Isambard Kingdom Brunel by Jones Robin

Author:Jones, Robin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783461035
Publisher: Remember When
Published: 2013-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

Gooch, like many locomotive engineers who were to follow him, took great care when it came to boiler design, and rightly considered it to be the heart of the locomotive upon which all else depended.

In 1847, the Pyracmon class six of 0-6-0 freight locomotives, slightly bigger than the Premiers appeared, followed in 1851 by the eight Caesar 0-6-0s. However, the largest class of all in terms of locomotive numbers was Gooch’s ‘Standard Goods’, or Ariadne class, with 102 being built at Swindon in the 11 years from 1852. They were so successful that examples survived right up to the end of broad gauge in 1892.

In 1860, the GWR switched from coke to coal as the fuel for its steam locomotives after succeeding with experiments to burn bituminous coal, which Isambard had begun 20 years earlier.

Both the Brunel broad gauge and Great Western empire had, by then, spread way beyond London-Bristol-Exeter. Gooch had also designed many successful broad-gauge locomotives for the Bristol & Exeter Railway, the Vale of Neath Railway, the South Devon Railway and the Cornwall Railway as well as the Great Western.

To tackle the notorious inclines on the South Devon between Exeter and Plymouth, he came up with the Corsair 4-4-0 saddle tanks, with a leading bogie axle – then a major innovation in design. A variation of these was supplied to the Neath line for tackling the daunting Glyn Neath bank.

While the BER was independent from the GWR, it built its own locomotives at Bristol. There, the line’s own locomotive superintendent James Pearson, who had worked under Isambard on his initial South Devon scheme as described in the next chapter, designed a type whose spectacular performances easily gave Gooch more than a run for his money.

Rothwell & Co at Bolton built Pearson’s incredible 4-2-4 tank engines, with their 9ft-driving wheels, in 1853-54. Numbered 39 to 46, they were used on express trains including the ‘Flying Dutchman’, and became the fastest of their kind in the country; one reaching 81.8mph while running down the same Wellington bank where City of Truro was claimed to have touched 102.3mph in 1904.

In 1855 came the class of 10 Waverleys built by Robert Stephenson & Co in Newcastle. They were the only 4-4-0 tender locomotives to run on the broad gauge, and were mainly allocated to Swindon for working services to South Wales, Gloucester and Bristol.

As well as the BER, GWR slowly took over, or absorbed many other lines, including systems built to standard gauge.

Gooch eventually and reluctantly accepted the fact that the ‘superior’ 7ft 0¼in gauge system’s days were numbered – and set his skills to designing standard-gauge locomotives as well.

His last class designed for the GWR was the Metropolitan 2-4-0 broad-gauge tank engines, of which 22 were built between 1862 and 1864.

These were the only GWR broad gauge engines to have outside cylinders and were designed to work over the Metropolitan Railway, which effectively extended the Brunel empire until 15 March 1869, when the broad-gauge and mixed-gauge running rails were removed from its system.

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