Bulleid Pacifics - Past or Present

I believe they are better but they do lead a far more cossetted life. I do not remember seeing any reports of fires under the cladding on any preserved "original" WC/BBs.....

 

What's the failure in traffic record on these locos, today, ? On the Un rebuilt engines, clearly gaskets and seals, especially on the oil baths are better, modern oils though, might not be quite so good, as ever, there are detail differences on the make-up, and spec,
failure from casting failure though is becoming more prevalent, as many engines have parts that have long outlived the expected life of the casting, things like cylinders, drag boxes, and motion parts, all will have stresses imposed on them, though use, this I think is going to be more of a problem in the future as more castings will need replacement.

 

The upcoming 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe on 8th May has triggered my imagination as to something that could have happened but did not.

The efforts of RAF Bomber Command, in particular the period 1942 – 1945 could easily have been commemorated by the Southern Railway and British Railway Southern Region, after all; they named a number of 21C1xx class locomotives after Battle of Britain airfields and commanders.

The contribution of RAF Bomber Command has sadly been almost unrecognised, even worse; its reputation was rubbished by that dreadful fraud David Irving in his pack of lies book about Bomber Command’s bombing of Dresden. Unfortunately, Irving’s lies became the accepted version of events for many years.

There are eleven remaining examples of the Bulleid Light Pacific “West Country” Class locomotives, which could be renamed to “RAF Bomber Command” class. Numbers: 007, 010, 016, 023, 027, 028, 039, 046, 092, 101 & 105.

I have drawn up a shortlist of RAF Bomber Command commanders, aircraft and equipment that could be used to rename some of the eleven remaining West Country Class locomotives to Bomber Command Class: -

Sir Arthur Harris
Sir Robert Saundby
Sir Ralph Cochrane
Lord Portal
Sir Barnes Wallis
Avro Lancaster
De Haviland Mosquito
Vickers Wellington
Rolls Royce Merlin

I am sure I have missed certain people, aircraft, and equipment; but at least this is a start.
Hopefully, this is an interesting diversion from ifs, ands and maybes about thermic syphons.

 

34081 passed its “annual” hot exam today so all set for next week’s ELR Gala.

 

With what’s going on and with the potential to what could go on, I really have to say this is crass and in bad taste.

 

There's a long-standing historical grievance about the treatment of Bomber Command after the war, and a rich tapestry of writing on the subject; it's fair to say that the military value of their work is less clear cut than the tremendous courage of the crews. What you suggest is an ahistorical way to redress that balance, and involves rewriting history - the West Country names were chosen for a reason.

The Southern went for Fighter Command names because Fighter Command was based in the SR's area. If an equivalent naming strategy were to have been used for Bomber Command, the obvious railway for those names would have been the LNER given where Bomber Command and USAAF fleets were based. If I were to support this - and I don't - I would be suggesting that the names be applied to late 1940s designs such as A1s, A2s or B1s.

I declare a personal interest; my wife's uncle was killed flying for Bomber Command.

 

From Wikipedia:

'Bomber Command crews suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4 per cent death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war. This covered all Bomber Command operations.

A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I; more people were killed serving in Bomber Command than in the Blitz, or the bombings of Hamburg or Dresden. By comparison, the US Eighth Air Force, which flew daylight raids over Europe, had 350,000 aircrew during the war and suffered 26,000 killed and 23,000 POWs. Of the RAF Bomber Command personnel killed during the war, 72 per cent were British, 18 per cent were Canadian, 7 per cent were Australian and 3 per cent were New Zealanders.'

There can be little doubt about the value and effectiveness of Bomber Command. Again from Wikipedia:

'Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments, noted that the larger British bombs were highly destructive. 15 years after the war's end, Speer was unequivocal about the effect,

The real importance of the air war consisted in the fact that it opened a second front long before the invasion in Europe ... Defence against air attacks required the production of thousands of anti-aircraft guns, the stockpiling of tremendous quantities of ammunition all over the country, and holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers, who in addition had to stay in position by their guns, often totally inactive, for months at a time ... No one has yet seen that this was the greatest lost battle on the German side.

— Albert Speer (1959)
In terms of production decrease resulting from the RAF area attacks, the US survey, based upon limited research, found that in 1943 it amounted to 9 per cent and in 1944 to 17 per cent. Relying on US gathered statistics, the British survey found that actual arms production decreases were a mere 3 per cent for 1943, and 1 per cent for 1944. However they did find decreases of 46.5 per cent and 39 per cent in the second half of 1943 and 1944 respectively in the metal processing industries. These losses resulted from the devastating series of raids the Command launched on the Ruhr Valley. A contrasting view was offered by Adam Tooze that by referring to contemporary sources rather than post-war accounts:

there can be no doubt that the Battle of the Ruhr marked a turning point in the history of the German war economy ....

and that in the first quarter of 1943 steel production fell by 448 million pounds (203,209 tonnes), leading to cuts in the German ammunition production programme and a sub-components crisis (Zulieferungskrise). German aircraft output did not increase between July 1943 and March 1944:

Bomber command had stopped Speer's armaments miracle in its tracks.

The greatest contribution to winning the war made by Bomber Command was in the huge diversion of German resources into defending the homeland. By January 1943 some 1,000 Luftwaffe night fighters were committed to the defence of the Reich; mostly twin engined Messerschmitt Bf 110 and Junkers Ju 88. Most critically, by September 1943, 8,876 of the deadly, dual purpose 88 mm guns were also defending the homeland with a further 25,000 light flak guns, 20/37 mm. Though the 88 mm gun was an effective AA weapon, it was also a deadly destroyer of tanks, and lethal against advancing infantry. These weapons would have done much to augment German anti-tank defences on the Russian front.

Mine laying operations were a major contribution to the disruption of German naval activities. Aerial minelaying was used on the iron ore routes from Scandinavia and U-boat training areas in the Baltic; in North-West Europe aerial mines sank seven times more ships than naval mines laid from ships.

In operations Bomber Command laid 47,278 mines while losing 468 aircraft; Coastal Command contribution was 936 mines. Bomber Command and Coastal Command minelaying is credited with the loss of 759 vessels totalling 1.62 billion pounds (0.73 million tonnes).

German production was diverted into construction and manning of minesweepers and the deployment of flak batteries to protect ports and estuaries. Around 100 vessels, mostly cargo types and around 11 million pounds (5,080 tonnes), were converted to Sperrbrecher mine barrage breakers to sail ahead of ships leaving harbour and of these about half of were lost to mines.'

The problem for Churchill was that at times Harris went about his work a little too enthusiastically.

If you are ever in the area, take a visit to the Runnymede Memorial to 20,000 service people who served in the Commonwealth Air Forces who have no known grave. It will have a profound effect on you!

https://www.cwgc.org/our-war-graves...reat-britain/south-region/runnymede-memorial/

 

There are many, many, events being planned to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe on 8th May 2025.
Are they also crass and in bad taste?

 

As I said, historical views vary - and that’s without getting to ideological hacks like Irving. Harris had form for focusing in area bomb8ng regardless of military merit, and was massively insubordinate in the last 18 months or so of the war. Speer’s memoirs are also problematic - its the best part of 30 years since I was studying seriously, but his credibility was massively undermined by Gitta Sereny’s study of him.

However, that’s about the historiography and accepting that the outcomes of the bomber offensive were not unalloyed. Quite separately, you then suggest a specific set of (temporary?) renamings that are, in themselves, ahistorical. If this idea went ahead, it would replace one possible historical injustice with a historical misrepresentation. The Bulleid Light Pacifics had nothing to do with the bomber campaign, and the SR negligible connection with it. By contrast, the Fighter Command names were utterly appropriate, given where the SR operated and Fighter Command’s area of operations. I could think of a number of army regiments, or naval units, that would have far greater claim to that particular recognition than Bomber Command. Not as a slight on those who served, but simply recognition of the historical context.

Finally, if this idea did proceed, what happens at the end of the memorial period? Do the names get removed and the locomotives revert to their original names? Or is the history embodied in names like Bodmin, Wadebridge, Blackmore Vale or Swanage to be discarded? In either case, how does that memorialise effectively?

 

IIRC, the GWR renamed several 'Castles' after WW2 aircraft.
Names that spring to mind are Beaufort, Wellington, Hampden, Blenheim, Lockheed Hudson, Defiant, Swordfish..

 

IMO the BBMF, through the flying of its Lancaster gives adequate recognition to the sacrifices of the crews of Bomber Command.

 

Names that were applied at the time, and part of the history of those locomotives.

 

You are confusing two separate posts. I made no such suggestions.

 

Your correction is noted; I apologise for confusing your post with that of @twr12 and can only claim the defence of having misread on a small screen.

I stand by my views on the historiography; nothing in what I've written should be taken to diminish my respect for the tremendous courage of those crews or their sacrifice.

 

Look I’m not wanting to decry the efforts of those who volunteered to serve in Bomber Command between 1939-45 I think those poor sods who did what they did and they had a thankless task and had a bloody tough time dropping stuff over people who they had no quarrel with, but your suggestion that various locos should be renamed is as I say a little bit out out of order. Please Consider what’s going on in the eastern side of our continent, and the consequences it may have.

Also as someone who lives in ‘Bomber Country’ I’ve also yet to see one of these ‘many,many celebrations’ to commemorate the end of WW2 around here.

Seriously, if you want a West Country to be renamed why not speak to your their owners and start writing a cheque…

Anyhow Thermic Syhpons… hasn’t WD600 Gordon something similar?

 

WP_20250308_001[1] by Hermod posted Mar 8, 2025 at 9:14 PM

Not really.
Picture shows some(3 -4-5 or 6?) 3 inch circulator pipes from over firedor to bottom of combustion chamber.
No stays involved and due to curvature quite flexible.
Good ol Drummond put a lot of such pipes in fireboxes and Urie removed them.

 

Some pics of 34072 in action yesterday.......

https://www.flickr.com/photos/duty_druid/54375436745/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/duty_druid/54375043141/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/duty_druid/54375436975/in/dateposted-public/

 

257 Squadron yesterday chattering its way up the bank towards Alton, just seems right having a spamcam at the mid hants



all the best
Matt

 

Although this is pure speculation on my part. with Nunney Castle near to the finishing line and a recent video about LSL suggesting that 6024 could not be too far off, it isn't unreasonable to assume that there would be space at Crewe for another overhaul to start within months. Of course, 46100 and 45231 are out of traffic and stored at Margate (Although there seems very little point in having recently moved 46100 there if it was scheduled to be given a fast-track overhaul) and I think I heard 34046 is due to come out of traffic later this year. Given that the overhaul of 60019 has been sub-contracted to the SNGLTL, one or more Bulleids would seem the obvious candidate(s) to fill the space at Crewe. I'd love to see Port Line in action again after its previous stints on the Bluebell and Swanage Railways and of course, 35022, which worked the last "ACE" out of Waterloo, has yet to steam in preservation.

For all my speculation/wishful thinking I'm still inclined to agree with you that 35025 will be the next MN to steam. Given the very thorough - and very impressive - overhaul of 60532, I can't see either 35022 or 35027 needing anything less comprehensive, which means we will be in for quite a wait even if work starts on either of these engines later this year.