2999: Lady of Legend

Enthusiasm is a fine thing, and of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to describe the Robinson, worthy workhorse though it was, as being the equal of the 28 in anything other than initial purchase price would seem to require rather a lot of it.

 

That's very true. You have to have a lot of enthusiasm to consider a Robinson 2-8-0 and a 28XX equal. The Robinson loco was far better. Even the government felt so, building lots for the war effort.

 

trials were held using a 28xx and a Robinson 2-8-0 , and one other type that I don't remember --maybe an LMS 2-8-0 I cant be sure

load hauling , water consumption and coal figures for all 3 types were so similar that the only real conclusion was that they were all able to do the job


edit
thinking on , it could have been the 1948 exchanges . if so , the info should be readily available

 

no need for comment

 

I'm not sure where the recent posts belong, but surely not on this 2999: Lady of Legend thread. Some might fit in Current and Proposed New-Builds, but some aren't really about that either but more like "my favourite locos".

 

All threads eventually end up with "some of my favourite locos". It's a law of the universe...

 

I have a friend, now over 90 years old, who fired on both classes at Pontypool Road in the 1940s. The only class I have heard him complain about is the GWR RODs. There cannot be may people about who workd on the 30xx and the 28xx in main line service so I treat his views with some weight.

 

It was very common for footplate crew to complain about "foreign" locos because they weren't what they were used to. This was very prevalent after the grouping, on both LMS and LNER, e.g. left/right hand drive, firehole door position, distance from tender to firehole, lubrication points, etc. etc.
Many examples include GN locos in Scotland (whereas they liked the GC designed D11s), L&Y locos on the LNW, etc. A few seem to have impressed on their merits despite being completely different from home grown types, but generally they were treated very suspiciously.
As such, I would tend to discount anyone complaining about an "out of region" type. Whereas if people on their "home line" didn't like them, I would assume there was something in it.
The same was often true with new designers, of course. Sometimes it was merited (I'm a big defender of the Drummonds, but Adam was a tough act to follow, and Dugald's new designs were very different without the merit of being any better), sometimes it was just prejudice.

 

I believe it is fact that GW enginemen complained about the Britannias and 9F's they had allocated. I'd treat such views with little weight.

 

...and yet the Canton drivers seemed to 'take' to the Brits.
Ray.

 

I meant no offence, especially not to Mr Robinson. But to western eyes, they look unfamiliar. They were certainly better appreciated in the north.

That would be against Gresley's P1's, Curchward's 28xx and 47xx, Fowler's 7f, even Thompson's O1....

Eye of the beholder, definitely...

 

I accept that GWR people are usually extremely partisan but the gentlemen I am talking about had wider experience than the GWR, in fact he left that railway to work on Rhodesia railways. He drove Garratts among other things. The locos he complained about in Rhodesia were the Davenport diesels (DE1 class).

Perhaps by the 1940s the RODs were worn out. The main problem that Colin had was with their steaming.

 

He probably had to shovel dust and boulders, which was the general make-up of Welsh coal.

 

And there can be only one possible contender for the ugliest 8-coupled goods engines to run in Britain. Clue: they weren't designed or built in the UK.

 

At least there were only two of them and they looked a lot better when fitted with Swindon taper boilers in 1908.

 

Careful! Given that 813 has been preserved, that railway clearly has an enthusiast following.

 

This one? So fugly they had to paint pictures of other engines on the side to distract everyone. But I thought it was designed and built in the UK...



Tom

 

The trouble is if you discount the views of the only people who had sustained experience of both what are you left with?

Here's another contender for the less than beautiful award.

 

Bulleids Q1s and Ivatt class4s were also ugly but both were good machines

 

I see that Mr Ivatt and Mr Sturrock have now come onto the field. Need to be careful not to offend those folk in Bristol who treasure the memory of Mr Sturrock's equipment supplier, the Avonside Engine Co.

I haven't yet seen Lady of Legend "in the flesh", but hope to do so in June when Didcot web-site tells me that a Hall will be in steam beside her. I suspect that I will find the Hall slightly more pleasing on the appearance front, due to the 6-ft wheels and 4000-gal tender making for a better overall balance. But it also strikes me that the GWR made a big improvement when it started to insert the curved sections to the foot-plating of its large engines. I have never seen a photo of a GWR 4-4-2 with the curved-end foot-plating. Presumably the curved ends did not come into use until after conversion to 4-6-0. Unfortunate.