111 The Great Bear

Moving on to George Jackson Churchward CME GWR 1902-1922


George Jackson Churchward locos of the GWR : 111 The Great Bear


The Great Bear, number 111, was a locomotive of the Great Western Railway. It was the first 4-6-2 (Pacific) locomotive used on a railway in Great Britain, and the only one of that type ever built by the GWR There are differing views as to why Churchward and the GWR should have built a pacific locomotive in 1908 when current and future locomotive practice for the railway was centred on the 4-6-0 wheel arrangement. One suggestion is that The Great Bear was built in 1908 to satisfy demands from the directors for the largest locomotive in Britain, and much was made of the locomotive by the GWR's publicity department. However, O. S. Nock was adamant that the design "was entirely due to Churchward, and not to outside influences that pressed the project upon him". Nock regarded the locomotive as "primarily an exercise in boiler design", with Churchward looking forward to a time when his Star Class locomotives could no longer cope with increasing loads.
Rebuilding the loco as a 4-6-0

"The front portion of the original frames and the number plates were used again but probably little else".[8] No. 111 emerged as a 4-6-0 in the Castle Class, and given the name Viscount Churchill. Thereafter the GWR did not use the Pacific wheel arrangement. No. 111 was withdrawn in July 1953.



https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/GWRSteam-1/Churchward-Locomotives/Churchward-Tender-Locomotives/Churchward-Star-Class/Churchward-4-6-2-Pacific-111/i-mQbNPmp


Churchward 4-6-2 Pacific 111 The Great Bear - Railway-Photography
railway-photography.smugmug.com



https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/GWRSteam-1/Churchward-Locomotives/Churchward-Tender-Locomotives/Churchward-Star-Class/Churchward-4-6-2-Pacific-111/i-n4hVqCF

111 The Great Bear Paddington 21st August 1910 6.30pm Paddington-Bristol dining car express
railway-photography.smugmug.com
111 The Great Bear Paddington 21st August 1910 6.30pm Paddington-Bristol dining car express


Neil

 

Is it me or is taking 100+ year old photographs to which you patently do not own the copyright (and which are probably out of copyright anyway) and claiming copyright a little odd?

 

Could be worse - at least it's not an appeal to join a new-build project!

 

Its probably not just you, but nevertheless he does has *some* copyright. If I scan a print of a photograph my scan of the photograph has a copyright on it. Its much more limited than the original photographer's rights, and doesn't override them, but it does exist. It doesn't, for example, preclude someone else scanning a print of the same photograph, and they too will have a copyright on their scan.
This leads to the amusing situation that if I scan Bill's photograph, then I need Bill's permission to reproduce the photograph on my website. But if Bill wants to take a copy of my scan of his photograph and use it on his website he has to ask my permission! if Fred wants to copy my scan he has to ask both of us.

 

Still looking for the UK view, but this would deny copyright in the US:

briefer answer, U S. Perspective:

"Using a scanner is considered mechanical reproduction. It isn't substantially different than photocopying , which I'm sure you recognize as infringement.

When a device strips artistic choice from the operator, it's just copying. Scanning is not like photography, where composition, aperture or other exposure choices, really anything except for subject. Which any copier has to select anyway.

Thus you can't legally claim copyright because you did not create a new work."

It would seem perverse to state that the original image/negative is in thee public domain but any copy made in the last 70 years is not.

 

I am minded to think the front end of this was where the Castle's was borne but am not an expert. If so it deserves a bit of credit.

 

All the designs are inter-related.
The Bear's cylinders and motion were almost pure Star, but the boiler was new and much larger diameter.
The Castle had almost the same cylinders and motion as the Stars, but greater cylinder diameter.
The 4700 had a boiler with the same diameters as the Bear's but much shorter in the barrel and with a new narrow firebox
The Castle boiler was based on the 4700 boiler with a very similar firebox, but a slightly smaller barrel to get the weight down to the limit.

 

MAGNIFICENT, BUT ILL STARRED. Wish he'd sold it to the Great Northern

 

Classic, sleek lines but does need a bit more cab. Those engine crews back then must have been tough cookies. The Canadians more or less invented the "all weather cab". #111 had a reverse all weather cab.
That aside was it's performance similar to a Castle?

 

I have read that, apart from the theoretical inefficiency of such long tubes, the firemen had trouble avoiding the exhaust pulling holes in the back corners of the fire which they couldn't see. It may be that they were keeping a much thinner fire than in contemporary standard boiler grates to avoid making too much steam; it wasn't the first wide firebox on the GWR, there had been the Krugers and of course the broad gauge 4-2-2s. It didn't even have a reputation for being sure footed despite the additional adhesive weight.

I think the opinion of some crews was that it was inferior to a Star. Holcroft (who worked on the design of its cylinders) suggested that perhaps the reserve of power of the big boiler was intended to allow faster running on the gradients, but in the event it was banned from the Westbury route and west of Bristol, being restricted to 'Brunel's billiard table' between Paddington and Bristol.

 

Dean was positively opposed to having any sort of cab so I guess, in it's day, 111s cab was seen as luxury

 

As a GWR enthusiast, I find writing this post rather disconcerting but, aesthetically at least, this loco looks very much "experimental" and its cab and tender (despite the latter being 8 wheeled- unusually for GWR tenders) seem totally lost! Not an overall elegant loco at all in my view. I understand that, in later years, No111 found a task which seemed to suit it well and it was used frequently on the Bristol-London "Cocoa" fast goods trains and, in turn, this influenced Churchward to design a 2-8-0 which could handle such trains in a similar way; the 4700 class. Happy to be enlightened further on this of course!

 

According to Holcroft the rear of the Bear was coming out too heavy, which probably explains the minimal cab.

There's a (second hand) story in Tuplin (Great Western Power) about a fireman *filling* the Bear's firebox with coal before they got as far as Reading, and then cleaning up and putting no more coal on, having enough of a fire to get to Bristol. There's always a suspicion that some of Tuplin's stories have grown in the telling though, and this one was secondhand too.

 

I can't find the reference now, but I believe the tender on "the Great Bear" was more or less directly influenced by the Drummond double-bogie ("water cart") tenders of the LSWR. If so, not the soundest bit of industrial espionage, as those tenders were far from the strongest point on Drummond's locos, either æsthetically or practically.

Tom

 

Isn't the story that, upon learning of Gresley's plan to build a Pacific, Churchward said "What does that young man want to build one of those for? He could have had ours."

 

Bit far fetched I think. The story I heard is that Churchward thought the standard tender looked too small behind the big loco and wanted a longer one. What the tender is actually running on is two shortened locomotive bogies, which would certainly have been the quickest design involving the fewest new parts.

Here's a sketch of the Bear with a standard tender. The custom tender had the same water and coal capacity as a standard one: it really does seem as if it was only constructed to look good!

 

Did she have issues with overheating trailing truck bearings, being inside, and in close proximity to the firebox? Raven's Pacifics certainly did, and had to be modified.

 

Out of interest, how long was The Great Bear with water cart tender, relative to the then-available turntables?

Tom