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In the present writer's opinion there was no greater and more successful locomotive engineer in the country, during the first quarter-century, than George Jackson Churchward of the Great Western Railway. This statement is made without prejudice, for I was brought up on the other line extending from Waterloo to Padstow, and between Swindon and Eastleigh there was a great gulf fixed.
In the last years of William Dean on the Great Western, there was little doubt about the line of succession, and the hand of Churchward was very apparent in such engines as the later "Badminton" 4-4-0 expresses, themselves forerunners of the celebrated "City" class, and in the 2-6-0 "Aberdare" goods. Churchward, an old South Devon man, succeeded Dean in 1902, and by that time the domeless boiler with a generous Belpaire firebox, which he had induced Dean to adopt, was already the standard boiler for all except small engines on the Great Western. Very soon it was seen that the Great Western engine of the future was to have outside cylinders and inside frames, a revolutionary combination by old Swindon traditions.
'Churchward realised, as others did not, the importance of giving steam a clear passage out of as well as into the cylinders.' |
Indeed, a mechanical revolution was in progress at Swindon, and the new chief imported strange, alien, admirable ideas from other countries. One wonders what Sir Daniel Gooch would have made of them. At this time the de Glehn compound engines were attracting much attention in France, and Churchward ordered for the Great Western one of the Nord Atlantic type, called La France, which he seems to have taken to pieces before putting it into regular service. The French engine taught many lessons, quite apart from those connected with compound expansion. One of its great virtues was the liberality of bearing surfaces, and another interesting feature was the bogie with double-compression spring control and supporting pads extending for almost the width of the engine. Both became features of the standard Churchward locomotive. Two more French compounds, of the larger-boilered Orleans type, were obtained, and fair trials carried out in comparison with Churchward's new 4-6-0 and 4-4-2 express engines, both two-cylinder and four-cylinder simple.
Churchward realised, as others did not, the importance of giving steam a clear passage out of as well as into the cylinders. He used Stephenson link motion giving 6 ¼ in. valve travel with 1 ¾ in. lap and a 10 in. piston valve. On his two-cylinder engines he used the very long stroke of 30 in. Further, he adopted an American form of piston valve in which the rings were expanded by steam pressure when the regulator was opened, purchasing the British rights and making it the Great Western standard form.
As a result of experience with the French engines, Churchward developed that famous type of four-cylinder express engine, which down the years appeared in succession as the 4-6-0 "Star," "Castle" and "King" classes. There was indeed the solitary example of its Pacific variety, The Great Bear, which came out as the first British Pacific in 1908, but as we know, a "Star" was found generally as good as a "Constellation" and much more generally available. C. B. Collett, whom Churchward had picked from the drawing office, eventually to be his successor, was responsible for the "Castles" and the "Kings," both of which are describable as "Super Stars." After experimenting with his own arrangement of a valve gear of Deeley type, Churchward adopted a Walschaerts arrangement on later four-cylinder engines.
Superheating came into the news from Germany during the years of Edward VII. It was pioneered in England by Sir John Aspinall on the Lancashire & Yorkshire, but I always feel a curious sort of glee on reflecting that it was the small, not always admirable, London, Brighton & South Coast Railway that taught by example its value to the great, conservative London & North Western, in the course of through engine workings between Brighton and Rugby. Churchward made a very original modification of the Schmidt arrangement. Called the Swindon superheater, its surface was rather low, with two rows of flues each containing three elements. Its object was effectively to dry the steam rather than to get (at least on paper) a very fierce and imposing degree of superheat.
These are the bare bones of design which Churchward gave to the Great Western, and well they served. Collett's "Castles" and "Kings," both designs now over thirty years old, are still to be seen on some of the best trains out of Paddington. Further, the Churchward tradition was taken at the beginning of the 1930s to the London, Midland & Scottish Railway by Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Stanier, who was fortunately given carte blanche in his dealings with the entrenched customs of Derby and Crewe. He did not long perpetuate Churchward's ideas on low superheat, however.
The Churchward style locomotive, with increased superheating surface, was older than this, being first exemplified in Richard Maunsell's 2-6-4 tank and 2-6-0 tender engines built for the South Eastern & Chatham Railway, and also, in the latter case, as post-war work at Woolwich Arsenal. The first of the 2-6-4 tanks came out in 1917. These Maunsell engines had outside Walschaerts gear, a feature alien to Swindon. It may be said, not without responsibility, that the designs of Churchward and Maunsell combined to form the characteristic British steam locomotive of recent years, indeed, according to current tendencies, the ultimate British steam locomotive.
Another feature, for which also we need to thank Churchward, was the progressive rise in working pressures. Long ago, Daniel Gooch, Archibald Sturrock, and J. E. McConnell had gone in courageously for the building up of normal working pressures, and with Churchward it happened again. Pressures of 170-180 lb. were regarded as high at the turn of the century. The three French compound engines had 227 lb. pressure, and 225 lb, became the normal figure on Churchward's 4-6-0 express engines. It rose to 250 lb. in Collett's "Kings," and on the Pacific type engines built for the L.N.E.R. and L.M.S.R. during the middle 1930s, then to 280 lb. in O. V. S. Bulleid's "Merchant Navy" class Pacifies in 1941 and after.
'Again a pioneer, Churchward on the Great Western introduced the 2-8-0 goods, ...' |
In spite of several eager and very competent, sponsors, the compound locomotive never had in Great Britain the wide favour which it was accorded in France and several other Continental countries; one of the most remarkable examples abroad was the Bavarian "S3/6" four-cylinder compound Pacific which was built with little change for nearly 25 years. Smith's compound engines appeared on the North Eastern, Midland, and Great Central, and Deeley's modification of the Smith system, on the Midland Railway, came to provide the only lasting example of a British compound. In Ireland we should notice, however, the kindred, more modem, engines used on the Great Northern main line. The London, Midland & Scottish Railway perpetuated the Midland compound, with modifications, for some years.
Two points may be noted. In the great days of compound expansion, British coal was still relatively cheap, while British mechanics have long had an apparent distrust of complexities. Further, the little extra space allowed by the Berne Convention loading gauge certainly made the design of large compound locomotives rather easier on Continental railways. All the same, one could wish that Richard Deeley had built the 4-6-0 compound which he undoubtedly designed, also that the London, Midland & Scottish pre-Stanier compound Pacific could have shown its paces. They might have been good engines, but we cannot know, and we shall never see their kind now.
The goods engine rapidly increased in size during the earlier years of the present century. Again a pioneer, Churchward on the Great Western introduced the 2-8-0 goods, and also the 2-8-0 mixed-traffic engine, capable of taking, when called on, a fast express. The second-mentioned was not copied on other railways, though on the London & North Eastern Sir Nigel Gresley tried the 2-8-2 goods, and, with considerable success, the 2-8-2 express engine (the "Cock o' the North" class, for the Edinburgh-Aberdeen main line). For so great a man as Gresley to be called in question by a student of locomotive design is unseemly, but sometimes one wonders whether the "Cock o' the North" class would not have been happier engines had they incorporated the Krauss-Helmholtz bogie, which would have given them the flexibility of Pacifies.
It was Gresley who brought the Pacific type to general service on British railways, Churchward's The Great Bear having been not so much ursine as something of a white elephant. There was a tremendous thrill for us boys when Gresley's mighty No. 1470, Great Northern appeared from Doncaster in 1922. Here was the British big engine of our dreams, indeed, Great Northern in its original form, with its massive chimney and G.N.R. colour style, looked incomparably grand. A three-cylinder engine with conjugated valve gear was in itself a prodigy. Subsequent trials comparing the original type of Doncaster Pacific with a Great Western "Castle," however, showed the difference between 180 lb. and 225 lb. boiler pressure, and it was with increased pressures that Nigel Gresley rushed at 112 m.p.h. to gain a knighthood.
With British Railways standards about us, we can only look back at those lovely engines and those stately trains which we have known during some of the past sixty years, so faithfully recorded in The Railway Magazine which gave us our grounding, and a good deal more beside, in railway and locomotive lore. Where now, are the North Western "Georges," the Great Western "Stars," the North Eastern class "Z" Atlantics? Where are the "Cardeans," the "Paddleboxes," and the "Claud Hamiltons"? Where are Sir Sam Fay, Teribus, His Majesty and Ballindalloch Castle? Gone the way of all engines, and soon we shall be recalling the days when there were Beyer-Garratts on the Midland main line. Gone with them are those fabulous trains of the Middle-Steam Age, the West Coast 2 p.m. "Corridor," the "Southern Belle" and the "Norfolk Coast Express." And thus ending sentimentally, let me repeat something I wrote over ten years ago : Those were the trains we loved.