TABLE 2: EUSTON – NUNEATON (SLIP COACH)
Train:
Loco: Load: Driver: Recorder: Date:
Miles
0.00 8.0 11.4 13.3 15.7
17.5 21.0 24.5 28.0 31.7 36.1 40.2 46.7 52.4
54.8 59.9 62.8 75.3 82.5 93.5 97.1
Timing point
EUSTON
Camden
WILLESDEN JCT Wembley
Harrow
Hatch End
MP 15¾ arr
dep. WATFORD JUNCTION King’s Langley Boxmoor Berkhamsted
Tring
Cheddington Leighton Buzzard BLETCHLEY Wolverton
Castlethorpe Roade Blisworth Weedon Welton RUGBY Bulkington NUNEATON 5.30pm EustonFleetwood
‘Belfast Boat Express’ 4-4-0 No. 1481 Typhon 12/390/415tons P Jarvis, Camden
A P le M Sinkinson
July 1913
Sched. Actual min m s
0 000 427 955 12 37 16 07 18 04 21 33 22 47 26 37 30 57 34 42 38 27 42 17 46 17 4934 5455 5954 9 23 38 52
65 68
89 108
Speed mph
1.1
5.4
55
60
55
56 0* sig. - stop 42
53
57
56
58
72
76
69
70
61 58 64 67 03 54 69 44 69.7
76 26 66 82 04 57/66 8917 35* 102 27 66max 106 11 -¶ smokebox generating an even draught on the fire, and a steam port area of 31.35sq ft compared with 23.4sq ft on the ‘Precursors’.
Cylinder diameter on the ‘Georges’ became standardised at 20½in, while eight-inch piston valves had maximum travel in full gear of 57⁄16in, just short of the equivalent on an ‘A4’ Pacific, and enabling drivers to use full regulator with short cut-off at speed.
Flaws
By making full use of the expansion qualities of hot steam this saved coal, and, in later years, became the advisory method of working on such ‘greyhounds’ as GWR ‘Castles’, LMS ‘Coronations’, and, as mentioned, ‘A4s’.
The ‘Georges’ were well before their time but they did have their flaws, as we shall see.
Just as the original ‘Precursors’ had paved the way for the (saturated) six-coupled ‘Experiments’, so the ‘Georges’ led to the superheated ‘Prince of Wales’ 4-6-0s; but, again like the ‘Experiments’, they barely matched the high standards of performance established by the 4-4-0s on which they were based.
Visually, there was little similarity between the graceful lines of the LNWR ‘George the Fifths’ and the startling appearance of Bulleid’s ‘Q1’ 0-6-0s 35 years later on the Southern (see the June 2020 RM). Yet the two classes had one thing in common: potential power in a small space.
Dignified in ‘blackberry’ black, the ’Georges’ carried on their splashers evocative names, varying from those of the rich and famous, through the British Empire and the classics to birds and destinations served by the LNWR. Straight nameplates adorned a single elongated splasher on either side of the loco, creating a more compact and ‘modern’ appearance than the ‘Precursors’ with their individual splasher for each coupled wheel. It was also the easiest way of telling the classes apart!
In the 1923 Grouping, the LMS inherited all 90 ‘Georges’ and 130 ‘Precursors’. Eleven ‘Precursors’ had been built with superheaters, but three of them were converted back to the saturated state, while seven were rebuilt as virtual ‘George the Fifths’, with superheaters, extended smokeboxes, 20½in diameter cylinders and piston valves. Eventually, 64 ‘Precursors’ were modified in this way.
Now for performance. Timing equipment a century ago could not match the accuracy of the electronic apparatus available today, but we can obtain – and wonder at – what was regularly achieved on the LNWR from the Railway Performance Society’s (RPS) archive, from ancient copies of The Railway Magazine , and from the work of Cecil J Allen and O S Nock.