Austerity 2-8-0 query

It seems that the WDs were always worse though. Maybe a false memory from my childhood but I seem to remember the exLNER 2-8-0s looking better kept than the poor old WDs. New England was a different story, nothing seemed to have been cleaned

 

I've found a photo of 90256 on an up goods at West Thurrock Junction on 7th March 1958 in Vol.5 of Peter Kay's LTSR History. Doesn't give the destination but the book has a section on goods traffic which I shall read. He does write that they were also used frequently on the engineering trains connected with the line's electrification.

 

Coming back to the reason for the query that kicked this off thread, see page 20 of The Bluebell Times for a picture of a clean Austerity.

https://www.bluebell-railway.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/issue-77.pdf

Tom

 

Reading mr Rowledge I think WD 2-8-0 had narrow copper firebox and the 2-10-0s had wide steel fireboxes.
Was this changed later?

 

Yes ,2-10-0s steel to copper on the first overhaul by BR.

 

I wonder why? A characteristic of their steel box was the three arch tubes which not only theoretically improved steaming but also supported the brick arch. I can't see these being replicated in a copper box.

Peter

 

The 2-8-0s had copper fireboxes, not steel.

What is your source for that? This comment is from Roland Bond in the discussion following the Burrows & Wallace' paper to the ILocoE in 1958 on experience with the Bulleid fireboxes:
" would like to supplement the information given in the Paper by referring to some other locomotives running in this country fitted with steel fireboxes. There were, firstly, 25 2-10-0 locomotives running in Scotland, the steel fireboxes of which had arch tubes instead of thermic syphons. Those boilers had done very well; there had been no trouble with the inner fireboxes, and it looked as though their life would be 15 years or more."
Which rather suggests that they still had steel boxes in 1958.

 

Several issues of of 1960 Trains Illustrated and Railway Mag .

 

So secondary sources then. I haven't found any reference to this at TNA

 

So, as several 2-10-0 locos remain, are these fitted with steel or copper boxes?

 

The extant ones are not ex-BR but I remain very sceptical that the BR ones were modified.

 

AD 600 'Gordon' has a steel firebox.

 

You're not the only one.

As do 3672 and 90775.

 

Returning 2-10-0 were deported to Scotland where water is better and boilers can last forever?
What is TNA by the way?

 

The National Archives.

 

Thank You