Current and Proposed New-Builds

You can't have the top one. It's not like any other GW loco.

 

You make my point for me

Tom

 

...and then there's the version with a high elliptical roof Churchward cab, one of which had an extra axle beneath the bunker (2-4-2T).

 

Talking of 2-4-2T locos, this is my suggestion for a new build for the post COVID-19 world - social isolation of passengers ensured by each train transporting precisely one passenger at a time. (Driver and fireman must be close family members but on the Bluebell we have multiple opportunities for that).



Tom

 

All look the same to me, so must be GWR

 

I don't think you could lean very hard on those buffers!

 

I think this is better. The ultimate driver experience loco.

 

That was my immediate first thought. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have been blessed with a drawhook at this end.

 

I think there probably was a draw hook, but it was under the coal bunker and the problem with coupling to another vehicle was finding a long enough rubber band ...

(for more on the loco, see here: http://haylingbillyheritage.org/category/engines/sharp-stewart/)

Tom

 

Wrong thread - this is the new build thread. You can call that one a restoration ...

Tom

 

Probably one of the most bizarre British locos I've seen, apart from the VERY early machinery and later well-known experiments... But what a lovely machine it is!
Thank You for sharing Tom!

Richard.

 

Conventional wisdom has it that there had been a "breakdown in communication" between the loco drawing office and the civils such that the loco dept was unaware that the process of working to a 22ton limit on the GW main lines had been ongoing for some years - until it was almost completed. It was (it is alleged) only when the two groups met during the king design process, with the loco guys expecting to have an argument about the proposed axle loading, that it came to light and they where told it would not be a problem... On a select few routes at least.

 

At which point, said loco guys went back to the drawing office and said "well, if the civils accepted 22 tons without a fight, lets just make it 25 and not tell them" - allegedly

Tom

 

It does, and I agree about keeping options open.

However: reducing the saddle height to position the boiler a bit lower is fairly easy, but what do you do at the other end? Do you accept a small reduction in ashpan space? Does the footplate need to be a bit lower?

 

That makes more sense than the LBSC one. If it doesn't need to pull anything, why bother with coupled wheels?

 

Financially made perhaps less sense for their respective shareholders though. Drummond got to build an entirely new loco at a cost of £1,535 - to put that in context, it was slightly more than the LSWR was paying for an M7 at the same period.Whereas Stroudley took a life-expired Sharp Stewart tank engine and really made very minimal modification!

Tom

 

All the opponents of the County project who condemn the use of an 8F firebox seem quite happy with a 4700 with a reduced boiler height and narrower cylinders. Double standards, I think

 

ALL the opponents? You've asked them all?

 

I haven't seen any comments about that (although there may well have been when the project was first being promoted). We are only talking about 2" lower, so I expect a minor adjustment of the boiler supports at the firebox end would be easy enough to acheive and the slight reduction in ashpan depth and firehole acceptable. I doubt a lower footplate would be required.

 

That's what Pole says, but to my mind it doesn't hold water. The policy change (around 1898) had board level approval and must have been agreed between Inglis and Churchward And the change was by no means "almost completed". Yes, there were few bridges left to upgrade on the London to Plymouth line (four according to Pole) but by 1938 only 522 miles of GWR route was cleared for the Kings, as opposed to 1280 miles at the lower limit. That Collett didn't know about a policy change Churchward and Inglis had put in place when he was just a draughtsman in the drawing office is perhaps unsurprising, if disappointing.

This business of future proofing infrastructure is one of the classic engineer via accountant battles. The engineer would like (for example) to do every tunnel and bridge repair to the continental structure gauge, because s/he knows that his/her successor will bless him when there are few enough structures left to change that they can finish off the rest in a affordable sized project, whereas there's not the slightest chance approval would be given to a project to upgrade the whole line at once. The accountant will never agree to spending loads of extra money on something that may not give a return for decades. Pole bemoans that one viaduct which had been upgraded to 22 tons had been replaced again before the extra capacity had been used, but if the policy hadn't been in place the Kings couldn't have been introduced.

Does anyone here know what the situation is on the WR now for weight limits?