The 1950s were the
best and worst of times for both the Gloucester Railway
Carriage & Wagon Company and the Gloster Aircraft
Company. Both major manufacturing employers reached their
technological zeniths before their positions were
overtaken by World events.
The Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Company had
begun the 1950s with export orders for new trains for the
Toronto Subway and Victorian Railways in Australia. Chief
Engineer Fred Sinclair was also pushing back the
frontiers of bogie technology. But as British colonies in
Africa and Asia gained their independence they often made
a point of buying their rolling stock from anyone but
their former imperial masters.
Another traditional market – London Underground
trains – was also lost to Metropolitan Cammell,
although Gloucester RCW did benefit from the
modernisation plans of the newly Nationalised British
Railways. Along with a record four different types of
diesel multiple units and railcars, the Bristol Road
based Wagon Works also outshopped two variants of the classic
16 ton steel mineral wagon – a riveted
version going to Western Region while London Midland took
delivery of welded types.
Indeed, the "16 ton min" began as a London
Midland &Scottish Railway concept to replace the
lower capacity wooden private owner coal wagons that
firms like Gloucester RCW had built in their hundreds
from the 1880s to the 1930s. The 9’ wheelbase wagons
ranged in complexity from simple 16’ 6"
underframe boxes on wheels used to feed iron ore tipplers
to examples like the one shown here with two half-height
side doors and a full height end door, as indicated by
the high end of the diagonal white stripe. When new, 16
ton minerals fitted with vacuum brakes were painted in
bauxite livery and those unfitted in light grey –
although both varieties soon took on a patina of grime
and rust. In all, 239 673 16 ton mineral wagons were
built and lasted up to 1987 in revenue earning service.
However, their main use was the transport of coal to
local merchant’s sidings, a traffic flow that was to
disappear - along with small freight yards and vacuum
braked wagon load traffic - with the advent of air braked
merry go round services direct to power stations from
mines.
Just as the coal fires were also going out in British
hearths with the spread of the national electricity grid
so steam locomotives were being supplanted by newer
diesel and electric types. Hauling the mineral wagon and
a typical Great Western "Toad" brake
van is 0-6-0PT 9753, seen here
in post 1956 British Railways black livery, which spent
exactly 30 years at Tyseley Depot in Birmingham from
introduction in May 1935 until the end of Western Region
steam.
Drewry Diesel Mechanical Class 04 0-6-0 D2277
meanwhile was built by Robert Stephenson Hawthorn and
introduced to Ashford Depot in September 1959. Like a
number of early British diesels, it was to have a career
of just less than a decade and after withdrawal from
Colchester was cut up by H. Brahams of Bury St Edmunds.
Before Nationalisation, most cement was bagged and transported in ordinary
covered vans but in the 1950s British Railways made the
first major attempt at bulk transit with its L-type
container. A better solution was designed and built by
British Railway’s Shildon Works in 1954. Officially
known as a Pressure Discharge Bulk Powder Wagon
the "Presflo" was top loaded by gravity but
emptied by air pressure through a flexible pipe –
from valves on one side of the wagon - into either a
storage silo or road vehicle. All 1891 production
vehicles – outshopped by various builders between
1955 and 1963 – conformed to Diagram 1/272.
Measuring 11’9" high and 19’11""
over buffers the 10’6" wheelbase all-steel
vehicle boasted two vacuum cylinders – located at
one end of the underframe with a ladder positioned at the
opposite end of the central reinforced hopper - actuating
eight clasp brakes and roller bearing axle boxes for high
speed running. Such was the iconic appeal of the Presflos
that they appeared in 00 gauge Airfix kit form in the
early 1960s. Dapol continue to produce the 20 ton load 13
ton 3cwt variant carrying the number PF 20.
Sixty such vehicles were built during 1959 and 1960 by
the Butterley Company Limited in Derbyshire for the
Associated Portland Cement Manufacturing Company
following the latter’s experience with earlier
British Railways owned examples.
These included Gloucester RCW Order 4559 Lot 3177 1958 (
200 wagons ) Order 5126 Lot 3323 1960 ( 170 wagons )
Order 5297 Lot 3361 1961 ( 170 wagons ) and Order 5617
Lot 3406 1961-2 (150 wagons )
However, Presflos had high centres of gravity –
encouraging rolling at speed – despite their modest
capacities as a result of cement’s characteristic
steep angle of repose. The Prestwin was
an attempt to solve this problem. The first 31 wagons
– adapted from Continental practice and again
modelled by Airfix – were built by the Metropolitan
Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company Ltd in 1960 to
10’ wheelbase Diagram 1/274. Each cylindrical silo
on the 11’11" tall Prestwin was inherently
stronger than the Presflo’s hopper shape, which was
strengthened by heavy ribs against implosion during rapid
unloading. Additionally, each silo on featured a 2’
diameter perforated aeration base plate, allowing air to
be pumped into the heart of the 515.5 cubic feet load,
making the cement behave like a liquid while keeping the
fine particles out of the air supply system.
Although no Prestwins were ever built at Bristol Road the
idea of the aerated baseplate was developed into a
complete aerated floor by GRCW for Associated Portland
Cement who needed a lightweight 4-wheeled wagon with a
high tare to weight ratio but incorporating BR standard
running gear. The only suitable material it could be
designed around was aluminium alloy. As such, the ‘Cemflo’
is now believed to be the first type of aluminium cement
wagon built in Britain.
Despite this innovation – and with the 1955 British
Railways Modernisation Plan complete – Gloucester
RCW were left with no more complete wagons to build after
1968.
However, many of the best features of the Cemflo survived
on the 31 operational cement designs built between 1969
and 1987. Underfloor aeration, like air brakes, had
become standard while 22 of the types ran on suspensions
designed at Gloucester RCW. Examples using the Floating
Axle system include APCM Blue Circle PC009A 9344
( BREL Doncaster 1975-77 ) with the "depressed
centre" (DP) body design allowing cement to settle
down toward a central discharge valve. And PC015D
in the orange livery of Ready Mix Concrete Limited.
(Procor of Wakefield 1981)
The Gloster Aircraft Company meanwhile started the 1950s
with the strength of their pioneering application of gas
turbine propulsion during the Second World War. The Gloster
Meteor F4s were a direct development of the
Meteor F3, the first operational jet fighter used by the
Royal Air Force, and distinguished from it by a shorter
wingspan and longer engine nacelles. The shorter wingspan
– 37’ 2" against the original 43’
– was stiffer, and being 6% smaller offered a rate
of roll of more than 80 degrees per second. However, the
Meteor F4 required higher take off and landing speeds as
a result. The more aerodynamic long chord nacelles
meanwhile could accept the 3 000 lb thrust Derwent 5
engine, adapted by Rolls Royce from the even larger and
more powerful Nene turbojet. Meteor F4s also featured a
strengthened airframe and a pressurised cockpit and could
reach over 600 mph at sea level and Mach 0.85 at 30,000
ft, an altitude that could be reached in just 6 minutes.
Meteor F4s equipped 31 RAF and Royal Auxilliary Air Force
squadrons (often with flamboyant colours added to the
standard roundels and other markings) and remained in
service with training units long after they had been
replaced by the Meteor F8 in front line service between
1950 and 1955. Meteor F4s were also exported to
Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt and the Netherlands
with 46 examples being produced by Armstrong Whitworth -
a sister company to Gloster Aircraft within the Hawker
Siddeley group.
In fact Armstrong Whitworth was to take the Gloster
Meteor to a new level with the two seat night fighter
versions. Based on Gloster’s T7 – the
World’s first tandem jet trainer – and
developed to replace the de Havilland Mosquito, the
prototype Meteor NF11 first flew on 31 May 1950. This
combined long span wings containing four 20mm canon
– outboard of the Derwent engines - with the
improved tail of the Meteor F8 and the
"glasshouse" canopy of the T7 to protect the
pilot and radar operator / navigator. The most noticeable
feature of the NF11 though was the nose lengthened to
accommodate Mark 10 Airborne Interception radar
equipment. NF11s served with 15 RAF squadrons and 228
Operational Conversion Unit as well as being exported to
Belgium, Denmark and France.
The last of the 341 NF11s left Baginton in May 1954, by
which time Armstrong Whitworth had also produced the NF12
version – with a larger fin with leading edges
curving out to meet the horizontal tailplane. This was
necessary to balance the new, 17 inch longer, nose which
carried American built APS 21 AI radar.
The NF13 was a tropicalised version of the NF12 used by
two RAF squadrons in the Middle East – although
these were later exported to Egypt, France, Israel and
Syria.
The final Meteor Night Fighter variant was the
NF14, easily distinguished from its predecessors
by a two piece blown canopy and larger diameter air
intakes for its Derwent 9 engines. The last of these 100
aircraft was delivered to the RAF on 26 May 1955 and they
served with 13 different squadrons.
WS810 here is seen in the markings of
264 Squadron RAF as worn at Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire, in
the early part of 1957. 264 Squadron later moved to
Middleton St George and was formally disbanded on 1
October that year by being renumbered as 33 Squadron
– having been itself reformed on 20 November 1945 by
the renumbering of 125 Squadron. The new Church Fenton
based unit continued to fly the de Havilland Mosquito
aircraft of its wartime incarnation – which had been
used on "Diver" patrols against V1 flying bombs
– until relocation to Linton-on-Ouse and
re-equipment with Meteor NF11s in 1951. The NF 14s
arrived in 1954 – and 264 was briefly reactivated as
a Bristol Bloodhound surface to air missile squadron from
1958 to 1962.
The argument for the defence of Britain’s air space
by missiles rather than manned fighter aircraft had been
the cornerstone of the infamous 1957 Defence White Paper.
The Conservative Defence Minister Duncan Sandys had been
involved with rockets as an army officer and had later
led British investigations into the Nazi V1 and V2 weapon
programmes. The White Paper was also based on the NATO
"tripwire" philosophy of instant and massive
retaliation to any Soviet aggression. As such, many
promising British fighter projects were cancelled and the
Mach 2 English Electric Lightning retained mainly to
offer point defence to V-bomber bases.
This was in stark contrast to the early years of the
1950s following the tense days of the Berlin Airlift,
Korean War and the detonation of the first Soviet atomic
bomb in 1949. From just 24 squadrons in December 1946,
RAF Fighter Command strength had risen to 45 squadrons by
December 1951. Jet aircraft rapidly took over from piston
types, control and reporting systems were rapidly
improved and the Royal Auxilliary Air Force –
refounded in 1946 – was to grow in size to 20
squadrons.
However, although this provided an effective defence
against large unescorted formations of piston engined
bombers such as the Tu-4, the experience of the 1950
– 1953 Korean conflict proved that even Meteor F8s
and later marks of de Havilland Vampire were no match for
the latest American and Soviet warplanes. The RAF even
flew Canadian built transonic Sabres until its own swept
wing Hunters and Swifts were available, but the cost of
these new aircraft – which demanded concrete rather
than grass runways – led to the disbandment of the
RAuxAF even before the Duncan Sandys White Paper was
published.
To replace the Meteor Night Fighters in RAF service
however, Gloster managed to overcome competition from the
de Havilland DH110 ( later to evolve into the Sea Vixen
naval fighter ) and build the delta winged Javelin.
The Gloster Javelin was designed to Air
Ministry Specification F4/48 and was selected to equip
the RAF's all-weather squadrons in 1952. It was the
world's first delta winged fighter and could intercept
high flying bombers day or night and in all weathers
because of its electronic and radar instrumentation. The
first prototype flew in 1951 from Moreton Valence, just
south of Gloucester, and it entered service with the RAF
in 1956 with No 46 squadron at Odiham in Hampshire.
Nine variants of the Javelin were produced, steadily
increasing its performance and allowing it take on
different roles. The Fighter All Weather 7 version
introduced Firestreak homing air-to-air missile armament
in addition to 30 mm Aden cannon. Also noticeable was an
extended rear fuselage – bringing the twin Sapphire
jet pipes beyond the fin – and wing mounted vortex
generators. The FAW 8 held the unhappy distinction of
being the last aircraft to be manufactured by the Gloster
Aircraft Company although it continued with aircraft
modification and repair for a number of years.
The FAW 9 was in fact a major update of the FAW 7, 116 of
which were modified at Gloucester in the early 1960's.
Over 400 Javellns were built for the RAF and at peak
strength the type equipped 18 different squadrons: 3, 5,
11, 23, 25, 29, 33, 41, 46, 60, 64, 72, 85, 87, 89, 96,
141 and 151. The disbandment of No 60 squadron RAF in
1968 saw the end of the Javelin's service in the front
line.
XH 766 is seen here as a 9R variant,
further distinguished by its refuelling boom, and wears
the scarab and trellis markings of 64 Squadron. This unit
had previously flown Meteors F8, NF12 and NF 14,
converting to Javelins in 1958 and moving to Binbrook in
1961. It later served as all-weather air defence for
Indonesia – based at Tengah – until disbandment
on 16 June 1967.
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