Hawksworrth GWR pacific

id suggest that they were numbered into the x0xx range to emphasise their passenger rather than mixed traffic aspirations.

 

Same league as the ROD's then! ;-)

 

Depends what the weigth distribution would be like as well, the slipping problem woulden't be half as bad if the rear pony was barely carrying anything and basically there to make room for a wide firebox, think the civil engineer might of had a fit at the resulting axleloading though!.

Wasn't the 4-8-0 wheel arrangement also considered ?, while i can see the merits of such a thing on steep gradients, it would of been interesting on some of the curves west of Newton Abbott.

 

Have a look at this.

http://www.stationroadsteam.com/archive/2493/index.htm

Perhaps a close indication of what it may have looked like?

 

If only!, even in model form that thing oozes power.

 

I was talking to a modeller friend last night, and he came up with this: http://www.gwr.org.uk/galparsons1.html Strictly speaking, the dome should be where the safety valves are, the topfeed moved along to the next section of barrel, while the safety valves themselves should be on top of the firebox. The use of the King bogie is also pretty suspect, but these issues aside, it's essentially the same as the drawing, as it appears in RCTS. Not a bad looking engine really, but pretty unlikely I think, especially when the existing designs already had a fair bit of room for improvement, as others have already said. And even then they never really reached their full potential.

Looking at it from certain angles, you do get the impression that the whole thing was principally an (informal?) exercise in boiler design, with a set of wheels thrown underneath it that just happened to be of the Pacific arrangement.

A 4-8-0 was considered at one point during the 20's, being pretty much a 4 cylinder version of the 47xx. Problem was the lack of clearance needed to get a bogie in; I think you might just have been able to get a plate frame type, similar to the King in, but it would've been very very tight.

As it happens, the 4-6-0 arrangement served the Western well enough for nearly 60 years, which speaks for itself I think.

 

Yep, I've read about the possible 4-8-0. If it had been introduced though, would it have been restricted to the mainlines,or could it have ventured onto the valley lines to collect the coal trains at source?
Apparrantly Riddles when designing the 9F considered a 4-8-0, but eventually went for a 2-10-0. If it had not been for Nationalisation, would "Evening Star" have been a true Swindon product?

 

Good question, the fixed wheelbase on a 47xx is the same as a 42xx, so its route availabilty might not have been that different from a 72xx.

 

Really ? My understanding was that Riddles was contemplating the 9F as a 2-8-2 Mikado following the successful use of that wheel arrangement by the LNER - and remember that many of the BR Senior Management were ex LNER men. But Riddles had served in the War and had seen and marvelled at - at first hand - the experience of the ability of the German 2-10-0s and redesigned his 9F to be a 2-10-0 rather than 2-8-2; in hindsight was he right ?

On a similar tack I have always been led to believe that Hawksworth had intended to create a Pacific design, using the Counties as a preliminary test bed for some ideas ( the boiler ? ) before committing himself to a formal design. I wonder if the 4-8-0 design was one of the alternatives considered in the planning stage before a final decision would have been taken - had nationalisation not interfered with any new locomotives being created by the old pre-nationalisation companies.

 

Following on from Fred's comments above, Colonel Rogers in his book about Riddles mentions that the Chief Draughtman's Committee ( of the Railway Executive) proposed a 2-8-2, but Riddles insisted on a 2-10-0 in the light of his experience with his Austerity 2-10-0 in Europe during the War.

Riddles apparently expressed the view that his Class 6 Pacific was a mistake, and that the problems in Scotland would have been better served by a 4-8-0 passenger design.

Incidentally dont think that Riddles sat down in his office and designed the new Standard classes. He didn't. The Locomotive Standards Committee of the Railway Executive looked at the locomotive exchange trials results, and what stock of existing classes they had inherited, and formulated--no doubt under general guidance from Riddles--but specifically led by Roland Bond, the design criteria for the new classes. Thse criteria then went to the Chief Draughtsman's Committee who co-ordinated work on the various designs using draughtsmen at Brighton Swindon Doncaster and Derby. Riddles as CME no doubt then had the final say.

46118

 

On that point its interesting to note that the new wheel size for the Counties, 6'3", was/is the largest that could be accomodated on the 4700 wheel spacing...

 

No, this is just another one of those myths started by a certain historian who should've known a lot better.

The only 4-8-0 design I'm aware of is the one proposed in the mid-20's, that's not to say there wasn't another later on, but they kept it very quiet if there was! I think it's important not to look too much into some of this, the 4-8-0 doesn't appear to have been a particularly serious proposal, just an idea being quickly thrashed out. Likewise, there is no evidence to suggest that Hawksworth had anything to do with the Pacific acredited to his name, other than to tell those involved in designing it to stop! It certainly gets a lot more press than it deserves... there are lots of interesting real proposals that exist, but they're constantly overlooked in favour of this mythical glamour engine.