Talk:GWR 6000 Class

Comment

Re: "but with the final pair of engines later renamed for George V's eldest sons, who succeeded him)."

This, the current version, reflects my insertion of "eldest" to avoid the implication that George V had only two sons.

But there is a possible problem that I don't know enough to be able to deal with. To judge from the text as it stands, the final pair must have been named King Henry II and King Stephen. Did the GWR really stop short of naming locomotives for Henry I, William II and William I? The inclusion of Edward V suggests an intention to commemorate all the kings from the Conquest; omitting the Conqueror seems very odd. Is there an explanation for this?

Samhook 04:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Virtually all traffic could be handled with the ubiquitous Castle Class; only a few trains needed the power of the Kings. In consequence GWR ordered only a small number of this class so when they reached King Stephen they ran out of locomotives. If they had needed more locos then no doubt Henry I, William Rufus and Willian the Bastard would have been honoured.OrewaTel (talk) 07:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

most powerful locomotive

I've added "express passenger" to the description of the "King" class as the most powerful steam locomotive in Britain. The MR 0-10-0 Lickey Banker was more powerful.--Mabzilla 10:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC) --Mabzilla 13:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

6023 driving wheel damage

Re "One pair of driving wheels deliberately cut to enable shunting within the scrap yard." - this was recently changed from "One pair of driving wheels severely damaged in a shunting incident" - both are correct, but both lack further info - a shunting accident caused derailment of one axle, and to allow further shunting, it was cheaper to cut away a portion of the two wheels than to re-rail the loco. But does this level of detail belong here, or on the individual loco's page? --Redrose64 (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Allocation

The articlesays that they were only used on the London-Exeter and London-Wolverhampton routes. But the table says that 5 opf them ended their days based at Cardiff Cabton. How is this possible? I (unreliably) think I saw them in South Wale as a child in the 1950's which would be consistent with Canton depot.

80.169.162.100 (talk) 13:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Certainly when they were built, they were debarred from the routes to South Wales, mainly because of the strength of embankments and underbridges. However, bridges get rebuilt periodically, and the replacements are usually stronger than the old. So, after a while, additional routes may have become available. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:19, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Number of engines built

The infobox claims that 31 Kings were built, in three batches: 20 locos in 1927-28, ten more in 1930 and a single engine in 1936. It would seem noteworthy to built just one more loco after a gap of six years but the article doesn't mention it at all. And the list of locomotives only lists 30 (nos. 6000-29), 20 of which it says were built in 1927-8 and ten in 1930. So how many Kings were there? Dricherby (talk) 20:50, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

@Dricherby: 31, but only 30 simultaneously. There were two no. 6007 King William III - the second was built as a replacement for the first, which was written off after the accident to the west of Shrivenham railway station on 15 January 1936. The first no. 6007 was officially condemned on 5 March 1936, and the second was added to stock on 24 March 1936. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:02, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I see - thanks. I think the article would be improved by editing that information into it! From the level of detail in your comment, I guess you have a source that backs it up. Dricherby (talk) 07:38, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking closer, the article did mention it, but you needed to expand a table to see it. I've made this edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:06, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

According to Cook the "new" 6007 included all the major parts from the old one!212.159.44.170 (talk) 21:22, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

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Wheel Size and Cylinder Size

Neither account of wheel size can be completely correct.

Pole is I think the source for story that the TE was given the last increment by changing wheel size, but his memory must have deceived him. He was writing some 30 years after the event in his late 70s, in a book for private publication so he can be excused. It would also be more or less impossible to change something as fundamental as wheelsize at a late stage in a design that was wanted urgently. Cook records that the wheel size change was made early in the design, and its recorded that a Castle ran trials with specially turned down wheels to evaluate the change. 212.159.44.170 (talk) 21:51, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

However boiler diameter cannot be the reason for the wheel size change either. The Great Bear had a boiler of the same diameters boiler and 6'8.5in wheels, and the boiler pitch was 9ft. The King Boiler was pitched at 8ft 11.24, only .75 in less. Express locomotive driving wheels had been steadily reducing since the 19thC anyway, it seems more likely a continuation of a design trend. Both the british Railways express classes had 6ft 2in wheels.212.159.44.170 (talk) 21:51, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

A source is needed for the story of replacement cylinders, which seems rather unlikely - 16.25in was effectively the first rebore, and the cylinders would be bored out larger than that in the course of events. Tractive effort is a *very* nominal figure. Its likely that the majority of the class had 16.0 in cylinders when first built, but they would all have been 16.25 and beyond sooner or later. 212.159.44.170 (talk) 21:51, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Loading Gauge

The height of the GWR gauge was not connected with the broad gauge. In fact the GWR standard gauge loading gauge was not especially tall - several pre grouping lines had taller gauges, albeit by only a few inches. The broad gauge had a far higher limit. In any case the majority of GWR track mileage was never broad gauge. However at the grouping LNER, SR and LMS adopted lowest common denominator gauges which were lower than the GWR one, as did British Railways. The effect is the same, but the cause definitely not as state. 87.112.231.72 (talk) 11:11, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Loading gauge is not merely a function of height. It is the overall envelope, taking into account height, width and in particular, the shape. The Kings were particularly wide over their cylinders: it is this, rather than their weight, that prohibited them from running to Oxford: the cylinders would have fouled the girders of Sheepwash Channel Railway Bridge. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:37, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

So how much wider than a Castle? I'd always thought it was the axle weight that was the issue with the double red RA, not the size? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:02, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

The Great Western Railway Weight Classification is indeed based purely on axle loading. The double-red restriction is no different from the other colour groups in that respect; but every route also had a loading gauge restriction that was independent of the colour code. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:44, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Kings and Castles were both 8'11.5 inches over cylinders (source GWR GA sections as printed in GWR journal.) However there would have been subtle differences in throwover on curves which might have made a difference. Weight was definitely the big thing, but the GWR had a program of upgrading bridges for greater weight capacity, which started about the turn of the century, and continues to this day. Brunel's Saltash bridge, for instance, now allows the King class which was never the case in GWR days. It was, of course, the existing bridge upgrade program which had left few bridges still to be upgraded on the Bristol route and made it practical to introduce the Kings. 212.159.44.170 (talk) 21:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Detailed Work Undertaken by Hawksworth

Of course that's not true. Hawksworth, as head of the drawing office was a reasonably senior executive supervising a considerable team. He wasn't going to be spending much more time over a drawing board than Collett would. The actual detailed work would be undertaken by junior draughtsmen, and a good number of them would be working on any given design under the direction of their line management. 212.159.44.170 (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

6007

It is claimed that 6007 was writen off and replaced by a new loco, albeit using parts of the original. This is not actually referenced in the article and neither O S Nock in his "Stars Castles and Kings" and "Kings and Castles of the GWR" or Holcroft in "Great Western Locomotive Pracice 1837-1946" make any mention of this. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 14:35, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

It's certainly mentioned in

• le Fleming, H.M. (July 1953). White, D.E. (ed.). The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part eight: Modern Passenger Classes (1st ed.). Kenilworth: RCTS. pp. H20, H21. ISBN 0-901115-19-3.
• le Fleming, H.M. (November 1960) [1953]. White, D.E. (ed.). The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part eight: Modern Passenger Classes (2nd ed.). Kenilworth: RCTS. pp. H20, H21.

Swindon Lots 243 and 267 were for the original engies, nos. 6000-19 and 6020-29 respectively, whilst Swindon Lot 309 was for the replacement no. 6007. The context for this is that Swindon normally only issued Lot numbers for new locomotives, rebuilds generally not being given Lot numbers except where the proportion of reused material was small. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:46, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Then that should be cited in the article. Now done.Murgatroyd49 (talk) 09:17, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

See Cook, Swindon Steam p119. Cook was there at the time as assistant Works Manager. Parts reused for the "new" 6007 seem to have included frames, wheels, boiler. To quote from the book: "fundamentally she was not really badly damaged ... the repair cost was relatively low" 212.159.44.170 (talk) 20:52, 3 August 2023 (UTC)