A SAINTLY REVOLUTION

CHANGING trains at Didcot Parkway one June morning in 2019, I was surprised and then delighted by the sight and sound of a high-stepping thoroughbred pacing back and forth outside the Didcot Railway Centre. It was, of course, No. 2999 Lady of Legend, newly completed through the skill and toil of Great Western Society members and their supporters in memory of a class of locos whose influence on future designs was unique.

The ‘Saints’ were not Britain’s first 4-6-0s: those were the ‘Jones Goods’ of the Highland Railway, dating from 1894, followed by a Great Western goods loco designed in 1896 during Dean’s regime as locomotive superintendent at Swindon, and Worsdell’s passenger locos for the North Eastern Railway built from 1899. The GWR contribution, with its large Dean dome and outside frames, was followed by Churchward’s ‘Krugers’, the first of which was a 4-6-0 with a Belpaire boiler, but retaining a hint of Dean in the form of outside frames. It was a mongrel of a locomotive, paving the way for a series of 2-6-0s, which became the ‘Aberdares’.

What of the ‘Saints’? The forerunner, but not strictly the prototype, was No. 100, a sleek 4-6-0, outshopped from Swindon in 1902 with a parallel boiler similar to but longer than those carried by the ‘Atbara’ 4-4-0s. In the style of broad-gauge locos, it had space above the firebox for steam to gather and obviate the need for a dome, reflecting Belgian practice.

Churchward’s broad vision made him look beyond the British coastline for inspiration, and he followed North American policy in providing outside cylinders, for ease of maintenance, but inside valve gear. The 30in cylinder stroke, the longest used in Great Britain, aided steam expansion and, with 200lb per sq in (psi) boiler pressure, contributed to a nominal tractive effort of 20,530lb, a high figure for the period.

In theory, it was William Dean, ageing and unwell, who was responsible for No. 100; although officially attributed to Dean, after whom it was named, the design was chiefly the work of George Jackson Churchward, his successor as locomotive superintendent and then chief mechanical engineer.