V4 2-6-2 No. 3403

I understand it will be when working in Scotland

 

That's true - I was at the Convention where they announced it - but I'd rather it carried that name full time.

 

Well it's their engine of course, and they can call it what they like, but personally I think a Scottish name for the sake of it would be a disappointment.

Bearing in mind there were supposed to be rather more than 2, and they were intended for the job the B1 eventually did, and they only ended up in Scotland eventually because there were only 2 of them and no one seems to have known what to do with them, and apparently they weren't ideal where they were used in Scotland...

Mightn't it be nice to give it a name that reflects the GE, who actually liked them and seem to have got the best out of them....?

 

It sure will be a finger licking good loco ( Dons full NBC, Retreats to a safe hiding place to wait and observe the fall out)

 

Wheres my scatter gun.

 

Was there anyone who had use of them who did not like them? The old West Highland hands used to say that they were the best locos that they ever had up there. The only reason that they had such short lives was because there were only the one boiler apiece for them and when these became life expired it was not worth building replacements. That's no reflection on the undoubted popularity of the engines.

Peter

 

Peter with your connections at West Coast would Alec McDonald be a source of information to you?
I don’t know the gent but from a recent piece in Steam Railway I know he had a long railway career on the West Highland.
If he didn’t work on the V4’s would he have known people who did?

 

I'm not sure that Alec actually worked on V4s as by the time he started as a cleaner at Mallaig around 1955 their appearence on the West Highland would have been very rare. The person I spoke to most from the post war era as the late Albert Timbrell who we used to stay with when his wife ran a b&b in Fort William in the 1990s. Albert was the fireman on the last freight train on the Fort Augustus branch on 31/12/46. He also drove "Glen Douglas" away south after it was repaired following the unfortunate "Jacobite" railtour in June '63. He worked on WD 2-8-0s on freights up there after the war as as intimated thought the V4s were the ideal general purpose loco for the West Highland, preferring them to a K4 which were often fickle steamers.

Peter

 

The high pressure one was thought to be the equivalent to a V2 on the road, but was "complicated." They thought it could be revolutionary at the time, alas for the War. And "Thompson wouldn't build any more, because Gresley designed 'em." If indeed it was equivalent to a V2 as built, that is remarkable! So A1SLT. Capercaillie or whatever you call it needs that boiler!

 

Where is that quote from? Or is it just unsubstantiated here-say? Given wartime conditions and availability of materials, it’s hard to say Thompson was wrong building the simple, reliable B1s in their stead.

Tom

 

Just here say from an old York loco man, They clearly had a trial of it, but I never asked details nor recall anymore said on it. The views on the B1 are typical of his view of Thompson, vs the reverence to Sir Nigel, common opinions not without substance. I think if I'd been in the war a B1 would be a far more balanced option. But the V4 was revolutionary, not just a lightweight V2, and this aspect should not be forgotten. Nobody really wanted a 325psi experimental boiler by late 1939...

 

I think we must be talking about a different V4 loco here as 3401 and 3402 were hardly revolutionary and certainly did not have 325psi boilers.

Peter

 

I'm sure somewhere on here there's a long and exhaustive thread that goes a long way towards showing that this particular common opinion was in fact rubbish... if only I could find it...

also, they were 250psi boilers

 

I don't know if it has been mentioned in this thread (I am rubbish at using the search feature) but ages ago I came across some articles by Norman McKillop from the 1950s where he talks about driving Bantam Cock when it was on test and he spoke highly of the loco.

 

I wonder how far that's rose tinted glasses? I'm sure I've read somewhere that they were good on the flat on the West Highland, but sub par vs K4s when it came to the gradients. Hence moving them to Eastfield for working freights east.

 

anyway, back to Eastern names:

Norfolk Bronze or Bernard Matthews anyone?

 

How about 'Gresley Duck'?

 

Gressingham Duck?

 

Jake Thackeray. He did a song called Bantam Cock.

 

That is true, I believe, but that does not make them unpopular locos. The V4 was a versatile, light weight (RA4) general purpose loco and their load limit on the West Highland was 250tons. The K4 on the other hand was a specialist loco, well suited to the West Highland hills it was designed for where it could take 300tons. Its weight no doubt helped (RA6) here but they were apparently unpredictable steamers and were dreadful on the flat beyond Craigendoran where there was a need to run at speed. They were different engines built to different specifications.

Peter