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About this blog

I'm mulling over a supplement to my GWR locomotive development book.
New sketches I prepare will appear here (in small size).  Comments and corrections on the original (be nice!) and suggestions for content in the supplement welcome.
 

If you are planning a model of any of the locomotives featured in this blog you are very welcome to contact me and I'll see if there's anything I can do to assist you in researching for your model. 

 

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/An-Introduction-to-Great-Western-Locomotive-Development-Hardback/p/14507

 

 

 

Entries in this blog

GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 111 Class (1863-1866)

Anyone following this will gather that I'm currently working on very early Wolverhampton classes. The 111 Class was the first real class to be designed and built by Joseph Armstrong at Wolverhampton, but to my mind its very much a development of the earlier singles I've previously sketched here.    The first six were built in 1863/4 under Joseph Armstrong. They had outside plate frames with the footplate rising in curves to clear the coupling rods, 6ft0in driving wheels and 16x24in cyli
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR No 7 (1859) and 110 (1862)

Two very early ones. This is GWR No 7 from 1859, Wolverhampton works no 1, and the first Joseph Armstrong design for the GWR. Holcroft tells us that Armstrong, very much a member of the Northumberland school, was much associated with George Gray. Gray's designs for the Hull & Selby and LBSCR had the same feature of inside frames on the driving wheels and outside on leading and trailing wheels. They were also the inspiration for the well known Jenny Lind type. My sources are quiet on what mot
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR Nos 34, 35 0-4-0s (Shrewsbury and Chester - 1853) and 0-6-0s (Wolverhampton, 1866)

Numbers 34 and 35 seem to have been reserved for oddities! Later there were a couple of Dean 0-4-4Ts. The original GWR 34 & 35 were a pair of locomotives built by the Vulcan Foundry which the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway bought off the shelf in 1853, and one may suspect at a bargain price. They could be described as long boiler 0-4-0 tender engines, but the drive was not to either wheel axle, but to an intermediate crank axle, somewhat in the position that the middle driving axle of a lo
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 1360 (Ex Pembroke and Tenby Railway)

This one is really much too conjectural... The Pembroke and Tenby Railway was taken over by the GWR on 1st July 1896, and this Shrp Stewart 2-2-2T, one of two biuilt in 1863, was taken out of service in July 1897, so there must be some considerable doubt as to whether it ever carried its allocated GWR number or was painted in GWR livery. Apparently it hung around until 1908 before finally being scrapped, so photographs might exist. My drawing is worked up from a handful of dimensions in RCTS and
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR Nos. 24, 26, 30, 31, 202-205

This design was specified by the Locomotive Superintendent of the Shrewsbury & Chester, Edward Jeffreys, and built by the Vulcan Foundry.  Four were ordered in 1852, and delivered in 1853. They were double framed, and quite powerful locomotives for the time.  In the meantime Jeffreys had left the Shrewsbury & Chester and was now Locomotive Superintendant of the Shrewsbury and Hereford.  Four more of the design were built for the S&H in 1853/4.  The S&C locomotives came to the GWR
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR Nos. 28 & 50-53

More very early locomotives. These ones were designed and built by Robert Stephenson's.  Like No 25 et al these were built for the Shrewsbury and Birmingham, and the one with an out of sequence number had been sold to the Shrewsbury and Chester. A raised firebox and a dome rather than the gothic firebox of the Longridge engines, but similarities seemed very marked as I came to draw them. The very early days of steam traction seems to have been a very small world based round Northumbria. I was st
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR Nos 9, 10, 12, 14, 22 & 23 (Ex Shrewsbury & Chester)

These were built in 1847 by Sharp Stewart for the Shrewsbury & Chester, and  came to the GWR in 1854 as part of the merger that formed the Northern Division and brought narrow gauge to the GWR. They were of a type known as Sharp singles that were delivered to a number of lines. One was converted to a tank engine, and a couple more had replacement cylinders but otherwise they were not greatly altered.  They were in service until the 1870s (1885 for the tank engine conversion). It's disappoint
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR Nos 25 & 46-49

Very early stuff this time. I've got an idea for a new publication, but the concept means I will have to have much better coverage of the early locomotives than I did in "Introduction to". So I think I'm going to have to do a lot of drawing, and this one is starting very near the beginning! Its tempting to simply reuse the E.L. Ahrons drawings in RCTS, which are out of copyright, but I don't feel comfortable doing it. As far as I can see no-one really talks about classes this early, but thi
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR No 40 (Ex Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway)

This was one of those locomotives which, for no reason apparent at this distance, was rebuilt time and again for a very long life. This is the  first GWR No 40, which was officially withdrawn in 1904! It was constructed as a long boilered 0-4-2 tender engine with outside cylinders in 1849 by R.B. Longridge & Co of Bedlington, for the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway, and was so well regarded that the S&B attempted to sell it without success. In 1854 it became GWR property. In 1858 Armst
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR No 92

No 92 was one of five small 0-4-0STs, superficially rather similar in appearance, but which were not treated as a class.  With one exception they were late 19thC Wolverhampton reconstructions of older locomotives, and by the end of their long lives probably retained few original parts.  The first of the group was no 45, built in 1880, which was a new engine, albeit given the number of a Sharp Stewart built locomotive withdrawn a very few years earlier. It had the odd feature of a cab that w
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR No 342 0-4-2ST

from an E.L. Ahrons sketch, this is No 342 in original or at least very early form. It was built in 1856 by Beyer, Peacock for the Commissioners of Chester General Station, which was jointly owned by the GR, the LNWR and the Birkenhead railway, and was bought by the GWR in 1865.         In this form it was really a slightly earlier version of Nos 91 and 92, also from Beyer, Peacock. In 1881 it was altered into an 0-4-0ST of much the same form as its cousins. The reb
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR No 1490

Built in 1898 this odd experimental locomotive is arguably significant only as having the first set of pannier tanks. It had outside frames and an unconventional firebox, wider than it was long and  initially featuring water tubes inside the firebox. Apparently it was unsuccessful in its designed role as a passenger engine and was relegated to shunting duties before being sold off. Initially it went to the Ebbw Vale Steel and Iron Co, then to the Brecon & Merthyr at a time when they were par
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 157 Classes (1862 and 1878)

There were actually two 157 classes. The first, above, was specified by Gooch and built by Sharp Stewart in 1862. They could be regarded as a development of the earlier 69 class with larger driving wheels. They were numbered 157-166. They were little altered in their lives, with only one receiving a new boiler, from an Armstrong Goods. They did receive weatherboards and it is possible that some may have been given open cabs. Most were scrapped in 1878/9 when the new 157 class took over thei
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 9 and 10 Dean Experimental Single Wheelers

These were Dean prototypes. Superficially rather ordinary looking 2-2-2s by the time they went out of service, they are perhaps more interesting and influential than sometimes given credit to. I don't think I really said enough about them in the printed version of the book. I shall try and produce a series of sketches, although material can be rather sparse. No. 9 started life in 1881 as a rather absurd express 4-2-4 tank engine with 7ft 8in driving wheels and was so prone to derailment it pr
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR Nos 93 & 94

Another early bird this one. These two were the first GWR built 0-6-0T, and belong to the Gooch era - built in 1860. They were quite small engines with 4ft 2in (or possibly 4ft) wheels. They were fairly typical Gooch designs with domeless boilers, raised fireboxes and Gooch valve gear. They had inside frames, small side tanks and a well tank under the bunker. When renewed in the 1870s, they were turned out as members of the 850/1901 classes, so it is probable that no significant parts were reuse
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 1741 (655) Class

Enthusiasts often refer to this Wolverhampton built class as the 655 class, but the GWR usually described them as 1741s. Thirty-two were built from 1892. They were essentially similar to the earlier 645 and 1501 classes, but were just a little larger with longer overhangs front and rear. The bunker was actually the same size as the 1501 bunker, so the extra three inches of overhang presumably provided more room in the cab. Again they were built with T class boilers. They were numbered rather ecc
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 1392/1393 Class 0-6-0T (ex Cornwall Mineral Railway)

An interesting class, not least because they were significant as being the basis of the design of the 1361 and 1366 classes.   In their original form the locomotives did not look much like this, being side tanks with no back to the cab and intended to be used in pairs operated by a single crew. They were built by Sharp Stewart for the Cornwall Minerals Railway. The designer is a little obscure. Its apparently credited to an F. Trevithick.  Francis Trevithick, son of the great pioneer,
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 248 and 253 Class 0-6-0s

Bit of a veteran this time. These are  technically absorbed locomotives. 248 (upper sketch) is one of a class of five delivered to the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway in 1854/5. They were an E.B. Wilson standard design. 253 (lower sketch) is one of seven more, with differences to the frames, were bought by the the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway. These lines merged into the West Midland Railway, which in turn was taken over by the GWR to form a significant part of the narro
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 3511 Class

Not to be confused with the 0-4-2T 3521s that ended up as 4-4-0s, these were 2-4-0Ts that ended up as 2-4-0s.  Built in 1885, the ten double framed 3511 2-4-0Ts were a tank engine version of the Stella class 2-4-0s, a part of a Dean standardisation exercise that also included the 2361 outside frame version of the Dean Goods and the 1661 0-6-0ST. All had major components in common. They were a much larger engine than the Metros with 17in by 26in cylinders and class P (Dean Goods) boilers. Origina
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR/WR 15xx Class (1948)

I was mulling over the design of the (to me at least) strangely appealing 1948 15xx. It was a pure GWR design, and it appears from the NRM drawings list that it was actually on the drawing boards as early as 1944. As Cook tells us it was designed as a "24 hour shunter", not needing to be serviced over a pit: a worthy aim, but rendered largely obsolete by the early 350HP diesel shunters that were being introduced at the same time. I've seen an interesting comparison made between the GWR 0-6-0PTs
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 322 Class Tank Engines

I'm not sure how I came to omit a sketch of this class from my book, but I certainly did. I included the tender version. Perhaps I was unsure how many drawings of similar looking pre-group pannier tanks should be included.    They have one of the more complex histories. The 322 class tale started in 1864. They were thirty 0-6-0 tender engines,  entirely of Beyer Peacock design, twenty ordered under the Gooch regime (322-341) and the rest (350-359) by Joseph Armstrong. They had plate (n
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR Large Prairie Bunkers and Rear Tanks

I've sketched out the obvious principal variations in Large Prairie bunkers visible in Russell, both drawings and photos. I'm making the assumption that the lines of close spaced rivets on the bunker side did indeed follow the top seam of the water tank. It sees to me there must have been variations in coal and water capacity. I shall have to take a closer look at the RCTS volume.    
GWR Locomotive Sketches

Dean's Larger Tank Engines

This is something of a followup from discussion in another Blog entry,  https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/24891-gwr-no-34-1890/ and is also relevant to this one. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/24922-gwr-3521-0-4-2t-and-0-4-4t/. As I said, I'm beginning to further appreciate what a weird and largely unsuccessful bunch Dean's larger tank engines were, and what a contrast in style they were from the smaller 6 wheeled engines, conventional, successful
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR No 34 0-4-4T (1890)

One of a pair of small 0-4-4T constructed under Dean, its believed for branch lines with heavy curvature. They were superficially similar in concept to the ill-starred 3521 class, but considerably smaller, and like the 3521s went through a good number of changes in their early years. They started life in 1890 as 0-4-2 saddle tanks, with the same layout of much shorter spacing between the driving wheels than between the trailing drivers and the trailing wheels. In 1895 they were altered to the fo
GWR Locomotive Sketches

GWR 1813 Class

The 1813 Class is intriguing. They started off as side tanks, and ended up as pannier tanks with saddle tanks fitted in between. The side tanks didn't last very long, and this was a period where there were any number of experiments with boilers. Consequently there is extraordinary variety, and it seems as if not only were there no two the same, but none of them stayed the same for very long either. These sketches are the fruits of a small joint research exercise with @Mikkel. Beware of thinkin
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

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