Castle & Star discussion ex Dean Goods thread

The shape of the front end framing was changed on the later Castles, 5013 up? The later frames were straight with a dish to accommodate the front bogie wheel. The early frames curved inwards over the bogie so were narrower at the front. This is where the inside cylinder casing differs. I stand to be corrected on this.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

Go for it, a little extra knowledge can be a good thing.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

it is pretty well documented how Sir Charles Inglis didnt inform Churchward of the strengthening of bridges. Sir Felix Pole wrote about it after he retired. otherwise there would have been a STAR with a 47XX boiler during Churchward and Collett's time. see p.77 J.E Chacksfield C.B. Collett. a STAR with a 47XX boiler was schemed out in Churchward's time. the bridge strengthening aspect wasnt made known to Collett till 1926, 23 years after Inglis's 22 ton bridge strengthening policy had been implemented! (though a few bridges remained to be strengthened to allow the KINGS).
the main difference between the SAINTS and the 4-cylinder locos was the use of stephensons gear on the SAINTS, with their variable lead compared to the fixed lead on the 4-cylinder locos with walshaerts valvegear. this gave the edge over the SAINTS in starting etc so far as the drivers were concerned, and so far as the footplate crew were concerned often led to the SAINTS being regarded as superior, despite the undoubted advantages of the 4-cylinder locos. a HALL is the next best thing and a sideways development of the SAINTS with smaller driving wheels, and until LADY OF LEGEND is completed must be considered the nearest comparable to the SAINTS.
cheers,
julian

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

[corrected 21:00, now I have the books in front of me]
As Pole told the story many years later and there are other sources that disagree with him in some of the detail, during the coal strike period when decent welsh coal was hard to come by the Castles were not at their best, and there was some discussion that they were unsatisfactory.

from "Felix Pole: His Book"
Pole says that it was discussed with Collett, and Collett "lamented that ... locomotive practice was badly hampered" and remarked "if only I could have an axle load of 22.5 tons , I would give you a very fine locomotive".

Pole goes on to say that later on he was discussing this with one of the Directors, and it was then they talked to Lloyd, the chief engineer, and discovered that bridges were being built to a 22T axle loading.

So as Pole tells it, he said to Collett that he could build a 22.5 ton 4cyl loco (4cyl=less hammer blow) and that Llloyd was to get the line from London to Plymouth ready to take it, which in the event required replacing only some four bridges.

Later on, as Pole tells it, he asked how the TE was looking for the new loco, and, hearing that it was going to be a shade under 40,000, asked if it could somehow be increased, and according to Pole this was done by reducing wheel size by 0.25.

The book goes on to say that Sir James inglis had introduced this change and had it approved by the board in the very early 1900s, and goes on to say "Inglis was a far seeing man. At the time he introduced the change described he was on most friendly terms with Mr. Churchward, and doubtless both of them agreed that heavier axle loading would be the thing of the future".

On the other hand, in "Swindon Steam", Cook says that the wheel size was fixed at 6'6" early on, and that the increase in TE was obtained by boring out the cylinders from 16" to 16.25". There's also a suspicion that many new sets of cylinders started out at 16" anyway. Of course in practice TE increased with every wheel turning and every reboring of cylinders: a King with everything at scrapping thickness must have had a theoretical TE pushing 45,000lbs...

I think its pretty well documented, as you say, that *Pole* and his department didn't know about the bridge strengthening, and it seems Collett probably didn't know either. As works manager Collett didn't need to know. Whether Churchward knew or not I think is quite another matter, according to Pole's book, see above, he probably did. To me the puzzle of the Std7 boiler being built in spite of being too heavy for the Stars is a hint that Churchward probably did know. Otherwise Churchward would surely have put a Castle sized boiler on the 47s.

 

Well, the first 47xx was fitted with a std1 boiler before it being realized it wasn't quite up to the job. And I would have thought that you would have tried to fit the best boiler to loco possible hence the std7 for the 47xxs.

 

According to some of the closer sources I've seen 4700 had the std1 boiler because the Std7 wasn't ready - quite a different thing. Cook in "Swindon Steam" says "the new boiler could not be completed in time, so the first engine had a standard No 1 boiler..." and of course Cook was in the drawing office at the time.

According to RCTS upboilered Star, Saint and 28xx studies were done in 1919/20. 4700, of course came out of the works in May 1919, and received her Std 7 boiler in 1921.

It doesn't seem likely to me that Churchward would have commissioned a boiler for only one class. A common large boiler for all the 10 wheeled locos just makes more sense to me, in the same way that there was the Std 2 and Std4 fo 8 wheel locos, there would have been Std1 and Std 7 for the 10 wheelers.

 

Really? Seems strange, I would have thought if that was the case, it would have been better to wait for the proper boiler to be ready rather than knowingly fit a undersized boiler.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

There was something about this in OS Nocks Stars Castles and Kings book (or was it his GWR steam book? Not that it really matters) that suggested Pole and Inglis were on very good terms (one was the protege of the other if I remember rightly) and Churchward didn't seem to get on with Inglis very well which perhaps contributed to his electing for early retirement, so I find this entirely believable. The irony is of course that if they had told anyone, The Great Bear may have lasted a bit longer and actually had some more work done on it because its route availability may have opened up a bit (though Ill warrant, not much!).

There was still a considerable degree of restriction on Kings even after this policy became known however. Kings did not go through the Severn Tunnel till the 1950s if I understand correctly, though Im not particularly clear why, unless it something to do with the Bridge at Newport. Also, they never ran on the Swindon/Gloucester line until after the end of Steam. Im not sure King George V ran on it in the 1970s, but it certainly ran on it in 1985 when the GWR150 was running. It guess it made up for closing Swindon Works....
Am I right in thinking they never ran on the Didcot-Oxford line till after the end of steam either?

Of course it probably didnt help much that (or so Nock claims) some Kings seem to have been as much as 3 tons overweight.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

Weren't the Kings also banned from the Wolverhampton - Salop line until the late 50's? Ray.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

Have updated two previous comments appreciably after reading the books again.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

hi jim,

you have provided an excellent resume of the bridge weight 'fiasco'!

however there are a few more bits of info that throw a bit more light on this subject.

firstly Nock records (omnibus edition of GWR Stars Castles and Kings p. 123) how it was the civil engineering committee of the GWR Board who were informed of the 1903 22ton bridge strengthening policy by Inglis... not the Board itself.

Rogers in his biography of Churchward describes the 'estrangement' between Inglis and Churchward in chapter 10 and provides further details in chapter 13. Churchward once descibed Inglis as "mad". hardly a good working relationship!

i agree with Stuart. i am sure Churchward would have made more use of THE GREAT BEAR had he known most of the bridges had been strengthened and his locomotive policy may have been quite different.

the bridge weight 'fiasco' was sparked off by Collett's memorandum to the Board explaining why THE GREAT BEAR had been scrapped...the memo referred to the restricted route availability.

the other intersting question is why the 47XX No.7 boiler wasnt used on the Castles and Kings? it was only ever fitted to the 47XX class.

cheers,
julian

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

Just imagine the discussions we would be having here had Viscount Churchill survived!

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

Pole records, as noted above, that Churchward got on well with Inglis when Inglis and Churchward were both independant department heads. Both Pole and Nock also record that they got on extremely badly after Inglis, promoted to General Manager, attempted to put through a reorganisation which would have had Churchward reporting to Inglis and not directly to the board. With my own experience of large organisation office politics I find this completely credible, indeed unsuprising.

----------------------------------

Surely we know why the Std 7 wasn't used on Castles and Kings: on Castles it wouldn't make the weight, and on Kings Collett wanted even more capacity.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

There a small mention of inside cylinders on GreatWestern.org
Great Western Railway Star class

Between 1925 and 1929, numbers 4000/9/16/32/37 were taken out of stock and rebuilt as 'Castle' class locomotives. Similarly, numbers 4063 to 4072, known as the 'Abbeys', were rebuilt as 'Castle' class engines between 1937 and 1940.
Outside steam pipes were fitted to most of the class from 1929 although of two types, 'Elbow' and 'Castle'. The 'Elbow' type doubled back between the frames and was used when new inside cylinders or saddles were fitted with the old pattern outside cylinders. The 'Castle' type of steam pipe was used when new pattern outside cylinders were fitted.

Not an in-depth answer, but seems to suggest there was differences in the Cylinders between the original Stars and the Abbeys, let alone the Castles. Is anyone on here able to clear this up?

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

Ah that explains the extra No.1 that they have, out of interest where did the bolier come form, is it related to the fact that 2873 at the SDR now doesn't have a boiler.

 

The Abbeys were complete rebuilds and treated as new Castles, bought on the renewal fund. Cook tells us this was mainly creative accounting, whereas the other rebuilds were done on the maintenance budgets. So I don't think there's any doubt at all they had new cylinders: at a complete guess the old castings went into the spares pool for the Stars. So I don't think we can consider the Abbeys as having necessarily been different on that score: it was just that they were the newest locos with the newest frames.

I'll wildly and on no evidence speculate that this spares pool explains the long life of elbow pipes. The elbow pipes permitted the use of old cylinder blocks with outside pipe boilers and presumably (speculating wildly again) different and improved arrangements within the smokebox. The fact that there were new design cylinders fo the Stars, now I think about it, suggests that the Castles must have had at least one new design cylinder, because the Star plug (yes I know that's the wrong word for steel technology) was available to be modified for outside pipes.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

I believe that you are correct - it was 2873's boiler. Ray.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

lil bear,
your quote refers to the outside steam pipes to the outside cylinders and their shape and alteration. this didnt affect the cylinders at all.
cheers,
julian

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

Ahh yes, sorry. Think my wires got crossed there.

 

Re: GWR 'Dean Goods' no. 2516 - suggested restoration in Steam Railway issue no. 401

I might be wrong but I thought that the spare at Tyseley was the boiler from 3803, with 3803 now running with the boiler ex 2873 (which was in better nick).