Strange chimney on GWR

The manufacturer of this ebay item usually supplies models of North American Prototypes.

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that the reason for the unusual shaped chimney on this UK loco or were any actually built like this. My personal opinion it is neither and somebody has stuck something on the proper chimney as protection for it or as a joke and the seller has acquired the Loco and hasn't really examined it properly. I'm sure I've seen the object that is supposed to be the chimney on something,not quite a ball pen top but something similar. G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg
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In message , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writes

Great Western Railroad ? (on the box)

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, it describes it as having a spark arresting chimney. Did these exist in real life ? (one for uk.railway)

Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

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Is that the reason for the unusual shaped chimney on this UK loco or

I am no expert (or great fan) of the Greasy, Wet and Rusty but have seen photographs of pannier tanks with this - apparently - unusual chimney. While not entirely sure, I am reasonably confident that this is some form of spark arrestor fitted to locomotives which tended to be used where the (usually) branch line ran regularly through a heavily wooded area. I hope this helps, and feel sure that somebody with a greater knowledge of the GWR will make a more meaningful contribution to the debate in due course.

David Costigan.

Reply to
David Costigan

It's genuine.

Several GWR panniers of various classes were fitted with spark-arresting chimneys to operate around Royal Ordnance explosive factories.

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Reply to
Christopher A. Lee

Thanks,and to others who replied. Apologies to dealer though I doubt he reads here. The real thing looks fairly strange but that one on the model looks really terrible. Often wondered if Far Eastern produced Brass is often worth the price it seems to fetch . Sometimes it is the only way to get a rare prototype and that can be valid reason but it is usually North American equipment. And a lot is left unpainted which may show off the workmanship. OTOH I believe many mechanisms are bit crude by today's standards. If it going to be left as an ornament on the shelf that may not matter but for stock on a working layout it might. The UK market hasn't seen anything like as many ,possibly because most UK modelers want a finished Model and most things can be built from other sources anyway at less cost. That model featured looks a lot to pay for a typical GWR Tank especially with that chimney which looks it has been bashed from an air gun pellet. If was of something like a Broad gauge Iron Duke then I may be swayed.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

"RTR Brass" imported some OO GWR engines into the UK from both Don Jing (a small prairie tank) and Samhongsa (the Pannier) in the late

1970s.

I had the prairie which I bought from M.G.Sharp in Sheffield. It wasn't very good and was a bad runner - they had adapted the American pickup system to a British 2-6-2 tank engine. The driving wheels were insulated on one side and the trailing wheels on the other, but there wasn't enough weight or springing on the pony trucks to maintain good contact.

There were some rather glaring errors. If you know the GWR outside cylinder engines there is a vacuum pump driven from the right hand crosshead. This means the right and left crossheads are different from each other. It had the cylinder for the pump, but a wire soldered at an angle to the top of the motion bracket and the wrong crosshead.

It was badly assembled too - some of the beading around the cab separated and I didn't have the soldering skills to repair it. I had also ordered a regular pannier tank with a normal chimney direct from the importer but it never arrived. I have seen some, but I suspect this was round about the time they stopped trading.

Again, there were rather obvious errors - like checker plate above where the coal should be!

More were planned including O-gauge but never materialised.

It was a brave attempt but the market wasn't ready yet in the UK.

Reply to
Christopher A. Lee

Digging into the recesses of my memory, the two instances I can recall of ex-GWR pannier tanks in service with spark arresting chimneys were:-

  1. On what had been the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway. During WW2 the Navy built a large ordnance depot near Ditton Priors (Shropshire) and initially the GWR supplied a locomotive to work this line. A pannier tank was fitted with a spark arresting chimney for this work. By the end of this lines existence, the Navy had drafted in a MOD diesel to do this work
  2. The other location that I have seen evidence of a spark arresting chimney fitted pannier tank working was on the 'Vinegar Branch' in Worcester City. This was a line that left the main Worcester locomotive running shed complex, and then descended towards various industries nearer to the City centre. I think that due to the ferocious climb back up to the main line, this type of chimney locomotive was used to lessen the impact on the locality. It may well be that it was the same locomotive on both occasions.

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Is that the reason for the unusual shaped chimney on this UK loco or

Reply to
Keith Patrick

No.

There are plenty pf photographs out there of different engines from different classes fitted with them, and they also had them at ROF Didcot as well as ROF Ditton Priors.

For example here is 1661, of the small 1600 class , at Worcester

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Here's 2021 class 2144 on the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors line

Thirteen of the 57xx/8750 class had them.

Here's 5774 at Didcot (originally posted by Eric)

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A couple of the outside framed 1076 (Buffalo) class had them.

I seem to remember the two outside framed pannier tanks bult from the Manning Wardles originally purchased by the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Railway also had them but I couldn'y find any photographs.

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> Is that the reason for the unusual shaped chimney on this UK loco or

Reply to
Christopher A. Lee

Further to earlier Email traffic on this subject (and I have lost most of the earlier messages!) there is an article about, and a photograph of, a GWR pannier tank with a spark arresting chimney on page 33 of the February - March issue (No 425) of "Steam Railway". Hope this is helpful,

David Costigan

Reply to
David Costigan

Thanks, My nephew requested a subscription of SR as a Christmas present so I'll be able to go and have read.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

You mean, like this one?

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Reply to
sutty

Yes, just like that one!

David C

Reply to
David Costigan

They were used for working Royal Ordnance (munitions) Factories.

The two I know about were at Did cot and Dutton Priors.

There is an excellent book on the Cleobury Mortimer And Ditton Priors Light Railway by W.Smith and K.Beddoes, Oxford Publishing Co.

It's out of print but available from the specialist used book dealers, or your local library should be able to find you a copy.

It's a fascinating little railway, originally built to serve granite quarries, having a junction with the GWR at Colour Mortimer on the Bewdley to Tenbury Wells line.

It was absorbed by the GWR at grouping, becoming a not very typical GWR branch line.

Passenger service which ceased in 1938 was provided by a short train of the same 4-wheeled stock provided in kit form by Ratio in OO and Slaters in O scale. A late survivor for these.

At the start of WW2 an isolated location in the middle of nowhere, that still had rail access was ideal for a munitions factory,

Anyway, the GWR pannier tanks operating and shunting the explosive trains were fitted with spark arrestors.

The most interesting ones were a pair of Manning Wardle saddle tanks which operated the line before grouping, and were larger and IMO uglier than their usual offerings, which were modified with pannier tanks by the GWR making them quite attractive engines. These were also fitted with spark arresters when the ROF was opened.

Other pannier tanks used on the branch with spark arresters include

2021 and 1600 classes.

These were shedded at Worcester, so they could be seen on the main line on workings to and from the shed via Bewdley and the Severn Valley line..

Reply to
Christopher A. Lee

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