GWR Oil Burners

[M.I.B]

Thanks Nick.

 

I have had a good "google" tonight and tried every version of "gw oil burer".

 

Seems quite a few people have been on the hunt for drawings of a 4000 gal tender converted for oil, but none have come to light.

[Coach bogie]

 

. Did you happen to draw up plans for the 4000 by any chance?

 

 

Thanks in advance.

 

See PM.

 

Good luck

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Coach bogie]

According to RCTS part 8:

Castles:

100A1 1/47-9/48

5039 12/46-9/48

5079 1/47-10/48

5083 12/46-11/48

5091 10/46-11/48

All had 4000 gallon tenders except 5091 which had a 3500.

 

 

 

BIt of a question mark with 5091. For the official photograph it was certainly coupled to the small tender, but personally I have never seen any images of this combination in service. If anyone has seen any images of 5091 with small tender away from the immediate Swindon area, I would welcome the information.

 

regards

 

Mike Wiltshire

[M.I.B]

What size in gallons or litres was the oil tank on a 3500 tender and also on a 4000gal tender?

 

Just wondering because when I do build my oil burner, my shed will need a bunker, and it's pointless having a bunker unless it's much much bigger than the vessels it fills.

 

Also - how did the Company refill these tanks - I can't remember seeing any photos of departmental oil tanks for heavy fuel oils. Privately contracted oil company wagons?

[bigbear]

Sorry to re-awaken an old thread, but I've a couple of questions, please.

 

First off, does anybody know if any other Halls were liveried in unlined green with the GWR on the tender? I've been trying to get confirmation of this for ages, since buying the Dapol locomotive in this livery. Also, did Garth Hall retain this livery after being reconverted to coal burning?

 

There are surprisingly few references to this particular livery and I would like to know a bit more about it.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

John Palmer

[JohnMartin90125]

I've often wondered what 101 looked like as an oil burner. Recently seen a picture inside Swindon of it with side tanks as modelled by Hornby but with a small rectangular thing on top of the boiler. Don't think this is the oil burner as I beleive that the tanks were increased in size as part of the conversion to coal firing.

[buffalo]

The only photo I've seen of No 101 inside the works is the one reproduced in the fourth post of this topic, together with the description lifted from the RCTS volume. Another side view appears at the start of this topic. Both show the engine in its final coal burning form with Lenz taper boiler, dome and a small bunker at the rear. Apart from the bunker, this is pretty much the same as the 1903 oil burning form when the oil was stored in the rear part of the side tanks. The only small rectangular thing on top is the casing around the pop safety valves.

 

There is a drawing of the original 1902 oil burner in the RCTS volume. It had a parallel boiler without a dome and a normal GWR safety valve and bonnet in the middle. The side tanks were somewhat lower, reaching only to the handrail height of the later tanks. They were initially somewhat longer though were shortened when changes to the firebox/furnace were made. The oil tank was in the form of a small saddle tank above the firebox area.

 

If your photo is not one of these, please tell us where you found it.

 

Nick

[Karhedron]

First off, does anybody know if any other Halls were liveried in unlined green with the GWR on the tender?

I have also been looking for an answer to this question and I have never found any evidence of other Halls painted in this livery so I suspect Garth Hall may have been a one-off.

 

Of course, absence of evidence is not evidence or absence. Unless we manage to compile a list of photos of every Hall between about 1945 and 1950, we may never know for sure.

[ianwales]

Sorry to re-awaken an old thread, but I've a couple of questions, please.

 

First off, does anybody know if any other Halls were liveried in unlined green with the GWR on the tender? I've been trying to get confirmation of this for ages, since buying the Dapol locomotive in this livery. Also, did Garth Hall retain this livery after being reconverted to coal burning?

 

There are surprisingly few references to this particular livery and I would like to know a bit more about it.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

John Palmer

 

Hi John

 

While not specifically answering your query, I understood that Garth Hall had a 3500 gall tender when an oil burner and it had GWR on the tender in common with the 3500 gall tenders of the  oil burning 28xx locos, the Oil Burners with 4000 gall tenders were lettered G crest W and in addition 3951 Ashwicke Hall was unlined as there is a photo in Jim Russell's GW Engines Book.

 

Ian

[OnTheBranchline]

Great Western Pictorial No 2 (Wild Swann) has many shots taken from behind of the oil fired 28XX locos. I had been wanting to build an oil fired Garth Hall as I know my Grand father drove it. It was also the only hall to enter service oil fired with a small tender and retaining its original number, not being renumbered to a few months later. Only when this book was published could I find sufficient detail to produce the tank. I always assumed the tank would be central in the tender - it's not

 

My records show 11 Halls, 5 Castles, 20 28xx and a mogul were all so fitted. 3900 St Brides Hall also had electric lights fitted at the same time. Lesser known is one pannier tank no 3711 was oil fired as part of an experiment for one man operation - but the unions were not having that!

 

During my research I have found no shots of any oil fiored loco in BR livery apart from the Pannier tank which did not return to coal firing until 1959. As reconversion was during 1948 BR livery is unlikely.

 

Crownline used to produce a conversion kit for the 4,000 gallon version that included basic plans etc.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

The conversion does not look that hard?

[Trog]

As a fuels engineer I am a little agog at the "spalsh" filling of the oil burner tenders. These days they would have to be "bottom filled" - much like the description of the rail level connections as above. I cannot see any form or electrical bonding either! Then again I suppose a steel engine on steel rails is pretty well earthed.

 

 

Being the railway there were probably a line of loco's in stream on the next road, they probably did not think electrical sparks were worth worrying about while doing the filling next to several tons of burning coal and hot ashes. A close up of the bloke on top with the dip stick would probably also show him as smoking a roll up.

[The Johnster]

To get back to the sliding shutters, these were fitted to tank locos after the grouping as a result of complaints from ex TVR and Rhymney drivers that the cabs on their new GW locos were draughty.  You can imagine how that went down at Swindon!  The first 56xx did not have them, so they must have been introduced after that.  Eventually all GW tank engines and those rebuilt with GW style cabs from pregrouping locos had them, with the panniers and 48/58/14xx classes having them mounted inside the cab sidesheet and not visible from outside the cab unless they were slid back.  These are simplicity itself to model, a plasticard sheet glued to the inside of the cab and you're there; if you want to be fussy you can put the little handle on the inside, but on a pannier nobody's going to see it!  They could be slid back level with the cab doorway, and when one thinks of a 57xx standing at Torpantau waiting for the section to clear in an easterly crosswind in winter 1,300 + feet above sea level, one can see the point...

 

These may not be the same thing or serve the same purpose as the sheets on oil burning tender locos

[The Stationmaster]

Being the railway there were probably a line of loco's in stream on the next road, they probably did not think electrical sparks were worth worrying about while doing the filling next to several tons of burning coal and hot ashes. A close up of the bloke on top with the dip stick would probably also show him as smoking a roll up.

 

You actually needed an engine in steam to light up a GWR oil-burining engine in order to get the atomiser going.  and to pick up someone else's point the oil tanks were bottom fed.

 

So in order to broaden knowledge I will happily direct folk to the following film to be found on Youtube

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5jApwuq11g

[M.I.B]

 

That is an overhead filling arm.  Even if it connects to a downpipe to the bottom of the tank, it is still top fed, and its use creates a static hazard which would not be accepted in any tank filling operation (road, rail barge or otherwise) in Europe any more.

 

Here in Afghanistan Wheaton arm tank filling still abounds, then again so does stoning, and stopping girls from going to school.

[Hilux5972]

 

That is an overhead filling arm. Even if it connects to a downpipe to the bottom of the tank, it is still top fed.

and to pick up someone else's point the oil tanks were bottom fed.

 

I'd imagine he meant that the boiler was fed from the bottom of the tank.

[The Stationmaster]

I'd imagine he meant that the boiler was fed from the bottom of the tank.

 

If you watch the film I linked you will see the tender being filled via a bottom filler (that was Old Oak in the film - presumably two different methods were used and maybe the one at Swindon was an early design?)

[M.I.B]

I haven't got a good enough link to see the video.

 

I take it that it is a different tender and a foot valve system is used with a connection and a valve somewhere below footplate level then?  A  much safer way to fill and unload.

 

Was it one of the few 3500 tenders oil converted then?  I think one Castle (5091) had one and a couple of 28XXs?  Don't have my books out here so I can't cross check.

[Hilux5972]

There were 5 Castles, several 28xx's, and I think 11 Halls as well. 36 GWR Locos in all.

 

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

[The Stationmaster]

I haven't got a good enough link to see the video.

 

I take it that it is a different tender and a foot valve system is used with a connection and a valve somewhere below footplate level then?  A  much safer way to fill and unload.

 

Was it one of the few 3500 tenders oil converted then?  I think one Castle (5091) had one and a couple of 28XXs?  Don't have my books out here so I can't cross check.

 

Here's a snatch from the video with the filler hose just connected to the tender filler on a 48XX (nee 28XX)

 

[M.I.B]

Thanks - bottom fill via foot valves. 

 

I wonder why the 4000gals were converted differently.

[OnTheBranchline]

 

That is an overhead filling arm.  Even if it connects to a downpipe to the bottom of the tank, it is still top fed, and its use creates a static hazard which would not be accepted in any tank filling operation (road, rail barge or otherwise) in Europe any more.

 

Here in Afghanistan Wheaton arm tank filling still abounds, then again so does stoning, and stopping girls from going to school.

 

Which oil company's tanks would those of been ahead of the Castle?

[M.I.B]

They look so grimy that it would be hard to tell, so as long as they were black ones or silver ( and not beige ones which had all gone by the 1940s IIRC).

 

Nobody has yet come forward with a photo of a departmental oil wagon, so they must be PO.

[JimC]

Nobody has yet come forward with a photo of a departmental oil wagon, so they must be PO.

The GWR had 51 four wheel oil tankers built to diagram DD3. One survives with the Severn Valley: https://www.svrwiki.com/GWR_43989_Cylindrical_Tank_Wagon#/media/File:GWR_43989_20170708.jpg

 

However the last was built in 1911, so they certainly weren't intended for locomotive fuel oil. There must have been any number of tank wagons built for service in WW2 though, but apparently not by the GWR from what I understand in GW goods wagons.

[M.I.B]

Nice update on the GW  4 wheel tanks, but looking at the Swindon 1947 photo, there seems to be no sign of strapping like the SVR one.  

 

So I am still going for the PO 4 wheelers, in black or silver, in a fairly grubby state.

[JimC]

Its odd, Paul Bartlett's excellent photo collection doesn't seem to show any WW2 built tanker wagons, yet you'd think there would have been many. Unless they ended up on the continent I suppose. It was a heavy fuel oil, not diesel, so I wonder if they had to have steam heating to get the stuff to flow?

 

[later]
I agree private owned seems likely that: the only other option that occurs to me would be if the GWR had control of any hypothetical wartime built tankers. Knowing if there were or weren't any would go a long way to proving it.

 

[even later]

 

There's a little in this thread. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/38805-oil-tank-wagons-and-traffic-on-post-wwii-gwr/

 

Reading up the most recent edition of GWR goods wagons, there's very little on developments later than the twenties- indeed the chapter almost seems to be truncated. In this context though there's one intriguing photo caption (plate 607, p 502) which shows a van built to carry a water pump during ww2, with an attendant tanker for diesel fuel. The caption includes "...appears to be the standard design of four-wheeled tank wagon built in WW2... Ratchet guide to brake lever and other GW standard items on underframe, so probably built  by the GWR to modified RCH ... design." There were 5 of these pump vans built in 1942, so presumably also 5 diesel tankers, but they are otherwise unrecorded in the book. As far as I can tell the wagons in the photo are not unlike the one in the pump van photo. But in 1947 who owned the wartime built tankers, and how were they painted?