Henry Fowler's Royal Scots and Patriot 4-6-0s (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

When the Royal Scot class first appeared in 1927, they marked a major step forward in locomotive design for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Since its creation in 1923 the company had struggled to make headway because its constituent parts had been unable to find a way to work together for the common good. Old rivalries died hard and were in danger of smothering the company at birth. As its first CME George Hughes looked for a way forward but made little headway in the face of an aggressively pursued small engine policy. This meant that there were no locomotives of sufficient power to pull its expresses services on the West Coast Main Line. As a result, these duties were entrusted to pairs of 4-4-0s and 4-6-0 locomotives. Hughes retired in 1926 with the Derby based Henry Fowler appointed as the new Chief. He, like Hughes, favoured a Pacific Class to provide sufficient motive power, but his ideas found as little support as those of his predecessor. So in a bid to find an acceptable solution the company borrowed a GWR Castle for test purposes and sought to design and build something as good to pull its prestigious passenger trains. And so, the Royal Scot Class came into existence, followed three years later, by the 4-6-0 Patriots or 'Baby Scots', as they became known. Both types would have chequered histories and face rebuilding but ultimately proved to be good engines of their type, although the arrival of Stanier's new locomotives post 1932, particularly the Princess Coronations, meant that the Scots were soon eclipsed in the public eye and have become something of a footnote in railway history. They deserve far better than this as the author makes clear when describing Fowler's great endeavour.