Were the best British steam locomotives of the 1920s & 30s the ones built by the Great Western Railway?

Question

Were the best British steam locomotives of the 1920s & 30s the ones built by the Great Western Railway?

Answer 1

Being brutally honest - no, although because of the design  standardisation philosphy and a superb livery they were certainly the best looking fleet of the Big Four.

The "Great Bear" was not exactly a commercial success. It was too big for most of the GWR's routes. Yes, they even bust their own loading guage - which, thanks to IK Brunel, was the biggest overall in the UK (untill the tightwads at British Railways and its successors got to it - now the big GWR locomotives can't even get into Paddington without having their chimneys and cabs cut down!)



The original King bogie had to be re-designed because it had a tendancy to derail the locomotives. The resultant was probably the best 4-6-0 that ever ran on British (and overseas) metals. When King George V went on it's USA visit it apparently drew praise for its excellent ride at speed on some "iffy" track.

If William Stanier had designed the Princess Royals and had them built at Swindon, then ran them on the high-calorie Wesh steam coal, they would have been the undisputed best of the bunch. Unfortunately, he didn't so we can only dream of might have been.

Answer 2

Great western men thought so and with pride. But the other

regions, had their good engines too!   The LNER had the A3 class, flying Scotsman is one of these.  Also the A4's of which Mallard holds the world speed record for steam traction.   The LMS had the duchesses and black fives, both

excellent loco's and the S.R. had the merchant navy's and

west countries, a bit temperamental, but they did the job!

In short, all British engines were fit for the service they were built.

Answer 3

Sounds like a nice, simple question: what a shame there isn't a straightforward answer!

Ultimately, a steam locomotive is a piece of machinery designed to consistently fulfil a specified function within a defined set of parameters.  If you change the function or vary the parameters whilst leaving the design of the machine the same, the result is almost certainly a level of performance below that which the machine would have delivered had it been operating in an environment comparable to that for which it was designed, and/or doing what it was built to do.

By the 1920s and 1930s, steam locomotive designers had at least 120 years of experience to draw upon.  They understood what was required in terms of performance, and how this could best be achieved by maipulating a large number of engineering variables - boiler pressure, heating surface, axle load, wheel diameter, wheelbase, and so on.  On this basis, Great Western locomotives were all designed to haul the types of train the demands of the company's customers made it necessary for the company to run, over the lines the company owned or had regular access to.  

What we now think of as the "Swindon"  approach to locomotive design started to evolve around 1900, with the work of George Jackson Churchward.  By the time he was succeeded by Charles B Collett, most of the mistakes had been made and the blind alleys explored (and learned from).  As a result, by the 1920s and 1930s Great Western locomotives were extremely well suited to the work they were required to do.  This excellence was across the board, from the ubiquitous branch-line and shunting yard six-wheeled pannier tanks, through the 0-6-2 side tanks used in the Welsh valleys (downhill from the collieries to the docks with heavy trains, uphill with light ones), to the 4-6-0 Castles and Kings running on the straight and level lines of "Brunel's Billiard Table".

However - and it is a big and important "however", put these locomotive designs to work in different parts of the country, hauling trains that they were not designed to haul over terrain unlike that for which they had been designed, and (surprise, surprise) they often performed nothing like so well.  

Unsurprisingly, exactly the same set of arguments holds true for the locomotives produced by the UK's other post-grouping companies, the LMS, the LNER and the Southern.  In general, there were so few genuine like-for-like comparisons in terms of the combinations of load, required speed and terrain that in strictly objective terms it is almost impossible to say that one company's locomotives were on balance better or worse than those of another.  Put a GWR "King" on a west coast express and it would not perform as well as a Stanier Pacific.  Take a Southern 4-4-0 such as the "Schools" class away from the routes and loadings for which it had been designed - and in relation to which it was a real flyer - and challenge it with the GWR's Devon banks, and it would fall flat on its face.  

So what do we mean by "best"?  I submit that to a large extent the question cannot be answered in any meaningful and objective way.  The GWR's Stars and Castles, Saints and Halls of the 1920s and 1930s were "best" for its business and routes, in just the same way as Gresley's 4-4-0 Shires and Hunts, or Stanier's "Black Fives", were superb on the lines for which they were designed.  There WAS no "best" or "worst": right down to the level of the humble 0-4-0T dock shunter, comparisons based on different sets of design variables are unreliable and of dubious value.  By the 1920s and beyond, there really were very few locomotive designs (excluding experimental types used in normal traffic) that failed to perform well on their home territory.

However, let's now look at the question from a totally different standpoint.  From the early years of the 20th century, the GWR had a fearsomely effective publicity department.  Like the rest of the GWR, this was little affected by the 1923 railway Grouping.  In comparison, the three other post-1923 railway companies (the Southern, the LMS and the LNER) were created through the merger of companies of equivalent size and importance, and which had previously often been great rivals.  Thus, after Grouping, the GWR's image-building work continued as before and built upon a generation's experience and lead-in, whilst the other three companies had to forge new common identities and build their public image, in many respects having to start from scratch in doing so.

Against this background, the hindsight that history has given us makes it possible to see how much more successful the GWR was in comparison to its rivals in creating for itself an illusion of untainted excellence.  Indeed, despite the hype around the LMS streamliners, or the LNER's speed record with Mallard, one can now look back and suggest that amongst the "Big Four" railway companies between the Wars, the GWR was far and away the best - at persuading the public that it, and everything about it, was the best!

Against this background, I suggest that the question being asked here actually represents part of the continuing legacy of the Great Western's publicity machine.  Otherwise why would anyone think to ask, sixty years on from its demise, if the GWR's locomotives of the 1920s and 1930s were "the best" in their day?  Secretly, we all KNOW they were - because that's what we have learned from our parents and grandparents, who in turn were persuaded by the cumulative effect of nigh on half a century's consistent image-building!

So, to conclude, there are two answers to your question - one objective, one subjective.  The objective answer is that the question cannot be answered because there is no scientific basis on which it could be decided that one company's locomotives were, or were not "the best" in Britain.  The subjective answer, on the other hand, is that OF COURSE between the wars the GWR built the best steam locomotives in Britain, because the company's publicity department told us so and indeed almost fed us this knowledge with our Mother's milk!

Answer 4

The story of Gresley examining god's wonderful railway locos for their steaming ability may be true, but Gresley was also a proponent of the improved ejectors (blastpipes) developed by Kylala and Chapelon.  "Mallard" used a Kylchap ejector.  Look for Nord locomotive 3.1192 in this context.

The LMS "Coronation" Pacifics were supposed to the the most powerful while Gresley's streamliners were fastest.  

What do you mean "best"?  Greatest availability, most reliable, most powerful, fastest or least expensive to maintain?

Answer 5

york near the york eye its free admission

Answer 6

"Best" is too vague to describe a very complex subject. The most powerful British steam locomotives were designed by William Stanier (LMS), the fastest designed by Nigel Gresley (LNER).

Answer 7

Great Western men would always argue that theirs were the best (and by the way, the answer about them getting outsiders to build their locos was the biggest heap of clap-trap I've seen for a long time - what was SWINDON all about - a railway town built especially to house all the workers at the GWR WORKS ! ! !) - but although they were very good, the LNER and the LMS came up with some 'crackers' - did anybody mention the "Flying Scotsman" or "Mallard" ???  The GWR had some good locos - as did the SR for that matter, but they didn't have the need to build locos for long distance speed, so I'm afraid the other two must surely be (almost) joint winners in the "Whose were best" competition ! ! !

Answer 8

The weren't 'the best' as they broke no records as Stanier locos od the LMS and Gresley locos on the LNER did. But Gresley learned a great deal from the GWR engines. The story goes that at the 1925 loco exchanges Gresley had his engineers secretly examine GWR locos to see why they steamed so much better and then modified his locos. Stanier was, of course, Swindon trained. (and in response to another answer - the GWR did build its own locos, it did not buy them in. Most British railway companies did the same)

Answer 9

No

Almost all the companies had good or very good locos. They all also had some turkeys.

Answer 10

they sure were.

Answer 11

it wasnt great western railway that built them,

great western had a company that built them for them,

Answer 12

Try the Severn Valley Railway. It is a preserved piece of the Great Western Railway that runs (normally as there is flood damage at the mo) from Bridge North to Kidderminster.

Here is their website: http://www.svr.co.uk/

I hope that it helps

Answer 13

They were certainly consistently interesting.   Personally I like the Maunsell engines from the Southern region.

http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebe...

Answer 14

The 'King' and 'Castle' locomotives that the GWR built were splendid locomotives. Although they earned no speed records, they were solid, reliable engines, and the 'Hall' class mixed traffic engines could haul coal or express passenger trains with equal facility.

My opinion is that the best 1930's steamer was Gresley's V2 class 2-6-2. Immensely powerful, hugely reliable (despite the conjugated valve-gear), and with a route availability that was high for such a large locomotive.