JimC

What you need I think is an archive of contemporary magazines and look for advertisments. I did have a quick hunt but the only thing I had to hand was an Australian newspaoer, and I only found a couple I wasn't confident were comparable, but one was about £3, the other about £6, but gold.

GWR Locomotive committee minutes show cash gratuities, but I've never seen a presentation item like a watch. As you can see the minute doesn't give any detail. 2 guineas is unusual, it was usually one or half.

You could see if the minutes of board or committee minutes are held at the National Archives, but if GWR minutes are any guide they won't say any more than is on the inscription. If you can find a 'Guard Book' to match the minutes that might hold a copy of a letter to the board about the incident, but if GWR is any guide not many of those survive.

Might it simply be a case of more empties than they had loads for. I understand traffic could be very asymmetric to some destinations. I wonder too that whilst other lines were keen to use GWR wagons whilst they were in good order, esp sheet supporters, there might have been a tendency to send them home when they started getting close to needing repairs.

The TE is well within the range of the pre group Welsh 0-6-2Ts, and it would be yellow, possibly even uncoloured RA, so potentially available almost anywhere. So it would definitely provide something unique. Whether theres a niche there is another matter. Ive not seen photos of double headed 1600s or 2021s.

Purpose? You want a reason? Actually my hope it would make a yellow route restriction. Given 4200 style flex at the rear end it should be able to handle reasonably tight curves - the 17ft wheelbase is 3ft shorter than a 42. So the USP would be heavier loads on lightly specified lines. Given a 200psi boiler TE would be 23,800, so a lot more muscle than a small prairie. But of course nothing like that was built, so presumably there was no need:-)

Back to fictional steam, I think a few pages back someone suggested a 2-8-0 derivative of the GWR small prairies. Here's a shot at one. The boiler is a standard 3 - that's a shorter version of the standard 2 used on the large prairies. Its got a bigger firebox than the Std 10 used on larger 0-6-0s.

I think that's perhaps overstating the case a little. A good number of the older 4'7 classes going out of service about this time were quite a bit lighter than 57s. Wolverhampton 645s and 655s were yellow route with just over 15 tons on the leading and driving wheels, as were the double frame types. It was only the 1854s and 2721s that were classified as blue. The 74s also had more even weight distribution and were over a ton and a half lighter than 57 leading and driving wheels. I believe its also true that there was more to what locomotive was allowed where than just the colour on the cabside.

It could be argued it makes some sense if you consider them as primarily traffic locomotives intended to do similar turns to withdrawn absorbed 0-6-2Ts, a good number of which had been superheated when reboilered. If I read RCTS correctly all standard 10s fitted to absorbed locomotives were superheated, and the saturated one was only introduced in 1949 with 15s and outsourced 94s. Presumably a superheated boiler would have been undesirable with the 15s anyway.

I should clarify that the drawing in question is a standard one with bearing dimensions and rod centres for every standard class. There's nothing 7400 specific about it. The 4800 class is noted as having a smaller big end (6.5") than its 54/64 cousins. The 2251 and 5700s have all dimensions the same (8in big end) , and the 56s 8.5in big ends. The only larger ones are the Stars and Castles (8.75" inside big ends) and Kings (9").

Eh? A 4 stroke engine will have a camshaft that rotates at half the speed of the crankshaft, unlike a steam engine where the eccentrics rotate at the same speed as the crank, being on the same shaft. I'm not sure rotational throw has much to do with a conventional camshaft.

The 74xx had a larger big end bearing than the 64s (8" against 7" - source GW drawing 118891, 1942), so it seems quite likely that was for the increased power and no 64s ran with the increased boiler pressure. That is surmise though, but your source is the only one I've seen to suggest 180psi for the 64s. RCTS lists no less than 6 sub classes for the Std 21 boiler, but surprisingly gives no clues as to what the differences might have been. The 74xx drawing I have shows slide valves, and I believe all were the same. Curiously all the modern pannier tank classes retained valve gear with end suspension for the link, unlike the 56s, whose valve gear was designed with centre suspension like the outside cylinder classes. None of the Collett pannier than classes, with the exception of the 10 GWR built 94s were superheated. The GWR had an extensive program of superheating the later pre group pannier tank classes, mainly in the earlier 1920s, but from 1930 the superheating started to be removed again, so presumably the disadvantages were held to outweigh the advantages. I assume NS in your link means not superheated. Best book is a good question, mine is a general survey of design and doesn't pretend to go into that level of detail. I haven't read any of the "Pannier Papers" series yet, but its had good reviews. RCTS part 5, six coupled tank engines is of course a key source, and I doubt you'd regret getting hold of a copy, but has its limitations.

The number of 94s ordered almost exactly matches the number of pre group absorbed tanks due to be scrapped over the time period they were ordered for. In that sense the reason is obvious: they were a cheaper alternative to more 56s. As far as work, the GWR had few dedicated shunting engines, almost everything took a turn at traffic work which diesel shunters couldn't hack. But you can certainly argue that the GWR should have foreseen that DMUs would take over short haul passenger traffic. Anything beyond is speculation of course. I've seen people speculate that it was to keep the loco builders busy after the war was over, you could speculate that the GWR wanted to spend their reserves in the Western region rather than have it diverted to other regions where they had less money, there are endless possibilities. Its hard to imagine BR couldn't have cancelled the order if they'd been prepared to pay a penalty, but I wonder if it was only when policy changed and BR decided to rush the changeover to diesel that they started to look surplus to needs.

These are just worked up from weight diags with a bit of input from other sources. I wouldn't want to guarantee every detail. There are even such things as weight diags showing configs that have never been spotted in the wild! Especially the 655 needs to be given a bit of caution because I didn't have a drawing for a late 655 handy and I worked that up yesterday. Really, just like models, one ought to work up from individual photos. Interesting comment on the rods, the amount of belly in the rods is one of the things I find most difficult to judge.

I'm fairly sure the practice varied between different branches of the organisation as well as at different dates. Weights diagrams and works drawings in general are the most obvious manifestation. Few of those on line. I suppose one example would be https://www.4709.org.uk/attach/47XX_Frame_Plan-1.pdf where there is no mention of a class name, just the lot number. I find it a pain when I'm looking at older diagrams, because they have lot numbers and diagram letters, but not the class, so I have to cross reference to see what class I'm looking at. I suppose its logical that engineering diagrams would be based on lots since so often there were variations between successive lots of the same nominal class, and a drawing of one part might change between the 1st and 2nd lots of a class, and another part stay the same until the 3rd. The traffic department, on the other hand, would be unlikely to care!

Some of the confusion was down to the GWR. The GWR tended to refer to classes by lot number in roughly pre grouping days. Talking about classes by number was certainly 20thC, quite possibly post WW1. 655 class may well be an enthusiasts label. The only GWR reference I've seen is to 1741 and 2701 classes, although that drawing may date to after 655 and 767 had been withdrawn. 655 and 767 were numbers reused from 645s after those 645s had been sold in the 1870s, which must have been confusing, although in the end 645 and 1741 classes more or less merged. I don't know if he's on here, but David Burton has done some good research on these Wolverhampton classes which I've benefited from.

By the end of their lives the two classes were superficially very similar, don't think we can blame too much... Plus there was a lot of variation in both, chimneys, cabs, bunkers etc...

I was reading loco committee minutes the other day and I'm sure the 30s weren't on the to be condemned list. I'm pretty confident that the 38s were listed as Aberdare replacements.

It wouldn't be surprising. RCTS tells us there was a tendency for 1854s to be allocated to the southern division and 645s/655s the Northern division.

A topic after my heart! And (shameless plug) both the various GWR numbering schemes (for there were at least three) and the pannier tank classes are covered in my book (see sig). The classes are nicely covered above, but I spent a lot of time thinking about numbering. The conclusions I came too were:- Originally the GWR numbered standard gauge locomotives sequentially. This ran up to about 1875, with various complications as it got increasingly difficult to manage. Very roughly speaking this was locomotives built up to that sort of date with numbers under about 1300. New locomotives - and the definition of new is a subject in itself - might either be allocated numbers to replace withdrawn ones, or else be allocated in the next available free space. The next scheme, from about 1875, was that blocks were allocated for different wheel arrangements. 1501 to 2000 (these blocks always started at 1) were allocated to 0-6-0 tanks. There wasn't any attempt to separate classes, instead, as a batch of engines (lot in GWR terminology) was ordered, it was given the next available block. So, 1501-1560 were Wolverhampton 645/1501 class, 1561-1660 Swindon 1076 class, 1661-1700 Swindon 1661 class, 1701-1740 Swindon 1854 class, 1741-1750 Wolverhampton 655 class, 1751-1770 Swindon 1854 class, 1771-1790 Wolverhampton 655 class, 1791-1800 Swindon 1854 class 1801-1812 Wolverhampton 645 Class (very odd in the sequence - built in 1881 before 1661s, 1701s, 1741 etc.) 1813-1853 (except 1833) Swindon 1813 class, 1854-1900 Swindon 1854 class (built before 1701-1720!) 1901-2020 Wolverhampton 850 class (I may have missed some) As can be seen from the 850s running up to 2020 this also ran into trouble and there were various shuffling of blocks - 2701 - 2800 being taken from 0-6-0 goods to 0-6-0T for instance. This scheme basically ran up to 4000 and around 1912, when there was a significant numbering and the better known second digit scheme came into use with classes kept together. Thinking about the odd 1801 series, I now, after looking at various building dates in the last hour, wonder if 1701-1800 wasn't allocated to 0-6-0Ts until after the 1801 series was in use. It looks as if there was also an attempt to separate the small wheeled 850/1901s from the larger wheel types. I think I need to write an extra paragraph for the 2nd edition that will probably never appear but exists on my PC!

May 2019 Backtrack mag had a feature on Cafeteria cars.

Nice job on Churchward. Photos of Dean seem a bit few and far between on line. Did you get the forked beard?

Seems like a perfect match on this 1936 map. https://maps.nls.uk/view/105996487 Its to the East of Chyandour.

We're getting more to 'house style' than variations on the same design now though don't you think? One would expect that Beyer Peacock's design team would tend to variations on a known good theme rather than a clean sheet of paper every time.

RCTS GWR part Ten states the Cambrian payed £500 for theirs and calls it a bargain price. I haven't got any other contemporary prices handy. Anyone?