LNER V2s at Swindon Works.

I think that the various scrappies used to bid for locos when a tender list came out. Could be wrong, though. Most things that BR did that involved carriage were 'free on rail' so there would be no cost penalty to the scrappie for distance the loco had to travel. A few Southern locos were scrapped in Rotherham and, provided that the locos were moved in scheduled freight trains, the cost of movement would not be recorded anywhere. It's only when you have a special movement that people take notice.

 

Unfortunately not at home but will track it down when I get back. Certainly NOT invention!

 

One that has always puzzled me are Stanier Class 5s 44901, 45163, 45293 and 45491, which went from Carlisle Kingmoor to Woodhams Barry.

 

Reading this makes me glad that 4771 Green Arrow is preserved period.

 

According to Don Rowland's "British Railways Wagons", 41 Independent Snowploughs were built to Lot No. 3539 in 1965 at Cowlairs, Eastleigh and Swindon.

These all utilised chassis from LNER group standard tenders which I believe to have been removed from V2s. The tender tanks were entirely removed and the front of the frames were cut-down to accommodate the sloping front of the new plough superstructure. This also necessitated replacing the original front wheelsets with the smaller diameter trailing wheelsets from the locos, which is probably why the complete locos were sent to Swindon and the other works and were then scrapped.

The 'ploughs were numbered DB 965203-965243, several are still in service with NR . A preserved example is DB965204 (ex-Immingham) at Mangapps.

 

Ta muchly, its always lovely when one learns something useful from NP! Any ideas why the LNER tenders were chosen as the template?

 

I'm sure it's in C J Allen's book about the Loco Exchanges. Maybe the RCTS greeny too. Have read that quote most definitely.

 

I cannot supply a photo of the Swindon bound V2s (film or travel but not both had to be our choice then!) but I was on Swindon Station one Wednesday (1964?) when 3 V2s came in from the east with one in steam hauling 2 of its dead sisters. IIRC another 3 turned up similarly the same day. Later that afternoon they were all on the works premises awaiting scrapping & tender conversions as described by others here.

 

I guess it was a mixture of technical suitability- the V2 tenders were the right size and the locos had rear truck wheelsets which were also the right size- and availability- as I remember, the V2s as a class were withdrawn pretty swiftly.

 

Vintage Carriage Trust have a tender section that lists the 15-20 ex LNER V2/Snowplows that still exist.


See http://www.ten.vintagecarriagestrust.org/tens/TenderInfo.asp?Ref=297



Picture Source: vintage carriage trust.

 

It's an interesting quote and one that both Nock and Cecil J. Allen have given but outside of their sphere, or indeed LNER circles, I can find no other source or suggestion of who exactly said that. To me it looks to be a trite unfortunate to say that in light of the middle big end failures experienced by the A4s during the exchange trials, but hey ho...

I also don't believe as an LNER man that I can be too critical of Swindon works churning anything out when you consider the vast improvements Swindon taught KJ Cook introduced to LNER works practice when he arrived in the late 40s. One might say that the LNER learned a lot more from GWR practice than any other railway, given the 1920s exchange and the developments made to many of the Gresley engines. Further to that, the clear Swindon (or possibly Stanier via Swindon) influence of standardisation in Edward Thompson's best work.

I could go on, but I hardly think we LNER enthusiasts can afford to be blasé about the GWR's contributions to the best work of our chosen railway...

 

Hats off to you Sir. A debate about why V2s ended up at Swindon and you manage to get an ET reference in.

 

I'm nothing if not consistent: but it is a fair point. Both Gresley and Thompson were influenced in some way by GWR thinking and engineering in their designs. I don't think it denigrates either to say so and shows they were a little more open minded than otherwise believed.

 

None of which has got anything to do with why V2s ended up at Swindon for scrapping.

 

Merely picking up on the point about Seagull and nothing to touch it on the LNER, which is related to the thread.

You only seem to pick on me for this - what is your problem sir?

 

I suspect availability as much as anything else. Quite a number of Maunsell 4000 gallon tenders were converted into snowploughs at Eastleigh in 1964. I assume that the hard winter of 1963 probably focused minds about the requirement for more snowploughs, coupled with availability of tenders from the "Schools" and others that had been withdrawn shortly before making them an obvious basis for conversion. About 6 or 7 still exist, a couple still as converted into snowploughs and the rest having had new tanks and conversion back to conventional tenders.

Tom

 

See 'East Coast Pacifics at work' by P. N. Townend published as ISBN 0 7110 1120 2 by Ian Allen Ltd in 1982, Page 128:-

"A few years after the event (the 1948 Locomotive exchanges) I was carrying out some trials with a Great Western railcar which was accompanied by their Chief Inspector. I asked him what he remembered about the interchange trials and he replied 'your "A4" climbing Hemerdon bank with a full glass of water, both injectors on and still making steam. You could not do that with one of ours, you dare not put the second injector on and when you got to the top you were looking for the water in the bottom nut'."

 

That's very interesting. In full context, unlike where it has been quoted elsewhere in other books, it gives a different picture. Thank you for posting that, top stuff.

 

Thank you for taking the time to find the quote in full, so possibly the statement should actually have read "a senior GWR man remarked that the GWR had nothing to touch the steam raising capacity of "Seagull" during her sojourn on the GW during the 1948 exchanges."

Puts a slightly different spin on things, impressive none the less.