AMONG the proudest moments of 2023 – and indeed that of the 72-year history of the operational heritage sector – has been the exact 100th anniversary of Gresley LNER Pacific Flying Scotsman entering traffic, as highlighted in Headline News in this issue.
However, as a leader in British locomotive technology, Gresley was certainly no lone figure in 1923, for the first year of the Grouping saw all of the newly formed Big Four companies attempting to take express train travel to the next level and beyond. This year, we are also celebrating the centenary of the GWR 4073 class Castle 4-6-0s.
The Grouping saw the GWR empire absorb 560 miles of track, 18,000 employees and a further 700 locomotives, many of them decidedly non-standard and therefore considered obsolete in terms of the expanded company’s overall strategies.
In the same year, prewar train speeds were restored, and with 400-ton loads now a regular occurrence, more powerful engines than the George Jackson Churchward’s groundbreaking Star 4-6-0s were needed – and literally fast.
Replacing Churchward as GWR Chief Mechanical Engineer in January 1922 was journalist’s son Charles Benjamin Collett, who joined the Swindon drawing office in May 1893 as a junior draughtsman and by 1900 had
