British Railways’ Ultimate Pacific

  It is a rather sad fact that BR’s most powerful passenger locomotive came to life as a result of death. The nationalized concern had not planned to build any Standard Class 8 express passenger locomotives, taking the view that its needs in that category were already well catered for and preferring to rely on versatile mixed traffic engines such as ‘Brirannias1 and Class hives, bur on October 8, 1952, ex-LMS Pacific No. 46202 Princess Anne was destroyed in a catastrophic accident at Harrow & Wealdstone, in which 112 people lost their lives.

  Some time later, the question of a replacement locomotive arose and BR chief mechanical engineer Robert Riddles realized that this was an opportunity to have his plans for a Standard Class 8 approved. No. 71000 Duke of Gloucester was duly erected at Crewe Works, combining best theory and practice from LMS and BR design and also featuring Caprotti rotary cam valve gear for a more efficient flow of steam.

WORLD RECORD

  In tests, the three-cylinder machine set a world record for least steam consumed for a given quantity of work by a simple (as opposed to a compound) engine, but once in everyday service, it was found that it steamed poorly, was heavy on coal and seemed as though it was being ‘throttled’. The CME’s department knew BR had skimped by not fitting a Kylchap blastpipe but wanted to find the reasons for the other shortcomings. Their superiors, however, were already planning mass dieselization and so further expenditure on “old fashioned” steam was firmly vetoed. ‘The Duke1 thus became an enigmatic one-off, never fulfilling its true potential.

  After a service life of just eight years, all based at Crewe North shed, it was condemned in 1962 and had its cylinders and valve gear hacked off for museum display before being sent to Barn’ scrapyard in South Wales in 1967. As is well-known, the locos there weren’t cut up immediately, giving preservationists the time to raise the cash to rescue the ‘Duke’.

  Moved to die Great Central Railway in 1974, its restoration required it to be stripped down and fitted with new cylinders and it wasn’t until then that it was discovered that it hadn’t been built exactly as pet drawing office plans, particularly where the smokebox and damper draughting was concerned.

  Those faults have now been rectified and a Kylchap fitted, resulting in the most powerful and efficient steam loco ever to run in Britain, Its storming victory in The Railway Magazine-sponsored Shap time trials of 1995 was a case in point – proving that Riddles and his team had been right and giving strength to those who claim steam traction could have lasted longer than it did in Britain if it had been given a ‘fair trial’ in the 1950s.