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MIKE MORRIS'S
BRITISH STEAM

He arranged for me to pick up a large box of locomotives, wagons and other vehicles originally assembled from Rosebud Kitmaster or early Airfix kits which I then spent a week repairing and repainting as needed!

Some of the models subsequently displayed - and photographed for this article - are still available as Dapol kits while the moulds for others have sadly not survived.  Similarly, some of the models represent locomotive classes that have been extensively written up on this website while others will be described in more detail below.

Indeed, moving along the display from left to right were two examples of models still being turned out in Chirk but which have been covered in more depth elsewhere on Gloucestershire Transport History - George Jackson Churchward's Great Western 4-4-0 "City of Truro" ( numbered as 3717 from 1912 to 1931 ) and Doncaster built British Standard Class 4 2-6-0 number 76000.

By 1928 the Southern Railway was well served by large 4-6-0 express passenger locomotives such as the Lord Nelson Class, introduced in 1926 and designed by Richard Maunsell, who had been Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway since Grouping in 1923 and had previously occupied a similar post on the South Eastern and Chatham Railway since 1913.  However, there remained an urgent need for locomotives to fulfil intermediate roles throughout the system.

Maunsell’s previous attempt at developing his SE&CR predecessor Wainwright’s L Class 4-4-0s for this task had proven a disappointment, and the D15 and L12 4-4-0 Classes designed by Dugald Drummond for the London & South Western Railway between 1903 and 1912 were approaching the end of their working lives.  An entirely new secondary express passenger locomotive was thus required to operate over lines with relatively high axle loading but which could offer only relatively short turntables.

Maunsell's original solution had been a large wheeled 2-6-4T but the 1927 Sevenoaks disaster - following which the River Class 2-6-4Ts were rebuilt as U Class 2-6-0 tender engines - made him look again at a 4-4-0 format which combined elements of his Lord Nelson and King Arthur 4-6-0s.  Among the King Arthur components was a round topped firebox - as opposed to the square topped Belpaire firebox used on the Lord Nelsons - chosen to conform to driving axle weight restrictions although serendipitously this also meant that the new 4-4-0s would fit the loading gauge of the Tonbridge to Hastings line where the Class V engines were to do some of their best work. The short frame length of the 4-4-0 locomotive also meant very little overhang on the line's tight curves.

However, the Tonbridge to Hastings permanent way had to be upgraded to take a 21 ton axle load during 1929 and 1930 and for this reason the first batch of Class V 4-4-0s to be built at Eastleigh was reduced from 10 to 15 units.  In fact the 1928 order was not fulfilled until July 1930 and the final example of the 40 strong class was not outshopped until 1935.  Indeed, had it not been for the effects of the Great Depression on railway traffic more Class V 4-4-0s might have been built.

Following the success of its King Arthur and Lord Nelson Class themes, the new 4-4-0s were named after public schools, many of which were located close to Southern Railway metals.  Naming ceremonies at local stations with pupils able to look inside the cab of "their" engines were popular with all concerned and provided positive publicity for both schools and the Southern Railway.  In fact extensions to Class V meant that the names of such faraway seats of learning as Cheltenham, Rugby and Malvern were finally included - ironic when less than a century earlier the masters of Eton had strongly protested against the Great Western Railway being built so close to their school!

The original ten locomotives were shared between Dover depot  for use on the South eastern Main Line and Eastbourne shed for London expresses although several of the former later transferred to Ramsgate. By mid 1931 they also began to be used on Hastings and Portsmouth services and after the electrification of the lines from London to Eastbourne and Portsmouth later in the 1930s the "Schools" also hauled trains to Bournemouth. 

In British Railways service they were also used on cross country trains from Brighton to Cardiff and Exeter and boat trains bound for Newhaven. Two locomotives - 30902 and 30921- were briefly supplied with Lord Nelson tenders for use on the longer runs of the Western Section, too.

The "Schools" were highly regarded by traffic managers and footplate crews alike and could display impressive turns of speed such as the day in 1938 when 928 "Stowe" was recorded at 95mph at the head of a four coach Dorchester to Wareham train near Wool station.  However, the combination of high tractive effort and low weight meant that careful handling was required to prevent wheelslip.

Smoke deflectors were added from new to the final 30 "Schools" and retrofitted to the first ten examples while twenty Class Vs were fitted with Lemaitre multiple jet blastpipes after Oliver Bulleid became Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1937.  Although these had proved a successful addition to the Lord Nelson 4-6-0s however, they had little real effect on the 4-4-0s.

The introduction of Class 201 diesel electric multiple units by British Rail to the Hastings route after 1957 and the completion of the electrification of the South Eastern Main Line in 1961 deprived the "Schools" of much of their work. Withdrawals began in January 1961 and, like the Great Western "King" 4-6-0s, the whole class had disappeared from service by December 1962.

However, three "Schools" were preserved. 925 "Cheltenham" became part of the National Collection while 926 "Repton" - the last of the class to be overhauled in 1960 - was exported to the Steamtown Museum in Vermont, USA and later operated on the Cape Breton Steam Railway in Canada.  However, it returned to the United Kingdom in 1989 and now operates on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.  928 "Stowe" was originally purchased by the National Motor Museum but is now owned by the Maunsell Locomotive Society and is currently on static display on the Bluebell Railway.

The Rosebud Kitmaster model of the "Schools" 4-4-0 was first sold in March 1959 and, like the Battle of Britain pacific, moulded in green plastic. The box artwork showed the locomotive in BR black lined with red and the identity of 30919 "Harrow".

The 4-4-0 was not available between the sale of the moulds to Airfix in 1962 and a re-launch under that brand name in 1968, when it was again supplied with the "Harrow" name but the decals for the cabside number 919 and the word "SOUTHERN" on the tender. These markings were correct for Class V as originally outshopped in Maunsell's darker version of the LSWR sage green and lined in black and white.

In 2011Dapol still offered their Class V kit - now moulded in grey plastic in uniform with their other ex Airfix products - under the catalogue number CO35 as 919 "Harrow" with these original markings while CO86 and CO87 were respectively 921 "Shrewsbury" and 30920 "Rugby" in the Malachite green and Sunshine Yellow livery of the post 1937 Bulleid era.

During World War II the locomotives were painted plain black with yellow lettering and numbers and immediately after Nationalisation in 1948 a modified version of Malachite was applied to the words BRITISH RAILWAYS on the tender in Sunshine Yellow and the Southern Railway numbering with an S prefix.  In this way, for example, 900 "Eton" became S900. 

During the 1950s the Class Vs were painted in BR lined black and numbered 30900 to 30939 although this proved unpopular and their final BR livery was the express engine Brunswick green with orange and black lining, applied as each engine was overhauled.

Indeed, standardisation was the most likely reason for the choice of a Pacific wheel arrangement for a mixed traffic locomotive that could haul freight over the Southern Railway's electrified lines as well as filling in gaps in the third rail network toward the Kent Coast, from Waterloo to Southampton and Bournemouth and in Devon and Cornwall. 

These latter routes were often curving, heavily graded and - although busy with summer holiday traffic - only lightly used in winter.  By the end of the 1930s former London & South Western lines in the far west were being worked by either ageing T9 4-4-0s or more modern N Class 2-6-0s which could have been better employed elsewhere.

However, although the Brighton Works drawing office first proposed a 2-6-0 design as a replacement mixed traffic locomotive, the Kent Coast lines demanded a 4-6-0 or 2-6-2 and scaling down Bulleid's existing Merchant Navy pacifics with shorter wheelbases, narrower boilers and smaller cylinders allowed both the 44 strong Battle of Britain Class and their 66 West Country siblings to feature the same welded construction, steel fireboxes, oil bath chain driven valve gear, Lemaitre multiple jet blastpipes, thermic syphons, Bulleid-Firth-Brown wheels, electric lighting powered from a steam generator and power operated reverser, firebox doors and clasp brakes.

"Spam Can" airsmoothed casings with an integral smokebox also allowed the light pacifics to use mechanised carriage washing plant although driver visibility remained an issue and was one cause of the 4 December 1957 Lewisham disaster in which the driver of 34066 "Spitfire" was unable to see caution signals in foggy conditions and ran into the back of a stationary local train.

Bulleid advocated a continental style of numbering, basing this upon his experiences at the French branch of Westinghouse Electric before the First World War and his time in the British Government Railway Operating Department during that conflict.

The Southern Railway number adapted the UIC classification system where "2" and "1" refer to the number of un-powered leading and trailing axles respectively, and "C" refers to the number of driving axles – in this case three.  However, since "21C" was the prefix already used by the Merchant Navy class, the suffix "1" was added; all these locomotives therefore carried numbers which started "21C1" followed by the individual two-digit identifier.

The first of the locomotives -  21C101 "Exeter" - was outshopped from Brighton Works in May 1945 as part of an initial batch of 20. 

The 15 light pacifics that followed featured steam sanding to the front driving wheels with covers added to protect the motion from sand falling from the filler pipes while the third batch of 25 engines began the tradition of names associated with the Battle of Britain - fought in the skies over South East England where they were to serve.

As Japan was not to formally capitulate until 2 September 1945, the new Bulleid light pacifics were built under Austerity conditions while British industry slowly transitioned back from war to peacetime production.  For this reason the 280 psi welded boilers of the West Country and Battle of Britain 4-6-0s was subcontracted to North British in Glasgow and as late as March 1949 Brighton Work's construction of the final batch of 20 light pacifics ordered by the newly formed British Railways perpetuated a shortage of tank locomotives on the Southern Region.

This deficit was made up by 41 Fairburn designed LMS style 2-6-4Ts being built in Sussex by the sea while Brighton Works staff were also committed to the development of Bullied's controversial "Leader" articulated tank engines.

Consequently the frames for this final batch of Bulleid light pacifics were cut at Ashford, the Works that also built their tenders, while six entire light pacifics were erected at Eastleigh.  These were 34085 "501 Squadron", 34087 "145 Squadron", 34089 "602 Squadron", 34095 "Brentor", 34101 "Hartland" ( pictured above after rebuilding)  and 34102 "Lapford".

Southern Railway built Bulleid light pacifics could also be distinguished from the British Railways built examples by the width of the cabs.  The earlier machines had been designed with a view to them operating through the narrow tunnel between Tonbridge and Hastings and so received 8'6" wide cabs while the post 1948 examples had footplates measuring 9' across.

Like the 1941 vintage Merchant Navies, the Southern Railway's 110 light pacifics needed a great deal of maintenance to keep them in good working order as they were prone to oilbath fires and slipping - especially on leaving Waterloo where sanding was forbidden due to the presence of electrified third rails. 

Indeed the final example - numbered 34110 by British Railways and named "66 Squadron" - did not appear until January 1951 as thought was given to rebuilding it as two cylinder locomotive with more conventional valve gear in the style of the soon-to-be-introduced Britannia 4-6-0s.  During this delay the maker of the squadron crests retired and so 34110 "66 Squadron" became unique among the Battle of Britain pacifics in running with  nameplates but no crests below. 

However, a number of West Country pacifics ran in service without crests including Southern Railway built locomotives 34012 "Launceston", 34023 "Blackmore Vale" ( seen above, although crests were added during preservation ) 34024 "Tamar Valley", 34025 "Whimple", 34026 "Yes Tor", 34027 "Taw Valley" ( although crests were added during preservation ) 34028 "Eddystone", 34032 "Camelford", 34033 "Chard", 34034 "Honiton", 34035 "Shaftesbury", 34036 "Westward Ho", 34037 "Clovelly", 34039 "Boscastle", 34041 "Wilton", 34043 "Combe Martin", 34044 "Woolacombe", 34045 "Ottery St Mary", 34046 "Braunton"( although crests were added during preservation ) and 34047 "Callington".

The British Railways built West Country pacifics that ran in service without crests were 34093 "Saunton", 34094 "Mortehoe", 34095 "Brentor", 34096 "Trevone", 34097 "Holsworthy", 34098 "Templecombe", 34100 "Appledore", 34101 "Hartland", 34102 "Lapford", 34103 "Calstock" 34104 "Bere Alston", 34105 "Swanage", 34106 "Lydford" and 34108 "Wincanton".

Despite 34110 being completed uniformly with its classmates, from June 1957 sixty class members were de-streamlined and rebuilt with a set of Walschaerts valve gear for each of the three cylinders.  At the same time the boilers were derated to the British Standard pressure of 250 pounds per square inch and new angled cab front windows added for enhanced visibility.

Due to the modernisation of Southern Region motive power however, this rebuilding programme was cancelled in May 1961, just 16 years since the WCs and BBs had been introduced and only 10 years and four months since 34110 had been outshopped.

However, unrebuilt 34064 "Fighter Command" was fitted with an oblong Giesel ejector in 1962 which ultimately resulted in improved smoke deflection, lower fuel consumption and the ability to steam well on low grade coal.  As a result a similar device was fitted to preserved 34092 "City of Wells" in the 1980s.

After seeing service in locations as far apart as Folkestone, Padstow, Evercreech and Bath due to their axle loading of less than 19 tons, the first of the Bulleid Light Pacifics were withdrawn in 1963. The last example bowed out in 1967, but not until 34051 "Winston Churchill" gained Worldwide media attention on 30 January 1965 by hauling its namesake's funeral train from Waterloo to the wartime Prime Minister's last resting place near Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

Happily though, no less than 20 examples - 10 unrebuilt and 10 rebuilt - escaped scrapping by Dai Woodham at Barry island and as a result the Southern's free-ranging 4-6-2s were - up to 2009 - unique in preservation as a partly streamlined class: all 30 Merchant Navies having been "de-Spammed".  In 2009 however LMS Princess Coronation 46229 "Duchess of Hamilton" - which had been one of three de-streamlined class survivors - was re-streamlined and is now displayed at the National Railway Museum in York.

The preserved unrebuilt Southern Railway built Bulleid light pacifics are 34007 "Wadebridge", 34023 "Blackmore Vale", 34051 "Winston Churchill", 34067 "Tangmere" and 34070 "Manston".

The preserved unrebuilt British Railways built Bulleid light pacifics are 34072 "257 Squadron", 34073 "249 Squadron", 34081 "92 Squadron", 34092 "City of Wells" and 34105 "Swanage".

The preserved rebuilt Southern Railway built Bulleid light pacifics are 34010 "Sidmouth", 34016 "Bodmin", 34027 "Taw Valley", 34028 "Eddystone", 34039 "Boscastle", 34046 "Braunton", 34053 "Sir Keith Park", 34058 "Sir Frederick Pile"and 34059 "Sir Archibald Sinclair".

The sole preserved rebuilt British Railways built Bulleid light pacific is 34101"Hartland".

The real 34057 "Biggin Hill" was built at Brighton in March 1947 and was withdrawn for scrap in May 1967 although in 2011 Dapol also offered the same ex Rosebud kit as "Biggin Hill" [Catalogue CO48] 34072 "257 Squadron" [CO83] 34081 "92 Squadron" [CO84] and 34055 "Fighter Pilot" [CO85]. 

As 34072 "257 Squadron" and 34081 "92 Squadron" are among the unrebuilt preserved examples of Battle of Britain pacifics they could justifiably feature on a modern image layout and all the Dapol offerings have nameplate and plaque decals in the correct light blue as opposed to Mike's model for which the Rosebud Kitmaster supplied a red backed nameplate and green crest.  This would have been more in line with West Country pacifics which were outshopped with a red scroll above the town coat of arms.  However, other colours were sometimes used to refurbish these adornments during the working life of a locomotive if the correct shades were not available.

At present Dapol do not offer any alternative decals for Southern Railway Bullied light pacific liveries.

A more technical and historical appreciation of "Rocket" can be found in the Single Driver Locomotives article on this website but as an assembled model in need of refurbishment the Rosebud Kitmaster offering was a decided challenge!  Not only were many of the small parts difficult or impossible to repaint properly without touching those around them but everyone thinks they know what "Rocket" looks like yet so many sources differ on which colours certain parts - beyond the lead chromate bright yellow - should be! 

I did my best with Mike's model but much better results would be obtained by starting from fresh components and painting these before assembly: ideally after obtaining a full set of photos of the National Railway Museum's replica, as seen below!  In particular, care would have to be taken to get the two piston rods in correct opposition to each other.

As mentioned in my review of the 2010 Triang Society Exhibition in Cheltenham however, although "Rocket" marked a pivotal moment in British and World history and an 00 gauge model would be a definite asset in modelling a railway museum, its usefulness is otherwise hampered by a lack of suitable rolling stock available from the same era.  Perhaps an enterprising kit manufacturer could come up with some Liverpool and Manchester wagons and carriages and maybe even a "Planet" 2-2-2?

It could be that Airfix decided to place the crane on bogies to make the vehicle more user-friendly on train sets with tight curves but strictly speaking the injection moulded kit builds into a freelance model or toy rather than a true representation of a real vehicle.  As such, pedantry over paint schemes becomes pointless!

All the real Booth Rodley 15 to diesel hydrailic cranes appear to have worked with similar runners, converted from GWR diagram J25 Macaw H (Bogie Bolster A) built on Lot 1014 in about 1927 that were 35ft. over headstocks. Some cranes at least also worked with mess vans converted from GWR brake vans. In this case however I gifted Mike a kit built tube wagon to support the jib.

The Regent Oil Company was founded in 1947 with the merger of Texaco Petroleum Products and Trinidad Leaseholds.  Prior to the war the Regent brand name had been used by Burt, Boulton & Haywood Ltd, a small distributor of high grade motor spirit who had been taken over by Trinidad Leaseholds in 1931. The company had a refinery at Regent's Wharf, London, and sold - 'Regent' and 'Regent Motor Spirit'

The Regent Oil Company expanded into branded petrol sales in Britain in the 1950s.  It also shipped and refined petroleum products abroad before being taken into the full ownership of Texaco in 1967 when the now-familiar Texaco star logo began appearing on filling station forecourts.  However, some Regent petrol stations still exist, including at least one in Budleigh Salterton, Devon.

Just before this rebranding however, Regent Petrol invested heavily in a wild west themed promotional campaign built around the slogan "Get out of town fast!" and using the image of "Regent Girl" - in fact a Kensington based model named Caroline Sanders (pictured above).  A promotional package sent to Regent filling stations included a vinyl LP record entitled "The Lively One '67" and 'sensational' new posters in various sizes, a new pump bezel, a 'fabulous' life-size cut-out of the Regent Girl and 'bullet hole' stickers and T-shirts. The album liner notes also gave suggestions for garage managers to help run their new promotion campaign including 'Dress your attendants in Caroline kit', Play the "Lively One" record', Use water pistol window washers', 'Have holsters round pumps to hold nozzles'..

Back in the 21st Century when petrol is a luxury item that drivers have to pump in themselves, N gauge modellers may also be interested in wagon 326 and some other Regent vehicle and livery variations now available from Robbie's Rolling Stock.
 

Developed to reduce expensive handling costs and time penalties incurred when "interchanging freight between road and rail vehicles", the UK-designed "road-railer" prototype was, wrote The Engineer magazine in 1960, "equipped with a road and rail-wheel assembly by which the appropriate set of wheels can be lowered into an operative position to adapt the vehicle for road or rail travel".

Based loosely on a vehicle designed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in the US, the UK prototype, developed by ‘the engineers of British Railways and the Pressed Steel Company of Oxford’, featured an interesting design:

"The axle of the vehicle was carried on a beam structure pivoted at the centre.  Hydraulic jacks are used to pivot this beam structure to lower the road wheels and raise the rail wheels and vice versa in accordance with the class of duty. A special coupling is fitted at the leading end of the vehicle chassis by which it is coupled to the trailing end of a similar trailer when making up a train."

Commenting on how such a vehicle might be used, The Engineer wrote:

"With this arrangement, individual road-hauled trailers can be loaded at industrial establishments and hauled to a yard where they are coupled up into a train for high-speed rail haulage to a yard near the destination. At this yard the road wheels are let down for the trailers to be hauled to their final destinations for unloading. The system will thus combine the flexibility of collection and delivery by road with the speed of direct transport by rail."

Although the article went on to mention forthcoming trials between Bishop’s Stortford and Braintree the concept did not prove successful, partly due to the reduction in load volume required to fit inside the UK's smaller loading gauge and also because the shipping container system we know today was being developed at the same time and proved more successful.  This was not least because with a shipping container only the payload and the metal box around it is transferred from road to rail.  A lorry does not have to burn extra fuel by carrying round a redundant pair of heavy rail wheels and a railway locomotive does not have to haul redundant pneumatic tyres.

This left British Railways with over 50 trailers - which were stored and finally scrapped - as well as a number of rail bogies on to which the front of the trailer at the leading end of the train would have rested.  These bogies would have been equipped with conventional railway buffers and drawhooks at the outer end to allow a railway locomotive to haul the train.

Prior to this however, the 1962 Peco Catalogue announced the road-railer concept as "Possibly the most sensational development in the British Railways Modernization Programme" and printed a photograph with the caption;" An impressive sight - a train of Roadrailers at speed on the Cambridge /Newmarket line".

Proving the old adage that it is free to guess but expensive to guess wrong, Peco had already launched its own 00 gauge road-railer kit ( actually designed and made by Scalecraft but only available through Peco ) in 1961.  Priced at 7/6d, the starter set included an AEC Mandator articulated lorry tractor unit, adaptor bogie and the trailer, as pictured above and below.  Other related kits were scheduled but did not appear and surprisingly the starter set was still in the Peco catalogue as late as 1982, presumably in an attempt to shift remaining stock. It is possible that someone bought the remaining sets at a bargain price and they are now sitting in a box in a loft somewhere, but those in circulation are much sought after by collectors.