Holding on to a decades-old dream!
With fond memories of the unrebuilt Patriots which had all vanished by late 1962, Pete Kelly looks forward to the completion of the LMS-Patriot Project’s No. 5551 The Unknown Warrior.
With fond memories of the unrebuilt Patriot 4-6-0s which had all vanished by the end of 1962, Pete Kelly looks forward to the completion of the LMS-Patriot Project’s No. 5551 The Unknown Warrior, and seeing one of these late-lamented locomotives at speed on the main line for the first time in 60 years.
ALMOST from the moment I could read locomotive nameplates, those such as
St Dunstan’s, Royal Naval Division, Isle of Man, Caernarvon, Bradshaw, Lady Godiva, Blackpool, Private E. Sykes VC, Giggleswick, Home Guard and Lytham St. Annes have been imprinted on my mind, just like the distinctive outlines of the unrebuilt threecylinder Patriot 4-6-0s that bore them.
Ten members of the class remained nameless for their entire lives, one of them, No. 45508, gaining notoriety after being fitted in 1956 with a plain stovepipe chimney that seemed to destroy the locomotive’s previous elegance at a stroke!
Overview
Sadly, every original condition Patriot had been sent for scrap by the end of 1962, and this relatively early withdrawal from service meant not a single one survived into preservation, leaving a huge and important gap between the Royal Scot and Jubilee 4-6-0s.
No feature about the Patriots would be complete, however, without reference to the larger and more powerful original parallel-boiler Royal Scots designed under Sir Henry Fowler, who took up his position as the second chief mechanical engineer of the LMS after George Hughes in 1925.
The largest of the ‘Big Four’ railway companies inherited no locomotives powerful enough to haul the West Coast Main Line’s heaviest express passenger trains single-handedly, but at first the railway’s operating and motive power departments seemed happy enough with the pre-existing practice of double-heading.
Although Fowler came from the Midland Railway, which stuck to its ‘small engine’ policy right to the end, within a year of taking up office with the LMS he was working on a design for a compound Pacific express locomotive. This ambition was moderated after well-documented disagreements between departments led to the LMS borrowing from the GWR a simple-expansion four-cylinder Castle 4-6-0 No. 5000 Launceston Castle for a month’s trial working between London Euston and Carlisle.
The Collett locomotive performed so brilliantly that a compromise was reached by shelving the idea of a Pacific (at least, until William Stanier came along in 1932) and instead designing the three-cylinder parallel boiler Royal Scot 4-6-0s which, with their 250lb boiler pressure compared with the Castle’s 225lb, and tractive effort of 33,150lb compared with the Castle’s 31,625lb, proved more than the equal of their GWR counterparts.
Construction
Such was the urgency of getting the Royal Scot locomotives into service that a contract was given to the North British Locomotive Company to build no fewer than 50 of them, with the remaining 20 being produced at Derby.
In February 1930, the number of ‘Scots’ rose to 71 with the rebuilding of Fowler’s ill-fated experimental high-pressure locomotive Fury into a conventional locomotive.
I well remember the original ‘Scots’ that remained in operation when Dad introduced me to ‘trainspotting’ towards the end of the 1940s. Their tiny chimneys served only to emphasise the size of their large parallel boilers and long fireboxes, but after the LMS rebuilt two Jubilee 4-6-0s (Nos. 5735 Comet and 5736 Phoenix) with Type 2A boilers in 1942, it was decided to rebuild the entire class of Royal Scots, whose boilers and cylinders were becoming due for replacement in any case, in a similar fashion.
The process began in June 1943 with No. 46103 Royal Scots Fusilier
and continued until the very last one, No. 46137 The Prince of Wales’s Volunteers (South Lancashire),
emerged in March 1955.
Stanier’s taper-boiler doublechimney rebuilds were definite improvements over the original locomotives, which suffered from a number of irritating imperfections including unbalanced regulator levers, premature piston ring wear and hotrunning axleboxes, but how I wish that just one example of an original ‘Scot’ was still around so that today’s enthusiasts could see for themselves their majesty and power.
However, with the ongoing construction of Patriot replica
No. 5551 The Unknown Warrior by the LMS-Patriot Project, and the matching release of Bachmann’s highly-detailed OO-scale model of it in LMS crimson lake livery, it’s these smaller siblings of the Royal Scots under the spotlight this time.
With their 6ft 9in driving wheels, these 5XP (later 6P5F) locomotives were clearly built for speed, and they worked a large variety of express passenger, fitted freight and long distance postal trains all their lives.
The famous black and white GPO film Night Mail, released in February 1936, which veers between original Fowler Royal Scot and Patriot locomotives, includes an unforgettable close-up of a Patriot’s motion in full flight as W. H. Auden’s words, written to a score by Benjamin Britten, speed up in sympathy:
“Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or visit relations…”
Better known initially as ‘Baby Scots’, the first two members of the class, which emerged from Derby Works in late 1930, were Nos. 5500/45500 Patriot (Croxteth until 1937) and Nos. 5501/45501 St. Dunstan’s (Sir Frank Ree until 1937). They were extensive rebuilds of former London & North Western Railway ‘Large Claughton’ 4-6-0s, retaining the original driving wheels, bogie trucks and other parts.
Although the following 40 locomotives were new, they were classified as rebuilds for accounting reasons, so only the final 10 were officially classified as new. Including the first two members of the class, 11 locomotives were built at Derby, with the remaining 41 at Crewe.
Awesome sight
Unrebuilt Patriots in full cry made an awesome sight as towering columns of exhaust erupted from their small chimneys, and they took all the thrashing their footplate crews could give them.
They were just as happy speeding passengers to holiday destinations such as Blackpool, Morecambe, Southport, Prestatyn, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno, Caernarfon, the Lake District or Liverpool (for the Isle of Man ferries) as they were rushing fish trains from Fleetwood to London, taking stints on the Night Postal, flogging over Shap on a wide variety of Anglo-Scottish duties, conveying pigeon specials as far as Bournemouth or working expresses galore between major cities.
During a locospotting visit to Crewe many years ago, I even witnessed an
unrebuilt Patriot arriving from London with a firebox door glowing red hot!
Towards the end of their careers, they were gradually downgraded to a host of more mundane duties, but their legacy will live on with the completion of No. 5551 The Unknown
The models
ALTHOUGH Bachmann Branchline’s catalogues have featured an OOscale model of the LMS-Patriot Project’s No. 5551 The Unknown Warrior for some years now, it will not be released until every visible modification made necessary for main line running under 21st century conditions, especially concerning the tender, is known.
This means that a projected release date cannot yet be made, but Bachmann communications manager Richard Proudman told Heritage Railway: “We are working closely with
Warrior and, as it’s being built to main line standards, we’ll be able to see a Patriot at speed for the first time in 60 years.
Stanier’s 190 taper-boiler developments of the Patriots continued the numbering sequence, the LMS-Patriot Project and as the construction of the real locomotive progresses, so should our model.”
At present, the published recommended retail price is £199.95 for the standard model (31-215) or £299.95 for the sound-fitted version (31-215SF).
Variants of Bachmann’s highly detailed OO-scale models of unrebuilt Patriots comprise:
No. 45513 The Royal Leicestershire Regiment in BR Brunswick green with early crest and No. 45543 Home Guard in BR Brunswick green starting with the first, No. 5552 Silver Jubilee, which boasted chromiumplated nameplates and raised, chromium-plated cabside numbers.
The Jubilees worked to a steam pressure of 225lb compared with the 200lb of the Patriots, and their with late crest (31-210 and 31-211 respectively); No. 5541 Duke of Sutherland in LMS crimson lake (31-212); No. 45504 Royal Signals in BR Brunswick green with late crest and No. 45538 Giggleswick in BR Brunswick green with early crest (31213 and 31-214 respectively).
Over the years, Hornby has also released a number of OO-scale models of unrebuilt Patriot 4-6-0s, represented by: Nos. 5533 Lord Rathmore and No. 5541 Duke of Sutherland in LMS crimson lake (R308 and R311 respectively); No. 45519 three cylinders measured 17 x 26in compared with the 18 x 26in of their predecessors.
The Jubilees also had a slightly higher tractive effort of 26,610lb compared with the 26,520lb of the Patriots.
Lady Godiva in BR lined black with ‘BRITISH RAILWAYS’ lettering (R324); No. 45537 Private E. Sykes VC in BR Brunswick green with early crest and No. 45515 Caernarvon in BR Brunswick green with late crest (R578 and R2182 respectively); No. 45539
E. C. Trench in LMS crimson lake (R2182A); No. 45518 Bradshaw in BR Brunswick green with early crest and No. 45539 E. C. Trench again, this time in BR Brunswick green with late crest (R3154 and R3278 respectively). All have been marketed in the budget ‘Railroad’ range.