Giants of Steam

by Jonathan Glancey

  This was a triumph for the LMS, and for Stanier, although the run did raise key questions. Just how reliable would locomotives need to be if they were to maintain a daily schedule of six hours between London and Glasgow? Given that Princess Elizabeth was being fed coal at an average rate of slightly above 3,000 lb per hour – about the maximum a fireman could be expected to sustain over a long run – how could this be repeated in day-to-day running?

  The answers were provided in May 1937, when 6220 Coronation, the first of Stanier’s second-generation Pacifics, made its debut at Crewe. Sheathed in aerodynamically designed casing, shaped not by an industrial artist but by Tom Coleman – if the new Pacifics had to be streamlined, then Coleman would do it himself – Coronation was finished in Caledonian blue, lined with silver stripes which appeared to burst from the nose of the casing before shooting along the sides of engine and tender. The most effective streamlining, however, was inside the locomotive. Stanier freely admitted his debt to Chapelon, and Coleman made every effort to ensure that nothing – no cross-sectional restrictions in the steam circuit – could impede the flow of steam. So, although almost exactly the same length and weight as Princess Elizabeth, Coronation was considerably more powerful. The Princess Royals were timed up to 102 mph, and could produce up to 2,500 ihp; the Coronations were timed up to 114 mph and, when fitted with a double chimney, one produced a maximum of 3,333 ihp on a test run in 1939. In 1985, the preserved 46229 Duchess of Hamilton made three runs with special trains where the cylinder horsepower was measured at between 3,500 and 3,700 ihp. With an eleven-coach train of 420 tons, Duchess of Hamilton accelerated from 63.5 to 74.5 mph up the 1-in-179 gradient of Saunderton Bank in Buckinghamshire on a run from Marylebone to Stratford. With a twelve-coach train on a trip from Marylebone to York, she increased speed from 44 to 68 mph up the same gradient; and at the head of a twelve-coach load of 460 tons, on a run from Carlisle to York, she fought her way up the 1-in-100 gradient at Mallerstang, at the head of the Eden Valley, her speed rising from 28 to 47 mph.

  The press run of the LMS’s streamlined Coronation Scot express was made on 29 June 1937. The down journey to Crewe, with an eight-coach load of 275 tons, was scheduled at 135 minutes for the 158 miles. Driver Clarke, hero of the 1936 Glasgow venture with Princess Elizabeth, assisted by fireman Lewis, was into Crewe 5 minutes and 15 seconds early. But the last 10.5 miles into Crewe had taken just under seven minutes. In this brief time, Coronation, as the dynamometer car revealed, had got up to 114 mph – but that was within two miles of Crewe station. Braking hard, Clarke was a mile away from the platforms and running at just under 105 mph. The train had to negotiate three reverse curves to reach its platform, and the first of these was hit at 57 mph instead of the nominal speed limit of 20 mph. Stanier, Coleman, and co. had done their work on the suspension of the new Pacific very well indeed. She drew to a halt safely.

  Cecil J. Allen, who timed the train, recalled the lunch afterwards, at which LMS vice president Lemon addressed the members of the press: ‘Commenting on the sudden and violent embraces of standing members of the party [i.e. those at the bar], to an obbligato of crashing crockery, that had preceded the hectic entry into Crewe, he remarked, “Of course, gentlemen, you will realize that we shan’t need to do this kind of thing on every trip of the Coronation Scot; we were coming in a little faster than we shall have to do in the ordinary course.”’

  Driver Clarke was allowed to make his own pace back to Euston after lunch. The trip took 119 minutes exactly, an average of 79.7 mph, with Coronation steaming comfortably at between 90 and 100 mph between the many restrictions in force at the time.

  There was some disappointment later when the schedule for the Coronation Scot was announced at six and a half hours, when a Coronation Pacific locomotive could make the trip in half an hour less. But the LMS management was keen to ensure that the train would run to time against all foreseeable weather conditions and traffic delays. An early afternoon departure at 13.30 from Euston was made in order to avoid operating delays to the west coast main line’s heavy late-evening fast freight services. Business passengers needing longer in London could opt for the 16.30 departure of the LNER’s Coronation service to Edinburgh, from where there was a fast connection to Glasgow.

  Quite how powerful the new Pacifics were was revealed in tests carried out on 26 February 1939 with 6234 Duchess of Abercorn, the first Stanier locomotive to be fitted with a double blast-pipe and chimney. Duchess of Abercorn was called on to pull a twenty-coach, 610 ton train from Crewe to Glasgow and back, on typical express schedules. It was the return journey that made her the stuff of railway legend. With driver McLean and fireman Smith of Polmadie, Glasgow, on the footplate, 6234 powered its way over Beattock in driving snow at a minimum of 63 mph and, skittling down to the border, was in Carlisle, a distance of 102.25 miles, in 106 minutes and 30 seconds. This was not just nine and a half minutes early, but within ninety seconds of the schedule of the lightweight and streamlined Coronation Scot.

  Driver Garrett and fireman Farrington took over at Carlisle and ran the gargantuan train on time to Crewe. When the results from the dynamometer car were revealed, even Tom Coleman could afford to smile. For mile after mile, Duchess of Abercorn had been exerting 2,000 dbhp. On the long southbound climb finishing at Beattock on a 1-in-99 gradient, the locomotive produced a peak of 3,333 ihp. This was achieved with full regulator, 245 psi boiler pressure, and a cut-off of 35 per cent. On the climb south of the border from Carlisle to Shap, a maximum 2,511 dbhp was recorded, with cylinder horsepower rising over 3,000 ihp for considerable distances.

  In January of the following year, 1940, the LMS gained much further favourable publicity, courtesy of the Coronations, when 6229 Duchess of Hamilton, disguised as 6220 Coronation, was shipped off to the United States to take part in the New York World’s Fair. The railroad exhibit was to occupy seventeen acres, displaying the latest American and European trains. Paired with a new set of Coronation Scot coaches, complete with cocktail bar, the streamlined Pacific, painted red and gold, was dispatched across the Atlantic on board the Belpamela, an Oslo-registered ship fitted with railway tracks, which sank six years later in an Atlantic storm with a cargo of seventeen American-built 141R class 2-8-2s bound for the French SNCF. ‘Robin’ Riddles, who was in charge of the trip, made the crossing in rather less time and considerably greater luxury on the Queen Mary. He was, doubtless, a visitor to the Cunard liner’s engine room, where he must have gazed admiringly at the smooth-working 160,000 shaft horsepower Parsons steam turbines which powered the 81,327 ton palace on the waves at a cruising speed of 30 knots.

  Accompanied by glowing reviews in the US press – ‘This Coronation Scot is a splendid train, neat, compact as a watch’ (Chicago Tribune); ‘A cunning little item . . . Britain’s newest and ritziest train’ (Detroit News) – Riddles, the LMS team, and the brand-new Pacific visited thirty-eight towns and cities across fifteen states as they steamed 3,121 miles from Baltimore to New York, on a trip that took them to Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and Schenectady, home of the Alco steam locomotive works. By the time the train reached New York, it had received 425,000 visitors.

  Driver Bishop had contracted pneumonia soon after the train arrived at Baltimore on 20 February, after a stormy voyage, so, until he was back in action on 9 April, fireman Carswell did the driving while Riddles wielded the shovel. American newspapers were astonished to witness a ‘top executive’ in the role of fireman, and a very hard-working one at that, especially as many large American express passenger steam locomotives were fired by mechanical stokers. Few British working men of the time got to go to the United States, but Bishop and Carswell proved to be good ambassadors for their country and for the LMS, despite their complaints that the Americans were unable to make a decent cup of tea. Some things, at least, never change.

  At the exhibition, Britain’s most powerful passenger locomotive was displayed alongside the Brobdingnagian Pennsylvania Railroad S1 class
6-4-4-6. With cinematic styling by Raymond Loewy, the industrial designer, the S1 was twice as powerful as the Coronation and, it was said, had galloped up to 140 mph (the claim was never proved, although the S1’s speedometer might well have indicated such a prodigious rate). Duchess of Hamilton returned, via an Atlantic convoy threatened by German U-boats, to Cardiff Docks and then to Crewe, in February 1942, and was back in wartime service a month later.

  If the Pacifics stole the limelight, Stanier’s ever-growing fleet of standard locomotives was changing the face of the LMS. For diehard enthusiasts it was sad to see so many characterful Victorian and Edwardian locomotives fall to an invasion led chiefly by the all-conquering class 5 4-6-0s. For Stanier and the LMS management, here was the outward sign of a modern, integrated railway. While Stanier was all for standardization and clarity in design and engineering, he was also happy to experiment. The story of his Turbomotive, the most successful of British steam-turbine locomotives, is told in Chapter 6, while a streamlined, 75 mph, three-car diesel-hydraulic multiple unit was put into service between Oxford and Cambridge in 1939. This smoothly good-looking train was designed by Thomas Hornbuckle of the LMS. His assistant was Ron Jarvis, who went on to rebuild Bulleid’s Pacifics in British Railways days. Diesel shunters were developed with operating costs about a third of those of steam, leading to the many hundreds of simple 350 hp 0-6-0 machines built by British Railways, including the 996-strong 08 class of 1953–62 – making it the most numerous class of British locomotive, some of which are still in service. Undeniably useful as heavy yard shunters, they were, however, no match for steam tank engines in terms of speed. Where a tiny Collett 1400 class 0-4-2 tank engine could hurtle through the Gloucestershire countryside at recorded speeds of up to 83 mph downhill, these diesel shunters were geared for a maximum speed of 20 mph to give the high tractive effort necessary to move heavy trains.

  Stanier, though, was an unrepentant steam man. While he did not stand in the way of assistants keen to investigate diesels – like his successor, the Oxford-educated, steam-trained C. E. Fairburn, and H. G. Ivatt – he made his preferences clear. After sitting through a paper given by Fairburn, Stanier commented: ‘I feel that to devote a whole evening to diesel traction in a country like Britain is rank heresy.’ Why? An abiding love of steam aside, Stanier cited coal. Britain had plenty of the stuff. Why go to the bother, and uncertain politics, of sourcing oil from abroad when the country had more than enough indigenous fuel to power its railways for a very long time to come?

  Stanier was not a specialist detail designer but a very fine mechanical engineer with a great gift for organization. He chose the right people to realize his standardization programme on the LMS, and he achieved this quickly and, for the most part, good-humouredly. By any standards, it was an impressive transformation. By 1939, the Midland Railway’s small engine policy which had obstructed Hughes and Fowler seemed a very distant memory. With the outbreak of war, it was not surprising that the government was keen to get hold of Stanier. Bit by bit, he was drawn into national service. In 1942, he became a full-time scientific advisor to the Ministry of Production, and the following year he was appointed a member of the Aeronautical Research Council. Knighted in the 1943 New Year honours, he eventually had to resign from the LMS, doing so, on the very best of terms, in 1944.

  Not, though, before he had supervised designs, at the wartime LMS drawing office in Watford, for a streamlined 4-6-4 for express passenger work and a 4-8-4 version for heavy fast goods services over the west coast main line. With its four 17.5 × 28 in cylinders, 300 psi boiler pressure, and 6 ft 6 in driving wheels, the 4-6-4 had a nominal tractive effort of 56,070 lb. Its 70 sq ft grate would have been fired by an American-style mechanical stoker – try to imagine shovelling coal into a white-hot room with a floor measuring 10 x 7 feet and the reason for a mechanical stoker becomes clear. The sustained maximum power of the Coronations, with their 50 sq ft grates, would have been increased significantly if they had been fitted with mechanical stokers. The case against, however, was that they were often less economical than hand-fired grates at medium rates of work, and that the screw feed that carried the coal from tender to fire-grate could become blocked with large lumps of coal. Some American firemen must have been extraordinarily strong and fit as express passenger locomotives like the Pennsylvania Railroad’s K4 Pacifics were hand-fired and they had 69.9 sq ft grates – conveniently just within the Association of American Railroads regulations, which stipulated that any locomotive with a fire-grate of 70 sq ft or more had to be stoked mechanically.

  There was another reason, never apparently discussed at the time: labour before the Second World War was cheap. When I spent a misty early morning one day in 1990 helping to oil the motion of Duchess of Hamilton, I was surprised by the sheer number of lubrication points from which a cork plug had to be extracted before oil could be poured in, through the spout of the kind of venerable hand-held oil can Trevithick might have used when servicing the Pen-y-Darren engine. Given that Stanier was an expert in lubrication, why, one might ask, the need for this awkward, dirty, and even dangerous task beneath the boiler of a 105 ton steam locomotive built in 1938, just a year before the first jet aircraft flew under its own power? In the USA, in contrast, every attempt was being made by progressive railroads to mechanize the firing, oiling, fuelling, and even the cleaning of steam locomotives.

  The 4-6-4 was to have raced 500 ton trains from Euston to Glasgow in six hours. It would have been more powerful than any British diesel locomotive built to date. The 4-8-4 would have introduced a type of locomotive best known in the United States – evidence of the increasing attraction American design had for British engineers attempting to boost the power, reliability, and utilization of steam locomotives to new levels. At the same time, the influence of Chapelon was equally important. While the design of the 4-6-4 was being worked up, so a Super-Coronation was also on the drawing boards. Two, with 300 psi boiler pressure, double Kylchap exhausts, a French Houlet superheater, and other modifications, were to have been built at Crewe in 1940. If they had been, they would surely have approached Chapelon’s Pacifics in terms of power-to-weight ratio and overall efficiency, while being as easy to maintain as contemporary American locomotives. The war put a stop to these enticing developments.

  Other plans had included smaller engines which would have been excellent additions to the Stanier fleet, notably a well-proportioned three-cylinder mixed-traffic 2-6-2, with 6 ft 0 in wheels and a tractive effort of 35,250 lb, designed by Coleman in 1942. This would have been a rival to Gresley’s justly feted V2 class 2-6-2s. Timed at 93 mph on the Yorkshire Pullman, these locomotives could sustain 2,000 ihp, and they were equally at home on fast goods trains and proved invaluable during the Second World War, when they could turn their 6 ft 2 in wheels to pretty much any task. Wartime strictures, though, meant that Coleman’s 2-6-2 was left on the drawing board. Meanwhile, it was the class 5 4-6-0s, as much Coleman’s as Stanier’s, that ruled the roost in their place.

  As Stanier took on various new roles between 1942 and 1945, he rose to become the Grand Old Man of British mechanical engineering. He was made chairman of Power Jets, helping to develop Frank Whittle’s gas turbine for jet propulsion (Stanier said that he had hoped to build a class of fifty turbine-driven LMS Pacifics), a member of the Athenaeum Club, and a fellow of the Royal Society – only the second locomotive engineer to be so honoured, the first having been George Stephenson. In December 1947 he was invited to Euston, where one of the latest Coronation Pacifics was named Sir William A. Stanier FRS. He continued to advise several engineering companies and, despite his fondness for steam, helped pioneer the development of gasturbine engines in railway locomotives. In 1963 he made the snowy journey from his Rickmansworth home – named ‘Newburn’, the same name as Churchward’s house in Swindon – to receive the James Watt International Medal of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. It was a fitting honour for an engineer who had done as much to increase the workaday efficie
ncy and reliability of the steam engine as Watt had done before him.

  At the memorial service held after his funeral at St Margaret’s, Westminster, in September 1965, Sir Frank Mason, a fellow council member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: ‘William Stanier is an outstanding example of someone who remained young at heart all his days, and one of his secrets was that he always had time for the younger man. He was able, therefore, to guide and influence younger people. I know because I am one.’ As were ‘Robin’ Riddles, Stewart Cox, and Roland Bond, who were to carry the Stanier torch into the era of nationalization.

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  That came in 1948, when the Big Four were taken over by the state. For some engineers devoted to the ways of their old companies, this meant a parting of ways. Men like Tom Coleman took early retirement, not wishing to become part of some vast bureaucracy weighed down with committees and interminable meetings. Others, like the dynamic Riddles, saw it as a fresh challenge and, all importantly, an opportunity to bring standardization to Britain’s steam railway locomotive stock as never before. As it was, on 1 January of that year, the Railway Executive of the new British Transport Commission took over 20,030 locomotives, including diesels and electrics, of 448 different types, some dating back to the 1870s. Riddles was appointed Railway Executive member for mechanical and electrical engineering, with Bond in charge of locomotive construction and maintenance, and Cox becoming executive officer, design.