JimC

Fair comment, and the structure on the County proposal is indeed drawn like that. I've amended the sketch. From everything I've come across I don't think the drawing offices of any of the other three lines would have considered they had much to learn from LMS design. OTOH tooling subsidised by the government was surely most welcome.

Well, basically because I was taking Collett and Stanier's proposal as my source. It's interesting how much Stanier and Hawksworth had departed from the de Glehn layout in their proposal. Shame one can never know what their thinking was. I'm not sure I know enough about design to go too blue sky. although I did surprise myself yesterday by realising I understand a little bit more about laying out Walschaerts gear than I thought I did. Not enough to actually design anything, but enough to spot a couple of flaws in the way I had attempted a transfer of the components from inside to outside. And saying that got me thinking I should take a look at the way the Walschaerts gear is implemented on the 15xx and on the outside valve gear County proposal there's a weight diagram of in RCTS, and that's led me to rethink things slightly. As well as different support for the link etc the proto-county study shows a higher footplate all the way along. So in this sketch I'm imagining Hawksworth dug out his old sketches when he was CME and decided to build the 1946 on Castles as compounds. Also that Sam Ell started his work on draughting a few years earlier, hence the double chimney.

Presumably yes. My thinking was a sort of extension of the raised section over the cylinders on Manors and Granges, but always other ways to skin the cat. My thinking, such as it was, is that the end of the valve rod is connected to the rocker, which would give the valve rod a degree of support. However there's an intermediate link between the rocker and its bearing and the end of the valve rod, so you very may well be correct and that wouldn't provide adequate support and some sort of bearing at the end of the valve rod would be necessary. I leave that sort of thing to real engineers, in whose company I sadly don't belong! Now I look again I note that the expansion link is floating in mid air with no visible means of support!

Well, I hope I'm wrong, and I hope there are no problems. And if the land owners are sensible, agree terms and co-operate there won't be, and we can all hope that's how it works out.

This one is less speculative than some... Apparently in 1926 Hawksworth and Stanier worked up a proposal for a 4 cylinder compound based on the Castle, and took it to Collett, who spent about 5 minutes on it before chucking it out! What exists is a basic weights diagram which has been reproduced in RCTS and elsewhere and which gives cylinder positions. So I've worked this up from the weight diagram. Some points to note: It has a plate framed bogie, something Hawksworth was to bring into existence with the modified hall some 15 years later. The outside cylinders are inclined slightly, but the valve rods aren't. Reminiscent of how Holcroft suggested to Gresley he do the same thing with his conjugated gear. This makes me think they were planning to use straight rockers for the valve gear, although RCTS thinks not. The cylinder position means there's room for rockers behind the cylinders, which is as well because there isn't room on the inside in front of them. The outside connecting rods appear to be standard 8'10.5 as on Saints and Granges. And the rocker position got me thinking... To my knowledge no-one definitively knows why the Stars and successors have inside Walschaerts valve gear, although there are plenty of theories. One factor, however may be that I don't think there's any room for rockers behind the Star cylinders, in which case the choices for outside valve gear would be either to accept valve timing issues caused by valve rod expansion, or else have 4 sets of gear, and if you're going to have 4 sets of gear you may as well just have two sets inside and rockers. So I suspect that after the scissors gear was abandoned outside walschaerts was impossible without a complete redesign. However... On the Stanier/Hawksworth compound there is room for rockers behind the cylinders, so its something they could have considered. The running plate on the weight diagram clearly doesn't give enough room for outside valve gear, so that wasn't in the proposal, but just supposing... The GWR wasn't utterly opposed to outside Walschaerts if they had to: its featured on both the Steam railcars and the VOR 2-6-2Ts, even though there would have been ample room for outside Stephensons on the VO locomotives. It was also featured on some of the sketches for what became the 4-6-0 Counties and of course the 15xx 24 hour shunters, so I though why not try it. What I get is something like this. NOt I submit, an aesthetic delight!

This one is really much too conjectural... The Pembroke and Tenby Railway was taken over by the GWR on 1st July 1896, and this Shrp Stewart 2-2-2T, one of two biuilt in 1863, was taken out of service in July 1897, so there must be some considerable doubt as to whether it ever carried its allocated GWR number or was painted in GWR livery. Apparently it hung around until 1908 before finally being scrapped, so photographs might exist. My drawing is worked up from a handful of dimensions in RCTS and a couple of photos, one in RCTS and the other here. Neither are exactly up to the standards of Swindon works photos, and curiously both must have been taken within seconds of each other from the same camera position , since all the same figures appear, but some are in different positions. It seems one drawing has survived with the GWS, but its catalogued as being just the wheels, so I didn't think it would be very helpful. Beyond that I've made all sorts of guesses about what the photos actually show, and you're all very welcome to disagree with me. There are quite a few things I am not at all confident about. Did the safety valve cover really overhang the structure its sitting on, for instance? Cute as it undoubtedly is, I'm not quite sure why I picked it to draw, other than I am in the middle of writing a lot of text, and fancied a change. Rather than consider a second edition of the book, I'm looking at an alternate way to use the drawings, and am drafting out a very chronological format which is currently in the 19thC. The format ought to be good for tracing design concepts, and I've picked up a few things myself, but the big drawback is that, for instance, some classes have to feature in two or three different places to reflect rebuilds that brought them up to the latest state of the art. One thing I've already spotted, incidentally, was that the Armstrongs seem to have initiated few or no classes with sandwich frames, but were quite happy to retain them on rebuilds of existing designs, even when the rebuild involved such major changes to the chassis - different wheelbase and so on - that you'd think reusing components was hardly worth the bother.

Isn't that going to depend on the attitude of the landowners, whether they bow to the inevitable or fight every last inch? Or am I wrong in thinking that although this decision gives the railway the right to obtain a compulsory purchase order if necessary, actually doing so is another level of legal pain? Let alone if the land in question were to attract the attention of a bunch of eco warriors...

Yes, I've found a photo of a GCR gauge that was adjustable for various heights. All the others I've found, though, have the height fixed. One imagines that an adjustable gauge might have issues with railwaymen picking the wrong setting! Does anyone know if there were loading gauges at major interchange points? It would make sense for there to be. On the subject of loading gauges, I have made a bit of a study of them as per link in signature, but I haven't succeeded in finding details for the LNER - who definitely had a composite loading gauge - and the LMS. If anyone has access to drawings for either of those I would be glad to see them. Or any others that aren't in my list of course. [Later] I've just drawn up the loading gauge against my gauge drawings. I can confirm that with the ears up a conforming load would be entirely within the LNWR loading gauge, which was marginally taller than the GWR gauge, but only nine feet zero wide. With the ears down it gives the extra width of the standard GWR gauge. But also worth noting that there were a considerable number of GWR routes that also had a nine foot zero restriction. The midland gauge, on the other hand, even though its taller than the GWR gauge in the middle, is slightly smaller from about three from the middle and further out. So I conclude that gauge must have been for ex LNWR/GWR joint lines. Jim C

I was just looking at that, loading gauges being something of an interest of mine. I was looking at a drawing of a Loading Gauge in Adrian Vaughan's 'Pictorial Record of GWR Architecture'. Its labelled GWR and LM&SR (Division A) Joint lines new standard loading gauge, May 1925. Firstly do any of you know what LMS Division A would be? The dimensions - notably height in centre at 13'6 - seem to be GWR. Although 13'6 would also fit LNWR (except northern) and Midland (13'9) lines according to gauges I've found. The drop down ears, BTW, seem to be the reverse of what you'd expect. When the ears are up the width is 9ft, which would be good for LNWR and Midland Lines (and also some GWR lines that were never broad gauge) whilst the ears down is the post 1908 GWR width of 9'8. So presumably staff were expected to align load width with the gauge rather than expect contact. The main part of the gauge seems to be on chains and not adjustable for height, so presumably loads destined for other areas needed to be specially checked.

Does the variation in the horizontal hand rail position give any clues? I suppose, though, it's the sort of thing that might have varied anyway.

I think it varied enormously. Some proposals - the 4-6-0 County and the 15xx for instance judging by drawings listed at NRM - might take a few years to work up, others would be quick - the King is supposed to have taken about a year, although I do wonder if Collett had already made some studies when the board gave him a deadline. Its fairly clear that the drawing office had quite a lot of freedom to do a fair bit of work on ideas before taking them to the CME: one thinks of the Hawksworth/Stanier compound Castle that Collett barely considered, and the ideas for a pacific worked up by chief draughtsman Mattingley that Hawksworth stamped on equally firmly. In the case of the Std7 Star/Saint/28xx it's a reasonable guess these were blocked out when the 47xx boiler was being designed because the boiler shown isn't quite a tracing of an eventual Std 7. With a new standard boiler being proposed it would be rather surprising if there had not been studies of how it might fit on the other large classes. So we needn't believe that it was any more than a what if. It is mildly surprising that Churchward didn't go for a slightly smaller boiler that could be fitted to a 4-6-0, but maybe he thought that by the time it was needed there would be sufficient bridges upgraded that a heavier 4-6-0 would be practical (I am convinced Churchward must have known about the 22 ton bridges, even if Collett didn't).

One thing I didn't think though... "What name?" I thought. "I know, bigger than a Star, what about Galaxies", so I put Andromeda on the nameplate. It wasn't until just now it occurred to me that there are precious few galaxies anyone has heard of, and while one might get away with "Milky Way", at least in 1920, I doubt "Large Magellanic Cloud" would look well on a splasher, whilst M33 lacks a certain ring and after that it gets worse...

A less fictional imaginary than some, this is my interpretation of the extant 1920 weight diagram showing a Star with a Std 7 boiler. As far as I can tell it could be a straight tracing of a Star chassis and cab with the larger boiler (which is slightly different to a Std 7 as built a year later) drawn in with the front tube plate in the same place as the standard one. There's no change to the cab at all, so the enginemen have a foot less footroom (but at least a bit more than the Bear).

Wasn't there a patent fee to pay on the Morton clutch? I had a vague memory that was why the GWR built wagons with a slotted link clutch instead. Also there were all the wagons built with single side brakes and then a second set added. But I share the general opinion that cross shafts and bottom doors wouldn't mix. Not just the shaft itself but also the general deterioration of the rest of the mechanism and fastenings from having all the tons of mineral hammering on the shaft. And wouldn't there be a possibility of large lumps of coal snagging on the shaft? An inconvenient and even dangerous task to clear that.

Here's a reconstruction of how I hope No 96 might have looked when still in Sharp Stewart form, but after coming into GWR ownership. Apparently she and her sister were named Grasshopper and Cricket when in service with the Birkenhead Railway, and the brackets on the tank are presumably from where the name was removed. There is, apparently, some doubt as to which was Grasshopper and which Cricket. The sketch is worked up from a rather muddy photo of the opposite side of the locomotive, so a good deal is conjectural. Hopefully it gives a reasonable impression of the original. The photograph is presumably post 1876, which is when Great Western Way says the cabside plates replaced painted numbers.

This design was specified by the Locomotive Superintendent of the Shrewsbury & Chester, Edward Jeffreys, and built by the Vulcan Foundry. Four were ordered in 1852, and delivered in 1853. They were double framed, and quite powerful locomotives for the time. In the meantime Jeffreys had left the Shrewsbury & Chester and was now Locomotive Superintendant of the Shrewsbury and Hereford. Four more of the design were built for the S&H in 1853/4. The S&C locomotives came to the GWR in 1854. The S&H locomotives had a more complex ownership (pay attention, this is like the three card trick), In 1862 the GWR (1/4 share), the LNWR (1/2 share) and the West Midland Railway (1/4 share) jointly leased the S&H. The locomotives went half to the LNWR and half jointly between the GWR and WMR, and these 0-4-2s went to the GWR/WMR. Then in 1863 the GWR took over (formally amalgamated with) the West Midland, and so all eight were now GWR locomotives. No 30 was destroyed in a boiler explosion in 1859 and a new No 30, most likely incorporating usable parts from the old, was built the next year. They were never renewed or received major rebuilds and scrapped from 1870-5. There's a sort of grim fascination about the enormous variety of these very early locomotives and their changes and rebuilds. I can imagine a keen scratchbuilder getting quite excited about all the possibilities. One would certainly never run out of subjects. From my point of view there's a large number of drawings required to do reasonable justice to the 19thC GWR scene. At a guess it's going to be well into three figures, and some will be very tricky to manage because of limited data, especially the Wolverhampton rebuilds, for which there are some photographs but few drawings. One can only admire the dedication of Ahrons, who drew so many of the early engines by hand for an article in 'The Locomotive'. I can only hope they paid better than modern book publishers!

I haven't looked into wagons, but for renewals of locomotives on the GWR post grouping a nominal value was placed based on locomotive weight, so n 0-6-0s would be renewed as n-1 4-6-0s. If a similar policy existed for wagons one would indeed expect 2 x 10T brake vans to be renewed as 1x 20T. [Next Day] I had a quick look at a few years of GWR minutes, but in the ones I looked at I didn't see brake vans listed separately.

Are you aware aware there are short cone and long cone taper boilers? That looks to be long cone I think (D3 in RCTS parlance) . There are also variations in smokebox length to consider - if I read photos right that's a longer one. According to RCTS few received top feed *before superheaters* and the first with top feed was March 1911. I fear it's going to be tricky to pin down that exact config without finding a photograph. TBH you could consider leaving be until/unless evidence turns up that it's not right as 3345/Smeaton.

No thoughts on those wheels anyone?

More very early locomotives. These ones were designed and built by Robert Stephenson's. Like No 25 et al these were built for the Shrewsbury and Birmingham, and the one with an out of sequence number had been sold to the Shrewsbury and Chester. A raised firebox and a dome rather than the gothic firebox of the Longridge engines, but similarities seemed very marked as I came to draw them. The very early days of steam traction seems to have been a very small world based round Northumbria. I was struck by how very like the Longridge and Stephenson's 0-6-0s were, and doing a little research found that Longridge's son did an apprenticeship with Stephensons, so there would seem to have been friendly relations. Armstrong and Gooch were both Northumbrians very closely associated with these people and others like Timothy Hackworth. Apparently a conversion to saddle tanks was considered but never implemented. They too were withdrawn about the same sort of time, 1869-1877. Livery on these early locomotives is very much a matter of guesswork, so don't place any reliance whatsoever of the difference in livery between the two sketches, which is simply down to whimsy!

Presumably Wheatsheaf was a precursor to Croes Newdd Shed? There's nothing about it in my Lyons books on a quick glance, but I see mention of Wheatsheaf junction on line which was very close to Croes Newdd.

Agreed. There are also signs of a major changing of priorities at Didcot in recent years. The line of tatty wagons outside the locomotive shed has had considerable cosmetic and maintenance attention and looks far better than it did. The buildings, infrastructure and visitor facilities have been bumped up in priority. The 47xx has always been somewhat at arms length, which may have been part of the problem, and doesn't take up any Didcot volunteer resources, while the 4-4-0 County has been pushed out from under the Didcot umbrella completely. The long term desire for a Dean Single build appears to have been firmly shoved to the back of the cupboard. Most the emphasis on the GWS website is on overhauling small engines and buildings and infrastructure, although one shouldn't forget excellent work being done in the carriage department.

In the case of the GWS projects by and large it couldn't, because there are separate appeals for different projects and the money is ring fenced. No doubt there would be arguments that the money would be donated anyway, but I suggest at best that's no more than partly true.

These were built in 1847 by Sharp Stewart for the Shrewsbury & Chester, and came to the GWR in 1854 as part of the merger that formed the Northern Division and brought narrow gauge to the GWR. They were of a type known as Sharp singles that were delivered to a number of lines. One was converted to a tank engine, and a couple more had replacement cylinders but otherwise they were not greatly altered. They were in service until the 1870s (1885 for the tank engine conversion). It's disappointing to note that no 14 was preserved at Wolverhampton until 1920 when it was finally broken up. A shame it didn't make it to 1928 and the York museum. One web page states that the GWR Directors didn't know it had been cut up and asked for it to be prepared for the 1925 Railway centenary at Darlington, but that might be just another rumour like the ones surrounding the loss of the Broad gauge locomotives some years earlier. This sketch is more conjectural than I'm really comfortable with. I didn't find a drawing of one in as built condition, so I extrapolated from a drawing of the tank engine conversion and photographs of No 14 as preserved and significantly altered. I've found a suggestion that E L Ahrons had to do a fair amount of guess work in some of his series of drawings of early GWR engines in "The Locomotive" that are more familiar from the RCTS series (and which I am largely relying on for these very early types) so perhaps I am in good company.

I think if you give a talented design team a set of drawings to use as inspiration/guide they use the information as inspiration and influence without actually tracing individual parts. It doesn't bear thinking what the morale situation must have been in the LMS design office when the senior management delivered such a massive vote of no confidence in their own people as they did when rejecting an in progress in house design in favour of external contractors. It's little wonder everyone has their own spin on it. It seems to me that another way of interpreting the Jubilee/high superheat thing is to note that Churchward's boilers with moderate superheat worked just fine, even on exchanges with LMS and LNER using local coal. If the jubilee boiler couldn't steam with moderate superheat but the Castle boiler could, does that indicate that there was something not quite right about the Jubilee boiler and/or draughting?