Rapido OO Gauge GWR 44xx/45xx/4575 Small Prairie

[Bulwell Hall]

Quite correct Jon - 4507 had a 'heavy general' in 1957 I think, which included a new boiler.  She was therefore within the timescale to receive fully lined green livery - started 1956 I think - and was also the reason why she lasted in service until 1963 making her the last Wolverhampton built engine to remain in service and also the oldest GWR locomotive in traffic at the time of her withdrawal.  By the time that fully lined green livery was adopted the majority of early flat tank 45xx had been with withdrawn or were imminently due for withdrawal so very few would have received it.  Conversely many of the 4555 - 4574 batch did receive the livery being younger and thus the reason that there are plenty of photos of this batch in BR lined green.  These engines are as fascinating as the 44xx - there's just more of them to get your head around!

 

Gerry

[checkrail]

18 hours ago, Bulwell Hall said:

4405 was an interesting one! 

Indeed.  I did know about it being at NA in the 50s and working the Ashburton goods but that's a bit later than my period.  I've just dug out GWR Journal nos. 84 & 85 of 2013 which provide fascinating details of these and other s. Devon goods workings.  Part 1 includes a great pic of 4405 emerging from Dainton Tunnel with this service.  Given the 3/4 view I couldn't tell whether it had the rear frame extensions but the pic @Corbs posted clinches it - it didn't (as Miss P. had suggested).  Thanks both.  So I'll probably be going for 4407.

 

Love the model of 4405 Gerry.

 

 

[Miss Prism]

At Swindon, 4 September 1955. It has a short safety valve cover, a bit unusual for a 44xx. The bent-in front step was normal for the 44s, on the 45s it was usually joggled.

[The Fatadder]

1 hour ago, checkrail said:

Indeed.  I did know about it being at NA in the 50s and working the Ashburton goods but that's a bit later than my period.  I've just dug out GWR Journal nos. 84 & 85 of 2013 which provide fascinating details of these and other s. Devon goods workings.  Part 1 includes a great pic of 4405 emerging from Dainton Tunnel with this service.  Given the 3/4 view I couldn't tell whether it had the rear frame extensions but the pic @Corbs posted clinches it - it didn't (as Miss P. had suggested).  Thanks both.  So I'll probably be going for 4407.

 

Love the model of 4405 Gerry.

 

 

 

I think it will be 4405 for me, on the justification that it has escaped the Ashburton turn and ended up heading west.

[Miss Prism]

4507 in lined green

[Bulwell Hall]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

4507 in lined green

 

Very much as I remember her.  Photo probably taken near the end of her days at Yeovil Town shed, with a SR S15 in the background.  I have a good number of photos of 4507 at various locations at different stages of her career, but most were taken in 1962 or 1963 by which time, she had become something of a minor celebrity amongst railway enthusiasts.

 

Gerry

[Miss Prism]

The longest-lived small prairie, if I read brdatabase correctly.

[Halvarras]

3 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

4507 in lined green

 

Nice photo, and an interesting site - at the other end of the collection does the final colour pic confirm that 4574 ended its days in unlined BR green with late crest? I wish it was a bit cleaner! This seems to be two collections end-to-end and another view around the middle shows it at Truro in 1958, lined. It's quite possible, as 5557 went from lined green to unlined within much the same timeframe.

I seem to recall seeing a good side-on photo, also taken at Truro I think, of 4574 unlined l/c in a book about Western engine sheds ages ago. I'm not aware of any other possible unlined green 45XX but I know 5569 was (with large late crest) and I'm sure I once saw a photo of 5518 in unlined green with large early emblem in a magazine...... 'tis a tricky subject though, as dirt and light can easily 'hide' lining - and emblems/crests come to that!

My interest in 4574 is that I have a Bachmann 4557 in what I assume is fictitious lined black livery* (??) and would consider a repaint into plain green to go with my c1960/1 lined 4566 & 5553. Trouble is............I quite like the lined black! 🤔

 

*I recall Kernow having these on clearance sale at a Swindon STEAM Museum exhibition years ago marked 'Ideal for repainting' for just £37! I already had mine by then though.....

[Corbs]

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

This is a list of the only ones from that number series which lasted long enough to have received lined green livery -

 

4505 possibly,  4507,  4508 possibly if shopped after June 1957,  4519,  4536,  4538 but very unlikely,  4540,  4545 possibly but unlikely,   4546 but unlikely,  4547,   4548 but very unlikely and it wasn't according to photo shortly before withdrawal,  4549,  4550,  4551 possibly,  4552,   4553 possibly,  4554 possibly

 

The word possibly indicates that they lasted long enough but they might not have been shopped in their final tear or two.

 

4552 in line green appears to have been a much photographed engine with pictures in at least two books apart from the book mentioned by GraigW.

 

Thank you - this is great. I can't say whether we will or won't make any specific locos until the tooling is decided upon but it is really useful in compiling the lists of 'possibilities'.

[Miss Prism]

Unlined green or just a clean smokebox?

[Craigw]

4534 in the late 1920s, just for something a bit different from all the BR talk.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

Unlined green or just a clean smokebox?

More likely black I think.  It moved to Newton in May 1956 and left there for Penzance in September 1958 being condemned in February 1959.    So I expect it would still have been in black and it's clearly just just had a light intermediate (or possibly no more than a v&p?) hence no full repaint.

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

Nice photo, and an interesting site - at the other end of the collection does the final colour pic confirm that 4574 ended its days in unlined BR green with late crest? I wish it was a bit cleaner! This seems to be two collections end-to-end and another view around the middle shows it at Truro in 1958, lined. It's quite possible, as 5557 went from lined green to unlined within much the same timeframe.

I seem to recall seeing a good side-on photo, also taken at Truro I think, of 4574 unlined l/c in a book about Western engine sheds ages ago. I'm not aware of any other possible unlined green 45XX but I know 5569 was (with large late crest) and I'm sure I once saw a photo of 5518 in unlined green with large early emblem in a magazine...... 'tis a tricky subject though, as dirt and light can easily 'hide' lining - and emblems/crests come to that!

My interest in 4574 is that I have a Bachmann 4557 in what I assume is fictitious lined black livery* (??) and would consider a repaint into plain green to go with my c1960/1 lined 4566 & 5553. Trouble is............I quite like the lined black! 🤔

 

*I recall Kernow having these on clearance sale at a Swindon STEAM Museum exhibition years ago marked 'Ideal for repainting' for just £37! I already had mine by then though.....

 

 

I pretty sure I saw a photo of 4557 in lined black at Whitland when I was researching my own version of it for Cwmdimbath, can't remember where but probably on Google Images; it was allocated Tondu prior to xfer to Whitland 3/10/1953.  Photos of it at Tondu in BR days show it in fairly clean unlined black with no lettering or totem, and I have modelled it in this condition, which is a shame as I'd like a small prairie in lined black!  I'd like a lined green 4575 as well, but cannot find a photo of a Tondu example prior to 1958, my cutoff, all are unlined black with unicycling lions presumably through works and paintshops in 1953 to be fitted with auto gear in preparation for the autumn timetable of that year, which was a major revision in South Wales and introduced many new auto services (for which the A43/4 'Cyclops' compartment trailers were converted from Collett stock), and they were replaced by 64xx in 1960 when rationalisation saw a diversion of the Bridgend-Abergwynfi service to nearby Blaengwynfi on the R&SB, which allowed easier gradients which 64xx could manage with 3 trailers, the Saturday load.

 

The Blaengwynfi auto service ended when the R&SB closed to passenger trains between Cwmmer Afan and Port Talbot (it was lifted very shortly afterwards except for a stub serving Dyffryn Rhondda colliery a mile or so south of Cwmmer Afan), and was replaced by a Bridgend-Treherbert service which ran through the Blaenrhodda Tunnel; this was operated by a single car multiple unit class 121.  When the Tunnel closed 'temporarily' in 1967 after earth movements compromised it's loading gauge, the service terminated at Cwmmer Afan and connected to a bus replacement over the Bwlch mountain to Treherbert, which also served Blaengwynfi and Treorchy.  BR finally threw in the towel in 1970.  The tunnel, longest in Wales, is the subject of a campaign and attempt to re-open it as a pedestrian and cycling connection-cum-tourist-attraction between the two valleys.

 

4557 at Tondu was an understudy to the 44xx on the Porthcawl branch, which left it available for general duties when both the 44xx were available, so I am justified in using it on any passenger or general mechandise goods train.  The 44xx were xfer or scrapped when the new timetable with it's auto services came into force on 1/9/53, so 4557's transfer to Whitland a few weeks later makes sense, and it is entirely possible that a works visit intervened, accounting for the change of livery.

[Halvarras]

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

Unlined green or just a clean smokebox?

 

IMO a clean smokebox on a black loco. Looking at the repainted bufferbeam and surrounding fittings, possibly a front-end collision repair?

[Miss Prism]

8 hours ago, Halvarras said:

IMO a clean smokebox on a black loco. Looking at the repainted bufferbeam and surrounding fittings, possibly a front-end collision repair?

 

Yes, but more likely usual repairs - smokebox/front end only renovations and repaints were quite common.

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Miss Prism

[melmoth]

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Yes, but more likely usual repairs - smokebox/front end only renovations and repaints were quite common.

 

 

Common enough to be referred to colloquially as a 'sole and heel' repair in some quarters, I believe.

[Cwmtwrch]

23 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

4507 in lined green

Showing why the front end struts were there...

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, melmoth said:

 

Common enough to be referred to colloquially as a 'sole and heel' repair in some quarters, I believe.

 

Not unusual for the smokebox to look a bit different to the rest of the loco, particularly highlighted in locos in black liveries.  Smokeboxes got pretty hot, and needed repainting fairly often, work which would be done at the shed during boiler washouts or similar downtime.  Easy to model, all you need is a varnish more matt or more gloss than the model's overall finish.

[Compound2632]

Producing a model of a Great Western engine has to be a bold and risky venture for any manufacturer!

[brumtb]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Producing a model of a Great Western engine has to be a bold and risky venture for any manufacturer!

Bold would be to produce a 44xx in original, as built, condition.  I'd buy one!

Tony

[The Johnster]

Or the 45xx for that matter!  Wonder if they’ll do the Rhondda & Swansea Bay livery!

[Miss Prism]

Another candidate for 'second-period' unlined green - 5537. (I asked Tony at Rail-Online to take a closer look, and he does not detect any lining.)

 

[BVMR21]

4400 class seems like the one most people will be buying (if they already have the Bachmann model), what were they like speed and power wise?

[The Johnster]

Slower than a 45xx because of the smaller driving wheels, but with a higher T.E.  44xx - 21,440lbs, 45xx - 21,225lbs.  Hence the 44xx association with steeply graded and tightly curved branchs for much of their working lives, esp. Princetown, Porthcawl, and Wellington-Much Wenlock.  I have no memory of the 44xx in service, all were gone by the time I started primary school, but extrapolating the performance of the 4575s I was familiar with, they must have been pretty lively with very strong accelleration up to about 30mph or so, but would have struggling after that.  The redesign to 45xx specification (turn the chassis round and put bigger wheels on it) seems to have been promted by the need for speed, even for branch line work; we think of them as slow and bucolic, but line speeds of 50mph and more were common.  The Severn Valley line, for example, has a line speed of 70mph.

 

Very roughly, pros & cons, 'other things being equal':-

 

44xx better than 45xx - tractive effort, accelleration (not that the 45xx were exactly slow off the mark), better on gradients and tight curves.

 

45xx better than 44xx - faster, better ride, better coal and water consumption figures resulting in longer 'range'; this is because steam, which requires coal and water to produce it, is ejected up the exhaust more frequently by the faster piston speed at a given speed over a given distance.  Put simply, point to point with a given load, 45xx used less steam than 44xx.

 

Collett's 4575 version had no increase in T.E. over the 45xx, but retained the yellow route availability, so one may conclude that 'range', in the sense of water capacity, was an issue worth improving on the 45xx, but not to the extent of providing 45xx  with 4575 type tanks, which would have been easy, so one may also conclude that there were jobs where 45xx were preferred to 4575s, probably due to axle loading despite both classes being in the 'yellow' class. 

 

A batch of 4575s were provided with auto gear in connection with an extension of auto work in South Wales for the 1953 Autumn 'regular interval' timetable.  These locos seem to have been simply the ones that happened to be going through works at the time and not chosen specifically on any other basis. 

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

The Severn Valley line, for example, has a line speed of 70mph

 

I thought that their line speed in common with other heritage railways (apart from the GCR with dispensation for certain services) was 25 ?