Wednesday, September 16, 2009

A Final Word About Steam (probably)

Ok, ok - so I led with my chin.

Dong has kindly corrected himself correcting me. For your undoubted delight and delectation here's the full unexpurgated new comment in pure Dongalese.

Once again it gives me a decent excuse to publish a shot of our day trip riding the steam. This is the loco that pulled us on the outward journey; a shot taken by Mrs The Millbrooker from within our compartment. It is definitely NOT a Black 5, perish the very thought. Even though it's black and goes chuff-chuff, it's not of the five variety.This is Dong's new comment; I wish everyone well in maintaining their will to live throughout the next few paragraphs:

"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 locomotive 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.

There 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 identification point of view - has a 2 6 0 wheel arrangement rather than the 4 6 0 classic British wheel arrangement of this 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 inadvertently misleading you.

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







2 comments:

Nina said...

definitely, duffel coats are much more the thing dear father of mine! As the picture so evidently shows!

Dong said...

I can see that for the novice this can be confusing but for the aficionado's out there a further correction is crying out to be made.

Your comparison of both locomotive classes that they are both black and go chuff chuff can be taken further, both the GWR Hall class, introduced in 1928,and the LMS black 5, introduced in 1934, have
6' diameter driving wheels, boiler pressure of 225 lbs per square inch, weigh roughly the same at 75 tons (excluding tender at around 45 tons), have the same classic british locomotive 4 6 0 , wheel arrangement and - spookily - are both classified as 5MT (mixed traffic)

The crucial difference from an identification point of view is that in common with most ex GWR tender locomotives the Hall class are painted green, not black, I hope you dont mind me pointing out this rather fundemental error.

Great station Paddington - spent a lot of time there in days of yore.