Hornby - New tooling - Large Prairie

[tomparryharry]

I can't remember offhand if the 2-6-4 tanks had an internal 3rd tank in with the bunker. The Western certainly uses the bunker/tank configuration, as seen by the rivet pattern, and the balance pipes running underneath the cab sides. The big Fairburns could reach Brighton on the London Bridge/Holborn 'fasts', and were in fact, ideal for the job. There is-was a lot of operating experience with these big tanks. Before the Southern region, The LMS were running the earlier ones on the London, Tilbury & Southend. The Western, on the other hand, didn't need the 'super prairie'. The traffic department had what it needed to run the service. Otherwise, either Churchward, Collett or Hawksworth would have bought something out to 'cover the service'. I've said it before, the Western was a business. The 'super prairie' was in this instance, superfluous. Here,  you have things like 43xx on semi-fast work, and the large prairie working well inside the operating circle required by the traffic department.  Catching a train from Snow Hill to S.O.A would most probably have a large prairie on the job, whereas the same passenger leaving Snow Hill to say, Gloucester, would have a slightly different departure time, and possibly, a 43xx or a Hall, on a through Bristol job. 

 

Change at either Gloucester or Bristol, for the South Wales traffic....

 

I haven't seen one yet, but images seem to confirm these are the Dogs Doolies. 

 

I can't wait to see the LNER-liveried ones...... ONLY JoKING!

Edited June 25, 2020 by tomparryharry
A bit of text clean-up.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Denbridge said:

The only advantage of a 2.6.4 over a prairie would be a larger bunker. Since the LMS and other lines were saddled with using inferior coal to Welsh steam coal, which Swindon locos were designed to burn,  the larger capacity on 2.6.4's would be required.

Although oddly the LMS 2-6-4Ts right through from the Fowler design to the end and the successor Standard 2-6-4T had half a ton less bunker capacity than the GWR large prairies (except for the second 3100 series which had the same coal capacity as the LMS and BR Standard 2-6-4Ts).   Even more remarkably all these 2-6-4Ts had 4cwt less coal capacity than the GWR 4575 series 'small' prairies.  And the 2-6-4Ts had the same water capacity as the GWR large prairies.

 

As a couple of us have said before the GWR running and operating depts were clearly happy with what the large prairies could do so, apart from a bit of detail updating, why bother to branch out into making something that cost more but would seemingly have not offered any obvious advantages?  Similarly if it had been able to be designed what advantage would the Western have obtained from an = Class 5 tank engine?  Well where there are comparative loads available the answer, depending on gradient, is no greater than a difference of something way less than a coach extra to a coach and a vanfit extra while on the more level routes there'd be no difference at all.  Oh, and don't forget that the two Western classes in the  =Class 5 load stakes both had a No 1 boiler - which would have made a pretty hefty tank engine (more likely a 4-6-4T than a 2-6-4T).

[tomparryharry]

I'd suggest the slightly different bunker style would-might account for your coal disparity. The Western had the bunker ram-jam full, and over the cab roof. The big  80xxx has the bunker spectacle cut-outs, so the driver & fireman could see where they're going.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by tomparryharry
Yes.

[The Stationmaster]

12 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

I'd suggest the slightly different bunker style would-might account for your coal disparity. The Western had the bunker ram-jam full, and over the cab roof. The big  80xxx has the bunker spectacle cut-outs, so the driver & fireman could see where they're going.

I think it's more complex than that.  The side elevation drawings look the same (they were taken from the official drawings) but there is a big difference in  the overall weight distribution and individual axle loading  and the load on the trailing wheelset is a ton less than that for the 61XX while the 8100 is different again.  It looks like Collett was trying to get somewhere a bit different with his two reconstructions apart from the small reduction in driving wheel diameter.

 

Latest advice is that 6145 will reach my front door between 15.23 and 16.23

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

I can't remember offhand if the 2-6-4 tanks had an internal 3rd tank in with the bunker.

 

 

Pictures certainly show a rectangular "pipe" looping under the floor where the cab entrance is, so I would say yes.

It seems to be there right from the Fowler version through to the last variant.

Edited June 25, 2020 by melmerby

[The Johnster]

It would make little sense to carry a triangular box of air about the place when filling it with water will give greater 'range' and adhesive weight.  All you need is a balance pipe and a ventilator, though it's hard to see where the ventilator is on any of the locos we are discussing.  Stationmaster remarks that  GW locos with BR class 5 capability had no.1 boilers rather than no.4s, but matters are not that simple; no4.s were used on the power class 7 or 8 8-coupled tanks, and the no.2 boilers on the 56xx sit on a power class 5MT loco.  So, a 56xx sat alongside a Hall on shed is not what it looks like.  Of course, cylinder size and driving wheel size play their parts, but there were locos I always thought of as 'power class anomalies'.  The Star, for instance, looks like it should be a good bit more than 4P, and 4MT for the small prairies seems amazing, so Johnster is duly amazed.  Line a 45xx up alongside a Manor and tell me which one you think looks more powerful!

 

The GW, and WR, traffic dept. were happy with the locos the loco dept. had; they ran the timetable well enough.  The loco dept. were by and large happy enough as well; Traffic would request, say, a blue RA loco power class D for a job and the shed would turn out what they had matching that specification, with regard to experience of what actual class was best suited to that diagram.  As all GW locos are of course by definition efficient and capable of their work (!), which is true to some extent but not to the extent that you didn't see grossly overloaded 43xx struggling with 28xx loads, there was little desire for improvement even amongst the loco crews, who complained about the inaccessible oiling points on a Castle but resented the Brits everywhere except Canton.

 

During the war, crews were conditioned to overloaded and poorly maintained locos and I think this attitude lasted into the 50s on the WR; you just got on with it and the possibility of something better never really occurred to you.  This was an attitude prevalent throughout God's Wonderful Region of BR, an acceptance that everything was fine and you had the best locos in the country as you had for the last 40 years, and everybody else was trying to catch up.  The management were riddled with it as well, and while company loyalty and pride in service is laudable, it can allow arrogance and a resistance to change and modernity.  In every case where a BR standard was introduced to the WR, the region resisted and asked for permission to build more of what they were already doing; Castles for Brits, 5101s for 3MTs, Manors for 75xxx, and 28xx for 9Fs.  That's right, an Edwardian design, admittedly a good one, in preference to 9Fs which were one of the best loco ever to run in the UK.

 

I submit that 'what we have is good enough and we don't need anything better' is not best practice for managers, engineers, or loco crews; it denies the opportunity of improvement and becomes hidebound in it's outlook.  The WR was, up until the end of steam, using designs that were good when Churchward introduced them, but outdated hopelessly outdated by the late 30s 20 years before.  The default local MT loco was based on Churchward's 31xx, the default heavy freight loco was the 28xxm and there were examples that dated back to the first build, the default main line MT loco was the Hall, some of which had been updated a bit by Hawksworth but which was a 1920s design based on a Saint, and the default main line passenger loco was the Castle, another 1920s upgrade from the earlier Star.  The Castles had been improved, but not radically altered, and similar draughting improvements to the Kings, which were of only limited use anyway due to RA, meant that they were dropping like flies with broken frames.

 

A less accepting viewpoint might have seen the WR served by much better steam locos than the reality.  But nobody complained.  Perhaps more of them should have.  I accept that in those days it might have in some cases been 'more than my job's worth', but there was IMHO too prevalent an attitude of 'good enough for my father, good enough for me' among the rank and file which perpetuated appalling working conditions into the 70s (Stationmaster has alluded to being allowed 50p max to repair goods brake vans at Radyr, a classic example; the guards just put up with them).

 

If a 2-6-4T with Manor wheels and boiler could extend the range of a Birmingham-Wolverhampton stopper to Chester, you might argue that there's no need to because nobody wants to go from Birmingham to Chester on a stopper.  But when it gets to Wolverhampton, if it continues to Salop to cater for that stopping traffic, and then from Salop to Chester, one loco and set of coaches has doen the work of 3 locos and sets of coaches, releasing those locos and coaches to be used somewhere else or on the same route but at different times.  It is worth it, I submit, pointlessly and purely academically in the year 2020 60 years after the fact, from a stone cold business pov; it saves money and enables a more flexible use of your fleet of large prairies, which ran an intensive suburban service for 20 years after the no.14 boiler was introduced on the Manors.  I'll accept that development was unlikely during or after the war because of material shortages, but the Collett years were a wasted opportunity to do better.  

 

I don't blame Collett for this; he had plenty to do replacing older locos, modernising panniers, and bringing the South Wales constituent/absorbed mishmash into line, and by the 30s the depression was biting.  But it was a more forward looking holistic attitude on the other big 3 that pushed Stanier and Gresley, and Missenden's electrics, and this attitude was not present, or not sufficiently present, on the GW.

 

IMHO, other opinions are available.

[melmerby]

Derails now reporting R3721 in stock.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

I found out about the ventilator in the bunker of the BR Standard 2-6-4 tanks the hard way...

 

I misjudged filling the tanks at Bridgnorth, and didn't shout " stop" soon enough...water overflowed the tanks...but also out of the bunker, and so washed coaly sludge onto the footplate.

 

It would be fair to say that I wasn't very popular that day!

 

[tomparryharry]

Don't worry, it's all part of the learning process. Properly cleaning up with the brush & pep-pipe is the answer.

[Andy W]

16 hours ago, The Johnster said:

If a 2-6-4T with Manor wheels and boiler could extend the range of a Birmingham-Wolverhampton stopper to Chester, you might argue that there's no need to because nobody wants to go from Birmingham to Chester on a stopper.  But when it gets to Wolverhampton, if it continues to Salop to cater for that stopping traffic, and then from Salop to Chester, one loco and set of coaches has doen the work of 3 locos and sets of coaches, releasing those locos and coaches to be used somewhere else or on the same route but at different times..

You could perhaps look at what was actually done when DMUs arrived - a regular interval Leamington Spa to Wellington stopper. This could have been done with your super-Prairie 2-6-4Ts in GW days since there were still locosheds at both ends. There were obviously separate overlapping traffic flows using this, but nobody went all the way because expresses overtook the stoppers during their journey. The saving is on the turnround time at Birmingham and Wolverhampton (and in the case of the DMUs, better acceleration, no water stops etc) .

They wouldn't want to extend the service further towards Salop because the traffic was poor, and partly shared with LMS/LMR Stafford-Salop trains covering the same section of line north of Wellington, so the GW frequency was lower than south of Wellington.

 

Edited June 26, 2020 by Andy W

[Neal Ball]

Back on topic, with a cheeky request!

 

I have 2 x 61xx on their way to me later today eta delivery will be the end of next week.

 

If someone has a copy of the Prairie papers for 61xx could you do me a favour and see which ones would be suitable to renumber please.

 

I would like 2 x Reading shedded locos for 1936.

 

Many thanks,

Neal.

[The Stationmaster]

Nearest easy year summary date in The Prairie Papers is 1933 - giving for RDG 6109*/17*/19/31*/32/35/38/40*/44/54*.   But as you'll see below it appears to have been an inaccurate list from somewhere or other as it doesn't tie up with the detail lists!.  Those marked with an asterisk were at Reading at 01.1.48

 

6119 is shown in one list as being at Reading in 1933 but elsewhere is shown as being at Slough from 1932 -1937.   

6131 is shown as going to Newton Abbot for one month in 1936 so was either a paper transfer or a works visit, it remained at Reading until mid 1948.

6132 left Reading in 1939

6135 was not at Reading in 1936

6138 was not at Reading in 1936

6140 left Reading in 1945 (for Penzance (probably a paper transfer or clerical error as it was at Old Oak 8 weeks later)

6144 wasn't at Reading at all on the detail list

6154 moved to Slough in May 1936

 

From the detail list also at Reading in, or for part of, 1936 -

6100, 6109, 6110, 6115, 6131 (see above), 6132, 6140,  6135, left Reading February 1936, 6154 (see above), 6159 (from June 1936), 6165, 

 

Any errors or oversights are mine due to there being a lot to delve through.  As far as Henley is concerned all you really need are London District engines - probably OOC which must have held any District/Divisional spares.  To run the mid 1950s Regatta Saturday service you probably need four 61XX and the same number of 4 or 5 coach non-gangwayed sets.

 

[Neal Ball]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Nearest easy year summary date in The Prairie Papers is 1933 - giving for RDG 6109*/17*/19/31*/32/35/38/40*/44/54*.   But as you'll see below it appears to have been an inaccurate list from somewhere or other as it doesn't tie up with the detail lists!.  Those marked with an asterisk were at Reading at 01.1.48

 

6119 is shown in one list as being at Reading in 1933 but elsewhere is shown as being at Slough from 1932 -1937.   

6131 is shown as going to Newton Abbot for one month in 1936 so was either a paper transfer or a works visit, it remained at Reading until mid 1948.

6132 left Reading in 1939

6135 was not at Reading in 1936

6138 was not at Reading in 1936

6140 left Reading in 1945 (for Penzance (probably a paper transfer or clerical error as it was at Old Oak 8 weeks later)

6144 wasn't at Reading at all on the detail list

6154 moved to Slough in May 1936

 

From the detail list also at Reading in, or for part of, 1936 -

6100, 6109, 6110, 6115, 6131 (see above), 6132, 6140,  6135, left Reading February 1936, 6154 (see above), 6159 (from June 1936), 6165, 

 

Any errors or oversights are mine due to there being a lot to delve through.  As far as Henley is concerned all you really need are London District engines - probably OOC which must have held any District/Divisional spares.  To run the mid 1950s Regatta Saturday service you probably need four 61XX and the same number of 4 or 5 coach non-gangwayed sets.

 

That’s great thanks very much Mike. I’ve ordered the relevant Priarie papers, but they won’t be here just yet.

Im surprised about the need for non gangwayed stock for the Regatta. My assumption was corridor stock with possibly an emphasis on 1st class.

 

Thanks again, Neal.

 

[Ravenser]

On 04/06/2020 at 01:22, The Johnster said:

You may be thinking of the Cambridge Universtity Railway Club, which in the 50s and I believe into the early 60s used to have an annual operating day on the Mildnehall branch, in the 50s using 62785, the remaining GER 2-4-0 now preserved.  This practice may go back earlier than I've indicated, but it certainly happened in the 50s

 

The CURC was still doing an engine driving day in the mid 1980s

[Ian Hargrave]

On 23/06/2020 at 12:25, Ian Hargrave said:

Yes,I’ve had a look but before passing comment on the livery application I‘ll look at Kernow’s image when it appears there.Don’t ask me why but theirs is sharper and less flat.

 

 
Just up now on Kernow weekly newsletter. As I feared, pale and not-so-interesting.Been here before I think.

[Harlequin]

Colour reproduction, colour perception and what the original colour would have looked like in period with varying numbers of coats of paint and coats of varnish... Absolute minefield!

 

However, on a different tack: Looking at the photos of the model just now, it seems to me that the firebox is a little bit more domed than it should be. What do you think?

 

Edited June 26, 2020 by Harlequin

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Neal Ball said:

That’s great thanks very much Mike. I’ve ordered the relevant Priarie papers, but they won’t be here just yet.

Im surprised about the need for non gangwayed stock for the Regatta. My assumption was corridor stock with possibly an emphasis on 1st class.

 

Thanks again, Neal.

 

Only the various through trains were normnaly formed with gangwayed stock when it came to 'bigger' trains (the 2 coach branch trains of course used some very ancient gangwayed coaches although of course the occasional push-pull workings weren't gangwayed). The reason non-gangwayed stock was used on the additional branch services. was very simple - you could cram more people into a given length of train and teh length of train working within the branch was limited by the capacity of the bay at Twyford although I reckon you could  have squeezed an extra coach by using a turnover engine at that end instead of running round.

 

That was a bit before my time in terms of  being involved in it although I did see it in operation.  My own involvement didn't come until the DMU age when I made certain changes to the traditional way of doing the Regatta train programme which caused no problems at the time but over 30 years later weren't going down at well with the good burghers of Wargrave where my plan took out. stops to reduce the overall running time.  Yes - even over 30 years later GWR were still; doing the service using  a method I had conjured up more than three decades previously.

[The Stationmaster]

4 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Colour reproduction, colour perception and what the original colour would have looked like in period with varying numbers of coats of paint and coats of varnish... Absolute minefield!

 

However, on a different tack: Looking at the photos of the model just now, it seems to me that the firebox is a little bit more domed than it should be. What do you think?

 

Definitely very little different, if at all, from the real thing when compared with photos.  I think the lighting angle can also give an incorrect impression.

[Miss Prism]

(1911)

Edited June 26, 2020 by Miss Prism
date added

[KeithMacdonald]

44 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Colour reproduction, colour perception and what the original colour would have looked like in period with varying numbers of coats of paint and coats of varnish... Absolute minefield!

 

 

And that's before (cough) certain honourable colleagues swear blind they can tell exactly what colour was in use 50 years ago - from a black and white photo!

[The Stationmaster]

13 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

(1911)

Although the platform has been somewhat shortened (to the left of that view) that canopy is still largely intact and in pretty good condition.  The wall on this side of the platform is also still there - forming one edge of part of the station car park but it now has e fence on top as only one platform face remains in use (the one where the train is standing).  The background has been totally ruined by the addition of some extreme ugly residential buildings.

[Neal Ball]

17 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

(1911)

Thanks @Miss Prism, I think that’s just after the canopy was built in 1904.

 

I don’t think(?) I have seen that photo showing the loco on the front. The carriages are all over brown, so I guess before the mid 1920’s.

[NCB]

On 25/06/2020 at 15:58, The Johnster said:

It would make little sense to carry a triangular box of air about the place when filling it with water will give greater 'range' and adhesive weight.  All you need is a balance pipe and a ventilator, though it's hard to see where the ventilator is on any of the locos we are discussing.  Stationmaster remarks that  GW locos with BR class 5 capability had no.1 boilers rather than no.4s, but matters are not that simple; no4.s were used on the power class 7 or 8 8-coupled tanks, and the no.2 boilers on the 56xx sit on a power class 5MT loco.  So, a 56xx sat alongside a Hall on shed is not what it looks like.  Of course, cylinder size and driving wheel size play their parts, but there were locos I always thought of as 'power class anomalies'.  The Star, for instance, looks like it should be a good bit more than 4P, and 4MT for the small prairies seems amazing, so Johnster is duly amazed.  Line a 45xx up alongside a Manor and tell me which one you think looks more powerful!

 

The GW, and WR, traffic dept. were happy with the locos the loco dept. had; they ran the timetable well enough.  The loco dept. were by and large happy enough as well; Traffic would request, say, a blue RA loco power class D for a job and the shed would turn out what they had matching that specification, with regard to experience of what actual class was best suited to that diagram.  As all GW locos are of course by definition efficient and capable of their work (!), which is true to some extent but not to the extent that you didn't see grossly overloaded 43xx struggling with 28xx loads, there was little desire for improvement even amongst the loco crews, who complained about the inaccessible oiling points on a Castle but resented the Brits everywhere except Canton.

 

During the war, crews were conditioned to overloaded and poorly maintained locos and I think this attitude lasted into the 50s on the WR; you just got on with it and the possibility of something better never really occurred to you.  This was an attitude prevalent throughout God's Wonderful Region of BR, an acceptance that everything was fine and you had the best locos in the country as you had for the last 40 years, and everybody else was trying to catch up.  The management were riddled with it as well, and while company loyalty and pride in service is laudable, it can allow arrogance and a resistance to change and modernity.  In every case where a BR standard was introduced to the WR, the region resisted and asked for permission to build more of what they were already doing; Castles for Brits, 5101s for 3MTs, Manors for 75xxx, and 28xx for 9Fs.  That's right, an Edwardian design, admittedly a good one, in preference to 9Fs which were one of the best loco ever to run in the UK.

 

I submit that 'what we have is good enough and we don't need anything better' is not best practice for managers, engineers, or loco crews; it denies the opportunity of improvement and becomes hidebound in it's outlook.  The WR was, up until the end of steam, using designs that were good when Churchward introduced them, but outdated hopelessly outdated by the late 30s 20 years before.  The default local MT loco was based on Churchward's 31xx, the default heavy freight loco was the 28xxm and there were examples that dated back to the first build, the default main line MT loco was the Hall, some of which had been updated a bit by Hawksworth but which was a 1920s design based on a Saint, and the default main line passenger loco was the Castle, another 1920s upgrade from the earlier Star.  The Castles had been improved, but not radically altered, and similar draughting improvements to the Kings, which were of only limited use anyway due to RA, meant that they were dropping like flies with broken frames.

 

A less accepting viewpoint might have seen the WR served by much better steam locos than the reality.  But nobody complained.  Perhaps more of them should have.  I accept that in those days it might have in some cases been 'more than my job's worth', but there was IMHO too prevalent an attitude of 'good enough for my father, good enough for me' among the rank and file which perpetuated appalling working conditions into the 70s (Stationmaster has alluded to being allowed 50p max to repair goods brake vans at Radyr, a classic example; the guards just put up with them).

 

If a 2-6-4T with Manor wheels and boiler could extend the range of a Birmingham-Wolverhampton stopper to Chester, you might argue that there's no need to because nobody wants to go from Birmingham to Chester on a stopper.  But when it gets to Wolverhampton, if it continues to Salop to cater for that stopping traffic, and then from Salop to Chester, one loco and set of coaches has doen the work of 3 locos and sets of coaches, releasing those locos and coaches to be used somewhere else or on the same route but at different times.  It is worth it, I submit, pointlessly and purely academically in the year 2020 60 years after the fact, from a stone cold business pov; it saves money and enables a more flexible use of your fleet of large prairies, which ran an intensive suburban service for 20 years after the no.14 boiler was introduced on the Manors.  I'll accept that development was unlikely during or after the war because of material shortages, but the Collett years were a wasted opportunity to do better.  

 

I don't blame Collett for this; he had plenty to do replacing older locos, modernising panniers, and bringing the South Wales constituent/absorbed mishmash into line, and by the 30s the depression was biting.  But it was a more forward looking holistic attitude on the other big 3 that pushed Stanier and Gresley, and Missenden's electrics, and this attitude was not present, or not sufficiently present, on the GW.

 

IMHO, other opinions are available.

 

I think you're ignoring the areas where the GWR under Collett did make improvements, namely the quality of the detailed engineering work being undertaken at Swindon. Witness the re-engineered Dean Goods locos emerging from Swindon, compared to the earlier versions (hence the well-known example of the Dean in mid Wales outperforming the Class 2 sent as a "replacement"). Such fine tuning was liable to be more effective than fiddling with wheel arrangement. The Castles weren't so much an enlargement of the Stars as a (very successful) refinement.

 

As for "what we have is good enough", it isn't born out by history. Felix Pole was taken with keeping the GWR in the headlines re locomotive performance,  hence the Castles and Kings. Milne on the other hand was concerned with keeping the business as a whole running, in particular during the 1930s recovery when traffic was threatening to swamp capacity. General locomotive performance mattered, a lot, hence the program to replace Moguls by Granges and Manors, utilising 42XXs in general service, revamping the Large Prairie offerings, and so on.

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, NCB said:

 

I think you're ignoring the areas where the GWR under Collett did make improvements, namely the quality of the detailed engineering work being undertaken at Swindon. Witness the re-engineered Dean Goods locos emerging from Swindon, compared to the earlier versions (hence the well-known example of the Dean in mid Wales outperforming the Class 2 sent as a "replacement"). Such fine tuning was liable to be more effective than fiddling with wheel arrangement. The Castles weren't so much an enlargement of the Stars as a (very successful) refinement.

 

As for "what we have is good enough", it isn't born out by history. Felix Pole was taken with keeping the GWR in the headlines re locomotive performance,  hence the Castles and Kings. Milne on the other hand was concerned with keeping the business as a whole running, in particular during the 1930s recovery when traffic was threatening to swamp capacity. General locomotive performance mattered, a lot, hence the program to replace Moguls by Granges and Manors, utilising 42XXs in general service, revamping the Large Prairie offerings, and so on.

I don't think your latter point is strictly correct.  The limited number of early prairie reconstructions - with minimal dimensional changes  - amounted to only 10 81XX and 5 3150s which appeared during a gap in 5101 construction which could well suggest a lack of money in the capital budget for new builds although Cook indicates it was as much the availability of money in the renewals fund as anything which led to their reconstruction.  Logically renewals would have continued if they offered any advantage but after a gap of 16 months, the longest since 1934,  Swindon then resumed 5101 new builds (there had been a gap in 5101 construction between April 1931 and October 1934)  Similarly the 68XX and 78XX were also regarded as renewals and financed as such accounted and they met the Traffic Dept demand for more 4-6-0s without impinging on the capital budget, and with wider Route Availability in the case of the 78XX, than 100% new build engines.

 

The 42XX were badly hit by the depression and 20 engines of Lot 266 went into store from new while the final part of the lot was cancerlled and 4 years later the stored batch were reconstructed as 2-8-2Ts ti increase their ipea ratuing range and allow them to replace ageing 'Aberdare' 2-6-0s .  Yet again use of existing, unused, engines to save money on new build replacements.

 

Thus what a happened at Swindon in the 1930s was probably far miore influenced by the availability of money which had built up considerably in the renewals fund as much as anything else.  yes it produced some advances but it was really a matter, as so often, of following the money.

[brushman47544]

On 26/06/2020 at 16:33, Miss Prism said:

(1911)

Did you have to reserve two seats if your hat was over a certain size?