Isle of Wight Steam Railway

Apparently all three initially had solid cast iron wheels with iron tyres but one was altered in the 1880's to have the outer wheels spoked with the inner pair solid. I cannot find an explanation for the solid wheels: none of the other Highland locomotives had these.

However they may look in retrospect the wheels must have proved to be satisfactory in service as all three survived to LMS days solid wheels and all and all received LMS numbers and livery before being withdrawn between 1928 and 1932. The LMS seemed to have been confused by them as well, one was numbered in with a Peter Drummond class of outside cylinder 0-6-0T's and given the power classification of 2F instead of a nominal 0P!

The RCTS book on the Highland describes them as 'remarkable for their longevity, a tribute to their good design, sound construction and usefulness' which is as good an epitaph as a class could have.

 

Careful....or somebody in Honiton will believe you and start re-posting it as 'gospel'!
Ray.

 

I think as long as there are no rumours involving a small 0-4-0 visiting to offer brake van rides and a google maps showing the secret extension work being done at Wootton and Shanklin then things should be ok.

Anyway, we all know that the secret guest is a 9F

 

Also known as the heavy overhaul of Stepney.

 

Personally, I'd argue it fulfils a very useful role in Canada acting as an ambassador for British railways in general.

 

First outing for Prince of Wales...

 

Yesterday at Havenstreet former Island Line EMU 483007 was officially handed over to the Isle of Wight Steam Railway by South Western Railway MD Claire Mann, seen here with IWSR General Manager Steve Backhouse. the unit is in splendid condition having only seen a few days service since overhaul and having been kept under cover at Ryde until it was moved to Havenstreet.

Public access to the unit is via steps and internally two videos are displayed. One is a driver's eye view courtesy of Video 125 and the other is a specially made video detailing the history of electric trains on the Island. The second video will shortly be shown also at ground level for those unable to access the unit via the steps.

 

Then on coal consumption, measured at the same time, coal lbs per mile:

SECR (Kirtley) R1 - 36.3
LSWR O2 - 36.9
SECR H - 37.2
LBSCR D3 - 39.3
LSWR M7 - 40.4

Again, the M7 is the worst of the bunch. The R1, H and O2 are all pretty similar, and somewhat better than the D3 and M7.
Hi
Just catching up on this discussion about the relative efficiency and cost of various SR pre-grouping locos...Can you direct me to the source of this data please. I would like to study it further and if possible find out whether superheating made much difference to e.g. Drummond's 700 class.
John

 

For those who keep banging on about the need for heritage carriages and that Mk.1s should be burned, there's a very revealing article in the new Trackside magazine about the North Norfolk Railway's LNER Quad-Art set which has seen a huge increase in use to provide COVID-secure travel. Unfortunately, its had a major impact on the carriages.

 

The K&ESR set of vintage coaches - virtually all compartments - had a similar upswing in use.

Robin

 

The first does not necessitate the second, and I have seen no-one on here advocating such.

 

First thoughts: O2 Class is smaller than M7 Class, so the differential is no surprise. I believe that the D3 is comparable in size to the M7; not sure about the Ashford engines.
Pat

 

Only just seen this comment, which quoted my original post.

Data were originally quoted in Bradley (can’t remember which one now, but I think the relevant LBSCR volume from memory, but I’d have to check).

His source would have been specific records taken by the Locomotive Department at the time. Whether they still exist I don’t know, a lot of such steam-era records were unceremoniously dumped in the late 1960s.

Tom

 

For anyone wondering, the original much longer post was here: 1357 in the context of a longer discussion about why the SR selected the Adams O2s to go to the Island even though they had to be fitted with air brakes (= cost), rather than - say - Billinton D3s. Some of it I think was simply serendipity about there being a relative surplus of ex-LSWR tank engines in the early 1920s caused by suburban electrification; but undoubtedly the O2s were amongst the best of the locos of that size available to the newly-formed SR.

Tom

 

Didn't the IOW CENTRAL, also trial a couple of 02's just before the railways in the IOW were included in the grouping, so when the decision to modernise came, they already knew the 02 would be suitable.

 

With a similar impact on condition/maintenance?

 

I was exaggerating a little but there are some in this thread who fit the description reasonably well.

 

No

 

Nope. There was interest expressed in them (IIRC, that was the IWR), but well beyond resources available back then. Most ex-IWC PW needed upgrading, post grouping, before O2s were allowed and it wasn't until the 30s that they were allowed out to Freshwater.

The Southern pretty quickly decided IWC No.6 (Black Hawthorn 4-4-0T) was too heavy for it's home metals, so spent it's last year on Ryde-Ventnor turns. To judge by the state of it in old photos, this one was worked very hard and must've been well nigh worn out by withdrawal.

 

There an interesting idea in another post of pushing along the engines that don’t work. Or they could get them all together and set fire to the smokeboxers to make them look like they are