BR Standard steam classes in Devon and Cornwall.

[Cowley]

Morning everyone.

I’m just trying to work which of the Standards would have worked around Exeter but mainly west of Exeter in steam days?
What I think I know:

Ex GWR routes - 73xxx 5MT*, 70xxxx Brits. Were there others like 80xxx tanks (which seemed to get everywhere)?
* Also would these have appeared in green/black liveries, and larger or smaller tenders would anyone know?

Ex SR routes - 82xxx, 80xxx, 73xxx, plus the Ivatt 412xx tanks, any others though?

Any help gratefully received.

 

[Taunton]

Exmouth Junction had quite a large batch of 82xxx tanks, which in normal Southern style were used on minor services all over between Salisbury and Padstow. They shared the work with LMS-style 412xx equivalents, ones built in the early 1950s and which had gone straight to the Southern. When the SR lines were transferred to the WR, the latter quite rightly would have nothing to do with these heaps (aided in no small part I'm sure by the comments of the Taunton shed foreman about the 82xxx that had recently been foisted upon him), they were pushed back to the Southern and spent their remaining days on Waterloo ecs workings.

I think the WR had managed to keep the things pretty much off the Far West Main Line. I can recall a few 9Fs coming through Taunton (and just one WD in all my while there), but nothing else. Before my time, when the Britannias were new, a couple were initially assigned to the Cornish Riviera, allocated to Old Oak rather than Laira. I think experiences with them, especially after two (maybe more) dropped a fusible plug going over the top of Dainton, were enough of anything emanating from 222 Marylebone Road, until the D63ss diesels came.

 

[randyrippley]

82xxx worked the ex-GWR Yeovil-Taunton line up till the end, but I guess by then Yeovil was a Southern shed: N class also worked the line along with 4500 tanks from Taunton

probably worth looking at http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/ - lot of photos on there

 

[Ash Bridge]

The 80xxx 2-6-4 Tanks I think mainly replaced the Moguls on North Cornwall locals between Padstow/Wadebridge/Bude to Okehampton and Exeter before they in turn were ousted by DMUs if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Cowley]

Thanks folks, very helpful.
@Taunton - I’d forgotten about 9Fs, did they occasionally work summer Saturday passenger turns through Dawlish?

 

[Taunton]

82xxx worked the ex-GWR Yeovil-Taunton line up till the end, but I guess by then Yeovil was a Southern shed: N15's also worked the line along with 4500 tanks from Taunton

I think you mean N class 2-6-0s, which did work the Taunton-Yeovil line, and were the only Southern locos seen at Taunton (green SR coaches from the same line were more plentiful). The 82xxx were also Taunton locos, they were transferred there from Barry in the late 1950s when that was one of the first dieselised areas. They were the locos of last resort for the foreman there.

The Ns were often through routed Yeovil-Taunton-Barnstaple, getting back onto the Southern, especially on summer Saturdays when shunting opportunities across all the main line tracks at Taunton for loco and stock were limited. Likewise the 82xxx (and WR tanks) were often run through Yeovil-Taunton-Minehead.

I’d forgotten about 9Fs, did they occasionally work summer Saturday passenger turns through Dawlish?

Never saw one. All the 9Fs I saw were coming round the goods loop.

 

[randyrippley]

I think you mean N class 2-6-0s,.....................

Yes you're right............fingers losing the plot! I've amended the post

 

[randyrippley]

Taunton - you've mentioned the disdain for the 82xxx before, just what was wrong with them?
They were Swindon built with a Swindon boiler, so I would have assumed would have fitted in

 

[4141]

Not regular work, i know, but I have a book somewhere with pic and text of several 77xxx class workings from Swindon to Plymouth, IIRC on running-in turns from new...

 

[Taunton]

Taunton - you've mentioned the disdain for the 82xxx before, just what was wrong with them?
They were Swindon built with a Swindon boiler, so I would have assumed would have fitted in

Left hand drive where everything else was right hand, and the signals positioned to suit.

Fireman had to work back to front, wrong hand.

Badly knocking rods in a way GW locos never did.

Rough riders due to different spring standards.

Self cleaning smokebox set the wheatfields around Bishops Lydeard on the climb to Crowcombe on fire (after two years and a lot of compensation they were banned here in dry summer weather).

Cab noisy and both draughty and hot at the same time (difficult to achieve that one if you set out to do so).

Regulator stiff, to the extent that sometimes it would not shut off.

Just couldn't push up from Wellington to Whiteball as a banker like a GW 2-6-2T could; full regulator and full gear to get a freight going meant water and pressure both fell to the extent you needed to throttle back.

 

[Cowley]

Left hand drive where everything else was right hand, and the signals positioned to suit.

Fireman had to work back to front, wrong hand.

Badly knocking rods in a way GW locos never did.

Rough riders due to different spring standards.

Self cleaning smokebox set the wheatfields around Bishops Lydeard on the climb to Crowcombe on fire (after two years and a lot of compensation they were banned here in dry summer weather).

Cab noisy and both draughty and hot at the same time (difficult to achieve that one if you set out to do so).

Regulator stiff, to the extent that sometimes it would not shut off.

Just couldn't push up from Wellington to Whiteball as a banker like a GW 2-6-2T could; full regulator and full gear to get a freight going meant water and pressure both fell to the extent you needed to throttle back.

Well apart from that..?

 

[midland1]

The left hand drive was an problem with the signals positioned to suit right hand drive after the accident near Didcot in 1955

 

[delt1c]

Left hand drive where everything else was right hand, and the signals positioned to suit.

Fireman had to work back to front, wrong hand.

Badly knocking rods in a way GW locos never did.

Rough riders due to different spring standards.

Self cleaning smokebox set the wheatfields around Bishops Lydeard on the climb to Crowcombe on fire (after two years and a lot of compensation they were banned here in dry summer weather).

Cab noisy and both draughty and hot at the same time (difficult to achieve that one if you set out to do so).

Regulator stiff, to the extent that sometimes it would not shut off.

Just couldn't push up from Wellington to Whiteball as a banker like a GW 2-6-2T could; full regulator and full gear to get a freight going meant water and pressure both fell to the extent you needed to throttle back.

How come other regions managed them ok, could it possibly have been that they were disliked because they were not GWR

 

[Gwenllian2001]

How come other regions managed them ok, could it possibly have been that they were disliked because they were not GWR

How come other regions managed them ok, could it possibly have been that they were disliked because they were not GWR

The 82s were disliked for a number of reasons, most of which have been mentioned already. I can still hear the plinkety plinkety sound as they approached. The main problem, in South Wales, was that the tightly timed interval services with frequent starts and stops were hard on the locos and they quickly became run down. They were hot and uncomfortable and rough riding. They steamed well, with the well proven boiler design, had a good turn of speed, but we're really uncomfortable and harsh riding compared to what they replaced, particularly the Taff Vale 'A' class which ran like sewing machines. It certainly had nothing to do with prejudice. The Brittanias could do no good in the West Country but on the heavy South Wales - Paddington services they were much loved and did grand work. It was really a case of horses for courses and they were on the wrong course. However, I look forward to seeing the new on being employed on more suitable work.