Sunday, 21 December 2014

A little more of the Taffvale tank story


Further information comes from : Locomotives at the Grouping Vol 4 - Great Western Railway (pub Ian Allan 1966) which notes the following :

TVR 28 : was a member of Class 01 (designed by Tom Hurry Riches pictured below; built 1894-97) and renumbered 450 by the GWR at the Grouping. The loco was sold to the Government in 1927 and transferred to the Longmoor Military Railway where it worked until 1947 before being sold to the National Coal Board for use at South Hetton Colliery from where it was presented to BR for preservation.



 A quick check of Wikipaedia for Class 01 notes the following info - and the Kitson connection is relevant as IIRC the BP design of 957 / 52044 was 1887 was used by Kitson to develop the 0-6-2T version.

YearQuantityBuilderSerial NumbersTVR NumbersGWR numbersNotes
18948Kitson & Co.3572–357927, 29, 37, 41, 65, 70, 73, 78449, 451, 454, 455, 476, 477, 479, 480
18976TVR Cardiff West Works—28, 60–64450, 471–475


TVR 85 : was a member of Class 02 (designed by Riches; built 1899) and renumbered 426 by the GWR At the Grouping. A quick check of Wikipaedia for Class 02 notes :

YearQuantityBuilderSerial NumbersTVR NumbersGWR numbersNotes
18999Neilson, Reid & Co.5406 (or 5409 ?), 5408, 5410–541682, 85, 84, 32, 83, 81, 31, 66, 44423, 426, 425, 413, 424, 421, 412, 419, 415


One locomotive, GWR 426 (TVR 85) was sold to the National Coal Board and used at their Philadelphia Colliery, numbered 52. It was subsequently saved for preservation, and is based at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. It was restored to original Taff Vale condition in 2000 and ran on a regular basis until 2009 when it's boiler ticket expired. It is now undergoing another overhaul to operational condition.

A quick check of this suggests that the 01 class had 150 psi boilers whilst the 02s were given 160 psi boilers hence 28 is father to the later 85.

Many thanks to Fred Kerr for the above.
 
 
The pictures below are of 85 towards the end of
its first rebuild

 
I am grateful to Trevor Gower got the above

 
85 arrives at Oxenhope with four on showing just
how strong and engine this is.
The author of the above is unknown, if anyone
recognises it could they let me know and I will
attribute properly

 
Once again many thanks Trevor Gower for the above

 
I wonder if 85 will carry the crest when
completed.
 
The notes below were contributed by Fred Kerr a K&WVR member who remembered that in the past he had been told by the owner about his pair of engines viz 85 and 957 / 52044. On one occasion he noted that 85 is the tank version of 957 and that both locos owe their origins to the Beyer Peacock company.

In the case of 957 IIRC the L&YR was in desperate need of some tender locomotives very quickly and BP modified its "85" design to provide this as the L&YR and BP had strong commercial and good personal relationships with the persons involved.

The owner noted that he had discovered this connection when he became aware that various fittings and dimensions were similar and parts interchangeable.
 
The earlier development of the Class was the L&YR Class 25 which was designed by Barton Wright and built by Beyer Peacock in 1887 - with similar cylinder sizes BUT the boiler was pressed to 140 psi so this indicates (by timeline) that 957 / 52044 is the grandfather of 85 by being father to 28.

There is the other point that although the builders are as shown in terms of who the orders were placed with were some orders sub-contracted OR were orders placed with a builder (e.g. Beyer Peacock) who contracted them to sub-contractors such as Kitson or Neilson Reid for commercial reasons ?
 
 
 



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