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BoB 4-6-2 - 3041
(Photo: Ben Boggis)
Away from Sheringham.
"92 Squadron" is owned by the
Battle of Britain Locomotive Society
History
92 Squadron - A Brief History-by Steve Allen
Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid had been (Sir) Nigel
Gresley's assistant on the LNER, working with him on many
of his famous projects including the P2 2-8-2s and the
A4s. In 1937 Bulleid joined the Southern Railway as Chief
Mechanical Engineer taking over from R E L Maunsell. He
immediately set to work reviewing the railway's fleet. He
soon found it to be inadequate and started the design of
some new classes. His work with Gresley, much of it
experimental, had given him many ideas, and this was his
chance to prove them.
However, before he was able to introduce any new motive
power World War II intervened. As the Southern was very
short of mixed traffic locos, Bulleid somehow managed to
convince the government authorities that his new
streamlined ‘Merchant Navy' class of Pacific was a mixed
traffic engine (as during the war no 'express locomotive'
designs were permitted) and they gave permission to build
them. These engines were like nothing that had been seen
before, superb engines but looking totally alien, with
many innovative parts. How these obviously express locos
got classified as mixed traffic is a mystery to this day.
In 1945 with the end of the war near, Bulleid's thoughts
turned to designing new classes of locos for general use
right across the Southern system, especially in the West
Country where the most powerful locos allowed to run west
of Exeter were the U1 and N 2-6-0s. His solution was a
lightweight scaled-down version of the ‘Merchant Navy'
design. This resulted in a low axle weight, high-powered
pacific locomotive capable of both ambling along country
byways and storming along mainlines.
Introduced in May 1945 they soon started to appear all
over the Southern system. Sixty-six were named after West
Country towns, cities and landmarks, and forty-four were
named after people, airfields and Squadrons associated
with the Battle of Britain. Using Bulleid's adopted
‘continental' style numbering system they started with
21C101 ‘Exeter' (21C denoting 4-6-2 Pacific wheel
arrangement). In total one hundred and ten of the ‘Light
Pacifics' were built by the SR and BR, with the final one
completed in January 1951. Although these were
mechanically the same class they were known as either the
‘West Country' or ‘Battle of Britain' class dependent on
their name. They incorporated many of Bulleid's unique
features, streamline casing (allegedly to enable them to
be cleaned in carriage washing plants), ‘Boxpok' style
cast steel wheels, chain driven valve gear (later to be
their Achilles heel), steel fireboxes with thermic syphons,
electric lighting, and steam operated firehole doors.
Despite having a boiler of excellent steaming capacity the
class proved expensive to run in terms of both fuel
consumption and maintenance costs, mainly as a result of
their novel features. In 1957 BR took the radical decision
to rebuild them in a more conventional style with
Walschaerts outside valve gear and styled to resemble the
BR Britannia Pacifics, though they retained the ‘Boxpok'
wheels, Bulleid cab and unusual oval smokebox door.
Between 1957 and 1961 sixty of them were rebuilt, leaving
fifty of them in their original condition until they were
scrapped.
Many of the ‘West Country' and ‘Battle of Britain' locos,
both rebuilt and unrebuilt, lasted until the very end of
steam on the Southern in July 1967. As a result of the
mass withdrawal of Southern steam the BR works were unable
to cope with the number of engines for scrapping so many
were sold to private scrapyards. Eighteen of the ‘Light
Pacifics' (nine rebuilt and nine unrebuilt) ended up at
Dai Woodham's famous scrapyard at Barry. Unusually, none
were scrapped by King's of Norwich who scrapped many SR
engines at this time. All of the Barry engines have now
been preserved, with eleven of them having been restored
to working order.
The member of the class visiting the NNR in 2004 is 34081
'92 Squadron' which was ordered by the Southern Railway
from Brighton works in 1947. It didn't enter traffic
however, until September 1948, after nationalization, with
British Railways. 34081 (which would have been SR 21C181)
appeared in an interim livery of SR malachite green with
three horizontal yellow stripes along the sides, but with
"British Railways" in full SR style ‘sunshine' lettering
on the tender and numbered 34081, and as yet unnamed. As
was the case with the interim livery, 34081's front number
was painted on the front valance Southern style, being the
last to be so treated, from 34082 onwards a cast number
plate was fixed to the smoke-box door.
In 1951 it was repainted into BR passenger green with
orange and black lining and the early BR ‘Ferret and
Dartboard' crest. By this time it had also been named "92
SQUADRON".
34081 entered service at Ramsgate, where it spent the
first ten years of its life working the Kent Coast
expresses to Victoria, Cannon Street and Charing Cross. It
was a regular on some of the continental boat trains such
as the Golden Arrow and Night Ferry. In September 1957,
34081 was transferred to Exmouth Junction near Exeter.
There it was used on the local stopping services on the
LSWR ‘Withered Arm' to North Devon and into Cornwall. This
included working the various portions of the Atlantic
Coast Express onwards from Exeter to their destinations,
and east-bound expresses which it would have worked
through to the capital.
Continued
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