GWR 94xx Pannier Tanks, ex-Edward Thompson Thread.

You mean this?
Now, what livery? Malachite or Umber?

 

Is that material though?
As soon as you need to double-head even occasionally, you double crew and loco costs, which blows a huge hole in any coal saving.

 

@WesternRegionHampshireman Glad you picked a photo of the second one. The Walschaerts valve gear gives it a more modern aspect than it's sibling. As long as it was still around, I'd be supremely unconcerned what livery it wore! TBH I don't even know if it lived long enough to receive full BR colours.

A purist might say Mr.Maunsell's modifications to bring it within the SR composite loading gauge meant it couldn't authentically wear umber, but I've never heard too many complaints about the Bluebell's lovely old gem Stepney wearing equally inauthentic (for any A1x not in departmental service) gamboge!

 

Raise (or remove) the running plate, put BFB wheels on it, lemaitre exhaust, and an air-smoothed casing, and you might be onto something

 

Aye ..... the ends of a pitchfork!

 

I'm pretty sure in the early thinking about what eventually became Leader, a 2-6-4T version of a Q1 was sketched out.

Tom

 

I seem to recall an outline drawing for that too. Do I recall another suggestion of an 'austerity pacific'? Talk about putting the 'f' in 'fugly'!

 

Actually, it had a certain presence ... I sort of liked it, even more uncompromising than the pacifics as they turned out.

Tom

 

From what I've seen of it, it seems to run into tank capacity issue quickly. Bulleid's belief in a large boiler for free-steaming is a problem for tank locos to british loading gauges.

 

Well, this was the guy that blatantly lied to the War Department that his Pacifics were 6MT's.

 

The Q1 (which was lucky enough to see in steam on the Bluebell) is a thoroughly workmanlike design* which has always appealed. Not keen on the pacific (that smokebox, sorry but .... Ugh!). I rather liked the outline drawing for the 2-8-2 proposal, though not enough for it to be on my 'Lottery List'!

*a quality IMO it shares with Alco 1265 Mountaineer

 

Indeed, the boiler is pretty well maxed out which doesn't leave a lot of space for tanks ... My guess is that is why the concept got dropped.

Incidentally (and I realise I am as guilty as the next man) but we do seem to have confirmed on this thread @Jamessquared's third rule of Nat Pres ("All threads eventually discuss the Leader"). We are also perilously close at times (@30854 - I'm looking at you here ...) of proving @LMS2968's postulate ("You can ask the question in myriad ways, but they all come back to different ways of asking 'which is your favourite loco'"). And a few pages back, we only just avoided invoking the new build paradox: ("Why do all threads about new builds end up discussing the 2P?").

Meanwhile, didn't @Jimc have a thread somewhere round about here about GWR 94xx's?

Tom

 

Is there actually a sound source for that, or is it just enthusiast myth? I'm afraid I have extreme trouble believing the WD railway folk were that naive. And in the context of around 1500 2-8-0s (including about 105 by SR works) built for WD and REC I submit that, what, 11 MNs between 1941 and 1944 were neither here nor there.

 

What colour should they be in?
AICM house on natpres bingo

 

Talking about GWR panniers, I've just found out that one of them was converted to oil firing, which I didn't know about. Was it to use up stocks of left over fuel from the gas turbines 18000/18100?

 

I'm deeply hurt .... I've never so much as mentioned that 2P!

 

Robert Riddles (who later deigned the WD 2-8-0 & 2-10-0's and the B.R. standards) was Stanier's principal assistant on the LMS. He moved to the War Department in 1939 as Director of Transport Equipment. As a loco engineer of many years' experience I sincerely doubt that he would fall for any subterfuge from Bulleid.
Ray.

 

I recall reading a comment by Riddles that on an individual level, he liked Bulleid and their personal relationship was good, but from an engineering viewpoint, couldn't fathom much of his thinking.

 

Yes I've read that too. I also remember that he said that he didn't much like Hawksworth.

 

Didn't know that. Hawksworth isn't someone I know much at all about beyond his loco and carriage designs.