GWR Locomotives: The Hall Class

The article last time on the subject of the Manor Class began with George Jackson Churchward and this piece follows that same line. Churchward revolutionised steam locomotive design in Britain and everything afterwards was tinkering with what he had done.

The Saint class 4-6-0 was a new dawn in terms of power, speed and economy of operation. He had bought de Glehn compounds from France to compare two and four cylinder engines and 4-6-0 against Atlantic 4-4-2. Compounding is where the steam from one set of cylinders is exhausted out and fed into a secondary set of cylinders to get more work out of the gas before it is expelled up the chimney. Compounding was popular with ships and was more suited to constant speed and load work whereas Churchward could not discern any measurable benefit on a railway locomotive and so abandoned it.

Churchward was meticulous in maintaining a level playing field with his comparisons and so adapted some of the Saints to be Atlantics and substituted the rear driving wheels for a pony truck to achieve the 4-4-2 wheel configuration. Saints had 6 foot 8½ inch driving wheels, a dimension shared with Flying Scotsman and Mallard, and so were seen as express engines above all else. West of Exeter in the county of Devon and across the River Tamar into Cornwall and the tracks are not only curved but liberally sprinkled with steep gradients. This is territory more suited to a smaller wheel diameter which will accelerate better or slog up a grade better.

Charles Benjamin Collett, Churchward’s successor, was smart enough not to interfere with Churchward’s basic design layout but was skilful enough to adapt these designs to perform other functions or better than they had originally done. In 1924 he took a Saint Class loco, fitted six foot driving wheels, fitted a more modern side-window cab and changed the lever reverse into a screw reverser. Lever reversers were more suited to shunting/switching roles whereas screw reverse gave a more accurate setting for getting the steam into the cylinders. This would lead to more economic use of the steam, particularly over longer distances. As modified the engine, 4900 Saint Martin, was an immediate success but Collett insisted in a trial period of three years after which a further eighty of the same design was put in hand at Swindon works. You can read more about this here.

The original 259 locomotives found work all over the GWR system but were restricted because of their RED route availability which was basically all the main lines. Routes like the Banbury to Cheltenham and the Didcot Newbury and Southampton were the lighter BLUE and so suitable for the Manor class that was covered in the last article. They were true mixed traffic engines and could be found flogging along on a slow coal train or on a secondary express passenger train like those to Weymouth or the cross-country holiday trains from north west of England to the south east Kent seaside resorts of Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Sandwich, Deal and Hastings.

Figure 1. – The start of it Hall. Well not quite but the Great Western Society’s new build Saint class rests at Bridgnorth on the Severn Valley Railway (SVR). 2999 Lady of Legend started life as 4942 Maindy Hall and the GWS reversed the GWR’s process. The loco is in the condition it would have been in the early part of the 20th century. Straight footplate rather than curved at both ends, lever reverse, worksplate underneath the smokebox, portholes looking out over the firebox, although some modernistic features were built in for practical running reasons. The early Churchward cab is a feature and didn’t/doesn’t protect the crew much. The loco was built with the ability to be converted to a 4-4-2 Atlantic as per Churchward’s considerations. April 2021. Figure 2. 4930 Hagley Hall having time off in the Engine House at Highley on the SVR. This loco is about to re-appear into traffic again in 2022. Its last appearance pulling trains was in 1986, such is the pressure on hard pressed engineering staff and the cash to do it. The locomotive behind the Hall is Standard Class 4MT 2-6-4 tank engine number 80079. 10th May 2008. Figure 3. 4936 Kinlet Hall strides past another train in the loop at Williton on the West Somerset Railway (WSR). Both trains have needed to deposit and collect the single line token for the piece of track they have just been on as well as the piece of track they are to occupy. The length of the loop at Williton is one of the deciding factors on train length on the WSR if trains are to be passed. 26th October 2003. Figure 4. 4936 Kinlet Hall on the WSR at the terminus Bishop’s Lydeard near Taunton. The firemen is about to surrender the single line token and the token itself is the gold coloured object, the rest is just the carrying hoop. The token is then placed in the machine in the signalbox and this unlocks the token machine at the other end of the section, Crowcombe Heathfield, so that another train can be given a token to travel in the same direction now that this one has arrived at its destination. 20th May 2014. Figure 5. 4953 Pitchford Hall is having a rest at Loughborough depot on the heritage Great Central Railway (GCR). The chimney of a locomotive will often be covered over if it is to be out of use for a while to prevent birds nesting and so forth. A common sight in the 1960s was to see rows of engines with their chimneys similarly covered. Sometimes this meant they were in store until the summer when they would be needed again but often it meant they were awaiting withdrawal and the scrapyard. 14th May 2008. Figure 6. 4965 Rood Ashton Hall is with GWR Castle friends on the occasion of the re-dedication ceremony of 7029 Clun Castle back into traffic. Clun Castle was one of the engines involved in the 9th May 1964 exploit and set up a record for the run between Plymouth and Bristol. 4965 has had its buffers and tender spring holders treated to the emery paper where all paint is rubbed off to reveal bright steel underneath. This was more often done before World War I on Saint and Star class locomotives. The locomotives are, from left to right, 4965 Rood Ashton Hall, 7029 Clun Castle, 5080 Defiant, 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe. 29th October 2017. Figure 7. 5900 Hinderton Hall is in fairly original condition at its home depot of Didcot belonging to the Great Western Society. The buffers, smokebox door hinges and dart have all had the emery paper treatment. The engine has an Automatic Warning System shoe fitted under the front coupling. This operated a horn in the cab if the engine passed a distant signal at danger or a bell if it was off. This system was especially useful in fog or other low visibility conditions as often happened in the Thames Valley. The concept was copied and improved by British Railways and is now a standard fit. 6998 Burton Agnes Hall of the modified type is in the background. 27th August 2018. Figure 8. Modified Hall 6960 Raveningham Hall earns its keep on the WSR at Bishop’s Lydeard with a drive-it –yourself freight train service despite non-PC headboard. The first wagon in the consist is a GWR TOAD brake van, so called as that was its telegraphic code name. All other GWR wagons had names that were used as a shorthand when communicating over the telegraph. A sort of old fashioned SMS text speak. 20th May 2014. Figure 9. 6990 Witherslack Hall slows down to surrender the single line token to the Bewdley South signaller who should, presumably, be wearing a hi-viz jacket. Perhaps the festive spirit of the Santa season gives him a pass. Some railways are so busy in the Santa season that they have to have UP and DOWN Santas that pass one another on the journey. When that is the case they both hide when the trains pass. Santa was in his grotto at Arley on this occasion. 8th December 2018. Figure 10. 6998 Burton Agnes Hall of the modified type at Didcot. The main external difference with the original Hall class is the triangular plate frame above the footplate and the bogie stretcher and the outside steam pipes differ. This locomotive featured with the GWS preserved GWR main line coach set in the 1970s and 80s together with 7808 Cookham Manor and together with 5900 Hinderton Hall. 27th August 2018. Figure 11. 7903 Foremarke Hall has arrived at Cheltenham Racecourse station on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR). This station is the only GWR one in Cheltenham to have survived but has had to be rebuilt by the GWSR. The GWR pine trees are original. GWR Locomotives: The Hall Class, is available to buy from Amberley Books: https://www.amberley-books.com/gwr-locomotives-the-hall-class.html