The furthest East working of Swindon steam

[adb968008]

 

The class 142 was used between New Westminster and Abbotsford on the BC Hydro railway. It may have made it to Vancouver on occasion for display, but that wasn't a regular service. I did not know about trials on BC Rail.

 

 I think that photo is at Abbotsford.

 

it did venture into a terminal platform at Vancouver, theres a picture out there somewhere i'll try to find.

[adb968008]

Surely 4079 tops the lot though, as didn't it take a different route back home compared to the outward, and in doing so, became the first GWR loco to go around the world?

 

I think Scotsman has done both Capes, not sure about 4079's travels.. whilst steam is sacrosanct to some but surely exclusive travel on water doesn't count :-)

 

As for remote locations for steam loco travels, away from their primary operators.., I think the PKP PX48-1741 in the Cook Islands, has to be one of the most interestedly ventured locos to move from Europe after service with a European operator.

[Wickham Green]

G'Day Folks

 

Came up on LNER Encyclopedia, years ago, I questioned it at the time, but was told that it was true !!

 

manna  

Obviously someone needs a new pair of specs - and if they were rushing things an 'N' could look like a 'W' ..............

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The RCH didn't have anything GWR at Peterborough: GE, GN, LNW, MR, M&GN Joint.

[Nick Holliday]

Getting back to the original question, I have just come across, in the book of E J Bedford of Lewes's photographs, a picture of the GWR single No. 55, Queen, hauling a rather makeshift Royal Train, somewhere on the LBSCR east coastal mainline, near Lewes, sometime around 1890. Unfortunately the caption doesn't identify the occasion, but presumably the ultimate destination would have been even further east, taking it well beyond somewhere like Stratford or Temple Mills in terms of longitude.

[melmerby]

The RCH didn't have anything GWR at Peterborough: GE, GN, LNW, MR, M&GN Joint.

I wonder how the GWR would have got to Peterborough?

It would not be particularly straightforward

 

Say: Leamington - Rugby - Market Harborough - Seaton - Wansford - Peterborough.

 

Mind you, isn't Peterbourough actually West of Paddington?

 

Keith

 

EDIT Yes it is, just!

The LNWR station at Peteborough is approx 0.25° W,  Paddington buffer stops are approx 0.18° W.

Edited February 21, 2018 by melmerby

[melmerby]

The GWR goods depot at Victoria & Albert Dock is further East than Stratford.

 

Keith

[Nick Holliday]

Further to my note regarding the GWR Royal Train on the Brighton east coast line, research has shown that in 1882 the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Hastings to open Alexandra Park, but they travelled, at least initially, from Charing Cross. But in 1887 King Leopold of the Belgians stayed for several days at the Queen's Hotel in Hastings, and may well have travelled there to or from Windsor or Osborne by the LBSC. These lesser royals would perhaps account for the rather basic provision of regal accommodation in the train.

Hastings is 15' 12" E, whereas the GWR depot in the docks, which was, I believe, near Customs House, is merely 02' 51" E, whilst Startford is a mere 00' 13" E!

[adb968008]

Slightly on tack, but I’ve seen several times the GWR goods depot in Manchester, and understood the GWR had running rights into the city...

 

Though I’ve never found any pictures of this, did the GWR actually extend operations in Manchester and did they do it with their own metal ?, if so what did they use as power and which station did they run to ? or was it all 3rd party traffic ?

[melmerby]

The GWR had running rights to Manchester Exchange passenger station with it's half share of the Birkenhead Joint with the LNW and AFAIK used them for a regular passenger service.

I've seen a picture of a Star in Manchester and assume many types of locos would be used.

 

Don't know about the goods services though.

 

Keith

Edited February 22, 2018 by melmerby

[Combe Martin]

On ‎12‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 14:57, Oldddudders said:

 

Redhill.

 

On ‎12‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 21:21, JimC said:

Did they never go further on towards Tonbridge?

 

As I recall, it was Manors and 53xx/63xx that sometimes worked through to Redhill on the service from Reading.  In later days when Western DMUs worked this service they continued on to Tonbridge (I remember seeing some ex-Scottish ones there), but this needed reversal at Redhill.  I don't know if this happened in steam days with another loco (probably a Maunsell Mogul) coming on to the other end, or if Redhill - Tonbridge was operated as a separate service.  Either way, the GW loco would have needed turning (unless working tender first) before it continued or it's return trip home .  

[The Stationmaster]

6 hours ago, Combe Martin said:

 

 

As I recall, it was Manors and 53xx/63xx that sometimes worked through to Redhill on the service from Reading.  In later days when Western DMUs worked this service they continued on to Tonbridge (I remember seeing some ex-Scottish ones there), but this needed reversal at Redhill.  I don't know if this happened in steam days with another loco (probably a Maunsell Mogul) coming on to the other end, or if Redhill - Tonbridge was operated as a separate service.  Either way, the GW loco would have needed turning (unless working tender first) before it continued or it's return trip home .  

78XX and 63XX were only cleared as far as Redhill

[The Johnster]

It's probably been mentioned but a 4575 went to Romania under it's own steam...

[melmerby]

5521 went to Poland & Hungary

https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/5521-2/

Edited June 1, 2020 by melmerby

[The Johnster]

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

5521 went to Poland & Hungary

https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/5521-2/

That's the one I'm thinking of, had some idea it was in aid of Romanian orphans.

[johnofwessex]

Quote

 

 

Dunno what happened there.................

 

I'm just fascinated by the idea of a Chinese/German/Austrian/Whatever fitter/driver required to make sense of a Dean Goods/Jinty/Whatever far far from home with no instructions, drawings etc and having to make sense of it

[The Stationmaster]

On 22/02/2018 at 15:27, melmerby said:

The GWR had running rights to Manchester Exchange passenger station with it's half share of the Birkenhead Joint with the LNW and AFAIK used them for a regular passenger service.

I've seen a picture of a Star in Manchester and assume many types of locos would be used.

 

Don't know about the goods services though.

 

Keith

Rather amusingly a GWR 1892 Service timetable includes a nightly (except Sundays) goods service between Paddington and Manchester.  I would think it almost certain that GWR engines worked through on freight services as they did to Manchester Exchange on passenger services although that ended just after the outbreak of WWII.  As I've mentioned before there is a published photo of a 43XX on a GWR train aat Manchester Exchange and 'Dukedogs' also reportedly worked in there.   The special traffic notice for the fleet coal trains un WWI (often referred to as 'Jellicoe Specials') included several trains worked through to Warrington by 28XX.

[The Stationmaster]

20 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

 

Dunno what happened there.................

 

I'm just fascinated by the idea of a Chinese/German/Austrian/Whatever fitter/driver required to make sense of a Dean Goods/Jinty/Whatever far far from home with no instructions, drawings etc and having to make sense of it

Probably not as difficult as the task faced at Swindon when they had to do heavy overhauls of Belgian 0-6-0s

[rodent279]

7 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Probably not as difficult as the task faced at Swindon when they had to do heavy overhauls of Belgian 0-6-0s

Did they?

[tomparryharry]

18 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Did they?

 

The basic o-6-0 conforms to a great many standards. Inside cylinders, 18x24" stroke, that sort of thing. The Western had put foreign locomotives together when the De-Glehn  compounds arrived, so some prior experience prevailed. Things like metric taps & dies would be good fun however. 

 

As a slight aside, building up injection tooling for modern motor car wheels was all metric without exception: Except one.....One set of tooling was a curious mixture of Whitworth & metric sizes, where the bolts were mixed, the pins & holding lugs imperial, however, the holding bolts were metric. The irony is, is that the tooling was destined for Fiat (Italy), and, although the rough casting was imperial, the machining was metric as well.... The toolroom boss used to give the job to me, "Seeing as you like steam engines...." What this had to do with chimpanzees in Accrington, I don't know....

[rodent279]

So what were the Belgian 0-6-0's that Swindon overhauled? Or did @Stationmaster mean 4-6-0's?

 

As an aside, use of metric measures was legalised in the UK in the last decade of the 19th Cen, and metric standards had been around for sometime before that, though when what we now know as metric threads were standardised I don't know. Possibly different countries used their own versions of metric threads.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

So what were the Belgian 0-6-0's that Swindon overhauled? Or did @Stationmaster mean 4-6-0's?

 

 

One was definitely an État Belge Type 32. original EB running number 3548, outshopped from Swindon carrying  ROD running number 2946,  Subsequently carried SNCB  running number 4548, finally 44.148.  Built 1907, scrapped April 1949.  I don't know the identity of the other one but it was a member of the same État Belge class or class 30 or 32s.

 

These were two of the six engines sent to England in 1918 when the German Georgette offensive led to evacuation of the ROD workshop at Borre - of the six Swindon, Crewe, and Stratford works each overhauled two.  I'm not aware of any other Etat Belge engines being repaired at Swindon and the ROD don't appear to have had any ET 4-6-0s.

Edited June 2, 2020 by The Stationmaster

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

One was definitely an État Belge Type 32. original EB running number 3548, outshopped from Swindon carrying  ROD running number 2946,  Subsequently carried SNCB  running number 4548, finally 44.148.  Built 1907, scrapped April 1949.  I don't know the identity of the other one but it was a member of the same État Belge class or class 30 or 32s.

 

These were two of the six engines sent to England in 1918 when the German Georgette offensive led to evacuation of the ROD workshop at Borre - of the six Swindon, Crewe, and Stratford works each overhauled two.  I'm not aware of any other Etat Belge engines being repaired at Swindon and the ROD don't appear to have had any ET 4-6-0s.

Didn't have a clue about that! Not seen any mention of it anywhere up until now.  The only reference I have seen is to a drawing for Belgian 0-6-0's number 2420 & 2421, in a list of a Swindon drawings held by the NRM.

Not that I doubt you, maybe the information was considered secret for some time?

Did the engines go back to Belgium, rather than work on UK metals?

Edited June 2, 2020 by rodent279

[The Stationmaster]

16 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Didn't have a clue about that! Not seen any mention of it anywhere up until now.  The only reference I have seen is to a drawing for Belgian 0-6-0's number 2420 & 2421, in a list of a Swindon drawings held by the NRM.

Not that I doubt you, maybe the information was considered secret for some time?

Did the engines go back to Belgium, rather than work on UK metals?

They went back to the ROD after repair and were subsequently returned to the État Belge/SNCB.  A large number of EB Class 32, and the similar Classes 30 and 32s were got out of Belgium to save them from the advancing German forces in 1914 and most, if not all,  of them appear to have ended up in the hands of the ROD where they were a mainstay of many of its working until the Robinson 2-8-0s began to arrive.

 

3548, as ROD 2946 was the subject of a GWR official photograph on being outshopped from Swindon but I don't know if any of the other 5 were photographed although the pair that went to Crewe have been mentioned at least twice in print.   A good many years ago, while writing an article on something else, I went through the whole of the post-war series of articles in the 'Railway Magazine' about the ROD in the Great War but I don't recall them being mentioned there (but I was looking for details about the working of other engines so would have probably not taken much notice of them).

[rodent279]

1 minute ago, The Stationmaster said:

They went back to the ROD after repair and were subsequently returned to the État Belge/SNCB.  A large number of EB Class 32, and the similar Classes 30 and 32s were got out of Belgium to save them from the advancing German forces in 1914 and most, if not all,  of them appear to have ended up in the hands of the ROD where they were a mainstay of many of its working until the Robinson 2-8-0s began to arrive.

 

3548, as ROD 2946 was the subject of a GWR official photograph on being outshopped from Swindon but I don't know if any of the other 5 were photographed although the pair that went to Crewe have been mentioned at least twice in print.   A good many years ago, while writing an article on something else, I went through the whole of the post-war series of articles in the 'Railway Magazine' about the ROD in the Great War but I don't recall them being mentioned there (but I was looking for details about the working of other engines so would have probably not taken much notice of them).

After a bit of trawling through Belgian Wikipedia, using my patchy French, I now understand that Type 32 was a derivative of Type 30, both MacIntosh designs, and derived from the Caledonian 812 class. I wonder why they chose to send them all the way to Crewe, Swindon & Stratford, surely there were places in France that could have been reached just as easily? Even Ashford or Eastleigh would seem to be more within reach. Fascinating, would love to see the Swindon photo. I don't think it's mentioned in the Swindon Works book I've got.