P2 Locomotive Company and related matters

I've been Goggling since my post and it seems they were indeed painted in wartime black so that's two options open to the Trust but all this talk of BR blue and green is IMO just a flight of fancy.
When you say "valances removed," remember they didn't have valances over the driving wheels or were you referring to the valances ahead of the cylinders?

 

Perhaps Mr Cousins could provide pictures of the following;

Gresley's even more Hush Hush W2 Yarrow boilered compound Turbomotive of 1935

The A4/2 - articulated with its tender by a four wheel booster truck

After Churchwards comment that he could have sold Gresley HIS pacific the Great Bear was in fact sold to the North British, but scrapped by the LNER only a couple of years later so have any photos of it in apple green been found?

 

The valances in front of the cylinders

 

A further update on the P2 YouTube channel:


Foxy

 

On Facebook, I see a number of castings, including the first driving wheel, are in the process of being manufactured. Spectacular process. At this rate she'll be on her wheels before the end of 2014…!

 

Rebuilt as a Castle, wasn't she, and scrapped in the Fifties?

 

yes she was rebuilt as 111 Viscount Churchill in September 1924

 

So is wartime black really - it was only applied to the P2s once they were all streamlined in line with the A4s (and as 2007 is going to be similar to 2001 as built it seems this livery option is moot). It made for some interesting variations - at least two of them gained white "warning panels" on the buffer beam coverings during the war.

 

Not sure which history book you've been reading but it didn't get anywhere near the NBR. The only non Gresley Pacifics to be inherited by the LNER in 1923 were the Raven NER examples. Great Bear was rebuilt as a GWR Castle in 1924.

 

Indeed, so as you say LNER green for the outline chosen by the builders.

 

I think if you re-read Lester Brown's post and the surrounding posts, it is clear he was being whimsical, suggesting other "might have beens" that Matthew Cousins might like to paint. As would be obvious by the other suggestions - A4 with booster truck and rebuild of the "Hush hush" as a turbomotive. He wasn't claiming it actually happened.

Tom

 

Perhaps the thrust of the post is open to interpretation but going by other posts it appears I'm not the only one to think he was being serious.

 

So you think a poster who is normally pretty erudite about loco history, especially GWR history, would also think that a Hush hush turbomotive and an A4 with booster truck were also real?

That little bit of sub-thread originally came from someone mistaking a picture of a Thompson rebuild 2-8-2 as being real, rather than photo-shopped. A look through the other suggested photos in the gallery of pictures has some that are pretty far fetched - but evidently not far-fetched enough, it seems!

Tom

 

Now you're being plain daft. I'm so sorry that I've not read every single post the Lester Brown has ever made on the GWR - o mea culpa, sackcloth and ashes, self flagellation and all that.

 

Who's being daft? The hush-hush turbomotive and the A4 with a booster truck were mentioned as reality in the same post as selling the Great Bear to North British - if the first two weren't a sufficiently large clue that the poster wasn't entirely serious, I don't know what would have been! I think you've been had

Tom

 

Unfortunately, sarcasm is becoming a lost art, and it is now necessary to explain in advance that the most ridiculous things being promulgated are not actually intended for academic discussion and/or consumption!

 

For the future reference of everyone on both sides of this, erm, discussion...this is why smileys were invented!

There's a widely recognised internet convention that a "wink" smiley ( ;-) or ) can be used to indicate joking or sarcasm. Then there is no room for confusion!

 

....and in the meantime....
http://www.p2steam.com/news/current-news/50-first-wheel-cast

Foxy

 

The mould has now been opened and the wheel tidied up (a bit!):



The frames are due for delivery to Darlington this morning... more here

Foxy

 

Perhaps the new loco should be named Boadicea with wheels like that?