again while improving the performance of Church-ward’s designs, which he turned from machines of raw power to ones of precision with greater potential for power. He did not, however, always take Churchward’s developments to the theoretical next stage of development. Churchward was said to have been dismayed by Collett’s decision in 1924 to rebuild The Great Bear as a Castle, No. 111 Viscount Churchill.

Collett...