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GWR 850 class saddle Tank No. 1925


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Too dirty to tell judging by what I've heard about from various Enginemen who remembered/had worked on it when it was at Southall.    By the 1930s lots of older GWR tank engines carried no discernible  indication of ownership beynd the style of the numberplate and many of the engines were extremely grubby even back then if photos are to be believed.  So post-war probably no better, or cleaner.

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Very unlikely, but I’d be delighted to be proved wrong.  By nationalisation, a program of replacing these older locos with the later series of 8750s, including the steam brake only 6750 variant, was well under way and it is very doubtful that any of the pre-57xx that survived into BR ownership were ever given any BR livery, or even cleaned since their last works visit.  
 

it is possible that she carried the post 1942 G W R ‘initials’ livery, likely in austerity black, but the condition of a loco very much at the bottom of food chain in that period makes the point a bit academic.  For comparison/info, I have a photo of 2761 on the reception roads at Swindon in 1950 a few months after withdrawal that I’m not sure if I can post, in black austerity livery and ‘grotesque’ initials as applied at Caerphilly between 1942 and 1945. 

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I found a photo of her in later years in the "Everything Great Western" group in Facebook. Date of photo not given but it looks like she's standing in a line of condemned locos with her number roughly painted on where the plate used to be. The letters GWR are just visible under the grime on the tank.

 

The caption says: "1901 Class loco No.1925, was turned out from Stafford Road Works in December 1883. In 1949 it was specially painted at the works ( including GWR lettering) in order to appear in the film " The Chiltern Hundreds" The engine then returned to normal service until withdrawn in April 1951, by which time it was then the last GWR O-6-0 saddle tank loco in existence."

 

I can't copy the photo or provide a link because "Everything Great Western" is a closed group but it is well worth joining. If you join, search for "saddle 1925" to find the photo.

 

Edited by Harlequin
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Plenty of pictures around showing these locos without any ownership insignia from fairly early in their lives.

There's a spanking picture of 997 at PDN absolutely spotless and no insignia.

2007 in works grey likewise.

 

It seems unlikely BR would paint them as they were destined for scrap pretty quick.

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1 hour ago, Siberian Snooper said:

I would be interested to know when the Great Western started/stopped painting saddle tank insignia.

 

 

And why? Especially as many pannier conversions seem to have got insignia.

Or, did they ever put insignia on some classes?

Loads of early photos showing non insignia locos.

 

Even from the early broad gauge days the GWR was not known for applying company insignia to it's locomotives.

I assume it's because they assumed they were "unmistakenly Great Western" so didn't see a need for it.

 

EDIT

In Russell's GWR locomotives there is a J Maskelyne drawing of 1925 with GWR on the tanks and Russell comments that this was a one off for the film and applying insignia was not normal.

Edited by melmerby
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12 hours ago, wagonman said:

I thought that Southall treated 1925 as a sort of pet. As such it may even have been cleaned occasionally! I presume when axe fell it would have been replaced by one of the new 16xx rather than 67xx.

Odd that it might sound I think its actual replacement at Southall was 1501.  The reason for that was because 1925 had survived as long as it did in order to work a very tightly curved siding.  I think, from what various former Southall Enginemen said to me in later years that when 1925 was taken away there were all sorts of problems trying to shunt that particular siding and they were solved eventually by transferring 1501 from Old Oak to Southall and it could manage the job because of its very short wheelbase.

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15 hours ago, wagonman said:

Thanks Mike. I had assumed it was a matter of axle loading rather than wheelbase. Was it one of the Slough Trading Estate sidings, or Lyons depot?

 

 

I've an idea that it was probably Lyons but I can't really be sure at this distance in time.  The chap who told me about did mention the name of the siding but his main point was more about the incongruity of replacing an ancient old saddle tank with a 15XX.

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Locos witthout insignia featured in early BR days as well; my downloaded ebook version of John Hodges and Stuart Davies' 'Tondu Valleys' books has a photo of Tondu's 4557, p134 of the second volume, arriving at Tondu from Porthcawl and dated April 1952.  Coaches are in crimson and the loco, fairly clean (certainly enough to show clealy any livery or totem), in unlined BR black with no totem or lettering of any sort on the side tanks.  A pity, because I know she later carried the lined black LNW livery with unicycling lion, which I would like to represent, but I have no photographic proof of her carrying any other than this plain black while she was at TDU, the lined livery photo being taken after her transfer to Narberth, 3/10/53 according to BRdatabase. 

 

She may well have carried the plain black for a time at Narberth, but it is unlikely that she had a works visit and a repaint between April 1952 and October 1953 at TDU, and it is best to model the most likely scenario in lieu of hard information, a familiar thing to those of us who model the less glamourous parts of the railway.  I am often mildly surprised at the amount of photographic record there actually is of the Tondu Valleys network.

 

Not sure if this plain black business was a WR thing or if it happend elsewhere as well.

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