Was there ever any plan for the GWR Kings to be converted to oil firing after WW2?

[OnTheBranchline]

Just curious as a number of Castles and Halls were changed - is there a reason that they couldn't have been converted other than the obvious reason of cost. 

Edited October 11, 2023 by OnTheBranchline

[Miss Prism]

The oil-firing was an experiment. It worked, so there was no real reason to try it on yet another loco class. The experiment ended because of geo-political factors.

[Edge]

The Kings were usually assigned to high prestige express trains. Whilst castles and halls also hauled their fair share of prominent trains, their greater numbers meant that the railway could afford to have one or two of them spend more time out of service for the oil firing trials without affecting services (whilst the locos were ‘in service’ for the trials, the conversion to oil firing refitting and possible time out of traffic with issues would have been factors considered).
 

The railways tended not to experiment too much with their top link traction unless they had tried output whatever they were doing on lower category locos first.

[OnTheBranchline]

43 minutes ago, Edge said:

The Kings were usually assigned to high prestige express trains. Whilst castles and halls also hauled their fair share of prominent trains, their greater numbers meant that the railway could afford to have one or two of them spend more time out of service for the oil firing trials without affecting services (whilst the locos were ‘in service’ for the trials, the conversion to oil firing refitting and possible time out of traffic with issues would have been factors considered).
 

The railways tended not to experiment too much with their top link traction unless they had tried output whatever they were doing on lower category locos first.

All good points - I was just thinking that it would be an interesting ‘what if’ alternate reality to model.

[OnTheBranchline]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

The oil-firing was an experiment. It worked, so there was no real reason to try it on yet another loco class. The experiment ended because of geo-political factors.

I guessed the next question if the experiment continued, where would the Kings have fallen in the order of loco classes to be converted?

[Matt37268]

7 hours ago, OnTheBranchline said:

I guessed the next question if the experiment continued, where would the Kings have fallen in the order of loco classes to be converted?

Possibly dependent on when there was  consideration given to fitting them with Roller Bearings? 😀

[The Johnster]

Had oil-firing been adopted in general rather than as an experiment at a time of coal shortages (winter of 1947), I suspect the Kings, presenting the most challenging firing, would have been among the first classes converted.  Some King work was very tough on the firemen, particularly the down 'Riviera', uphill all the way out to Savernake from Reading.  The two-hour Birminghams were hard enough to bring the class down with cracked frames, but that was not for another decade.  Their brief use on South Wales expresses was pretty much collar work from Severn Tunnel bottom to Badminton in the up direction; these trains could load up to 14 bogies without assistance, 16 with.  This was the biggest and longest firebox on the GW.

[Wickham Green too]

18 hours ago, Edge said:

The Kings were usually assigned to high prestige express trains. Whilst castles and halls also hauled their fair share of prominent trains, their greater numbers meant that the railway could afford to have one or two of them spend more time out of service ...

The same applies on the other Railways, I'm not sure, off hand, what did get oil firing on the LMS or LNER but I don't think any Pacifics did - on the Southern, no Merchant Navys did though a Light Pacific or two did - and numerous smaller types, many of which then went for scrap without reverting to coal firing.

[Steamport Southport]

I thought the Kings weren't picked as the trials were conducted on trains going to Cornwall and the Kings were banned from crossing the Tamar. So they used Castles instead.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_oil_burning_steam_locomotives

 

http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/m_in_gwr_oil_fire.htm

 

 

 

There was oil burning Kings though. Some of the SR King Arthurs were converted!

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

The idea that they didn't experiment with Top Link locomotives doesn't have much legs.

 

The LNER were constantly tinkering with the Pacifics and so was Bulleid on the Southern. 

 

During the oil burning trials they were messing about with the Kings superheaters as they found the LMS system was better with poor quality coal. They were also looking at improving the drafting. Maybe that's another reason why they did get oil burners.

 

 

Jason

Edited October 12, 2023 by Steamport Southport

[The Stationmaster]

12 hours ago, Matt37268 said:

Possibly dependent on when there was  consideration given to fitting them with Roller Bearings? 😀

It certainly wasn't considered when the roller bearings were ordered for the 'Kings' (but were found not to be able to be fitted so that was the end of that.  And in any case that was some years after the oil firing period had ended.

[OnTheBranchline]

Video for anyone who hasn’t seen it before.

[doilum]

Oil had to be paid for in dollars. The British economy post war was in dire straights and even had to introduce bread rationing as most of the hard wheat came from North America, paid for in dollars. By the 1950s.the new NCB had its act together and was rapidly introducing mechanical coal cutters to most collieries. Given that most of the railway infrastructure was coal centric it is unsurprising that BR stuck with coal to the end of steam.

[keefer]

As with a lot of decisions post-war and in the '50s in particular, there is a lot of 'why didn't they....?'.

In most cases the simple answer is, there was no real alternative.

Britain was skint, so often just had to make do with what was domestically available i.e. continuing with coal/steam, the new 'Standard' coaching stock being solid (if basic) design & construction, stalled electrification projects, shambolic approach to main-line diesel technology.

I think there was also more resistance to importing technology from abroad, either due to where that came from, how it would be paid for or plain old 'everything should be British'.

[OnTheBranchline]

11 minutes ago, keefer said:

As with a lot of decisions post-war and in the '50s in particular, there is a lot of 'why didn't they....?'.

In most cases the simple answer is, there was no real alternative.

Britain was skint, so often just had to make do with what was domestically available i.e. continuing with coal/steam, the new 'Standard' coaching stock being solid (if basic) design & construction, stalled electrification projects, shambolic approach to main-line diesel technology.

I think there was also more resistance to importing technology from abroad, either due to where that came from, how it would be paid for or plain old 'everything should be British'.

But that’s the point of alternate reality.