Locomotives that NEARLY made it

Indeed - I have a habit of looking for stampings on motion parts too to show their history. One of the parts now on Didcot's Saint class 2999 I saw has worked on 4942 (obviously!), 4977,4912,4986? & 4908? For parts that were 'standard' and moved between locomotives during works visits, I'm surprised they stamped numbers on them?

 

I rather like that of the manors that we have with us 7802/8/12 and 19 were Moguls in a previous life.

 

I looked up the boiler records for the H class (in connection with an article I wrote for the SE&CR Society). As preserved, 263 carries boiler number 638. This was constructed new in January 1914 and attached to locomotive 395 (a member of the Stirling class O1 - that would have been the class O to O1 rebuild). Following spells in 391 (class O1), 248 (class O1), back to 1391, 1385 (class O1), 1259 (Wainwright H), 31521 (class H) and 31259 again, it was fitted to 31263 in 1959, at the same overhaul as the locomotive was fitted with a flared bunker.

Along with sundry other repairs and renewals, a complete new firebox was fitted in 1933.

It is a curious feature of the boiler record that the clerk at its first post-nationalisation repair dutifully lists the locomotive number as 31521, after which each repair lists the locomotive number as the old SR numbers, even as late as July 1961 when the boiler is recorded as being repaired while in locomotive 1263. Clearly enthusiasm for BR started bright but then waned ...

Tom

 

here we see part of 5MT 44781 having 'made it' at the GCR

 

I think the chimney survives somewhere as well.

 

A loco (in part) that does still sort of exist is the standard gauge double Fairlie, Mountaineer. The boiler is thought to still exist, in use as a culvert on the old trackbed of the Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway, not bad for a boiler built in the 1860's.

 

I think that will be the authentic colour for the NCC mogul that the RPSI are hoping to build. Personally I think it looks just as good on the smaller and later mogul, even though inauthentic.

 

And part of the cab which was recently dragged from its resting place since the filming of The Virgin Soldiers...

Richard.

 

Yes I saw the Article in Steam Railway I find it so bloody infuriating 44781 came so close to being saved and ended up going to the gas axe. All this is not that far away from where I live.
When I tell the tale to people about how one of the last steam locos to work for British Rail was cut up on their doorstep they seem very surprised, then the next question is 'why wasn't it saved?'

 

Can’t save everything - how many black 5s do you want?

Tom

 

Enough to send over to the Isle of Wight

 

842 would be good​

 

Mr Riley's Wet dream I'm with his statement of 'you can't beat a black five'

 

Yeah, but that’s an S15. I can understand wanting more of those ...

Tom

 

I wish more B1s and K1s had survived. Useful
For heritage railways and would have bolstered the Eastern survivors

 

Those more expert may want to correct me if I have this wrong but I believe that the boiler residing on 60019 'Bittern" at withdrawal came from A1/1 60113 'Great Northern' in 1965 - can't recall if this is one of the boilers still with us though. The A1 had been withdrawn in 1962 and was cut at Doncaster in early part of 1963 so boiler was retained?

 

I'm always impressed by how "standardised" some parts on some pre-grouping railways were.
The examples above about the Wainwright boilers are very impressive.
Horwich and Crewe were similarly minded, and always used the same boiler/wheels/motion/parts for a new class wherever they could.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

I said some time ago that they were all no better and no worse than one another at standardising, it seems to Me that the only remarkable thing about Swindon standardisation was that they had (needed?) so many different classes made up of so many 'standard' components in order to run a service. Oh and they all looked the same.

 

Some LCDR 4-4-0s were re-boilered in SECR days with second hand ... GNR boilers. Indeed, even, the GNoSR railway 4-4-0s that were bought by the SE&CR ended up also carrying GNR boilers.

I think at root, amongst the pre-grouping companies, they all pretty much built variations of 0-6-0 goods; 0-4-4T passenger tank and 4-4-0 express passenger engine, and there are only so many ways you can perm the dimensions given certain fixed constraints such as maximum length of coupling rod; width between frames for cylinders etc. Dimensionally, there were incremental increases in boiler power and cylinder size, but to a degree there was less scope for changing the overall length of locos (not least because that might have knock on effects, for example needing to replace turntables once locos got beyond a certain size - which I know in some cases, and I suspect quite widely, constrained ever increasing size of locomotive design).

So if you have a 4-4-0 with nine foot coupling rods and the firebox sitting between the axles and the smokebox over the cylinders, it's a reasonable bet that a boiler designed for another 4-4-0 with nine foot coupling rods etc etc will probably fit fairly easily. You might at most need to muck around a bit with the centre line of the boiler depending on the depth of the firebox, which then needs modification to the cab front sheet and maybe the height of boiler fittings. Furthermore, if you have classes such as the Stirling Q 0-4-4T and O 0-6-0 that are originally built around the same boiler, it is a fair bet they will both easily accommodate the same replacement boiler; dimensional concerns then allow that that boiler will also fit the the LCDR B class 0-6-0 and R / A series 0-4-4T, as well as the new design H class 0-4-4T

(I should say - and we have had the discussion before - that the SECR, and the SER before it, was particularly highly standardised in its loco designs).

In a way, the twentieth century introduces much more variety that makes such things harder: for example, introduction of locos of 2-6-0, 4-6-0, 4-4-2, 2-6-2, 2-6-4, 4-6-2, 2-8-2 wheel arrangement which were only just beginning or unknown in the nineteenth century.

Tom

 

It's sad that the L & Y 0-4-4 tanks used as carriage warming boilers weren't put aside for preservation, although preservationists would never be able to produce new crank axles and motion !
To survive for so long after withdrawal from traffic as well.

Bob.