JimC

If anyone feels inspired to fill in more names on the map PM me and I'll see if I can sort out access. You'd need to have a google account.

This came up somewhere else a few months a go and I knocked up a proof of concept using Google maps. There are some of the Castles and some of the Manors on it. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6314425,-4.1568603,8z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1s1GVqS2vhWOplykTvm3-aYVBJGzWDrAyc?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDExMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D Its easy enough to do technically where the places are already on Google Maps, but not all of them are. The castles weren't too bad, but some of the manors don't seem to be there any more, at least by name. It would probably be a bit of a struggle to find some of the Manors, Halls and Courts and things. As I recall some of the Manor names weren't unique, which complicates the matter even more! I couldn't raise the enthusiasm to spend hours actually researching and filling them in.

One might note though, especially earlier in the war when the Soviet Union was still at peace with Germany, that a body of thought in some unions regarded the prosecution of what they considered a capitalist war to be of no concern, and in no way to restrict their efforts to obtain better pay and conditions for their members. Rather the opposite. It's easy to forget just how naive and blinkered doctrinaire communists could be, either at Cambridge or in industry.

I'm fairly sure I've read in a book of reminiscences of a GW fireman rostered with a USATC driver on an S100 in a large temporary yard, maybe a racecourse. That was, I'm confident, an army site, not a railway one. Where S160s were loaned to GWR they seem to have had exclusively GWR crews. I concur with the opinion that S100s would have been hauled dead on the mainline, not run under their own steam. So I think the manning of your S100 would have depended on whether it was operating on railway territory or army, but that an army site would probably have to be large enough to be self contained if it had army crews.

Quite possible of course. Don't suppose we'll ever know.

AIUI as far as is known there were no successful *German* agents in the UK, but there must surely have been Nazi supporters, even though many were rounded up and interned.

I agree that the foreground and background are painted. However when I superimposed the two images the locomotive and carriages seemed to line up exactly, so surely at the very least the artist traced a print and I strongly suspect painted over one. But I suppose the line between painted copy and colourisation is rather a fuzzy one. 2009 edition, pp 52 and 60.

I'm confident the photo is a colourisation of photo J35 in RCTS. As you can see the colorisation artist has painted on a whole new background. I think the BW image makes it clear that the cylinders are conventional, and its an artists's misinterpretation that makes them look like the cylinders on No 100. RCTS captions the photograph "2221 Class 4-4-2T No. 2225 as running 1911/13 with short-cone boiler". Great Western Way is of the opinion that 2225 was probably painted crimson lake above and black below the footplate at this date.

Whatever the issues of superheating and slide valves, they clearly didn't bother the GWR too much since some hundreds of 4-4-0s, 2-6-0s and 0-6-0s with slide valves were fitted with superheat.

The GWR locomotive committee minute of 20th May 1909 reads: "The Locomotive Superintendent reported that, for some time past, the question of superheating of steam in locomotive boilers had received careful consideration and that as extended experiments have conclusively proved that by the use of superheat a considerable saving in the consumption of coal and water is effected he recommended an expenditure of £9,000 in equipping 100 locomotive boilers with superheaters. The Committee agreed to recommend the expenditure to the board." So on the GWR at least economy, not performance seems to have been the key driver.

In 1909 the GWR twice budgeted £9,000 to fit superheating to 100 locomotives. Probably a mix of new boilers and upgraded older ones. I've heard it said that they calculated the savings in coal and water were such that the upgrades would pay for themselves within a year.

I'm looking at the introduction of superheating on the GWR, and I thought it would be useful to compare their policy with that of other lines. Between August 1909 and the end of 1913 the GWR had upgraded about 650 locomotives with superheaters, and built about 110 new with them. A huge majority of these had Churchward taper boilers, so were either quite new or recently upgraded. I have the impression that the other lines didn't pursue such an aggressive policy, but I really don't know. Please will folk comment on other lines' policy?

I've sketched up the 0-4-2ST, and added it to the base page, also changed the title to suit.

Coming back to these two little oddities, the NRM has supplied me with a frame plan of them as 0-4-2ST. A 19thC frame plan had more than you might think on it, including an outline of tanks, cab etc, but not a lot of detail. There's a Le Fleming drawing in RCTS, so I reckon I've enough to work up something credible, but it would be good to see a photograph should any such exist.

I wondered about calling it a coach acquired by the GW at the grouping, but again the 4 wheelers look to have been pretty much all gone by the early 30s if my Rhymney and Cambrian books are a good guide. As said above departmental service does seem most likely for an active 4 wheel at your date. I don't know if any absorbed coaches were taken into departmental use. One might imagine workers accommodation on a farm move, but then the rest of the train would need to be SR stock.