Made with Pride
Swindon’s fine locos by Richard Holdsworth
IT is no accident that diehard Great Western Railway enthusiasts interpret the initials GWR as God’s Wonderful Railway, and at the heart of this empire is the Swindon Locomotive and Carriage Works, which sat on the Paddington to Bristol main line.
Here some of the finest steam locomotives ever built were perfected from the first days in the mid-1840s until the works closed nearly a century and a half later in 1986. Railwaymen will tell you, though, that just building fine locomotives is an over-simplification of what Swindon and the Great Western was all about.
For a start – the GWR did not necessarily do things as others did. That was because of the appointment of the railway’s first Chief Engineer, one Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Brunel had his own rule book, followed no-one, and came up with engineering answers, many of which stand today as a testament to his far-sighted brilliance.
The son of Marc Brunel, also an exceptional engineer, he built bridges (the Clifton Suspension Bridge being just one fine example); his ships were the first iron-clad and first to employ a propeller; he designed Paddington Station and in six days he invented a “flat-pack” hospital, shipped to Crimea to treat wounded soldiers.
When it came to railways, Brunel didn’t like the width between rails that others were employing. It was based on the distance between the wheels of horse-drawn carts and known as Standard Gauge.
Brunel instead opted for Broad Gauge – but unfortunately he lost the battle in the long run as Standard Gauge was adopted for the rest of the country and the GWR was eventually forced to follow suit. It is a sanguine thought, though, that had Brunel’s Broad Gauge been around today, much heavy freight would be taken off Britain’s roads and passengers would travel in greater comfort.
It was an act of Parliament in 1835 that approved the construction of a railway line connecting London and Bristol to be built by the Great Western Railway Company. Brunel was to oversee virtually the whole project and he started by ordering locomotives from several notable builders. Not all came up to Brunel’s high expectations and he soon appointed Daniel Gooch to build the best. Gooch had served under George Stephenson of “Rocket” fame and was just 21 years of age.
Gooch tramped the countryside looking for somewhere to build trains and reported back to Brunel on a site to the west of Swindon. Gooch wrote, “Mr Brunel and I went to look at the green fields and he agreed it was the most suitable, being at the important junction with the Cheltenham branch line . . .” This was to be the site of the greatest locomotive building works in the country – some say in the world.
Another consideration in favour of Swindon was the change of gradient; the line from Paddington was almost flat but onwards to Bristol involved gradients through hills and valleys,
thus necessitating a change of locomotive types.
The directors of the GWR authorised a start on the Swindon site on 25 February, 1841, with the repair shed coming into being around 1843. The first locomotive to benefit was Premier. Machinery was purchased and installed and Gooch turned out his first locomotive named, appropriately, Great Western, in 1846. Six more followed – the Duke class, including The Lord of the Isles, which was the fastest locomotive of its day.
By the mid-1850s, more than 2,500 men were employed, many from
South Wales as their steel fabricating skills were invaluable. They produced rail as the Great Western Railway expanded west into Devon and Cornwall, into Wales and north to Shrewsbury. Swindon changed – almost overnight – from a small market town to a railway town and Gooch created a self-contained village to house the men and their families.
“The happiness of my men and their families depended much upon the influence I exerted over them,” he wrote, “and I have striven to make this influence beneficial . . .” Thus the “village” contained rows of neat and comfortable houses, medical facilities and schools, plus St Mark’s Church and a public house.
From the outset, Brunel wanted his passengers to arrive at their destination quickly and the route he mapped out used the line of the River Thames for much of its way as it brought shallow gradients and few tight curves. An insight into how Brunel strove for perfection is seen where the line crosses the Thames at Maidenhead.
Bridge building was in its infancy and Brunel’s revolutionary low arch brick bridge was thought unsafe – its construction was only allowed if it was supported by wooden trusses. Brunel instructed his builders to leave a small gap between the wood and the brickwork. The matter was resolved on a stormy night when the wood was blown away – Brunel’s bridge stood firm, as it does today, carrying many thousands of passengers and the heaviest of freight trains.
Locomotives designed by Gooch took advantage of the resulting shallow gradient and sweeping curves. But from Swindon to Bristol – and when the GWR ventured into Devon
and Cornwall – the topography involved steeper grades and tighter curves and demanded engines with power rather than sheer speed.
Gooch stepped down from his role at Swindon on becoming MP for Cricklade in 1865, but later that year accepted the chairmanship of the financially troubled GWR and held that position until 1889.
The good work of Gooch was continued first by Joseph Armstrong in 1864 and William Dean, who took over the role of Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent in 1877. Dean built excellent engines and then George Jackson Churchward, who came up through the Drawing Office, continued to strive for perfection as Locomotive Superintendent from 1902.
His fame was sealed in the locomotive exchange trials with his rivals from the London and North Western Railway. Those at the LNWR derided Churchward, saying they could build three locomotives for the price of two built in Swindon. To which Churchward replied, “My two would pull your three backwards and you would not even know it.” And so it was that Churchward’s Star class locomotives swept the board.
Churchward, a bachelor, lived for God’s Wonderful Railway, and that cost him his life. Inspecting the track close to his home one misty morning, he was struck by an express. C.B. Collett took over as Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1921, further developing the work of his predecessors, especially in the field of steam locomotive boiler design.
In his 20-year reign the finest Swindon locomotives were developed and built, culminating in the King class, the most powerful locomotives of their day. When the Southern Railway took that mantle with the locomotive Lord Nelson, the Great Western responded in 1927 with locomotive number 6000, King
George V, and beat the Lord Nelson with a sizeable margin.
Frederick Hawksworth was Chief Mechanical Engineer in the difficult war years and served until 1947 when all the railways were nationalised. New power was needed and initially the British Rail Board opted to continue with steam whereas the rest of the world was going for diesel.
Dieselisation was inevitable, though, and each British Rail region was allowed to research and develop its own designs. Again, Swindon went its own way, calling upon German technology. This involved light weight, fast-revving diesel engines that transferred their power to the wheels via hydraulic transmission.
Everyone else went for more traditional, heavyweight, slow revving diesels driving generators and electric motors on each axle. Once again, the Western Region was out on a limb and when standardisation ruled, the diesel-hydraulics were withdrawn and sadly scrapped.
Maintenance was the only work given to Swindon but that, too, dried up and the once proud Swindon Works, that at its height employed more than 15,000 workers, was closed on 29 March, 1986.
A glimpse into the glory of the Great Western Railway has been retained. Several Swindon-built steam locomotives have been preserved and operate regularly on the National Rail Network. STEAM, a wonderful museum, is also open to the public and is housed within part of the old railway works.
Visit steam-museum.org.uk or call 01793 466646.
The author saved a diesel-hydraulic, D1013 Western Ranger from being scrapped (image, top right). The locomotive is in the keeping of the Western Locomotive Association on the Severn Valley Railway.