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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

Boilers with flue tubes but no superheater elements.

From 1925 the GWR fitted a pair of 5 1/8 diameter flue tubes in the upper corners of untapered boilers that had belpaire fireboxes, pressure 165psi and above and no superheater. This is reckoned to have reduced cracking in the corners of the firebox. Tapered boilers like the 94xx never had this feature, but it was seen on all post 1934 designs and also on replacement boilers on smaller pre group pannier tanks and side tanks like 850s, 2021s and I think 517s. Did any other lines use this design f

Errors/Inaccuracies etc

Mistakes. We all make them, and if I was immune I wouldn't have to publish this errata sheet for my [hopefully first] book.  https://www.devboats.co.uk/gwdrawings/errata/GWRlocoDevelopmentErrataFirstEdition.pdf   At the moment I've been going through some of my sketches for the book, improving some of the older ones where I think I can do better now, and adding some new ones where I can. I reuse everything I can, so coming to do a 79 class (1858 0-6-0) based on the Ahrons drawing i

JimC

JimC in Miscellaneous Musings

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,

2-4-0s, and the Armstrong era in particular

When I wrote the first book I was rather guilty of somewhat glossing over the 2-4-0s in the Armstrong and Dean eras. There were so many of them, they were rebuilt so much and I just found them confusing and, dare I say it, not that interesting. I'm paying for it now! Working up my experimental chronologically based GWR locomotive history I'm in into the late 1860s, early 1870s, and they are becoming impossible to avoid! I have to wonder, incidentally, why, with standard goods engines and standar

JimC

JimC in Miscellaneous Musings

GWR 666 Class (ex Alexandra Docks & Railway or Brecon & Merthyr Railway, ex ROD, ex Inland Waterways. Kerr Stuart Victory Class)

The 'Victory' class was a class of ten built in 1917 for the Inland Waterways and Docks dept. Post war they were sold off by the Railways Operating Department, mostly to collieries. There's a detailed history here at Planet industrials.    The ADR bought two of these from the ROD. They had outside cylinders and were quite powerful locomotives. They were numbered 666/7 on absorption. They received a moderate Swindon rebuild. Another had been purchased by the Brecon & Merthyr. This l

Book Format for Locomotive Development

I'm mulling over something different in the way of formats. Traditionally locomotive books have been written class by class, which in many ways is the most logical way to do it. But the trouble is that its difficult to get a sense of how design developed. Say for instance, you're looking at GWR 0-6-0 freight engines. You list the 57 class and its history from a cabless domeless sandwich frame locomotive in 1855 with Gooch motion, then maybe the renewals around the mid 1870s which were almost new

JimC

JimC in Miscellaneous Musings

First use of injectors?

RCTS states "Up to 1865 the general practice was to use crosshead driven pumps... At that date the Giffard injector (invented in 1859) was introduced on the GWR.". Which begs the question, what classes, were they rapidly retrofitted etc etc.  Does anyone know any more?   There's a photo in RCTS (Part 4 D113) of a 322 (Beyer) no 334 "as built by Beyer Peacock in 1864" which would appear to have an injector fitted. Similarly D119 shows a 360 class with injector, but the caption ma

JimC

JimC in Information required

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

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

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

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

Cambrian Small Side Tank (2-4-0T) Class

Three small side tank locomotives from Sharp Stewart, delivered in 1866. They received a significant reworking in Cambrian days which altered their appearance considerably. All survived to the GWR, who proposed to scrap two of them immediately, but they were reprieved and numbered 1192, 1196 and 1197. They soon received the full GWR treatment above the footplate. The boilers were thoroughly overhauled with top feed added and they were given new GWR smokeboxes, tanks, cab and bunkers. Thus utterl

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

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 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 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

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 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

GWR No 15.

GWR No 15 was a bar framed 0-4-0 by Bury. Note the domed firebox which it retained for its whole life in spite of other changes. Built in 1847 for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, it was withdrawn in 1903. This first sketch shows her around 1866.   And this second one about 1887, when it had been cut down in height.

JimC

JimC in 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 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 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

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

Cross-fertilisation in design... Locomotive/Marine

Browsing through Steamindex having awoken in the early hours I happened on a mention (by LA Summers) of a GWR Dean era proposal for a water tube boiler on a 4-4-0. You'd think that came out of nowhere, but a couple of months ago I was given sight of part of the Swindon drawing office register of drawings for the time when the 3521  0-4-2Ts were being worked on. One thing that struck me was the number of drawings being produced at Swindon for the GWR's ships. They clearly didn't maintain a separa

JimC

JimC in Miscellaneous Musings

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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