2999: Lady of Legend

And steam reversers were fitted to just about all the larger GWR outside frame classes built between 1899 and 1907, but removed from all but the Aberdare 2-6-0s. RCTS claims that it was prone to drifting from the set position and not very popular with the crews.

 

Where were they situated, with regard access?

(Interesting to test a theory I have, which is the popularity or otherwise of steam reversers is in part due to whether they drift or not; and that in turn depends in part on ease of access for keeping the cataract cylinder well topped up. So for example the unpopularity of those on Bulleids is I believe less related to their design, and more down to awkward placement that made maintenance difficult).

Apologies for the inadvertent thread drift my old comment had caused!

Tom

 

True but i think any heritage railway that has a good rake of pre nationalised stock should be rightly proud of what they have, and am sure that when the Roster allows a suitable pairing - even more so .
There are still instances of railways trying to assemble such rakes ( Foxfield, Strathspey etc) Good luck to them.

 

Not so sure about that being the case. Do you have evidence to support that assertion?

 

Event weekends where galleries of people line up on the lineside to take the same photograph of a loco in pre-grouping livery hauling BR liveried coaches or strings of BR-design wagons, BR liveried locos working Mk 1 coaches at wartime events? Need I go on?

 

Im very excited about this, I might even be able to make it to the event looking at my work schedule.

 

I think many railways would love to have an army of pre-nationalisation coaching stock at their disposal, but when the preserved railways were starting up the Mk1s were the most readily-available coaches - and somehow I don't think that's the only factor behind the abundance of BR coaches compared to other stock on heritage lines. An appropriate combination may be best but I'll still take the 'ordinary' Mk1s over nothing.

 

How can someone get from kidderminster to bewdley if going by public transport to this spring gala at S.V.R. is there a bus in place while work continues on falling sands viaduct?

 

The gala is after the work has been completed. That's why the gala is in April and not the usual March slot.

 

Google "bus times Kidderminster to Bewdley"?

 

Ok, off-topic but .....
I'm a bit confused about this pole reverser and notching up business. I read somewhere that the 41/51/61xx prairie tanks had great acceleration,but you would hear steam being shut-off momentarily whilst the driver notched up and then the regulator opened again. The prairie tanks has piston values right? So why did the driver have to shut off steam to alter the cut-off?

 

Even piston valved locos can be hard to change cut off on a lever reverser, screw reverses are easier.

 

Having driven & fired several of these & other GW lever reverse piston valve locos I've never seen any body shut off to notch up.

With a 57xx pannier it is essential to shut off to notch up as the steam pressure on the slide valves makes it very difficult otherwise.

 

I can only agree, having driven 28xx, 45xx & 51xx I have never found any necessity to shut off when changing the cut off. And I agree with 57xx is essential that you do shut off

 

I guess it is possible, particularly if you are talking about drivers in days of yore, that a few older drivers may have done it just “because that’s what you always do”. If you’d been bought up man and boy to always shut off on a slide valve engine to notch up, and you then got given a new piston valve type, you wouldn’t necessarily change the habit of a lifetime. Similar to how some old drivers still used to walk round the frames while moving to oil up even when locos with better lubricators were introduced, just because that was what they had always done.

Tom

 

My experience of GWR piston valve tanks is limited to 6619, 4277 & 5224 but I never had any difficulty in adjusting the cut off with the regulator open. In fact, with 6619, I found I found that I wanted to run it between two notches at times and I did this by simply holding the pole where I wanted with no effort.
I have witnessed a driver shutting off on 6619 before adjusting the cut off. Just happened to be a Bluebell/KESR driver so probably did it through habit, as you say.

 

Thanks all for the responses. The original source of the quote was from Great Western Locomotive Design. In there, he criticizes Churchward for following American practice too closely in sticking with pole reversers. He mentions the pause in acceleration of 61xx tanks whilst they are notched up by the driver.
I guess, as mentioned it could have been force of habit as the drivers would have been using metro tanks before that which I assume were slide valve engines.

 

Sometimes Gibson needs to be taken with a considerable pinch of salt. My copy has more pencil annotations in the margin than every other railway book I own put together!

The info about piston valves and lever reverse is also interesting when one considers Tuplin, another writer who is not always as sound as one might hope, and who made much of this phenomenon, notably in his highly coloured speculation about the Lady of Lyons incident.

 

I am reviving this thread to continue a discussion that arose on the P2 thread but doesn't belong there.

The rebuilding being originally deemed too difficult but subsequently being deemed possible was not because of any compromise but because capabilities had greatly improved in the meantime, as demonstrated on various other projects around the country.

The intention was to reproduce the earliest production version of the long series of GWR 4-6-0s rather than a later version. "Why start with a Hall?" Because (a) a Hall was available and extremely unlikely ever to be restored in its own right and (b) a lot of components could be re-used. Yes the frames required modification, but that was a much smaller job than starting from scratch with new frames. The boiler was a superheated No. 1, such as the early Ladies had carried later in their careers. If you're not convinced how much time and money is saved by starting with an existing boiler, ask the Beachey Head team.

 

Wasn’t 4942 bought way back in the 1970’s for the purpose of becoming a ‘saint’? Same reason for the railmotor?