4920 Dumbleton Hall

I notice in the advert for the sale of the loco a mention is made of The Primrose Line. The real Primrose Line, as far as I recall was the Brent to Kingsbridge branch, which sadly was not saved for posterity.

 

A bit off-topic but thanks for the memories. I travelled the Kingsbridge branch many times as a youngster and agree, it would have made a superb heritage line !

 

I had a chance to talk to the chairman of the 4920 Group at the South Devon 50th gala. In his opinion, 3803 would probably be their next overhaul, because it needed relatively little to achieve a running engine again. Towing 5 coaches around on the branch hadn't worn it out much, apparently! 4920 (and 3205) were another matter entirely, or so we were told. We were also told that 3803 might even be started on in the very short term, as it looked like the boiler needed far less work than 1420's!

 

It was myself who used to run this page on behalf of the DHPS, of which I used to be a member . However I removed it due to my personal feelings on the Loco.

Why have a Facebook page when there’s nothing to update??
The last news I posted was her being moved off the severed siding. Sadly since then she has been stuffed behind the shed . The quote “out of sight, out of mind” seems appropriate

 

This afternoon 3803 and 4920 in the sidings close to 2873 remains.Possibly moved to allow 31101 to be delivered for the gala .3205 in the main Shed area by the miniature railway .

 

https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2020/12/new-year-new-home-for-steam-locomotive-4920-dumbleton-hall.html

 

I guess Mr Maltby won the lottery after all!

 

Oh that's glorious!

 

Rumour's have it moving northwards (though most places are North of its current location!), maybe a somewhat similar resemblance to a certain red loco...

 

The number of main line routes available to Halls and similar G.W.R. locos is diminishing rapidly.

The biggest issue for Nat Pres is surely which livery the new owner will apply.

Bob.

 

Dumbledore Hall?

 

I cannot like this enough !

 

I'm always surprised that no one has had a crack at designing a narrowed down, more gauge friendly set of cylinders for the Halls to increase their route availability.

 

What for when you have plenty of gauge friendly Black 5s to do the job for you?

Peter

 

For a bit of variety for the Mainline operators and could help bump a couple of locos up the restoration queue. Being pragmatic, with the age of the locos i can only see it as a matter of time before more and more need new cylinders cast so it could be a chance to get ahead of the curve. In realistic terms i can't see it being the huge outlay that it would have been 10-15 years ago with the use of Poly patterns, and it should be straightforward compared to the work that the P2 group have done.

Who wouldn't want to see double headed halls over the south Devon banks ?

 

My understanding is that the issue with GWR outside cylinder locos is not just the maximum width, but where it is - low down, specifically at platform height. As far as I can tell (maybe @Jimc can enlighten us further) the GWR accepted a tighter gap between the loading gauge and structure gauge (essentially the loading gauge is how big the "thing" is; and the structure gauge is how big the "hole" is that you are trying to fit that "thing" through). In modern usage, it seems to be the structure gauge which is tightening up (i.e. primarily rails moving tighter to platforms in order to reduce the risk of a passenger falling between platform edge and a train).

As for redesigning the cylinders: there is a description here of how that was done on 6023. A number of measures taken, but a significant one was reducing cylinder diameter. There is an obvious primary issue with doing that, which is getting the new design accepted by a vehicle acceptance body. (On 6023 it was thinner material; more, but thinner, studs holding the cylinder ends on; and a different material for the casting - quite a significant change). The second issue is that whereas for a King, reducing the cylinder size might take a nominal 8P down to a still useful 7P; doing the same on a Class 5 potentially starts to lead towards a loco that is not powerful enough to haul viable loads on the mainline.

I suspect the physical casting itself is small beer by time you have got past those considerations.

Well, you might need two of them by time you have reduced the cylinders in diameter. But now you have got to persuade two loco owners to go down that route ...

Tom