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Locomotive Superintendents

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by Dunfanaghy Road, Feb 25, 2021.

  1. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    The GWR didn't seem to believe in succession planning, did they? Auld wasn't a runner, unless Collett departed unexpectedly. WA Stanier saw how it was and went elsewhere for advancement. Hawksworth had an unfamiliar job to master, with the minor matter of a World War to contend with. Not ideal.
    Pat
     
  2. LesterBrown

    LesterBrown Member

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    It seems that while Hawksworth hadn't had a post outside the drawing office Collett had a reputation for never visiting the drawing office. Am I correct that Auld had the title Assistant CME while at the same period Hawksworth's title was Principal Assistant to the CME. I think the elderly but indispensable Auld's retirement was one of the events that precipitated the Board to finally require Collett to retire. It seems that the Board had previously had to overrule Collett in getting Swindon to contribute to the war effort.
     
  3. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    My recollection of what Cook had to say was that Collett persuaded Auld to stay on so he wouldn't be the oldest man at Swindon and that when Auld finally insisted on leaving Collett went too. But that doesn't mean the board wasn't involved. I think even Cook says that Collett wasn't giving his work his full attention in the latter years.
     
  4. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Looking at the bios (very quick internet search) I couldn't see if Collett or Hawksworth if they had any WW1 service. Maybe I missed it.

    The interesting trip for me has to be the Gresley, Bulleid, Hawksworth, Stanier visit to Belgium in 1910.
     
  5. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    Indeed. I think we sometimes forget that these gentlemen mostly knew each other and corrresponded, via various fora. I have just seen on the website The Paperchase.co.uk that in Nov 2020 they sold a 1907 letter from Dugald Drummond to GJ Churchward (fetched all of £21). I wonder if DD was after tips on making 4-6-0's work?;)
    Pat
     
  6. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    The LSWR came into contact with the GWR at Reading, Basingstoke, Salisbury, Yeovil, Exeter and Plymouth to name but six places. Maybe Mr Drummond’s Bug had an aversion to such routes, but assuming not, you do wonder to what degree Drummond travelled with his eyes open!

    Tom
     
  7. bluetrain

    bluetrain Well-Known Member

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    It wasn't only the GWR from whom DD was reluctant to learn. His younger brother Peter had produced one of the most successful of the early 4-6-0s in the shape of the Highland Rly "Castle Class", albeit most of the design work is thought to have been done under PD's predecessor David Jones.
     
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  8. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Oh to be a fly on the wall on that trip.
     
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  9. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I find the juxtaposition interesting, on the one hand we have Bulleid, Gresley, Stanier, Hawksworth travelling around to see the latest not just in Britain and Europe (the thing in Belgium was I understand destined for Colombia), and then we have Drummond who may or may not have never looked at another loco and thought 'I wonder what I can learn here'.

    (Of course the four were all on the rise in 1910 while Drummond was obviously at the top and on his way out. But even so, it seems like this group and others were still making trips in the 1930s as well).
     
  10. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Decidedly more Jones in appearance than Drummond. For a small class, they held out quite well in the face of the LMS scrap and build, though the Austrian corporal's activities might explain the extended lives of the last six survivors.
     
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  11. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I guess the point is that in 1910, Bulleid, Gresley, Hawksworth and Stanier were all relatively junior - Gresley was most advanced, being a couple of years away from becoming CME at Doncaster; for Bulleid, Hawksworth and Stanier, the top job was still at 20 - 30 years away. Presumably their respective bosses (Ivatt and Churchward) had sent the young guns away to learn what they could, rather than go themselves. Which is fine, and isn't necessarily a criticism on Drummond for not going himself. The greater criticism of Drummond is that, in design terms, he really stagnated in the second half of his career: his best LSWR designs were no better than those being produced elsewhere (and rather worse when compared with Churchward); his worst designs (ironically where he tried to continue to innovate) were decidedly awful.

    Tom
     
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  12. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Churchward at least seems to have encouraged or at least approved of staff taking (unpaid) sabbaticals, Holcroft did as well, an in 1910 Hawksworth and Bulleid were 28 and Gresley and Stanier 34.
     
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  13. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    They were all junior but they also continued to learn. As far as I can tell Gresley, Bulleid attended the Cairo, Madrid and Paris railway conferences between 1933-36 and continued to correspond with Chapelon, Maybach and others, he travels to Vitry when it was opened. So Gresley and Bulleid continued to draw on that experience and maintained it. It wasn't as if they got to the top and then stopped developing which is what we can maybe say about some of the late C19 designers.

    But maybe this is also the shift in the 'role of the CME' that we are talking about. Drummond comes from a generation which is doing everything down to punishing drivers for x,y,z and then you have the next generation which is expected to keep upto date with the latest developments in loco design globally and to network. If you are busy checking out the latest from France you probably don't have time to be punishing Driver Smith for a minor indiscretion.
     
  14. LesterBrown

    LesterBrown Member

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    I vaguely recall reading somewhere that Collett positively discouraged his staff from visiting the works of other railways.
     
  15. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Is this why things like fully enclosed cabs and outside motion never really caught on with the GW? :p (Yes folks I’ve had a beer I can take you all on!)
     
  16. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    I've read that he declined to involve himself in the Chief Officers get togethers, and sent Stanier in his stead. Also that he excused himself from the social / municipal life of Swindon, Hawksworth filling in. Peculiar.
    Pat
     
  17. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Wasn’t Mr Collett also a bit of a spiritualist? Didn’t he try spending some time trying to get in touch with his wife after she passed away?
     
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  18. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    The Peter Drummond 4-6-0's share 1 characteristic with the Jones Goods which is the very assymetrical coupled wheelbase. They look as though Jones, in the first instance, decided to stretch the 4-4-0 by adding a wheelset in front of the driving axle and stretching the barrel to suit, thus leaving the firebox / ashpan / rear axle relationship alone. PD (or his draughtsman) kept to that, DD could have learnt, but didn't.
    The reputation of DD's 'Gobblers' was such that in 1913 firemen were paid -/3d a day extra for firing 4-cylinder engines (on a wage of 3/9 rising to 4/6 per day). Money hard earned, I would think. (I wonder if the 'Butterfly' 4-2-2-0's counted as 4-cylinder engines?)
    Pat
     
  19. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    So I've heard. It was a very respectable, even fashionable, interest at the time. Rudyard Kipling used it to try to contact his son Jack, killed at Loos while serving in the Irish Guards.
    Pat
     
  20. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Conan Doyle was someone else who was into it. (Death of his son during WW1). The 1920s and 30s can be seen as a massive collective nervous breakdown after the trauma of WW1. (ie Hemmingway, D.H. Lawrence, Orwell all reflect this in their approach to life and writing after WW1).
     

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