10 most important / noteworthy UK steam designs .your views and why

I'd add the Austerity 0-6-0 to that, simple, robust and lasted in industrial service until the early 1980's.

 

it was the N class shipped to Ireland not the U. They look pretty similar granted and some of the Irish ones had the larger wheels, but apparently the U and N are not as close in design as I thought until recently.

 

I've cocked up! I'm not to familiar with southern Moguls 'They all look the same!'

 

Need to go to specsavers, then!

 

I rather enjoyed 31806 at the SVR back in 2012! It had a tender with it but I'm sure it started life as a tank engine!

 

Absolutely, they have were the backbone of motive power for many preserved lines in the early days and still are for some

 

The Maunsell Moguls by Peter Rowledge, Oakwood Press gives a really good overview.

 

I'll keep a look out for that, cheers.

 

Bellerophon, as one of the earliest locomotives to feature piston valves and one of the oldest surviving piston valve locomotive. she and her sisters are suspected of being testbeds for future LNWR developments due to connections between Joseph Evans and Crewe.

 

All this standard gauge stuff, I'll throw in the Double Fairlie Little Wonder and the first of the what's come to be generically called the Quarry Hunslet, Dinorwic of 1870

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/THE-MAUN...997461?hash=item3aff294355:g:FFwAAOSw-jFaSfjj

 

Right, my list is:

1. Trevithick's Penydarren Locomotive - First proof that a self-travelling steam loco on rails was a viable proposition.
2. Stephenson's Rocket - First use of multi-tube boiler and blastpipe.
3. Liverpool & Manchester Railway "Planet" 2-2-0 - Established the accepted layout of the main components of the vast majority of future inside cylindered locomotives.
4. GNR Large Atlantic - First British use of the "big boiler, wide firebox" concept.
5. HR Jones Goods 4-6-0 - First 4-6-0 type in Britain, first successful breakaway from four-coupled designs for mixed traffic.
6. Churchward 43xx 2-6-0 - First "modern" truly mixed-traffic loco.
7. GWR 28xx 2-8-0 - Benchmark for all succeeding British heavy, long distance goods locomotives.
8. Churchward "Star" 4-6-0 - First "modern" large express locomotive.
9. L&YR Class 4 - Specifically No. 1112 - First use of superheater in Britain (Although the L&Y didn't reap the benefits at the time due to insufficient knowledge of high-temperature cylinder lubricants).
10. Bulleid's Pacifics - First large-scale use of fabrication and welding techniques to replace castings and traditional copper fireboxes in British locomotive construction.

Richard.

 

Darjeling class B?

 

not exactly UK tho', is it?

 

nice one Richard

you thought about it , and you can count to 10 !

 

I'd go even earlier. Early railways are fairly well represented but royal George is influential as the first 0 6 0 goods engine. The heart of Britain's railways.

 

And the Swanage caretaker crew really enjoyed their visit to the N.Y.M.R. with her too. As the Moors really put her to the test, their views not mine.

 

Though I think there probably ought to be a representative of industrial steam, I'll support you on 1-9, but disagree with you on 10. I struggle to see the Bulleid pacifics, magnificent as they were, as "important" steam designs despite the number built. For me, the final place has to go to a design that represented the culmination of steam design, as a representative of what steam was capable of. That begs some interesting questions, as to how you pick that culmination.

I see that as involving a number of criteria. The design itself had to last to the end of steam, but also demonstrate itself as the limit of it's line of development and be a production type, not a prototype. That excludes the 9Fs (a glorious anomaly in the development of steam), the other Standards (mostly conservative increments on existing designs), and also the Black 5s and 8Fs.

As the Coronations, excellent as they were, didn't last to the end in their patch, that leads me inexorably to the A4s as no. 10 on that list. The combination of incremental development of existing designs with radical elements (streamlining, internal and external), the fact that replacing them required not just the early diesels but the radical step forward of the Deltics, all go to showing them as the ultimate development of the British express steam locomotive.

 

Nothing at all wrong with disagreeing - I actually came up with my list during my break at work this afternoon, so quite a quick process! We all have our own ideas, and lively debate is good...

Richard.

 

Always 'Marmite' locos (and I love Marmite, but my GP takes a different view ... dammit!), I'd give your choice No.10 a thumbs up, for the precise reasons you stated, while adding the ergonomics of the cab to the case for their inclusion.

Apocryphal or not, the reported habit of Southrrn crews to throw all the illuminations on when entering Exeter and Plymouth (allegedly because that's one trick beyond GW locos) always amuses me.

...and to all you Bulleid haters... roll on GSN!