What a waste of money! It's not even got a Tender, & anyway, the LMS wre always shite. Now, if it were a GWR Loco - say 6000, King George V (including ceremonial Bell), that'd be different.
Happy New Year Sir.
Oh my goodness - that's the baby - magnificent. Thank you!
My Grandad Angell fired it, & drove it, & my Dad did too, at one stage my Dad was the Fireman & Grandad Angell the Driver. I have ridden the footplate many times.
She went to America, in the 30's I think, to Baltimore, to celebrate something, & that's where the Bell came from.
The Shed Code (the little disc with white lettering, on the front of the boiler, beneath "6000"), seems to read "82", followed by a letter which I can't quite see, 82a would signify Bristol Bath Road, 82b would be Bristol St Phillips Marsh, 82c was Westbury, & 82d Swindon, & so on. She was built at Swindon Works, so I hope it's 82d.
She was, in my day, always stabled at Old Oak Common, near Paddington, & carried Shed Code 81a. Old Oak Common was where Dad was based, & I grew up on a Railway Housing Estate just a few miles from OOC.
KG5 often headed the Cornish Riveria Express, & The Cornishman, & The Torbay Express.
The Tender was not, as many supposed, full of coal, it had coal on a "shelf" at the top, which the Fireman used to feed the boiler. Underneath the shelf, the Tender is simply a large water tank, providing the water ready to be turned into steam, by which the loco gains it's tractive power.
Water Troughs were strategically placed along the line to enable the Loco to pick up extra water without stopping
en route. The driver lowered a chute into the Trough, & the momentum of the Loco did the rest.
Box Tunnel (a Brunel masterpiece) had a severe gradient, & most trains would need a "banker" (another Locomotive) to help them get up the gradient. It was a matter of pride to the Drivers of KG5 that she never needed a banker.
I must go visit her again before it's too late. She's a masterpiece of British Railway Engineering, achingly beautiful. She was designed by Charles Collet, the Great Westen Railway's Chief Mechanical Engineer, who had succeeded Daniel Gooch in that role. He was appointed by, of course, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed, conceived & built the GWR, amongst many other things, including three great Steamships, the SS Great Western, SS Great Britain, & SS Great Eastern, the latter being far & away the largest ship ever built at the time. She ended up being used to lay the first ever Transatlantic telephone cable.
He designed scores of wonderful bridges & Tunnels too, but it's often thought this included the Thames Tunnel, which is still in use today as part of London Underground's East London Line. In fact, it was his Father, Marc, who designed that, but IKB worked on it for several years.
The Royal Albert Bridge, Plymouth, is IKB's, & so is the Clifton Suspension Bridge, though he "only" designed that, & he died before it was complete.
He also designed a brick bridge at Maidenhead, over the Thames, which is still in use today by the GWR Main Line to the West Country. It was then - & is still now, the flattest, widest, arch ever built in brick, & many said it would fall down when the formers were struck. Forthcoming GWR Electrification would mean the demolition of this bridge, & the fight has now begun to preserve it.
Paddington Station, opened in 1853, was also Brunel's creation, & survives to this day.
Then there was the Atmospheric Railway, west of Exeter, which was Brunel's biggest failure, as the leather flaps used to keep the air pressure up in the pipe used to rot too easily.
Bristol Harbour was IKB's, too.
He once swallowed a gold sovereign by mistake. He then designed some forceps to remove it - no good. So he strapped himself to a "shaking table" & that failed, too. So had had himself suspended upside down on a rope - & that did the trick.
He died at the age of 53.
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