Great Western Boilers

Yes, 1501 definitely carries a taper boiler.

Jimc, you really do come up with the goods I wish I had your library! It is interesting how boilers changed over the years but still remained interchangeable. The sheer number of so-called 'standard' boiler types does make one question the effectiveness sometimes - the Manor and Castles being cases in point. Rather than euphemistically calling a unique boiler type for one class 'standard' you would have thought they would have called them the 'Manor' and 'Castle' type boiler!

 

Well, that's Churchward for you.... But of course they were always potentially available for new designs for other classes... The Std 7 was a case in point: although only ever used for the 47s there were all sorts of schemes to use it on other designs. One of the more amusing speculations is what might have happened if GWR design had persisted and the internal combusion engine not come in... Especially if developments like welded construction and so on had saved weight. Std 7 boilered "Castles" might have been useful bits of kit, so that matter, a Castle boilered 28...

In the 19thC the GW did tend to use the orginal class name for boilers, which led to the amusing contradiction of "Sir Daniel" boilers being in use long after the last "Sir Daniel" had been scrapped.

 

But you are looking here at over 60 years of design evolution where many boilers were interchangeable between locos even though later built boilers might incorporate small design refinements in the light of experience or economy.
You are also overlooking the considerable range of motive power types & sizes required for traffic reasons & in some cases constrained by civil engineering consideration.

 

Jamie: Link for image of Std no. 10 boiler being worked on at Bridgnorth as mentioned earlier by D1039.

http://svr-engineering.co.uk/news/news.html

 

The Stanier 8Fs built at Swindon, 8400-8479, were not ordered by the MOD/War Department. They were ordered by the Railway Executive Committee for use in Britain, similar to the 8Fs built at the LNER and SR works.

 

This is something I'm working up for an article... I sling together things like this because I learn a shed lot more when I try and explain things. Its a long way from complete and surely contains errors and certainly contains completely unfounded speculation... However it does include a fuller table of boiler types, so maybe it will be of relevance to the topic... Something I need to think a lot more about is the degree to which hard design limits affected Collett and Hawkesworth's ability to maintain standardisation: seems to me they were forever banging up against weight and loading gauge limits whereas Churchward seems to have had a little more room to spare with the lighter loads in his day...

http://www.champwilde.f9.co.uk/gwdrawings/gwrstandardboilers.html

Suggestions/corrections/improvements/ all very welcome: there's a mail form available from the page...