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GWR 4-6-0s in color Collett & Hawksworth Locomotives in the 1960s Derek Penney
GWR 4-6-0s in color Collett & Hawksworth Locomotives in the 1960s by Derek Penney
Hard Cover
Copyright 1997 REPUBLISHED 1999
79 pages
A remarkable fact is that when the first withdrawal from service of a `Castle' class engine took place in 1950, so durable was its design that there were in production at Swindon 10 new engines of near-identical construction to add to the 160 still in service. Moreover, when you consider that the design was essentially as laid down in the `Star' class of 1907, it becomes clear how far ahead of its rivals the Great Western Railway was in the field of locomotive design in the early 1900s. It was a lead that was to be maintained for many years to come.
The man responsible for this happy state of affairs for the company was
G. J. Churchward. He had set himself the twofold objectives of improving manufacturing standards, and of producing a range of standard locomotives, using as many common parts as possible. His method was to evaluate thoroughly, by practical trials on the road, all the possible options before formulating his final designs, and he was not shy of incorporating some features of locomotive design from abroad. Thus, two-cylinder 4-4-2 and 4-6-0 engines were matched against each other, against four-cylinder compound 4-4-2s from France, and they in turn against four-cylinder simple 4-4-2 and 4-6-0s. This approach was to pay handsome dividends, for the outcome was the adoption of two outstanding 4-6-0 designs: the two-cylinder `Saints' and the four-cylinder `Stars' mentioned above. A four-cylinder Pacific was also tried, but found inappropriate for GWR use, so the 4-6-0 tradition that the GWR was steadfastly to maintain became firmly established.
Though none of Churchward's locomotives appear in this book, all that do stem from those two key designs. C. B. Collett continued where his predecessor left off, quickly bringing out two notable 4-6-0 designs - the `Castles', already remarked upon, and the rebuilding of Churchward's two-cylinder Saint Martin with smaller driving wheels as a prototype of the `Hall' class, forerunner of many similar mixed-traffic 4-6-0 types on the GWR and elsewhere. When greater power was called for, he took the 4-6-0 type to its ultimate size with his four-cylinder `King' class of 1927, and there later followed the more specialised `Granges' and lightweight `Manors'. Continuity was maintained under
F. W. Hawksworth with the introduction of the `Modified Hall' and the large, two-cylinder `County' classes, until at last change seemed to be in the wind with the possibility of a new GWR Pacific. However, if this was anything other than rumour, it was quickly overtaken by the unified British Railways locomotive policy. So the `Counties' completed the range of GWR 4-6-0s, but they were not the end of the story, as the performance of many of the 4-6-0s was to be enhanced still further under BR ownership by improvements to the draughting, and the adoption of higher superheat.
More than a brief outline of their origins would be inappropriate in a book of this nature, the more so since there are many scholarly accounts of these locomotives available to the public. Besides, whatever their merits as machines, it was their appearance that I - and, I suspect, many others - found the most fascinating of their attributes, and which is the focus of this book. The uniquely omate styling - `old-fashioned' but grandly so - was what first attracted me to them as a small boy. To pictures of them, I should say, because they were `foreign engines' to me and I never actually set eyes on one until I was into my teens. True, I had caught sight of one or two newly-built `9400' class panniers leaving the Yorkshire Engine Co's works, but these were nothing compared to the thrill of sighting my first GWR 4-6-0, even though it was only
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