2750Papyrus

Given the choice of watching weekly football against the top teams of Europe or the lower reaches of the Prem, I think some form of European league is inevitable. However, the politics of who will run it, whether it should be performance based or subject to political/geographical selection, and how to allow promotion and relegation within these constraints, it will take a long time to resolve - Brexit has probably delayed it by some years. So maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually.... And as African, Asian and North American teams develop, it could itself become a feeder for a genuine World Series league.

I'd really like to vote for the P1 but if the criterion is success, then I have to recognise it was probably ahead of it's time. I therefore have to vote for the O2.

Having been away for a few days, I have missed several polls! Though I love the looks of the B17, I would have had to vote for the N2, probably the "most seen" class of locomotive when I was young. I attended the unveiling of the SNG statue a few years ago and was able to spend some time on the footplate of the preserved N2 and could quite imagine myself driving or firing it up from Stroud Green to Crouch End! For the current poll, whilst I like the looks and concept of the V4 and appreciate the contribution of the K3s (and K2s) over many years, my choice has to be the V2, surely one of the best all-round UK locomotive designs.

I believe it has been reprinted in paper back format. A book which did most to stimulate my interest in railways and steam trains. A biography of the author, Henry Charles Webster, was written and published a few years ago and is worth reading.

The brochure of my youth showed a streamlined Coronation, so that has to be my choice.

My vote goes to the original MN. I think I've mentioned before the colour brochure of express locos I had as a child, the SR representative being Channel Packet, which made a great impression with its air-smoothed casing. Subsequently, I served my student apprenticeship with the firm which worked with the SR on the chain drive for the valve gear, innovative if ultimately replaced. Possibly the best boiler design fitted to a British engine, it's a shame that Bulleid never got the chance to fit his first choice valve gear, which I believe would have been similar to that eventually fitted to Duke of Gloucester.

As I understand, the standard of accommodation compared to LNER coaches and the lack of catering facilities were major considerations.

By co-incidence, I ordered both volumes of this work from Stenlake Publishing yesterday morning; they arrived today!

Mrs 2750 says Spring has arrived - 8 swallows on the telephone wires opposite the kitchen.

I think my choice has to be guided by the selection criterion. 10000/10001 (I saw them at Euston when I was young) was probably the most influential design, but there were only 2 of them. The class 4 eventually performed well, was built in considerable numbers and was fairly widespread. So in terms of a successful class, it has to have my nomination.

I thought it was a Lennon quote in a radio interview on one of the early US tours?

I hadn't realised Cartazzi worked for the GWR. Was this design ever patented?

Given Thompson's apparent and laudable objectives to improve availability and maintainability, I find his choice of the inside cylindered J11 as a standard goods loco to be curious. His rebuilding of a D49 with two inside cylinders appears more so and the experiment was not multiplied. Apparently, he also earlier tried to persuade Gresley to rebuild the ex North Eastern pacifics (class A2) with two inside cylinders.

It used to be said that a consultant was a man who borrowed your watch to tell you the time.

I missed the "passenger" qualifier in yesterday's poll, so can vote J6 two days running!

So many of my favourite locos to choose from, the Atlantics, D series 4-4-0s, the N1 and C12 tanks, the Long Toms. However, my choice has to be one of his last designs, the numerous and long-lived J6 0-6-0. Surely a RTR model can't be too much to ask for?

I'm not sure now what we're basing our nominations on. If it is success based, then maybe a numerous, long lived class deserves our recognition more than a glamorous but shorter lived class. So my nomination goes to the 812 class of 0-6-0, of which there were 96, with an honourable mention of his 3F tank engine (147 off).

A better (or more understandable) name for a racehorse than Gay Crusader?

Whilst respecting the claims of some of the 0-6-0 classes, I am drawn to the looks of the T9.

That would be a very singular infection.

Has to be the Crab.

My Stirling nomination will be rather vague in terms of class designation, but a narrative description would be "standard goods". The first of these were built in 1867 and the design was successively developed by Stirling, Ivatt and Gresley; a total of 205 Stirling pattern (domeless boilers) had been built by 1896 whilst Ivatt added 133 more using a domed boiler. The later rebuilds became LNER classes J3 and J4 and some survived into BR days, though how I'm not sure how much Stirling content remained by then!

I don't know as much about Bowen-Cooke or LNWR locos in general as I should. I do have a reprint of his 1894 book "British Locomotives 1894" but that was published before he got the top job. In his “West Coast 4-6-0s at Work”, C P W Atkins claims George the Fifth to be “by common consent one of the most outstanding pre-1914 British steam locomotive designs”. Checking my 1944 ABC I find that one of the survivors possessed a name with a silent P (as in swimming bath). So Ptarmigan confirms my choice of the George Vs for today’s poll.

I have had this feeling about the Bachmann V2 for several years now.........