How were OldOak Commom's allocation of Standard 80000 tanks used?

[The Stationmaster]

21 minutes ago, Mallard60022 said:

What a shambolic waste of a decent locomotive design and also money. I hate seeing these scrap line pics (no offence meant Dibber) and I still seethe at the utter waste of resource that was the early demise of the best Standards, but we have been over that argument many, many times elsewhere.

Philth

 

Alas all the Standards had relatively short lives by steam engine norms.  But they weren't alone in that as numerous other engines built in the late 1940s and  early 1950s had similarly short lives and in some cases did very little revenue earning work.  All a consequence of the rush to dieselise and save money on everyday operating costs plus the reduction in the size of the rail network from the mid 1950s onwards.

[dibber25]

3 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Alas all the Standards had relatively short lives by steam engine norms.  But they weren't alone in that as numerous other engines built in the late 1940s and  early 1950s had similarly short lives and in some cases did very little revenue earning work.  All a consequence of the rush to dieselise and save money on everyday operating costs plus the reduction in the size of the rail network from the mid 1950s onwards.

I recall an article that Richard Strange and I put together for Steam World some years ago, regarding the ordering of numerous Hawksworth '94XX' class pannier tanks. Some of these orders were placed by the GWR immediately before Nationalisation, whilst others were apparently prompted by a government desire to provide orders and employment for troubled locomotive builders. From memory, some locomotives went straight from manufacturer into store, while others operated for around 4 years before being scrapped. It could be argued that their purpose was to keep people employed building them and in that respect they were useful but it wasn't dieselisation that was to blame for their short careers.  (CJL)

[The Johnster]

The 94xx can be viewed as part of the GW's ongoing policy of replacing pre grouping South Wales 0-6-2s, and the very large order for 200 'production series' locos built by and for BR reflects this at least in part; about 66% of the class were allocated to South Wales to replace Taff 04s, As, and Rhymney Ps and Rs along with a few other survivors.  It was not really foreseen in the late 40s that the requirement for steam locos to handle the South Wales coal traffic (of course steam, what else, it burns coal which we've got lots of, doesn't it, and we've just survived a U boat blockade that showed the dangers of relying on oil) would fall the the extent it did about 15 years later, under a triple onslaught of smokeless fuel regulations, oil fired central heating in homes, and dieselisation.  My Limbach 94xx, 8448, was built in 1954 and withdrawn in 1959, spending what little working life it had entirely at Tondu shed.  It seems an awful waste, but there was no requirement for the loco in 1959 and nowhere to store it, so it was disposed of to scrap; the business of running a profitable railway was changing frighteningly quickly in 1959, and costs were spiralling at the same time as road competition increased exponentially.

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

The 94xx can be viewed as part of the GW's ongoing policy of replacing pre grouping South Wales 0-6-2s, and the very large order for 200 'production series' locos built by and for BR reflects this at least in part; about 66% of the class were allocated to South Wales to replace Taff 04s, As, and Rhymney Ps and Rs along with a few other survivors.  It was not really foreseen in the late 40s that the requirement for steam locos to handle the South Wales coal traffic (of course steam, what else, it burns coal which we've got lots of, doesn't it, and we've just survived a U boat blockade that showed the dangers of relying on oil) would fall the the extent it did about 15 years later, under a triple onslaught of smokeless fuel regulations, oil fired central heating in homes, and dieselisation.  My Limbach 94xx, 8448, was built in 1954 and withdrawn in 1959, spending what little working life it had entirely at Tondu shed.  It seems an awful waste, but there was no requirement for the loco in 1959 and nowhere to store it, so it was disposed of to scrap; the business of running a profitable railway was changing frighteningly quickly in 1959, and costs were spiralling at the same time as road competition increased exponentially.

 

That's often cited as a reason for them being built. But if you look at the allocations about half of them never even worked in South Wales or spent very little time there.

 

A bit of an urban myth I'm afraid.

 

http://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=class&id=106057&type=S&page=alloc

 

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

Going by that list, 166 out of 210 locos were allocated to South Wales, admittedly not all at the same time.  This was undoubtedly their intended role, notwithstanding that many found useful employment elsewhere on the WR, and Bromsgrove.