Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Another Word About Steam

Dong has kindly sent me a comment about our day out on the Severn Valley Railway. It seems I have some factual errors about the locos that hauled us up and down the line. I'm no expert (I'll leave that to the likes of Dong and Bern the Lens).

Still, gives me an excuse to publish another shot of railways as they should be.

Dong's comment in full:

"Before Bern the Lens has apoplexy and takes you to task I should point out that we were hauled from Kidderminster by ex GWR loco 4936, Kinlet Hall, not by the black 5 which hauled us on the return journey.

Ex GWR loco's are easily recognised by their distinctive copper clad funnels as in Bern's latest picture, also they have 4 figure numbers rather than 5 as when BR took over they realised that all the GWR number plates were made of brass rather than painted on and therefor expensive to replace.

There is of course the connection that the designer of the black 5 was Sir William . A. Stanier FRS, who originally worked for the GWR and took the design for their efficient tapered boiler with him to the LMS where he was chief mechanical engineer.

Glad you like the atmosphere but be careful on the detail, otherwise they'll 'ave ya !"






1 comment:

Dong said...

A further update is required as I have led you astray in referring to loco number 42968, featured in your photo and the motive power on the run back from Bridgenorth to Kidderminster (shed code 84G) as a black 5.

Similar to the black 5 in that both classes are classified as 5MT (mixed traffic) this lococmotive class was introduced in 1933 as opposed to the black 5 which was introduced in 1934, both designed by William A.Stanier FRS and sharing certain characteristics, boiler pressure of 225 lbs per square inch for example, I believe that they share the same boiler design - LMS tapered inspired by the GWR tapered as mentioned before.

Threre are however two major differences between the classes, our loco has driving wheels of 5'6"
diameter whereas the black 5 has
6' diameter driving wheels and - crucially from an identifiaction point of view - has a 2 6 0 wheel arrangement rather than the 4 6 0 classic british wheel arrangement of ths black 5.

So there you have it, similar design, same designer, easy mistake to make as 840 black 5's were produced compared to only 40 of our locomotive class but I do apologise for inadvertantly misleading you.

As I have mentioned before Duffel coats were our uniform of choice in those far off salad days, anoracks being a comparatively recent innovation.