Maidment David - Great Western: County Classes

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Pen & Sword Transport

An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright David Maidment

ISBN 978 1 52670 637 9

eISBN 978 1 52670 639 3

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52670 638 6

The right of David Maidment to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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All David Maidments royalties from this book will be donated to the Railway Children charity [reg. no. 1058991] [ www.railwaychildren.org.uk ]

Other books by David Maidment:

Novels (Religious historical fiction)

The Child Madonna , Melrose Books, 2009

The Missing Madonna , PublishNation, 2012

The Madonna and her Sons , PublishNation, 2015

Novels (Railway fiction)

Lives on the Line , Max Books, 2013

Non-fiction (Railways)

The Toss of a Coin , PublishNation, 2014

A Privileged Journey , Pen and Sword, 2015

An Indian Summer of Steam , Pen and Sword, 2015

Great Western Eight-Coupled Heavy Freight Locomotives , Pen and Sword, 2015

Great Western Moguls and Prairies , Pen and Sword, 2016

Southern Urie and Maunsell 2-cylinder 4-6-0s, Pen and Sword, 2016

Great Western Small-Wheeled Double-Framed 4-4-0s, Pen & Sword, 2017

The Development of the German Pacific Locomotive, Pen & Sword 2017

Great Western Large-Wheeled Double-Framed 4-4-0s, Pen & Sword 2017

Non-fiction (Street Children)

The Other Railway Children , PublishNation, 2012

Nobody ever listened to me , PublishNation, 2012

Cover photo:

Hawksworth County 4-6-0, 1000 County of Middlesex of Bristol Bath Road, as built at the end of 1945 with large unique double chimney, seen here at Old Oak Common, 5.5.1956 (R.C. Riley)

Back cover:

Churchward County 4-4-0 3836 County of Warwick on shed in the 1920s. It was built in 1904 as 3479, and renumbered 3836 in the GW 1912 general locomotive renumbering. (G W Trust)

H aving written books on the Great Western double-framed 4-4-0s in previous Pen & Sword Locomotive Portfolio volumes, I was persuaded to tackle the subject of their contemporary outside cylindered inside framed 4-4-0s and their tank engine derivatives, the Counties and the so-called County 4-4-2 tank engines with similar 6ft 8in coupled wheels. Someone then had the bright idea of coupling a book about these Churchward designs of the first decade of the twentieth century with the similarly named but otherwise dissimilar Hawksworth Counties built between 1945 and 1947. Perhaps they were not altogether dissimilar the tender engines were both two-cylinder locomotives with Stephenson valve gear and for their time high pressure boilers. Designed perhaps more for cross-country duties on undulating railways rather than the Brunel billiard table main line, they both acquired disappointing reputations, though for different reasons the earlier 4-4-0s suffering from rough-riding and the 4-6-0s from indifferent steaming, at least until redraughting and fitting with double chimneys improved matters ten years after their construction.

Not having experienced the Churchward engines myself they were all withdrawn four or five years before I was born I have had to rely on research and photos from many other sources, although I do remember and have included some of my own experiences with the Hawksworth 4-6-0s. I am therefore grateful for the records from the Railway Magazines of the period from 1905 to 1929 which had occasional references to the County 4-4-0s, especially in Cecil J Allens British Locomotive Practice and Performance articles and for the material in the 1977/8 David & Charles books on the Standard Gauge GW 4-4-0s written by O.S. Nock. The ever reliable RCTS publications on Great Western locomotives were a further valuable source of factual information. I am also indebted to John Hodge who gave me access to his unpublished magazine articles he had prepared on the County 4-4-0s and 4-4-2Ts.

I am particularly grateful for being given access and permission to publish free of charge or at much reduced fee (as all the royalties as with earlier books are again being donated to the Railway Children charity) many photographs from the GW Trust archive at Didcot (Laurence Waters) and the Manchester Locomotive Society archive at Stockport station (Paul Shackcloth). Mike Bentley, a member of the MLS, has also being very generous in making his huge personal collection available to me and John Hodge has also helped and Dick Rileys friend, Rodney Lissenden and Dicks widow, Christine, have given me access to his collection of colour slides of the Hawksworth Counties at work. I have endeavoured to trace and acknowledge all photos and their copyright owners, but if I have inadvertently missed anyone, please contact the publisher so I can put the matter right.

My thanks as ever to John Scott-Morgan, Pen & Swords Commissioning Editor for the Transport Imprint for all his help, and particularly to Jodie Butterwood, Janet Brookes and Paul Wilkinson at Pen & Swords Barnsley offices for their support and help. Finally, I am grateful for the knowledge and encouragement of my editor, Carol Trow, for her patience, and indeed expressed enthusiasm, for my work undeserved but very flattering all the same!

David Maidment

September 2017

T his book covers the design, construction and operation of three classes of Great Western locomotives that were seen by many as comparative failures when compared with Churchwards other fleet of GW standard locomotives, or Colletts Kings and Castles. They were all short-lived compared with most other GW classes, the County 4-4-0s and County Tanks being displaced by more modern and suitable locomotives in the early 1930s, and the Hawksworth Counties coming late in the day with their careers cut short by the rapid dieselisation of the Western Region between 1959 and 1965. However, as I will show, the 4-4-0s, despite their reputation as rough-riding engines, certainly had a turn of speed and took their place alongside the City double-framed 4-4-0s with some distinction in the first decade of the twentieth century. It was just that the 4-4-0 design was found wanting in later years before and after the First World War as passenger travel increased and with it, train loads needing 4-6-0s. These engines may have compared poorly with other contemporary GW designs by Churchward, but I suggest that many other UK railway companies would have been glad of them.