Locomotives that NEARLY made it

Although in Brighton under John Chester Craven, they were doing their own thing.

Did he really believe standardisation held back progress?

 

I know! I think that's almost the saddest of the "near misses" for me.

In another category slightly but also rather tragic are the locos preserved and then scrapped in the thirties or the war years, like the Midland 0-4-4T, 0-6-0, NBR Atlantic, etc.

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To be fair, standardisation*can* hold back progress, if you use a competent or concept which is superseded, or not adequate for a larger/more powerful loco. This was amply demonstrated by the Anderson regime on the early LMS.

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Indeed, the war years are a double edged sword in terms of interesting locomotives for preservation. On the one hand, it meant luxuries such as pretty bits of metal lying around not doing anything was increasingly hard to justify, but on the other it prolonged the life of some classes that otherwise wouldn't have survived long enough for preservation at all.

 

And one more puzzle at the ?1927 Chicago or Detroit or something echibition, which also had a Rocket replica and North Star.... A Trevithick replica, built with the Pen-y-Darron Boiler backplate and tender wheels. I hope it wasn't discarded after it. It's a really exciting statement if it's true.

 

Henry Ford had a replica of Rocket constructed.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3OitUgEmJdXKscNhYxmkRT

 

Now I can't be absolutely certain, but somewhere in my memory something stirs about parts of Pen-y-Darron or at least genuine Trevithick parts still being in the science museum collection.

 

IN connexion with the celebration of the centenary of the death of the great Cornish engineer and inventor Richard Trevithick, the ‘father’ of the steam locomotive, a memorial exhibition has been arranged in the main gallery of the Science Museum, South Kensington. Trevithick was an inventor of astonishing fertility but his main contribution to engineering progress was his invention of the high-pressure non-condensing steam engine and its application to both road and rail locomotives. His outstanding patent was taken out in 1802, and engines were made all over England to his designs. Of these engines two excellent specimens are shown, one with a cast iron boiler, made in 1805, and another made in 1811 with a wrought iron boiler. Unfortunately, nothing remains of his several locomotives, but various documents and drawings are exhibited and there are also some of the cast iron rails from Penydarran, South Wales, on which his first locomotive ran. This engine, the first rail locomotive in the world, is known to have drawn five wagons with a load of ten tons in 1804 and four years later Trevithick exhibited a locomotive, afterwards named Catch-me-who-can, “in the fields adjoining the Bedford Nursery-near Tottenham Court Road”, London. The next locomotive of importance was that constructed by Matthew Murray for John Blenkinsop at Leeds in 1811, but the original drawings for this were supplied by Trevithick, who received a royalty on the engine. The exhibition also includes Linnell's portrait of Trevithick painted in 1816, Burnard's bust and many interesting letters and documents....
So they have 2 engines, and one is in the cellar. This was rescued by Sir Frances Trevithick, who realised its import. Was it on one of his locomotives first before being reassigned? It is suggested in the Railway Magazine it may be? PErhaps it would be nice to at least see this engine on display, maybe at the nrm, and an opportunity to do a full survey, who knows what will be unmasked?
https://collection.sciencemuseumgro...vithick-type-return-flue-steam-boiler-of-cast
The Museum states it was Dudley about 1847, but why did his son make such efforts to rescue it?
Pretty sure we'll never know!

 

A fascinating piece of history. However there is one factual error. Trevithick may well have supplied drawings to Murray but the locomotives built by Fenton, Murray and Wood were very different to those built by Trevithick, although royalties were certainly paid.

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So does this mean the nrm Old wheelsets off what was thought to be Blenkinsop's demonstrator(they are 5 foot gauge...) are Trevithick in design? If so they deserve centre space near the Mallard et al!

 

Granted back then. I remember seeing magazines of the mid seventies making a really big deal of the owners of 6201 Princess Elizabeth, retubing her. It was also quite something when NELPG re-tyred the K1 62005 in 1980 too.........But just look at Darlington, they Built a completely new Peppercorn A1 Tornado and the A1SLT are well on their way to building another P2!

 

How much of what is being done now could have been done forty or more years ago if people had been daring enough? Over the years the teams have become more and more daring, from restoring locos from Barry that were still fairly complete, to the "impossible dream" of restoring 71000 with major new components and building replicas of small early locos such as Planet, to Tornado, and now to numerous new builds.

 

Daring, or experienced in what could be done? My sense is of incremental improvements leading to ever greater ambitions.


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Michael Bailey's book (Loco Motion - the World's Oldest Steam Locomotives) points out Trevithick's earliest locomotive experiment is preserved in the Science Museum. It's a model, or if you will a tiny prototype, built in 1798. They also have a stationary Trevithick boiler and engine similar to the images of the Penydarren loco built in 1804.

There is some evidence of an earlier Trevithick locomotive possibly built in 1802 in Coalbrookdale although maybe never completed or used as a loco. There is some correspondence of it being under construction and one of the most famous drawings long believed to be of the 'Penydarren' is annotated as 3' gauge (Coalbrookdale) whereas Penydarren was 4'2".

 

Indeed, and also lack of finance and facilities as well (particularly in the early days of preservation, but still an issue for some sites today). For some of the early preserved lines which obtained their locos in working order from BR or industry it was only because eventually they started to run out of working locos that better facilities became a higher priority. Some locos at the time were run into the ground, and then got left there for want of the necessary abilities to fix them. The Bluebell's 27 springs to mind, now happily being restored/resurrected.

Steve B

 

The Atlantic boiler that was 'discovered' (weren't there two?) and which is now adorning the replica/rebuild of 32424 Beachy Head at the Bluebell, do we know the donor origins of this boiler(s)?

 

It's not quite definitive, but as I understand it is an LNER boiler built during the war and probably fitted to a C1 Atlantic No. 3287 from August 1943. That loco was scrapped in October 1945 after which the boiler was repaired and then sold for use off the railway.

Of the tender, the frames come from a tender attached to B4 4-4-0 No. 63 "Pretoria, which was scrapped in 1951, with the tender then going into departmental use. The wheels and axle boxes come from a tender built for loco 555, a C2x 0-6-0; it also seemingly ran (in BR days) with 32543, another C2x. Again, the tender survived initially in departmental use after the loco was scrapped.

Tom

 

The first Blenkinsop/Murray loco for the Middleton Railway was 4' 1" gauge so where did these wheele sets come from?

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The Rack and Pinion is a Blenkinsop Patent. It is thought the wheelsets were to patent /prove the design but is lost in the mists of time now. Gauge wise it may be the fashion changed from 5ft to 4 ft no one had standardised things yet...
So if we presume Trevithicks part was the boiler/cylinders motion, could we put together a loco? Or juck a mock up of Salamanca? Not sure one of the Science Museum boilers will fit, but would be an 'ell of an exhibit if it did...

 

Apologies if it has already been mentioned, what about the 22(?) that was cut up at Barry?