Identity Crisis

[rab]

Usual opening disclaimer, apologies if wrong place, but couldn't find anywhere more appropriate.

And yes I know the pics are upside down;

I took them on my phone and don't have an editing ap on the phone.

 

Anyway to get to the reason for posting:

Is this a Castle or a Hall?

 

I bought it as a Castle, but someone has recently suggested it might be a Hall.

 

I'm sure the forum collective wisdom will confirm one way or the other.

Edited August 26, 2021 by rab

[meil]

Yes it's a two cylinder locomotive. So either a Hall, Manor or Grange as I can't read the number plate.

Edited August 26, 2021 by meil

[73c]

Hope this helps.

[LMS2968]

Definitely a Hall.

[petethemole]

The number plate looks like 7916.

[Steamport Southport]

Grafar* Hall by the looks of it.

 

 

*Graham Farish, but released when they were using the shortened name

 

 

 

Jason

[rab]

41 minutes ago, meil said:

Yes it's a two cylinder locomotive. So either a Hall, Manor or Grange as I can't read the number plate.

Yes that's the problem; the number and name are indecipherable.

(A big word for 9:30 at night; think I need an early night after that).

[JimC]

A Modified Hall by the looks and the suggested number. 

[Steamport Southport]

7915 was Mere Hall

 

Is it a repainted one of these?

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/72936/graham_farish_1405farish_hall_class_4_6_0_7915_mere_hall_in_br_black/stockdetail.aspx

[The Johnster]

Rough, by which I mean very rough, guide to indentifying GW 4-6-0s:-

 

Saint - 2cyl, 6'8" driving wheels, variety of running plate styles, straight, or curved front and/or rear, some later fitted with outside straight steam pipes directly below chimney to centre top of cylinders, Churchward cab.  No.1 boiler.

 

Star - 4cyl, as for Saint but inside cylinders driving leading axle and protruding visibly ahead of the smokebox on the front framing. outside cylinders set back behind smokebox driving centre axle, and outside curved steampipes emerging directly below chimney running in s bend to centre top of outside cylinders, Churchward cab. 

 

Castle - 4cyl, as for Star but larger no.8 boiler, curved drops to running plate front and rear from introduction, Collett side window cab with roof extentded to rear. 

 

King - 4cyl, as for Castle but larger no.12 boiler and 6'6" driving wheels, and outside frame and bearings to leading bogie front wheelset. 

 

Hall - 2cyl, based on Saint rebuild with 6' driving wheels, all with outside straight steampipes as later fitted to Saint and curved drops to running plates as per Castle, Collett side window cab with no extension of roof to rear.  No.1 boiler.

 

Grange - 2cyl, as Hall but raised section of running plate above cylinders, 5'8" driving wheels.

 

Manor - 2cyl, as Grange but smaller no.14 boiler.

 

Modified Hall - 2cyl, as Hall with plate frames and different bogie frames.

 

10xx Hawksworth County - 2cyl, plate frames, 6'3" driving wheels, single continous splasher with horizontal nameplate, domeless version of Stanier 8F boiler (Swindon no,15), cab to full width of running plate, Castle/King type rear extension to cab roof.

 

Castles, Kings, and 10xx Counties may have double chimneys, all Kings had double chimneys eventually.

 

Your model is a Modified Hall, not a Castle.  Castle has bigger boiler, different postion cylinders as well as 2 more of them, and differnt slide bars, and a rear extended cab roof.

[F-UnitMad]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Rough, by which I mean very rough, guide to indentifying GW 4-

And to think that some people dismiss all GWR 4-6-0 locos as looking identical.

 

Philistines!!

[rab]

Thank you all for your responses, and especially to @The Johnster for answering

what was going to be my next question, that was, how do you tell the difference.

Edited August 27, 2021 by rab

[The Johnster]

All GW locos are the same, except for the differences. This of course means that they are all different, except when they are the same…

[Andy Kirkham]

To re-state Johnster's admirable summary with slightly different emphasis:

 

The 4-6-0 were divided into two distinct families - the two-cylinder and four-cylinder types. The variation within those families were mostly based on driving wheel size, boiler type and cab design.

 

The two-cylinder types were mostly for mixed traffic: Saints, Halls, Granges and Manors. The first Hall was rebuilt from 2925 Saint Martin; it was renumbered 4900 but kept its Saint name.

 

The four-cylinder types were for express passenger work: Stars, Castles and Kings; The Great Bear also belonged to this familiy but was a pacific rather than a 4-6-0. Some Stars were rebuilt into Castles and kept their original names. The Great Bear was also rebuilt as a Castle.

 

All two-cylinder engines had their cylinders vertically aligned with their chimneys and equidistant between the two bogie wheels.

All four-cylinder engines had their outside cylinders behind the chimney and over the trailing bogie wheel; the two inside cylinders projected forward below the smokebox.

 

2-cylinder engines generally had straight steam pipes and four-cylinder ones had "elbow" pipes, but the Saints and Stars originally had inside steam pipes that were not visible.

 

Saints and Stars had a variety of names and not just named after saints and stars. Some Castles had non-castle names such as World War 2 aircraft, abbeys and GWR personalities; but their nameplates bore the subscript Castle Class.

 

Nearly all these 4-6-0s were confined by their weight to the principal main lines, but the Manors were given a smaller boiler, allowing them to work on secondary routes such as the Cambrian.

 

We are apt to think of the GWR 4-6-0s as quintessentially English and reassuringly traditional. But we should remember that when new they were considered shockingly stark and functional and, except for cosmetic differences, remarkably similar to American locomotives of their day. Look at the boiler on Wisconsin Central No.221

 

 

 

Saint No.2999 Lady of Legend retro-rebuilt by the Great Western Society from a Hall. Note the original vertical drop of the front footplate, the cab apparently truncated at the bottom and the absence of outside steam pipes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Andy Kirkham

[The Stationmaster]

The 'Saints' were very much conceived, and used, as express passenger hence their 6' 8" driving wheels contiuing that diameter from the large 4-4-0s.  In the light of experience with the French engines Churchward decided to pursue the idea of a 4 cylinder to deal with the heaviest trains and thus the 'Stars' emerged with experimentation - also extended to the 'Saints' - ofh comparative trials between the 4-4-2 and 4-6-0 wheel arrangements.    As it happened Churchward's original standardisation plan had included a smaller wheeled 4-6-0 intended as a mixed traffic engine but it was never built as the need was met instead by taking up the 2-6-0 idea from Holcroft's visit to the USA.  The nearest example to Churchward's plan for a GWR mixed traffic 4-6-0 appeared years after hos death in the form of the 68XX 'Grange' class - ironically incorporating some parts from the withdrawn 43XX 2-6-0s which had been built instead of the planned Churchward smaller wheeled 4-6-0. 

[The Johnster]

If you think the 4-6-0s are confusing, don't whatever you do get involved with the large prairies...

 

To overlay the excellent summaries from Andy K and Stationmaster Mike, Churchward designed locos used the range of Churchward standard boilers, cylinders, and driving wheels in a sort of mix and match approach, so his 4-6-0s both featured no.1 boilers and 6'8" drivers, and the Saints had cylinder blocks common to the 28xx, large prairies, 2-8-0 tanks 43xx, and 47xx.  So, a range of similar looking outside cylinder locos could be built from common components, basically 6 boilers, 5 driving wheel sizes, and 3 cylinder blocks

 

The 4 cylinder locos were, initially, the Stars, which were apart from the cylinders built from standard components.  The outside cylinders were set back and the inside ones forward, a trick learned from the de Glehn Atlantics, in order to have a divided drive with the standard size connecting rod, and leave more room between the frames in this vital area for prepping. 

 

The along came Collett, who scored an immediate hit by putting a bigger boiler and slightly different cylinders on his upgraded Star, the Castle.  Much of his following work featured partial departures from the Churchward standards, with the Halls introducing a new 6' driving wheel size, and the Manors a new boiler; we were up to no.14 by now.  The Grange was a very Churchwardian design and a very similar loco was drawn out by him.  The standard range of boilers was extended to encompass rebuilds of locos acquired from absorbed and constituent railways in 1923, but 4-6-0s are outside of this remit.  The King introduced another new boiler, the no.11, and while clearly a development of the Star/Castle, used virtually no standard Churchward components. 

 

As an example of what can be done with Churchward standard components, though, if somebody told you to make a Rhymney Railway R class 0-6-2T out of  the standard bits in stock at Swindon, the result would be a 56xx.  Another example of the versatility of the Churchward standard components is the 43xx, produced very quickly after a report by Holcroft mentioned the common use of similar moguls on short lines to haul all classes of traffic.  It is basically a 3150 large prairie with the tanks removed and a tender hung on the back, and was still being produced in new batches in 1932, when it was 'replaced' by the Granges, which proved too heavy for some of the 43xx work, leading to the Manors.

 

Hawkworth's Counties used a Churchward standard cylinder block (more correctly described as paired cylinder/half saddle castings) and motion, but everthing else was altered.  A boiler based on a domeless version of the Stanier 8Fs built at Swindon during the war because the works was set up for them and it was convenient, a new driving wheel size, 6'3", plate frames, a new cab.  His Modified Hall was still rooted in the Saint, with the same components and 6' driving wheels, but with plate frames which were visible protruding through the running plate ahead of the smokebox. 

 

This is why all GW locomotives look the same; they are, except when they are different but I'm not starting that again...

[Andy Kirkham]

46 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Churchward designed locos used the range of Churchward standard boilers, cylinders, and driving wheels in a sort of mix and match approach, so his 4-6-0s both featured no.1 boilers and 6'8" drivers, and the Saints had cylinder blocks common to the 28xx, large prairies, 2-8-0 tanks 43xx, and 47xx.  So, a range of similar looking outside cylinder locos could be built from common components, basically 6 boilers, 5 driving wheel sizes, and 3 cylinder blocks

 

This is why all GW locomotives look the same; they are, except when they are different but I'm not starting that again...

 

i learned this lesson at an early age when I was more interested in military matters than railways and used to buy Airfix Magazine regularly.

 

In 1967 there appeared an article entitled A Mogul for Your Layout, which described how to create a 43XX using the chassis of a Pairie Tank and the boiler from City of Truro.

 

This was only the start of a whole series of articles describing by means of more advanced butchery the creation of a Churchward County, an Aberdare, a Dukedog and possibly a County Tank. 

 

There were also Bulldogs of various varieties - straight and curved frame, Bird and Flower as well as an Atbara - but  I don't remember whether any attempt was made to reproduce the smaller No.2 boiler, which would have been tricky with the material available.

 

Anyway, it was an education for me and helped to kindle my fascination with railways.

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Andy Kirkham

[Nick Lawson]

A small additional detail: the Modified Hall also had a new, modified No1 boiler, with 3 rows of superheater tubes as compared with the original No1's 2 rows. http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/m_in_hal.htm

 

There was a visible external difference - the external steampipes were slightly longer, joining the smokebox higher up https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FKMG0EW%2Fmodified-hall-class-6960-raveningham-hall-pulling-the-somerset-coast-KMG0EW.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alamy.com%2Fstock-image-modified-hall-class-6960-raveningham-hall-pulling-the-somerset-coast-167538081.html&tbnid=KI0EOfH3rVdxFM&vet=10CAMQxiAoAGoXChMI0JbUxsbR8gIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEA8..i&docid=o-r-5tkS0e5U8M&w=1300&h=957&itg=1&q=modified hall boilers&client=firefox-b-d&ved=0CAMQxiAoAGoXChMI0JbUxsbR8gIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEA8

than on the earlier engines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_4900_Class_5900_Hinderton_Hall#/media/File:Hinderton_Hall_5900_Didcot.jpg

 

Your loco looks to have the longer steampipes.

 

These newer boilers were interchangeable with the older ones. The preserved, but unrestored 5952 has a "modified hall boiler"

 

[Andy Kirkham]

Here is an interesting Star variant  on No. 4034 Queen Adelaide (photo from Wikpedia, taken by Ben Brooksbank). I don't know how common it was, but I've never seen it before.

 

The loco has a contorted version of an outside steam pipe. Presumably the boiler was configured for an outside pipe, but the chassis required  an inside pipe, so a non-standard pipe was required to connect the two.

 

[Edit] Further searching e.g. here https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p41474934 suggests this variant was not so rare.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Andy Kirkham

[slilley]

23 minutes ago, Andy Kirkham said:

Here is an interesting Star variant  on No. 4034 Queen Adelaide (photo from Wikpedia, taken by Ben Brooksbank). I don't know how common it was, but I've never seen it before.

 

The loco has a contorted version of an outside steam pipe. Presumably the boiler was configured for an outside pipe, but the chassis required  an inside pipe, so a non-standard pipe was required to connect the two.

 

[Edit] Further searching e.g. here https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p41474934 suggests this variant was not so rare.

There is a picture in Churchward Locomotives of 4062 with the same arrangement.

 

Simon

[The Johnster]

It’s an odd angle, but that’s the normal type of ‘elbow’ outside steam pipe as used on most Stars eventually, all Castles, Kings, and the LMS Stanier Princess Royals.  The de Glehn inspired 4 layout of these locos required the outside cylinders to be set back out of alignment with the blastpipe and chimney in order to make room for the inside cylinders, the frames being ‘joggled’ outwards between the fronts of the outside cylinders and the rear of the inside ones, which drove the leading axle. 
 

There would be no need to connect the inside and outside cylinders on a non-compound loco. 

[The Johnster]

It’s an odd angle, but that’s the normal type of ‘elbow’ outside steam pipe as used on most Stars eventually, all Castles, Kings, and the LMS Stanier Princess Royals.  The de Glehn inspired 4-cylinder layout of these locos required the outside cylinders to be set back out of alignment with the blastpipe and chimney in order to make room for the inside cylinders, the frames being ‘joggled’ outwards between the fronts of the outside cylinders and the rear of the inside ones, which drove the leading axle. 
 

There would be no need to connect the inside and outside cylinders on a non-compound loco. 
 

ISTR something similar on one of the Thompson designs, though the reason may have been different on this 3-cylinder engine. 

[JimC]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Hawkworth's Counties used a Churchward standard cylinder block (more correctly described as paired cylinder/half saddle castings) and motion,

The Counties surely had full length plate frames without the combined cylinder half saddle - as per this photo of the new one at Didcot.


 

Its surprises me how Hawksworth's use of the full length plate frames and bolt on cylinders is sometimes described as a major innovation, when all the 4 cylinder locomotives were built like that. Yes, certainly a very different choice of construction method, but nothing really new.

On outside steam pipes for the 4-6-0s, my understanding is the name "elbow" pipe is conventionally reserved for the type only found on Stars where the steam pipe exits the side of the smokebox in the same place as on a outside steam pipe Hall or Saint, but then doubles back under the boiler to meet the steam passages of original design cylinders. When Star outside cylinders were replaced they received a new design with the steam inlets in the same place as a Castle.