First steam engine built by BR

[ColinK]

Interesting discussion, it’s not a question that could be asked in a quiz!

 

I don’t think it happened in this Country, but in East Germany some narrow gauge locos were rebuilt using new parts - the accountants thought they were rebuilds, but as just about everything was replaced they were really new locos.

[LMS2968]

9 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Nope. It was 6100 which swapped identity with 6152. But that was in 1933.

 

Both were rebuilt with little, if anything, remaining of the original engines in the mid 1940s to 1950s. Definitely new wheels, boiler, cab, etc. Most got replacement frames. Look at the wheels next time you look at it. They aren't Fowler pattern. The current 46100 was almost certainly built new in June 1950.

 

Even the nameplates were different. The original set came up for auction a few years ago.

 

The fact it was no longer the original engine was the reason it went for scrap after being on the official list. Only being saved by Billy Butlin who wanted some famous engines.

You need to specify what is meant by 'Frames'. To most people, the 'frames' were a complete and solid unit, so would be replaced in full, but this wasn't normally so. The frames consist of a pair of plates joined by a series of vertical and horizontal stretchers and had the horn guides rivetted around the horns. Generally, replacing the frame was simply fitting new plates but reusing the stretchers and axlebox guides. This is because that the plates were simple flat steel sheets, cut to shape, slotted and drilled as required. The stretchers had to be flanged at the ends then the faces machined to the exact distance between the plates. Some, including the guides, were forgings, and the stretchers and forged parts were the expensive bits, so reused. So saying the Scots received new frames is not completely accurate.

 

Eric Langridge explained the problem with this system when the Baby Scots were rebuilt with 250 p.s.i. boilers like the Scots. The Baby Scots received new frames but retained the original stretchers. Since the Baby Scot frames were thinner, the new plates matched their dimension so were less strong than the Scots', and the cylinder diameter had to be reduced by one inch so as not to overstress them.

[LMS2968]

4 minutes ago, ColinK said:

Interesting discussion, it’s not a question that could be asked in a quiz!

 

I don’t think it happened in this Country, but in East Germany some narrow gauge locos were rebuilt using new parts - the accountants thought they were rebuilds, but as just about everything was replaced they were really new locos.

As in the Baby Scots being 'rebuilt' Claughtons! There was little, and eventually nothing, of the original engine left.

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, LMS2968 said:

As in the Baby Scots being 'rebuilt' Claughtons! There was little, and eventually nothing, of the original engine left.

Just the handle for the shovel, as it had been replaced a couple of years earlier when the first replacement snapped.

[woodenhead]

it's interesting as enthusiasts we have sentimentality about objects that the actual owners of (when in service) had no sentiments for.

 

They would scrap them when done with, rebuild them when they could, swap parts and dump them unceremoniously.

 

Even today, class 73s were purchased out of preservation for use back on the national network and class 56s are being turned into Anglo-American frankensteins.

[Ian Morgan]

There was a big court case over the identity of the Bentley racing car "Old Number 1", which eventually ruled that, even if there are no parts on the current vehicle that were present when "Old Number 1" was built, because there has continuously existed an entity known as "Old Number 1", the current vehicle was legally OK to to be sold as being "Old Number 1". Had there been any gap in time when there was not a complete vehicle, then it would be classed as a reproduction.

 

So, Trigger's broom is still Trigger's broom, despite having two new handles and five new heads.

 

[Wickham Green too]

46 minutes ago, Ian Morgan said:

So, Trigger's broom is still Trigger's broom, despite having two new handles and five new heads.

So if Trigger's 'Old Bentley Broom-Broom No1' was separated - at some tine - into an original handle ( which then gained a succession of new heads/handles/heads etc. ) and an original head ( which was fitted to a succession of new handles/heads/handles etc. ) there would be TWO - or potentially more - genuine 'Old Original No1s' !!?!

[jsp3970]

So just to clarify, as the topic has gone off on a tangent, 3218 was first BR built steam engine, having been released on Jan 2, 1948 or does anyone know of anything different?

[Wickham Green too]

Probably was - though knowing the way Swindon contrived to build the last BR steam loco ( instead of Crewe's 92250 ) it probably shouldn't have been !!?!

[Bucoops]

21 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

The boiler is irrelevant most of them were "off the peg" although they tended to get a new one when built, but not always.  It's the frames that matter.

 

How quickly? Just over Twenty Five hours.

 

 

London and North Western Railway 17in Coal Engine number 1140 (Works number 2153) pictured at Crewe. This locomotive was constructed from raw materials in a record breaking 25 1/2 hours in February 1878. Its designer Francis Webb is pictured at the far left.

 

 

Jason

 

Interesting  I presume the GER's 9hrs 47mins in 1891 from was a kit of parts rather than flat sheet/bronze ingots or whatever raw materials means in this case.

[Titan]

44 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

 

Interesting  I presume the GER's 9hrs 47mins in 1891 from was a kit of parts rather than flat sheet/bronze ingots or whatever raw materials means in this case.

 

What was also really impressive was that it hauled its first revenue earning train within 24 hours of the frames being laid...

[PenrithBeacon]

11 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

As in the Baby Scots being 'rebuilt' Claughtons! There was little, and eventually nothing, of the original engine left.

I believe the reversing gear was pretty well the only thing left of most of them, but I can't remember why even that survived. The first batch (IIRC) did use the wheel centres too.

[Compound2632]

The identity of an engine rested with its engine history card. Everything else could be exchanged, replaced, or renewed. 

 

Back to the OP and questions of definition: should not the first locomotive built by BR be the first locomotive that BR had decided to build? In other words, what was the first locomotive ordered after 1 Jan 1948?

[RJS1977]

11 hours ago, ColinK said:

Interesting discussion, it’s not a question that could be asked in a quiz!

 

I don’t think it happened in this Country, but in East Germany some narrow gauge locos were rebuilt using new parts - the accountants thought they were rebuilds, but as just about everything was replaced they were really new locos.

 

It very definitely did happen in the UK - when the GWR took over the Vale of Rheidol, they renumbered VoR #1 as 1212 and #2 as 1213. Shortly afterwards they built two new locos for the VoR, #7 and #8, as well as a complete set of spare parts. A few years later, 1212 was scrapped, and 1213 was sent to Swindon for rebuilding to the same spec as #7 and #8. Around that time, the set of spares for these two locos disappeared.....

 

Later on, 1213 was renumbered as #9.

 

At the beginning of the 21st Century, Davies and Metcalfe (who built the original VoR locos) closed down. The drawings of #1 and #2 were rediscovered and sent to the VoR who confirmed that none of the parts on the drawings were interchangeable with any of the parts making up #9.

[PenrithBeacon]

16 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

...

Back to the OP and questions of definition: should not the first locomotive built by BR be the first locomotive that BR had decided to build? In other words, what was the first locomotive ordered after 1 Jan 1948?

From memory locomotives tended to be ordered in batches. Rather like 'OK we'll have ten of this, twenty of that' etc but that was at board level where it's documented in the minutes. I'm not at all sure that the works order documentation has survived, certainly I've never seen it.

I'd be amazed if the OPs question can actually be answered.

[TravisM]

Thing is, we don’t know if and when a order placed by one of the big four would be started, pre 1948 and over ran into 1948.  Hypothetically, say the LMS had ordered 50 Black 5’s from Crewe in the summer of 1947, started production in September but last one was completed in say, February 1948, would that be a LMS or BR loco?

[Wickham Green too]

....... and - a topic not yet touched upon - if the works plate read "LMS built Crewe 1948" would we count it as LMS or BR ?

[ikks]

14 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I believe the reversing gear was pretty well the only thing left of most of them, but I can't remember why even that survived. The first batch (IIRC) did use the wheel centres too.

Didn;t 5500/5501 retain the original Claughton driving wheels??

 

Mike

[LMS2968]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

....... and - a topic not yet touched upon - if the works plate read "LMS built Crewe 1948" would we count it as LMS or BR ?

They did, the next ones didn't, and as new batches emerged, fewer and fewer old parts were incorporated, until eventually they were entirely new engines.

[ikks]

47 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

They did, the next ones didn't, and as new batches emerged, fewer and fewer old parts were incorporated, until eventually they were entirely new engines.

Yes I am aware of that but those wheels on the first two with their large bosses gave them quite a different character to the othter members of  the class. Incidentally one of my favourite ex-LMS classes(the unrebuilt ones), they always had an old fashioned elegant quaintness about them.

Rgds....Mike

[Wickham Green too]

3 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

They did, the next ones didn't, and as new batches emerged, fewer and fewer old parts were incorporated, until eventually they were entirely new engines.

That was a Two Ronnies ' Mastermind' sketch, wasn't it ?  -  Answering the question before last !

[JimC]

Its pretty clear that as far as the GWR was concerned the identity of a locomotive went with the number on the cabside plate/record card in the works filing system.  For the GWR at least talk of frames is just an enthusiasts' fancy.
 

On 05/11/2020 at 22:00, RJS1977 said:

Around that time, the set of spares for these two locos disappeared.....

I've been looking at GWR records, and you know the rebuilding of 1213 is often described as an exercise to trick the accountants? Well, there's something very odd about that. In the 1930s the GWR had plenty of money in the renewals account for replacing worn out locomotives,  but with the slump was short of money for general repairs. Consequently, and no doubt with the accountants full approval, they devoted some effort to upgrading part life locomotives into new classes that could be paid for from the renewals account, which saved doing an otherwise scheduled heavy general overhaul on the repairs budget. And we enthusiasts, and I've been very guilty of this, describe that as being to work round the accountants, which on reflection I bet is nonsense. IME accountants like doing clever manipulation of budgets, at least provided its their idea! Anyway, the point is that at a time when the works was casting around for ways to spend money on the renewals account, here was a job, albeit a small one, not going on renewals.

 

It could be argued that it was a way to avoid having to get board approval for the rebuild, as renewals needed board approval, but for the reasons above it doesn't seem as if approval would have been hard to get. There were other examples at that period of single locomotives having major reconstruction on the repairs budget - the prototype for the Dukedogs was a repair, and so was the rebuilding of no 5400 at its first overhaul. Far more likely that it came in the works, Cook took a good look at it and said something on the lines of not wanting to nail it back together again, and the evidence is that this was something he was quite entitled to do.

Edited February 14, 2021 by JimC