‘CLUN’ AND ‘EDGCUMBE’ THE SAME? NO, CONTENDS BOB MEANLEY
Reckon Clun Castle and Earl of Mount Edgcumbe are the same? Nope, sorry, that would make you “uninformed”.
So says one man who knows these engines intimately: Bob Meanley, longterm MD at Tyseley Locomotive Works and currently, after he stepped back from his frontline position there in October (SR486), fulfilling the acting CME role at the West Somerset Railway.
Like me, you’ve probably noticed that No. 7029 runs with a Collett-pattern tender, while No. 5043 has the laterstyle Hawksworth flush-sided pattern. No prizes for that one – other than perhaps if you realised that when the engines started life it would have been the other way round.
However… that is just one of the variations between Tyseley’s doublechimney ‘Castles’. Another, if you look a lot more closely, is that whereas both engines have mechanical lubricators, on ‘Clun’ this sits forward of the righthand ‘elbow’ steampipe, while on ‘Mount Edgcumbe’ it’s behind it. That’s not a mistake, aberration, or whim on anyone’s part, but a little piece of history. The 1936-built No. 5043 started life with a hydrostatic lubricator, which was changed for a mechanical version – in the current position – when its double chimney was fitted in 1958. Meanwhile, the much younger Clun Castle never had a hydrostatic lubricator, but began life from the start with a mechanical version when it was turned out by the post-nationalisation Swindon Works in 1950. That was behind the steampipe, just as it still is on its older relative; but by the time No. 7029 swapped its single chimney for the version it has in 1959, the standard position had been moved forward. So, both engines are correct.
That’s not the end of the differences: there are other details, such as the inclusion on No. 7029 of a hopper ashpan, manual boiler blowdown fitment, different weatherboard windows, cabside handrails, cylinders, cylinder covers and casings… (not to mention that while No. 7029 is a ‘runner’, No. 5043 currently isn’t).
“It really all bears out that while the uninformed contend that all Great Western engines are the same,” says Bob, “the only standard feature of any of the 171 ‘Castles’ is that just about every one is different!”