C.B. Collett, ex-LSWR T3 563 thread

Collett was an excellent CME. The job of a CME isn’t just a few locomotive designs.

Railway historians and enthusiasts really need to get a grip with their criticisms of railway engineers. Far too loco centric and not considering the whole picture.

 

I am afraid I do not agree. He was an excellent workshop man but there was virtually no development in locomotive designs during his tenure. I have great admiration for the quality of engineering of GWR locos and they were far in advance of other British locos until the mid 1920s but then gradually fell behind. Some of his designs had really poor features. For example I recently discussed the 56xx class with an experienced preserved railway driver and he says preparation of them is really difficult. Another example is why was it necessary to build 2 different series of pannier tanks (57xx and 54/64/74xx) with slightly different dimensions. If a lighter version was necessary then the same chassis could have been used with different boilers.

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As some one who oversees a fleet of tractors of all makes and models, let me give you some insight! Clearly the quest for perfect engineering has, and probably always will be, compromised by commercial considerations. The best interests of the operator, (let alone the enthusiast 100 or so years after the fact!), are never at the top of the manufacting priority list. In this regard, the human race has not moved one jot in over a century….

Follow the money. It will explain a lot about CMEs!

 

Which if taken too far results in a pathetic boiler on an overweight chassis. Cook discusses the genesis of the 5400/6400/7400/1600/4800 family in Swindon Steam. The mind boggles about how small a boiler would have been required to get the 16xx down to weight with a 57xx chassis!

 

If you think prepping a 56XX is awkward you should try the disposing of one

 

And again, I feel focusing solely on the locomotive design is wrong, but if we take even a quick glance at Collett's full design record, it reveals the following work over his twenty ish years in office:

• The Castle Class (171 built)
• The King Class (31 built)
• The Hall class (258 built)
• 56xx Class (200 built)
• The Grange Class (80 built)
• The Manor Class (30 built)
• The 2884 Class (83 built)
• The 4575 Class (100 built)
• The 5101 Class (140 built)
• The 6100 Class (70 built)
• The 8100 Class (10 built)
• The 3100 Class (5 built)
• The 5205 Class (100 built)
• The 5275 Class (20 built)
• The 7200 Class (54 built)
• The 5700 Class (853 built)
• The 5400 Class (25 built)
• The 1366 Class (6 built)
• The 6400 Class (40 built)
• The 7400 Class (50 built)
• The 2251 Class (120 built)
• The 48xx later 14xx Class (75 built)
• The 58xx Class (20 built)
• The 3200 Class (30 built)

The list includes some of the most numerous locomotive classes in the British Isles, some of the most commended locomotive classes (57xx, the Halls, the Castles and more), and represents over his career an almost complete renewal of the GWR's locomotive stock over a couple of decades. Not all of them are new designs, some are rebuilds of other designers classes, some are conservative steps forward from Churchward's principles, but fundamentally in that list I cannot see a single class I would describe as poor. That's an achievement in itself.

On top of that, new rolling stock including some articulated carriages, diesel railcars (an undoubted success) and many more other rolling stock developments.

This is probably for another thread but the idea that you have to be innovate or experimental to somehow be a good CME is a nonsense frankly. Collett might have been conservative but is there any question that he and his design team didn't provide the GWR with more than adequate locomotives and rolling stock towards the fundamental objective of the GWR: to run trains efficiently? If not - then frankly, he needs to be remembered as an excellent CME.

 

I did not include the 48xx and 16xx in my comparison. I based my comments on comparison of the weight diagrams of the 57xx and 54xx. The dimensions and weights are very similar. It still believe that there could have been a lot of common components. I think that both classes ended up with a yellow route classification so why were two designs needed anyway?

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You need to though. The 48 and the 16 were part of the same scheme of lightweight classes for restricted lines and had a lot of components in common. Although on paper the 16 was a Hawksworth design it can effectively be considered Collett's team's work, its just that they didn't need to build it until the 850s and 2021s came up for renewal. 54/64/74 were after all 2021 developments to the extent that prototypes for the 54 and 64 were constructed by rebuilding a couple of 2021s with the new components.

 

A pedant writes .... With respect, surely a full review ought to include:

• The Rheidol Tanks (3 built out of 2 authorised)

 

I think that story is exaggerated. Two were authorised to be built from the renewals budget, and two were. As far as my understanding goes, if the works wanted to rebuild one from the repairs budget reusing only (to steal a picturesque phrase from E L Ahrons) the space between the wheels they were entitled to without reference to the Locomotive Committee. They couldn't do that sort of thing very often or they'd run out of repair money, and that would have led to trouble. It would be nice to see the CMEs annual report to the directors, but the relevant book doesn't seem to have survived for the locomotive committee.

 

Come on man .... that's obviously part of the cover up!

Whatever the truth of the matter, we can be thankful there are three VoR locos, the only complete GWR class surviving (!), plus you have to concede, it is a jolly good tale.

 

Its damned frustrating actually. Minutes of the locomotive committee tell you what they voted, without a clue on the background. What background there is was in "Guard Books" which were kind of scrap books containing all the documents presented to the committee, but the only ones at Kew are post war.

 

Documents missing from national archives sounds like a subject worthy of a thread in it's own right. Mention was made elsewhere of the lack of drawings for the Brighton moguls and when it comes to pregrouping records, things are most charitably described as 'patchy'.

 

Unlike the LNER records, which are frustratingly lengthy in detail and require so much time to analyse...!!!

 

i think i am right in saying there were 4 originally -- so no GWR classes complete

 

AFAIK, the situation on the VoR was
2x Davis & Metcalfe 2-6-2T, modified in Cambrian days, of which
No.1 (GW 121W) was lightly 'Swindonised', withdrawn to Swindon at the end of year round running, languished on the sales list before being broken up in 1936.
No.2 (GW1213) Allegedly rebuilt by Swindon, but actually scrapped and replaced by No.1213, constructed from authorised spares for Nos.7&8
No.3 (GW1198) Bagnall 2-4-0T wks.no.1497, worked on the P&HT, used as a pilot and on Aberystwyth Harbour branch (moribund by 1923, closed 1930), scrapped at Swindon before receiving it's GW number. This was the only loco permitted on the harbour branch.
No.4 (better include it for the sake of completeness) FR No.4 Palmerston, hired in, with FR driver, for peak summer season, several times before grouping Extant
No.7 Swindon 1923 (Collett design) Extant
No.8 Swindon 1923 (Collett design) Extant
No. 1213, later No.9 Swindon 1924 (Collett design) see No.2 Extant

Thus, four locos were on the line, between grouping, the end of year round services and formal closure of the harbour branch, in 1930.

 

The Swindon locomotives were superficially similar to the Davies and Metcalfe locomotives in general outline, but different in detail, notably in substituting outside walschaerts gear for the outside Stephensons on their predecessors.

 

More "inside/outside", as it was apparently situated outside the driving wheels, but behind the (outside) frame. Must've been great fun for footplate crews and fitters.

As a senior GW official put it "that's what happens when you buy locomotives from an injector manufacturer" (or something along those lines) and likely goes no small way to informing Swindon's decision to design and build something better. Given the locos are now 98-99 years old and most definitely mainstay of the VoR, a most satisfactory design.

 

The future book topics are stacking up Simon!

 

An author must consider the practicalities. It seems to me that Collett's most vocal detractors are not the kind of folks likely to buy a GWR book...