The one they never built.

[Prometheus]

And a great shame too. I had been thinking about building a 'Cathedral' for some years and eventually got around to it. An expensive project undeniably, but worth it in the end. A couple of hours a night for two months resulted in this:

 

 

 

The model is constructed from parts of China-made Hornby Princess and Hornby King models, parts of a recent Hornby County tender and the usual assortment of wire, plastic card, screws, brass and detail parts from the bits box. The only other parts purchased were the name and number plates. It took nearly two months of evenings to construct as there were a lot of false starts, neither model having been designed to be combined in this way!

 

All of the boiler fittings from the Princess were cut away, as was the cab, and the cylinders, steam pipes and motion were also removed. The King gave its cab to the build, along with its bogie, double chimney, steam pipes, wheels, smoke-box door, piston rods, slide bars and cross-head, cylinders and buffer beam. Everything else had to be scratch built, including the splashers.

The tender has an adapted Hawksworth tender top and the tender chassis is adapted from the Princess with additional GWR fittings.

The Princess chassis block was used but, like the trailing truck, it was adapted to take the new body. The model retains the Princess’ connecting rods but nothing else.

 

Tony

[DCB]

Looks good. What drawing did you use?    It looks pretty much like the illustration in "The Stars Castles and Kings" by O.S. Nock showing the the Hawksworth Pacific.   Not too sure it was a shame they never built the Pacific,  judging by recent ish you Tubes of Stanier Pacifics slipping on South Devon Banks.   The  proposed roller bearing Kings with streamlined steam passages would have been a better bet... Unless they upgraded Cornwall to double red and decided to run Penzance to Paddington without an engine change , like Exeter Saints and Stars used to on the West Country Postal....  Which begs the question....

[Prometheus]

Drawings were a problem DCB. I found an old article in the Modeller, two paintings/artist’s impressions in books and a basic line drawing on line. Not a lot to go by! In the end, I had to decide which I wanted to copy as much as anything else.

[kevinlms]

The Railway Modeller for 1994 November had an article for a 4mm model 'Cathedral', but that was for a 4-8-0!

[Paul H Vigor]

Was the low dome a feature of the original design? 

[Prometheus]

1 hour ago, Paul H Vigor said:

Was the low dome a feature of the original design? 

I cannot say for certain, two images had it with the safety valve bonnet and two had it alone. I went with the former.

 

Tony

[JimC]

The consensus on the 4-6-2 seems to be that it was a project kicked off by the drawing office that Hawksworth had halted when he heard about it, so to call it a Hawksworth pacific is definitely stretching a point. Mattingly pacific perhaps . There isn't very much to go on because it didn't get very far. The basic weight diagram in RCTS part 9 is about all that's available I believe. That drawing shows a dome and apparently pop safety valves on the firebox, and no safety valve cover at all. It was cancelled at an early enough stage that really one is free to imagine what one likes, because who knows what would have changed as the design was worked up.

 

Edited March 29 by JimC

[The Johnster]

Brunel's mistake with the Atmospheric (it sucked!) and the South Devon banks is held responsible for the GW's attitude to pacifics and the preference for surer-footed 4-6-0s, but the assumed superiority of Churchward designs and the usual reluctance of CMEs at Swindon to try anything that rocked the boat played their part too.  Of course, there were serious banks to contend with on the South Wales Main Line west of Neath, and the Birkenhead line NW of Salop, but since the Kings never got to Neath or past Salop, these are academic considerations.  A through non-stop Penzance-Paddington has been mentioned, but it would be near impossible to justify the expense of beefing up Royal Albert and the Cornwall main line for a train with limited passenger appeal that would have had to slow through Plymouth and Exeter, so might just as well have stopped anyway.  The Mattingley pacific looks more improbable the more you study it, and by the time the drawing office sketched it out, the day of new 4-cylinder pacifics was over, not that that prevented Swindon from building Castles up to 1950 and campainging for more when they were offered Britannias. 

 

They managed to palm the first of their Brits off on to Stewart's Lane, but Marylebone wasn't having any more of their jive, and Brits were used successfully on the South Devon banks, and the South Wales ones as well when they'd reduced their wheel diameter with a bit of mileage.  They did well on the North to West, too.  But a Brit is a radically different propostion from a GW-version Princess Royal.  The argument for a GW/WR pacific was that a wider firebox could be used and lower quality coal exploited, but with 4-6-0s proving adequate, if awkward to prep, the Mattingley was never needed.  Indeed, the Brits were not liked on the WR, especially at Laira, the depot arguably the most steep bank work, but were very well liked at Canton, where a free-steaming 2-cylinder loco with 6'2" drivers that could plug uphill from Severn Tunnel bottom to Badminton with 14 bogies was a very useful thing to have on the roster.

 

But I remember the fuss they made trying to lift those 14 bogies, sometimes 16, out of Platform 2 at Cardiff General.  Bit of a rise over the Canal Wharf bridges, only a few yards, and a tightish lh curve, and the result was volcanic.  I've seen the preserved 70000 manage it easily enough with 11 and a dead 47, but back in the 50s it would take about 4 or 5 of the 15 minutes allowed to Newport for the train to clear the platform!  The down-line workings were entrusted to high-mileage engines with the drivers down to 6', which helped, but one wonders how they managed leaving Neath General on the down, up a corkscrew 1 in 90 to Skewen...  I doubt a Cathederal  would have done any better.

[Prometheus]

Thanks for the comments all. This is illustration I used principally. I cannot advise on its origin though.

 

https://share.icloud.com/photos/064HQSw9DP1M-4tmKu_AKFPpw

 

Tony

[JimC]

10 hours ago, Prometheus said:

Thanks for the comments all. This is illustration I used principally. I cannot advise on its origin though.

The top one is the GWR sketch as included in RCTS. The centre one is a composite of issued weight diagrams over the sketch. I reckon there are substantial chunks of County and King in it, not sure about anything else. I think it must have been produced by an enthusiast, not a Swindon trained draughtsman. The third appears to be a composite based on photos of models. I'm not sure what all the components are, but I'm guessing Stanier Pacific and King are in there, probably County too. 

Edited March 30 by JimC

[JimC]

10 hours ago, The Johnster said:

not that that prevented Swindon from building Castles up to 1950 and campaigning for 

Or, for that matter, Marylebone's 3 cylinder white elephant. Seems to me there probably wasn't that big a gulf in costs between 3 cylinders and 3 valve gears and 4 cylinders and 2. But I m sure you're right, there wasn't a job for a Mattingly Pacific. To my mind the Hawksworth/Stanier 4 cylinder compound is a more interesting never was. 

[JimC]

If one is doing alternate histories one may imagine Collett's wife not dying young, Collett retiring in 1936 at her instigation, and Hawksworth picking up his compound Castle proposal with a large chunk of the Chapelon ideas that were demonstrably (Grange valve chests) already floating round Swindon. The result could potentially have been spectacular given a high superheat boiler, maybe even enlarged to Std 7 size. 

[later] And to my surprise I think the boiler on the surviving GWR diagram of the "Compound Castle" *is* a standard 7. It's not very safe scaling from such drawings, especially from scans, not originals, but I'm about 85% confident that's the case. The proposal had 2* 17 x26 cylinders and 2* 25x26. It doesn't seem to me that would have been lighter than the Castle's 4* 16x26, but I don't know enough to offer any kind of informed opinion.

Edited April 3 by JimC
More info...

[DCB]

I think its in the "Power of the Stars Castles and Kings" that there are descriptions of proposed Castle boiler evolutions with shorter barrels, sloping throat plates and higher pressures proposed in the 1930s.    The boiler became the County boiler which  didn't really work.    Its all based on a  mis match between test plant steady speed steady load performance and performance on the road,  UK style    The  tests have the locos steaming to the front end limit, with great DBHP and coal figures, with no interruptions,  The real  world has delays and greasy track  where sure footed ness  trumps power output for timing trains, and big boilers with  the ability to store surplus energy  when power requirements are reduced are more useful than ones with less water capacity but higher superheat giving more energy.    I think the GW King was the optimum for UK conditions, It needed  smoothed steam passages, maybe a Kylchap exhaust  to work at over 100 mph regularly,  but how much more power could its 67.5 ton  adhesion cope with?    We read of Duchesses in terrible trouble for adhesion,   I am a big fan of GC 4 cyl locos, sure footed, fast they  moved  a lot of payload reliably  rain or shine   ,just like GW  without the efficiency, and see little point in Pacifics which can  arrive 30 minutes early on a dry day and 30 late on a wet one,  Great Bear excepted as|It couldn't have been that slippery if it shifted 2000 tons from Stoke Gifford to Acton at 30 mph, and only had 27000 lbs TE

[tomparryharry]

Conjecture about hypothetical locomotives should be taken in context. To build a locomotive, there needs to be an end use for the operator. Reading about the big Pacifics, they were required to handle large trains; high speed; long distance. The Western business philosophy was slightly smaller trains, and more of them. The Western and the Southern were both moving over to driving wheels of 6'-ish, of which there are many examples. 

 

Had the Western continued as a separate entity (and steam) then I wouldn't be surprised to see 3-cylinder Halls, being about the maximum locomotive type. The distances the Western had to cover pretty much defined the type of locomotive used.  

 

The Cathedral didn't make it because there wasn't a business requirement.

[rodent279]

On 29/03/2024 at 00:33, Prometheus said:

And a great shame too. I had been thinking about building a 'Cathedral' for some years and eventually got around to it. An expensive project undeniably, but worth it in the end. A couple of hours a night for two months resulted in this:

 

 

 

The model is constructed from parts of China-made Hornby Princess and Hornby King models, parts of a recent Hornby County tender and the usual assortment of wire, plastic card, screws, brass and detail parts from the bits box. The only other parts purchased were the name and number plates. It took nearly two months of evenings to construct as there were a lot of false starts, neither model having been designed to be combined in this way!

 

All of the boiler fittings from the Princess were cut away, as was the cab, and the cylinders, steam pipes and motion were also removed. The King gave its cab to the build, along with its bogie, double chimney, steam pipes, wheels, smoke-box door, piston rods, slide bars and cross-head, cylinders and buffer beam. Everything else had to be scratch built, including the splashers.

The tender has an adapted Hawksworth tender top and the tender chassis is adapted from the Princess with additional GWR fittings.

The Princess chassis block was used but, like the trailing truck, it was adapted to take the new body. The model retains the Princess’ connecting rods but nothing else.

 

Tony

Looks lovely. How about putting it in Caledonian blue, as it would have been post-1948?

[tomparryharry]

A cab-forward Baltic type

Oil fired

Smokebox mounted to either side to enable cleaning 

4 cylinder. 2 cylinders forward, 2 cylinders aft, both driving onto the centre drivers to supress hammer-blow

6' drivers

Marine style boilers

Tender has controls. As such, an A&B end to obviate turntables

Remember, we are talking about a railway operating Company, where operating costs are always uppermost in the minds of bean counters.

[Coach bogie]

On 29/03/2024 at 11:34, DCB said:

Looks good. What drawing did you use?    It looks pretty much like the illustration in "The Stars Castles and Kings" by O.S. Nock showing the the Hawksworth Pacific.   Not too sure it was a shame they never built the Pacific,  judging by recent ish you Tubes of Stanier Pacifics slipping on South Devon Banks.   The  proposed roller bearing Kings with streamlined steam passages would have been a better bet... Unless they upgraded Cornwall to double red and decided to run Penzance to Paddington without an engine change , like Exeter Saints and Stars used to on the West Country Postal....  Which begs the question....

 At the same time the pacific and other designs were considered, the serious proposal was to eliminate steam West of Taunton with a fleet of 164 electric locomotives costed at £4million at 1939 values.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[KeithMacdonald]

On 25/05/2024 at 11:55, tomparryharry said:

A cab-forward Baltic type

Oil fired

Smokebox mounted to either side to enable cleaning 

4 cylinder. 2 cylinders forward, 2 cylinders aft, both driving onto the centre drivers to supress hammer-blow

6' drivers

Marine style boilers

Tender has controls. As such, an A&B end to obviate turntables

Remember, we are talking about a railway operating Company, where operating costs are always uppermost in the minds of bean counters.

 

We need pictures!

[KeithMacdonald]

1 hour ago, Coach bogie said:

 At the same time the pacific and other designs were considered, the serious proposal was to eliminate steam West of Taunton with a fleet of 164 electric locomotives costed at £4million at 1939 values.

 

Did that serious proposal include Dawlish to Teignmouth?

[Coach bogie]

51 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Did that serious proposal include Dawlish to Teignmouth?

No. The secondary line from Exeter to Newton Abbott through Chudleigh was to be upgraded to two track mainline. (Still an option for Network Rail!) The Dawlish line would have been downgraded. I assume serviced with diesel railcars but that is just an assumption/guess.

[Mikkel]

On 29/03/2024 at 03:33, Prometheus said:

And a great shame too. I had been thinking about building a 'Cathedral' for some years and eventually got around to it. An expensive project undeniably, but worth it in the end. A couple of hours a night for two months resulted in this:

 

 

 

A nice clean build, Tony. Impressive stuff.

 

I know what you mean about false starts, that's where a lot of the time on projects like these is spent.

 

Can I ask how the nameplate was made?

[Prometheus]

11 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

A nice clean build, Tony. Impressive stuff.

 

I know what you mean about false starts, that's where a lot of the time on projects like these is spent.

 

Can I ask how the nameplate was made?

Thank you Mikkel. Yes, a LOT of the time!!

 

The plates came from 247 Developments. He has two or three names in stock and this seemed the most appropriate. Ideally, I’d have liked Llandaff, but nobody makes it and a commissioned etch was just too expensive.

 

Incidentally, it has since received its route restriction dots.

 

Tony

Edited May 27 by Prometheus

[phil-b259]

16 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

No. The secondary line from Exeter to Newton Abbott through Chudleigh was to be upgraded to two track mainline.

 

Not so!

 

I believe the evidence is the GWR rejected that option in favour of a totally new build Dawlish by-pass (including purchasing some of the land needed) which avoided the twisty route through Chudleigh (the rebuilding of which would have been so great that it wouldn't have saved much in money terms).

 

 

[Coach bogie]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Not so!

 

I believe the evidence is the GWR rejected that option in favour of a totally new build Dawlish by-pass (including purchasing some of the land needed) which avoided the twisty route through Chudleigh (the rebuilding of which would have been so great that it wouldn't have saved much in money terms).

 

 

That was the 1933 scheme which went through various alterations, with land eventually bought for a shorter route than the original proposal. Development never progressed beyond survey stage due to the war. It was one of a number of abandoned projects sadly. Construction started on the proposed, more direct route to Looe, with at least one bridge built and a signal box installed at the new junction location.

 

I understand the 1939 electrification scheme was costed with the inland route but no doubt would have been altered several times once Government finance had been secured. Personally, it is unlikely electrifying some of the branch lines with number of bridge replacements required would ever of happened, especially with GWR railcar development. 

 

Mike Wiltshire

[KeithMacdonald]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

I believe the evidence is the GWR rejected that option in favour of a totally new build Dawlish by-pass (including purchasing some of the land needed) which avoided the twisty route through Chudleigh (the rebuilding of which would have been so great that it wouldn't have saved much in money terms).

 

Here's one I prepared earlier.