A Nod To Brent - a friendly thread, filled with frivolity, cream teas and pasties. Longing for the happy days in the South Hams 1947.

[Northroader]

The 44xx 2-6-2T appeared before the 45xx, the 44xx having 4’1” drivers, the 45xx six inches larger. There weren’t many 44s built, but they got about, the ones from Wellington got to Craven Arms, so they may just have turned up at Aston on Clun.

[Corbs]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

The 44xx 2-6-2T appeared before the 45xx, the 44xx having 4’1” drivers, the 45xx six inches larger. There weren’t many 44s built, but they got about, the ones from Wellington got to Craven Arms, so they may just have turned up at Aston on Clun.

 

I'd love an RTR 44xx.
A Lima 4575 was the second loco I ever got, and the small wheeled, 'hunkered down' look of its grandfather has always appealed.

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, MrWolf said:

pretty much all the best things I've ever done were in that jacket!

You cannot be serious!

[Captain Kernow]

This is my 4406, built (and then re-built) many years ago from a K's kit. When I rebuilt her, I discarded the K's chassis and motor and scratchbuit a chassis (one of the very few chassis that I have actually built from scratch) and fitted a Portescap motor. In the world of Bleakhouse Road and Bethesda Sidings, she is owned by wealthy enthusiast Patrick Greenhouse and occasionally appears on railtours.

 

[The Stationmaster]

22 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

That's interesting information, was that the one known as the "County tank"?

 

Mr Churchward's 'big' 4-4-2T was the one known as the 'County' tanks because they were in a number of respects a tank engine version of the Churchward's 'County- 4-4-0.   And I presume they shared some of the vices of the tender engine because they seem to have been just as unpopular with enginemen as the tender version was with its reputation for rough riding which I suspect owed more than a little to their 30" outside cylinder stroke driving a fairly short wheelbase 4 coupled engine (although at least the tank engine had a pair of carrying wheels at the back which must have helped absorb some of that side-to-side motion created by the piston thrust).  However unlike the tender engine the tank version is one of the very few classes of GWR engine where I have seen written evidence of complaints about them from enginemen.

 

The two types represented an interesting period of transition in GWR loco practice where 4 coupled wheels was clearly still seen as a perfectly acceptable arrangement for a fast passenger engine.  But that was soon to change as the six coupled wheel version of the 'Saints' and 'Stars' proved their ascendancy over their 4-4-2 coupled peers in Churchwar's evaluation of the two wheel arrangements.

 

It's very easy to forget in the light of later developments that the large prairie tanks were conceived and initially seen more as a freight engine rather than a passenger engine.   The fact that they later spread, in profusion, to passenger, including replacing the 'County' tanks was probably not much to the fore in Churchward's mind when they were conceived although obviously teh size of their drving wheels meant that they were suitable for passenger train working.

[MrWolf]

Thanks for sharing that information, I had assumed that the 4-4-2 wheel arrangement had gone out of favour once the 4-6-0 had been developed. Obviously there was much more to it than that.

[gwrrob]

 

 

 

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

15 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Thanks for sharing that information, I had assumed that the 4-4-2 wheel arrangement had gone out of favour once the 4-6-0 had been developed. Obviously there was much more to it than that.

 

A Baltic tank derived from the Hawksworth County would have been a sight to see. 🙂

 

[MrWolf]

I can picture that, with a cab and bunker in the style of the 2-8-2 tanks 

[Coach bogie]

18 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

 

The two types represented an interesting period of transition in GWR loco practice where 4 coupled wheels was clearly still seen as a perfectly acceptable arrangement for a fast passenger engine.  But that was soon to change as the six coupled wheel version of the 'Saints' and 'Stars' proved their ascendancy over their 4-4-2 coupled peers in Churchward's evaluation of the two wheel arrangements.

 

 

For my Westbury layout, I needed several of the County 4-4-0 as there was a number of them that ended their days on the Paddington – Westbury route. I amassed a fair bit of research on them. For a class that was not popular they lasted some time, with the earlier ones, in service for over 25 years (Deltics only lasted 20 years).

 

I was curious why they were built at all, considering the first three Saints pre-dated them. The second batch of Counties were built after the first batch of production 4-6-0 Saints. From my understanding, the County tender locos were built as 4-4-0 because of the LNWR, who would not allow a 4-6-0 on the joint West – North route to Shrewsbury, at the time, but a 4 coupled was acceptable.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by Coach bogie

[nigel newling]

The Midland also insisted that GW 4-6-0s could not run on the Bristol and Gloucester line, so trains from Birmingham to Bristol had to rely on 4-4-0.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Thanks for sharing that information, I had assumed that the 4-4-2 wheel arrangement had gone out of favour once the 4-6-0 had been developed. Obviously there was much more to it than that.

 

There was. The Churchward 'big passenger engines' effectively started with 100 in 1902 (later 2900)  and then 98 in the spring of 1903 (later 2998).  then came 171 (later 2971) in late 1903 which was converted to a 4-4-2 in late 1904.  The first 4 cylinder engine, No 40 (later 4000) appeared in 1906 built as a 4-4-2 to allow direct comparison with the French atlantics the GWR had purchased in 1903 and 1905.  So there was a variety of wheel arrangements being compared although only one 'Star' was involved while a batch of 'Saints' was built as 4-4-2s.  So Churchward was trying to get the best performance measured against the French engines for his 4 cylinder design while the 4-4-2 'Saints' enabled a more thorough examination of the respective advantages of the two wheel arrangements.   But Churchward clearly quickly settled on the 4-6-0 arrangement for his 4 cylinder engine and the various 4-4-2s 'Saints' were gradually converted to the 4-6-0 arrangement although over several years - probably as they became due to heavy works attention.

 

All in all a typical example of Churchward's approach to examining and testing new ideas and various alternatives.

[chris45lsw]

On 03/11/2022 at 13:03, Ian Hargrave said:

My contribution to the “ evidence “ can be found on the Bachmann thread. FYI all I can verify is that they worked regularly on Salisbury-Exeter stoppers during the “era” of ANTB .Thus it maybe conceivable a set could have found its way through Brent at some time c 1946/7-1950.It’s that man Lockett again.But his “Southern Steam in the South and West.” on this occasion. 

I have seen a photo from April 1949 of an all stations (bar one) stopper from Plymouth to Salisbury using one of these sets, a journey of 6 hours if you did it from end to end!  And the SR CWN for Summer 1949 shows a few workings west of Exeter.  And it's conceivable that the SR would send one round the GWR coast road on one of their route familiarisation turns.

 

Chris KT

[Mallard60022]

9 hours ago, gwrrob said:

 

 

 

 

 

That's a thin Pannier.

P

[John Besley]

9 hours ago, gwrrob said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are some view point we don't often see, very nice

[Ian Hargrave]

3 hours ago, chris45lsw said:

I have seen a photo from April 1949 of an all stations (bar one) stopper from Plymouth to Salisbury using one of these sets, a journey of 6 hours if you did it from end to end!  And the SR CWN for Summer 1949 shows a few workings west of Exeter.  And it's conceivable that the SR would send one round the GWR coast road on one of their route familiarisation turns.

 

Chris KT

Regrettably your latter supposition would be confined to SR motive power rather than coaching stock in route familiaration terms. 

 

[Mikkel]

20 hours ago, gwrrob said:

 

An intriguing cameo. Is that a third Finching sister? The plot thickens!

 

That parcel on the barrow has been a long time underway, even for the GWR. It was last seen at Farthing in 1904!

 

 

[Oldddudders]

Disappointment takes many forms. I have, this last week, passed through Brent no less than eight times, but had no luck in spotting the station buildings, still less any of the fine trains portrayed on Rob's layout. Sulk!

[gwrrob]

3 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Disappointment takes many forms. I have, this last week, passed through Brent no less than eight times, but had no luck in spotting the station buildings, still less any of the fine trains portrayed on Rob's layout. Sulk!

 

The stationmaster's old house is still there as is the goods shed.

[46444]

20 hours ago, John Besley said:

 

Those are some view point we don't often see, very nice

 

Nicely composed shot Robin with an eye of an artist...

 

A GWR railcar never offends by the way... *

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

 

* Not in my eyes anyway... 😉

[Ian Hargrave]

17 hours ago, Ian Hargrave said:

Regrettably your latter supposition would be confined to SR motive power rather than coaching stock in route familiaration terms. 

 

And to get the flavour of what these familiarisation workings were,refer to the work of Peter W. Gray. One example from July 1959 in ‘West Country Railways’ is of airsmoothed 34063 with WR Hawksworth leading on Dainton with a  Goodrington- Plymouth working ( reversal at NA.)  .It should perhaps be pointed out that these workings were introduced during the war as an emergency measure. 

[gwrrob]

1 hour ago, 46444 said:

 

Nicely composed shot Robin with an eye of an artist...

 

A GWR railcar never offends by the way... *

 

 

I'm a bit overwhelmed and surprised how popular these photos are. I can't imagine a similar batch with one of my panniers would get the same reaction. Strange.

[MrWolf]

What can we say? A Pannier never offends, but a Flying Banana is art baby.

Diesel railcars and multiple units have been consistently less attractive ever since....

[Captain Kernow]

1 hour ago, gwrrob said:

I can't imagine a similar batch with one of my panniers would get the same reaction

Oh yes they would!

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Behind you!)

 

[John Besley]

3 hours ago, Ian Hargrave said:

And to get the flavour of what these familiarisation workings were,refer to the work of Peter W. Gray. One example from July 1959 in ‘West Country Railways’ is of airsmoothed 34063 with WR Hawksworth leading on Dainton with a  Goodrington- Plymouth working ( reversal at NA.)  .It should perhaps be pointed out that these workings were introduced during the war as an emergency measure. 

 

Between 1960 and 1971 we used to live in Whitstone Road Paignton, this was a link road between Sands Road level crossing and Dartmouth Road, on at least 2 occasions that I can remember as a small boy on a summer Saturday we heard the unmistakable sound of a Westcountry arriving in Goodrington carriage sidings and rushed over the road and along the footpath by the railway line - Father has the photos in his collection somewhere.

 

Incerdently  the Station Masters house was on the corner opposite ours - this was demolished in the late 60's to make way for the widening of the top of Whitstone Road, at the bottom backing onto the Sands Road crossing was the bombed remains of the railway cottages

 

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by John Besley
Schpelling