Ugliest UK kettle

It was certainly a funny-looking beast, but I'd not have put in the premier ugly league. McIntosh had a good eye for boiler mountings and so on, so even if it was congenitally malformed it wasn't as brutally ugly as some. A quick list of nasties might be (in no particular order):

1. Bouch's outside-cylinder long-boiler banking engines for the S&D (the Duke was one of them - not a pretty sight)
2. The early Stirling designs, and particularly the 0-2x2-0 which nust have been a nasty sight on any day of the week
3. Most of the broad-gauge 4-4-0 saddle-tanks
4. The GER moguls, which from photographs look like a badly-made model
5. The rebuilt Drummond paddleboxes. Sure, they worked better but it did *nothing* for the looks, and they weren't that pretty to start with

and finally, for a whole lot of ugly in one place

1. LM&S Ivatt class 4 mogul. Even the Q1 would be pretty by comparison.

I actually think the Q1 is quite an elegant loco. There are examples of Victorian design that I like far less. Namely any loco with a smokbox wingplate...I never could stand them... I far prefer the AIX Terrier to the A1 Terrier, for instance.

Ian J.

Salvé

The Reid ramsey of 1909?

Beowulf :)

I hearby refer you to Mr Smellie's express engines. There you see wing-plates applied correctly. None of this Stroudley/Drummond coarseness..

Got to say I don't mind the look of that, as far as one can tell from photographs. But then I also rather like the look of the Paget locomotive..

The GER's Decapod.

Though it worked pretty well as a dragster!

:-))

-- Brian "Chuff! Chuff! Poot! Poot! A model railway exhibition can do that to a person"

Nope. Still don't like wingplates. It doesn't matter who used them, they just don't work for me. BTW, that I used an LBSC loco as an illustration wasn't meant to be taken as the only time I've seen wingplates...

Ian J.

"Brian Watson"

Hey, my two 2-10-0s aren't ugly, nor are they "dragsters".

I think you've hurt their feelings.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

That's not the only Great Eastern Railway, y'know!

I'm talkin' an 0-10-0 "one-off", designed to see off electric trains in acceleration terms. It did too.

:-)

-- Brian "Chuff! Chuff! Poot! Poot! A model railway exhibition can do that to a person"

"Brian Watson"

Oh. Right. Yes. That other GER, the one with that once had a controlling interest in "my" GER. :-)

You'll know that if you read the "Complete History of the Great Eastern" written, of course, by yours truly.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

The SR Q1 has to take the Oscar, doesn't it? The other nominees weren't designed to be intentionally ugly...it just happened. I can't help wondering what a Q1 would have looked like if Mr. Bulleid had wrapped a bit of tin round the boiler. Nevertheless, they made one helluva sight pulling out of Hither Green yard with a full load behind them.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened, if instead of producing the ill-fated "Leader" series, he had just done the sensible thing and produced a 2-6-2 or 2-6-4 version of the Q1 to replace all those M7's on ECS and branch line work.

Doubt that the cost would have justified new locos for branch passenger work. With the gradual spread of electrification, there would have been enough displaced steam locos. that were relatively modern and capable of branch passenger and ECS duties for at several years after Bulleid retired. By then, BR had been created and LMS/BR standard designs fulfilled requirements for secondary services - and in retrospect, it might have been more economic to keep older SR designs for another 10 years or so, rather than spend money on new steam locos. that lasted only 10 to 15 years.

Bevan

In what way didn't he "wrap a bit of tin around the boiler"? It has shaped cladding that matches the smokebox and firebox shape.

Lucky you - I only get to remember A4s in full cry on the GN main line. And WD 2-8-0s on the freight...

Tim

With the gradual spread of

relatively modern and capable of branch

BR had been created and LMS/BR standard

might have been more economic to keep

steam locos. that lasted only 10 to 15

The Leader was designed to replace all those M7's on brnach passenger duty! Total overkill, of course, but then that was Bulleid. If he had done drawings for a tank version of a Q1, using interchangable components such as boilers etc, then I am sure that an initial batch could have been out of the shops by January 1948. The LMS designed and built a prototype Diesel in the same time, after all.

Does this steam/diesel hybrid count ? Gets my vote.

Flippin' 'eck!! Was this thing for real? I wonder when Hornby will do it RTR....

Has anyone built a model of it?

Not sure if this one has been suggested, but after thinking about this (many contenders), it's got to be the Thomson rebuild of the original LNER A1 (A3) Great Northern - The LNER A1/1. It must also be prime candidate for the most vandalised loco.....

The Thomson A1/1 and his A2/2 loco's must be just about the only loco's that were designed around a set of coupling rods !...