CHURCHWARD CENTENARIAN
‘28XX’ No. 2857 at 100
To the casual observer, ‘Heavy Freight’ No. 2857 might appear to be ‘just another locomotive’. Yet it is a classic example of the first design of 2-8-0 to run in Britain and the first ‘standard class’ to be built at Swindon under the Great Western Railway’s Locomotive Superintendent, George Jackson Churchward. The ‘28XX’ was, indisputably, the most advanced locomotive design of its day. It is therefore more than appropriate to celebrate the centenary of our cherished survivor No. 2857 in 2018 with events at its home, the Severn Valley Railway, and further afield. Britain’s first 2-8-0, No. 97, appeared in June 1903 and was soon reported to have ‘done admirable work’, hauling prodigious loads hitherto unseen in Britain. The subsequent ‘28XX’ locomotives, as they became known, were built in several batches, up to No. 2855 at the outbreak of the First World War. As the conflict ground on, the traffic demands were such that more locomotives were required and another batch, Nos. 2856-83, was produced in 1918, incorporating various improvements. Because of wartime austerity they bore plain green livery and cast iron chimneys, with no decorative copper cap. Our No. 2857 was outshopped in May 1918 and was sent to Salisbury’s GWR depot. Over its ensuing 45 years’ service the ‘28XX’ must have covered virtually all GWR routes on which it was allowed. Its final shed was Neath, from where it was withdrawn in April 1963 and despatched to Woodham’s scrapyard, having run 1,276,713 miles in 45 years. In late 1971 a fund was set up to preserve No. 2857, which was still languishing with many other redundant engines in the yard. The aim was to raise the asking price of £3,500. Unfortunately, the general view was that it was ‘only a goods engine’, that it had no specific claim to fame and that it duplicated No. 2818 in the National Collection. Therefore the fund began with very little support – or even credibility.
The usual claims of this particular Barry veteran being “in very good condition” didn’t cut it with the general enthusiast! Progress was painfully slow and by January 1973 the fund had barely reached £1,000. A meeting was called to decide a way forward, or even whether to abandon the whole thing. This had a galvanising effect and led to a general revitalisation of fundraising activities. Matters slowly started to improve, though it was still very much an uphill battle. Finally, the engine was purchased at the end of May 1974 before any more price rises, but it left financial reserves in a parlous state. Fundraising continued in order to cover the purchase and the cost of rail movement from Barry to Bewdley on the Severn Valley Railway, which was finally completed on August 20 1975 when No. 2857 moved together with Collett ‘Mogul’ No. 7325.
TEETHING TROUBLES
We could be forgiven for thinking we had done the hard bit, but as anyone who has restored a Barry escapee will tell you, it is at this point that life starts to get even harder. It seemed a big enough task in those days that the accepted wisdom was to set about scraping rust off, reinstate any missing parts and replace the bottom few rows of boiler tubes before we could get steaming. Nevertheless, that was what we aimed to do, largely out in the open at Bewdley. Quite early on we set our standards high and decided to replace all the small boiler tubes, rather than the minimum number. We were also greatly helped by an offer from Wagon Repairs Ltd to overhaul our tender for £600. This gave us a big confidence boost – half the battle with any major project. Of deep concern, however, was the discovery in 1978 that the cylinder block was severely cracked. This had clearly been repaired at some time by welding at Swindon but, predictably, it had fractured again along the edges of the welds, unseen behind the insulation and cladding. To our great relief, Babcock & Wilcox came to the rescue and offered to repair the crack, at no charge, in exchange for the opportunity to make a publicity film of the job.
Unfortunately, having cut away all the affected metal, the firm decided that the job was actually beyond its ability and withdrew, leaving us with a gaping hole in the front of the casting. Surveying the damage, and with discussion among several engineers, including Ernie Nutty from Swindon Works, we decided that the casting was nominally serviceable for the short term. The thought at the time was that Dai Woodham would soon restart cutting locomotives and that we would then be able to purchase a complete front end in better condition. Bit by bit the engine was re-assembled until, on September 9 1979, we raised steam and at long last this seemingly immovable object took on a life of its own. While No. 2857 had been brought back to life, it was by no means complete and further work ironing out teething troubles and fabricating the boiler cladding dragged on well into 1980.
DIAMOND IN THe ROuGH
Shortly after our first steaming, Briton Ferry Steelworks in South Wales was being demolished and we were notified of what looked like three GWR cylinder blocks which had emerged, previously lost under a heap of coal. On inspection, we concluded that two were from ‘51XX’ tank engines and the third was, incredibly, from a 2-8-0, believed to be No. 3847. We agreed a price and this prized block was then squirrelled away in the event that it might one day be required, while we fervently hoped that it wouldn’t. Around this time, there was a spate of boiler accidents around the country involving collapsed superheater flues, and it was decreed that for the locomotives attending the Rainhill 150 celebrations in 1980, all boilers would have to undergo a full internal examination and be fitted with new stays and all-new tubes, including the superheater flues. This naturally focused attention on all boilers in preservation, and a close inspection on behalf of the SVR discovered that No. 2857’s flues had, in fact, started to bulge, leaving us no option but to facilitate complete replacements. This was a bitter – even humiliating – disappointment and it was a severe blow to our confidence. Having set what we thought were high standards, they had all suddenly been brought to nought. Nevertheless, it seemed obvious that we should continue to strive for excellence, as set out by BR in its new document MT276, and so we entered into a contract with the SVR for it to give the boiler a thorough overhaul. There was a lot of work to do that summer removing all our nearly new tubes which, fortunately, we were able to sell on for reuse in traction engines. Our ‘28XX’ was towed up to Bridgnorth and the boiler lifted out on October 24 1981. The next big decision was to change the cylinders. This was not taken lightly, but with the boiler off it was clear that both of the old castings were cracked, running fore and aft as well as up and down the end faces. To have persevered with these cylinders could easily have ended with disaster. At this stage Dai Woodham wasn’t cutting anything up, and therefore, with new castings still being beyond most preservationists’ reach at that time, we decided to go ahead and fit the Briton Ferry block. Even that proved to be a bigger job than we had anticipated. Having resided under a pile of coal for a number of years, their cylinder and valve bores had become as rough as raw castings and so would have to be re-machined; a job undertaken by enthusiast Hugh Phillips of Tredegar in South Wales. All this brought us to 1985: the year of celebrations to mark 150 years of the GWR. Early that year we heard that the SVR’s chief engineer, Alun Rees, had been hatching a plot together with BR freight engineer David Russell for a vintage goods train to attend a freight exhibition at Newport on September 10. This run with historic wagons was to be loose-coupled and was arranged on the basis of a single trip (Kidderminster to Kidderminster via Newport) and must have taken some courage on BR’s part to support it. For us it was clearly too good an opportunity to miss, and our unpaid overtime and that of the SVR Wagon Department was immediately redoubled. The engine was steamed again on August 18 1985, just under ten years since her arrival on the SVR, and ran with its ‘new’ cylinders within Bewdley station limits. The trip to Newport through the night of September 9/10 was the most astonishing re-entry into traffic that we could possibly have dreamt of! Departing Kidderminster at 21.15, we ran via Hereford, where we took coal and water, and then continued towards Severn Tunnel Junction and Newport, passing Abergavenny just as dawn was breaking. After spending the day on show in the exhibition we did a run-past with the SVR wagons before heading home. We reached Bewdley at 03.00 on September 11, after being held in various loops along the way, exactly as loose-coupled goods trains had been operated with ‘28XXs’! Back on the SVR, after setting the valves properly and sorting out various other teething troubles, No. 2857 soon settled down to be a reliable member of the fleet. In 1992 we were invited for a season on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway, and on its return to the SVR we decided to change the livery from the early dark GWR green to BR black to see out the last two seasons of the boiler certificate, which also included a visit to the East Lancashire Railway in 1993 for a major 25th anniversary event marking the end of BR steam. The boiler certificate expired in February 1995, so at the end of
1994, we arranged a photographers’ special event with the goods wagons once again, culminating in some classic night shots, after which, with 41,000 SVR miles under its belt, the fire was dropped and we were faced with doing the whole job all over again. The SVR has a queue of engines awaiting their turn for overhaul and No. 2857 was no exception. We began by stripping the engine down, while the tender was despatched to DG Welding in Gloucester, where a new body was built. We went on to rebuild the cab, replace the front bufferbeam and prepare all the parts for a new front dragbox.
GREEN BOILERSMITHS
In January 2004, the boiler was lifted out at Bridgnorth. This enabled our volunteers to start stripping the boiler itself under the boilersmiths’ supervision. This met with such success that we were then, with yet more supervision, encouraged to carry on with the actual boiler overhaul. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Graham Beddow, the then SVR boilersmith, for his tremendous support through what proved to be a fascinating experience, and for playing such a pivotal role in changing the perception of No. 2857 from a strange misconception of “too expensive to repair” to “best get on with the rest of it”, leading to the final completion of the overhaul. We started as ‘green’ volunteer boilersmiths and over the ensuing six years we did more and more, with help from the full-time staff, to the extent that the boiler was rebuilt using largely free labour. Major work included replacing 230 crown stays; 850 steel side stays; 575 copper side stays; the copper tubeplate; front tubeplate; smokebox and chimney. The majority of the boiler work was completed by society members working, on the whole, just one day a week, with SVR staff and contractors tasked with the more specialist jobs. Had we been able to work full time this would have equated to just over 15 months’ worth of work. Meanwhile the works staff, both paid and volunteer, overhauled the locomotive chassis and the tender running gear. Bit by bit she was re-assembled and steamed again on July 4 2011. Unfortunately, some of the boiler stays had been supplied too loose for their respective holes. It was hoped that they would seal up with caulking and scale, but this proved over-optimistic and in the end the difficult decision was made in April 2012 to lift the boiler again and sort the problem out with fresh material. After that the reliability built up, and for each of the next four consecutive years it ran the highest mileage of any steam locomotive on the SVR, and was also a faultless performer on a visit to the West Somerset Railway in 2015. By the end of the 2017 main season ‘57’ had run up a further 53,000 miles and was taken out of traffic for an intermediate overhaul. This has involved relining the cylinders and valves and replacing all the small boiler tubes. We started this preservation saga struggling to save a humble goods engine with no particular claim to fame. But while writing this piece it dawned on us that No. 2857 has actually achieved its own unique claim to fame after all… On the run to Newport it worked the very last steam-hauled, loose-coupled goods train on Britain’s railway network! When you think of the millions of such trains which must have been run over the preceding 160-odd years, we think that is quite some claim. The centenary of No. 2857 is indeed one to celebrate and we shall be doing so at the SVR on June 2/3, when it will be joined on goods train duty by the engine’s contemporary equivalent locomotive, a Class 66. In 1985 we took the engine to the modern railway – this time the modern railway is coming to us!
For more details on No. 2857 and the society that maintains it, visit www.2857.org.uk