The BR 3MT Tank Engine

[thx712517]

I've got an Ivatt/Riddles book by Brian Haresnape on order, but I'd like to know more about the 2-6-2 3MT tank engine. 

 

Were they truly mixed traffic, hauling both passenger trains and goods trains, or were they primarily used for passengers? Were they used for shunting, or had the diesels already taken that over? 

 

Did they operate in Wales, or in Scotland? How did drivers and firemen get on with them? Anything you can share honestly, as all I've found so far has been the Wikipedia article and a new-build website that talks about how perfect they are for heritage lines. 

Edited July 28, 2019 by thx712517
Typo

[pH]

Here's a link to the allocation history of the class:

 

http://brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=class&id=726202&type=S&page=alloc

 

None ever allocated to Scottish sheds, quite a few to Welsh sheds at different times.

[doilum]

Several good books available at very reasonable prices. Photographs suggest they were truly mixed traffic especially the Yorkshire locos working east of Malton.

[The Johnster]

They certainly worked in Wales, South Wales sheds being the original allocation of early members of the class.  The Valleys passenger services were having their pregrouping Taff A and Rhymney P class locos replaced by the last build of 5101 large prairies at the time, and after the last 5101 was built the process continued with the new 82xxx despite the sheds asking for more 5101s.  The Standard 3MTs were designed and built at Swindon and used a domed version of the Swindon standard no.2 boiler, which was also used on the 5101s.  In South Wales at this time they were used almost exclusively on local passenger work, allocated to Barry, Cathays, Treherbert, Rhymney (spelling correct for the period) and also (I think) Merthyr.

 

The arrival of dmus for the Valleys services in 1958 saw them dispersed elsewhere, but several fetched up in later years on the Cambrian; here they were certainly used in a mixed traffic role and could be seen with freight trains.  

 

Don't know what the Cambrian locomen thought of them, but they weren't liked in South Wales.  They had smaller cylinders than, and were not as powerful as, the 5101s they replaced, which were classed as 4MT by BR, and little improvement on the pregrouping engines which had smaller driving wheels and were better on the banks;  it was also considered that the 'self cleaning' smokeboxes hampered steaming; there was of course an element of resistance to what were perceived as 'Midland' engines at GW sheds anyway.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Won't add anything to the sum of knowledge on freight duties, but there are a lot of very good colour images around showing these locos on Waterloo ECS workings.

 

Given that I have few solid memories of steam "in the wild", and most of those relate to Waterloo and the services from there, these are real nostalgia-starters for me. 

 

This one is particularly good https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p61370949/h39f8330a#h39f8330a because it captures all three forms of traction, and hints at the huge variety of liveries that were to be seen in the "Waterloo Sunset" period.

[hmrspaul]

11 hours ago, pH said:

Here's a link to the allocation history of the class:

 

http://brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=class&id=726202&type=S&page=alloc

 

None ever allocated to Scottish sheds, quite a few to Welsh sheds at different times.

I'm not convinced this is very complete. I was going to mention the omission of 82019 from 70A, but the photo referred to is of the same loco at Waterloo. Some of these locos had very widely spread allocations, several Malton and North East ones spent time on the South West coast before ending their days on the Waterloo ECS.

 

My youthful attempt at 82019 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brsteam/e6514a914

 

Paul

[Butler Henderson]

Probably a better reference book would be Vol 3 of the RCTS books on BR Standards, currently out of print but can be found I.e.

https://rail-books.co.uk/collections/publishers/products/a-detailed-history-of-british-railways-standard-steam-locomotives-volume-3-the-tank-engine-classes-9780901115775

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BR-Standard-Steam-Locomotives-Vol-3-The-Tank-Engine-Classes-/282260260040

[pH]

3 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

I'm not convinced this is very complete.

 

I would agree that I'm not convinced this is absolutely complete.

 

I was very sceptical of that site when it first appeared. It had obvious gaps, but it also contained some information that I knew to be correct, but that I had never seen before on any other 'aggregating' sites. Many of the gaps have been filled over the years, though I've still found a couple fairly recently. I'm inclined to use it as a quick first reference, with things like my selection of (gradually falling apart) Locoshed books as backup if I feel I need confirmation of information from it.

 

In the case of the part of the OP's question - were the class used in Scotland or Wales? - I thought the query was general enough that this was a reasonable source of information.

[Dunsignalling]

72A Exmouth Junction had some from new and got more later, some of which came from Welsh sheds. In common with the Ivatt 2MT of the same wheel arrangement, they replaced the venerable and popular M7 0-4-4 tanks. As such, they were predominantly used on passenger duties, the heaviest being the Exmouth branch which loaded to five well-filled 64' Mk1 non-corridors in the peaks with quite tight timings.

 

I only remember seeing one on goods duty once or twice and I doubt their normal rostering left much scope for such things.  

 

The Ivatts were welcomed over most parts of the Southern Region from the get-go as capable locos, easy to work and with capacious modern cabs offering much more protection in bad weather. The 3MTs seem to have been regarded with slightly less enthusiasm - nothing wrong with them but not all that much of an improvement over their smaller brethren. Once the excellent 4MT tanks started to turn up, the 82xxx fell between two stools.

 

Under appreciated, perhaps, but by no means unsuccessful.  

 

John

Edited July 28, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[The Johnster]

They were, to my view, the best proportioned and nicest looking of the Standard tank engines.  I had the Triang version many years ago, but never really liked it with the small wheels; it looked wrong to me even as a child.  This was a shame, as it was pretty close to scale above the footplate.  82004 (the smokebox number was moulded) ended it's days as a non-running shed lurker with an Airfix construction kit chassis off a 76xxx.  It looked ok...

Edited July 28, 2019 by The Johnster

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

They were, to my view, the best proportioned and nicest looking of the Standard tank engines.  I had the Triang version many years ago, but never really liked it with the small wheels; it looked wrong to me even as a child.  This was a shame, as it was pretty close to scale above the footplate.  82004 (the smokebox number was moulded) ended it's days as a non-running shed lurker with an Airfix construction kit chassis off a 76xxx.  It looked ok...

I never appreciated how far out the Tri-ang one was until much more recently, when I saw one placed next to the Bachmann model.

 

It is actually a good half-inch too long but so skilfully done that I never spotted it back in the day - unfortunately that meant the "stretch" was so widely distributed that cutting and shutting to scale length would have been almost impossible.

 

The distortion was incorporated at the time so Tri-ang could use the existing chassis from their SNCF tank loco.

 

I had a black one, which ended up on a chassis taken from the Ivatt 2MT mogul - on which similar stretching was applied to the tender, again to fit an existing chassis. The one I nicked the chassis from had lost its tender before I acquired it, though.

 

John

Edited July 28, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[thx712517]

Quite a lot of good information. I also remembered to check semgonline.com for their pictures and text. I'm looking forward to my Ivatt/Riddles book for more information. 

[DCB]

I have a Triang 3MT body on a Hornby Dublo 2-6-4T chassis with H/D 0-6-0T wheels.  It pulls like a, well,a train. I wouldn't recommend it as I had to saw various lumps out of the body and chassis and had to fit a H/D CoCo magnet as there is no room for the block magnet and pole pieces.

The 3MT was pretty much a waste of effort. I guess BR couldn't face building any more 1905 design GWR 51/81XX class prairies which Swindon would have liked to do to speed up suburban passenger services. So they decided to cobble up something a lot less powerful out of the BR std and GWR parts list. On the plus side it could be serviced without using a pit, on the downside it couldn't pull trains as heavy or fast as the GWR 81XX prairies which rather made their construction totally pointless.  Swindon couldn't fit a shortened std 4 boiler as intended or even the smaller No2 and the shortened No 2 actually installed was very nearly identical to the 1905  std No 3 as fitted to  the 2-4-2 tanks.  They dd good work on the SR turn and turn about with Std 2 2-6-2Ts ( and M7s)  so really building an equal number of Ivatt 2MT tanks would have been a better idea .  Not building them at all but upgrading more GW Prairies to 81XX spec instead of scrapping them would have made more sense but early 1950s BR had no sense and spent money like water.  Hence a few years later the finances went completely belly up when this investment produced no added revenue indeed the revenue began to decline.

Edited July 30, 2019 by DavidCBroad

[Dunsignalling]

4 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

I have a Triang 3MT body on a Hornby Dublo 2-6-4T chassis with H/D 0-6-0T wheels.  It pulls like a, well,a train. I wouldn't recommend it as I had to saw various lumps out of the body and chassis and had to fit a H/D CoCo magnet as there is no room for the block magnet and pole pieces.

The 3MT was pretty much a waste of effort. I guess BR couldn't face building any more 1905 design GWR 51/81XX class prairies which Swindon would have liked to do to speed up suburban passenger services. So they decided to cobble up something a lot less powerful out of the BR std and GWR parts list. On the plus side it could be serviced without using a pit, on the downside it couldn't pull trains as heavy or fast as the GWR 81XX prairies which rather made their construction totally pointless.  Swindon couldn't fit a shortened std 4 boiler as intended or even the smaller No2 and the shortened No 2 actually installed was very nearly identical to the 1905  std No 3 as fitted to  the 2-4-2 tanks.  They dd good work on the SR turn and turn about with Std 2 2-6-2Ts ( and M7s)  so really building an equal number of Ivatt 2MT tanks would have been a better idea .  Not building them at all but upgrading more GW Prairies to 81XX spec instead of scrapping them would have made more sense but early 1950s BR had no sense and spent money like water.  Hence a few years later the finances went completely belly up when this investment produced no added revenue indeed the revenue began to decline.

The Southern Region always had more Ivatts than 82s, at least until more of the latter began to be drafted in from areas that had eradicated steam post-1961.

 

Exmouth Junction only got 2MT Standards quite late but the examples they got weren't worth having and were condemned or transferred away in a few months.

 

The 82s were by no means bad engines, or even wholly pointless, they just fulfilled rather niche requirements. At 72A that meant the heavier M7 duties; Exeter - Exmouth, the Sidmouth Junction - Exmouth triangle and short distance main line locals to Honiton. An Ivatt 2MT, worked a bit heavy, could do the job, but most firemen wouldn't want to do so day in and day out.

 

The real advance on the Big Prairies (and most other medium/large tank locos) came with the 4MT standards, longer range, better riding, easier to service/maintain and with a roomy winterised cab. However, as a clearly LMS-derived design, the WR wouldn't have embraced them in a million years.  

 

John

Edited July 31, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Right Away]

Eastleigh took charge of a few in 1953 to be used on the Fawley oil trains.

[bingley hall]

On 28/07/2019 at 23:53, Nearholmer said:

Won't add anything to the sum of knowledge on freight duties, but there are a lot of very good colour images around showing these locos on Waterloo ECS workings.

 

Given that I have few solid memories of steam "in the wild", and most of those relate to Waterloo and the services from there, these are real nostalgia-starters for me. 

 

This one is particularly good https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p61370949/h39f8330a#h39f8330a because it captures all three forms of traction, and hints at the huge variety of liveries that were to be seen in the "Waterloo Sunset" period.

 

Not your fault obviously - but that's a 4MT 2-6-4T not a 3MT 2-6-2T - regardless of what the caption says.

Edited July 31, 2019 by bingley hall

[bike2steam]

A very capable class the standard 3 tanks were, half the class ended up at Nine Elms working Waterloo ecs, and other local work, even acquired 5 (should've been 6 if one hadn't failed on the way) in green livery.

[John Besley]

From my research when I started the 82045 project back in 1997, I spent quite a bit of time talking to ex BR drivers / fireman to try to get to the bottom of the bad press the Std 3 had....

 

The western men where not used to self cleaning smokeboxes and found the screens would block up with smokebox char, once this was knocked off they steamed well, - just needed attention at least once a week.

 

The SR men loved them at Exmouth and Nine Elms replacing aged locos on stock shunts, trip workings etc, as they had a modern cab and easy to prepare.

 

The whole concept behind 82045 was to build an easy to run and service every day loco for today's railways - the spark for the idea came when working a daily service train on the SDR and saying to my Driver Dave Knowling what would be your ultimate loco for a branch line.. 

 

An Ivatt tank or a 82000 both being modern versions of a 45xx ... the rest is history and 82045 is well under way...

[DCB]

The 3MT was clearly a great improvement on the M7 and had big advantages over a 45XX, like bigger doorways and a cab not half filled with side tanks.  The Std 3 should be pretty good for many preserved lines.  Many of those present day drivers look a bit too thick round the middle to relish squeezing between the frames to oil round or squeeze onto a 45XX footplate so maybe the 3MT has at last found its nitch.

[Wickham Green too]

The tender version's also missing from the preservation portfolio ....... perhaps a production line should be set up !!?!

[Blandford1969]

1 hour ago, John Besley said:

From my research when I started the 82045 project back in 1997, I spent quite a bit of time talking to ex BR drivers / fireman to try to get to the bottom of the bad press the Std 3 had....

 

An Ivatt tank or a 82000 both being modern versions of a 45xx ... the rest is history and 82045 is well under way...

Thank you for starting it John it certainly will be a good engine. I have only had a small involvement in measuring various parts off other engines to help with patterns, and can't wait to drive her out of Bridgnorth in a few years. 

[John Besley]

54 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

The tender version's also missing from the preservation portfolio ....... perhaps a production line should be set up !!?!

At the time (1997) there was a shortage of suitable locos for everyday use and with the ever increasing age of today's engines - BR Std's are now over 60 years old a modern easy to use loco was my thinking as the cost of building a new set frames and cylinders etc. for an 80 plus year old is going a long way to a new build which would give longer and more cost effective service long term.

 

Add into the mix other modern extras in a subtle way such as lights under the running plate for prep work, cab lights ... 

 

Read through the 82045 web site for the full story behind the start of the project

Edited February 19, 2021 by John Besley
Addition

[John Besley]

13 minutes ago, Blandford1969 said:

Thank you for starting it John it certainly will be a good engine. I have only had a small involvement in measuring various parts off other engines to help with patterns, and can't wait to drive her out of Bridgnorth in a few years. 

I sincerely hope I get a firing trip at some point

[Rivercider]

I have a few distant childhood memories of them at Exmouth Junction, and distinctly remember a couple of day trips to Exmouth behind them.

My book collection not surprisingly includes a number of books covering the BR (SR) in the West Country, and I got the distinct impression that the BR 3MT tank locos were a popular replacement for the old favourite (but worn out) M7 tanks.

 

cheers 

[Marshall5]

Many of the class were allocated to the Cambrian section and, being B.R.(W) were repainted into green after 1956, mostly lined out but not all.  Gradually, after the regional boundary change in 1963, they were transferred away and replaced by 80xxx which had been displaced by the LT&S electrification.  Some of the last 82xxx went to Patricroft (Manchester) and, IIRC, weren't withdrawn until 1967.  Many family holidays were spent on the Cambrian in the early 60's and I've attached a photo of 82003 at Aberdovey taken on one of those trips.

Ray.