GREAT STEAM ENGINEERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PART EIGHT: THE 1890s

The year 1892 saw the end of the Great Western broad gauge and in 1897 the Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway opened its London extension and reinvented itself as the Great Central Railway. Then in 1899, after years of rivalry, the South Eastern Railway and London Chatham and Dover Railway agreed to co-operate as the South Eastern & Chatham Railway.

Britain’s railway system would be little changed for the next quarter of a century, but with these developments plus the outbreak of a further session of races to the north in 1895 after completion of the Forth Bridge, the 1890s was an interesting decade on the railways.

Great Western

William Dean had been in charge of locomotive design on the Great Western Railway since 1877. He oversaw the end of the broad gauge on the GWR as standard gauge track was laid to replace all the broad gauge sections. On completion of the abandonment of the broad gauge on May 20, 1892, the majority of the remaining 195 broad gauge locomotives were taken to the dump at Swindon. Most of the convertible locomotives were altered to run on the standard gauge over the following 18 months, but the remainder were cut up.

“One member of the class, No. 790 Hardwicke which was rostered for the Crewe-Carlisle stage of the ‘Race to the North’, now from London to Aberdeen, on August 22, 1895, covered the 141 miles in just two hours six minutes at an average speed of 67.1mph. This set a record time for the route which has never been bettered by steam.”

Dean had worked under Joseph Armstrong on and off for 22 years before succeeding him and he perpetuated his locomotive policy for some time. The Dean singles were built between 1891 and 1899 for express services; the first 30 being built as 2-2-2s of the 3001 class, and the first eight of these as convertible engines. The next 22 were built as standard gauge 2-2-2s, but later engines were 4-2-2s of the 3040 class, a front bogie being required for more stability at speed.

Dean later moved on to produce 4-4-0s; the Badminton and Atbara classes with 6ft 8in driving wheels, and the Duke and Bulldog classes with 5ft 8in wheels. He designed 0-6-0STs of various sizes and for branch line and for suburban trains he built the 3600 class 2-4-2Ts. The latter designs were the forerunners of the GWR’s ubiquitous pannier and prairie tank engines.

No Dean was commissioned by Madame Tussauds for its Railways and Royalty exhibition at Windsor and Eton Central station. The original 4-2-2 No. 3041 , initially named , had been allocated to Royal Train duties by the GWR. The replica was completed in December 1982 at Carnforth.