CAMELOT – A HISTORY

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2021 :: RMTnews 24 T he history of Camelot is interesting and in some ways surprising in regards to design and construction. It all started in 1902 when George Jackson Churchward, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the Great Western Railway Works at Swindon, developed and introduced the Saint class, the first modern 4- 6-0 passenger express locomotive with two outside cylinders and connecting rods and inside Stephenson link motion with a taper boiler and a Belpaire firebox. Churchward was a very forward thinking as he introduced several refinements from US and French locomotive design. The taper boiler and the outside cylinders were not standard practice at this time. Plus, he was an early advocate of superheating in boilers. Churchward retired in 1922 and Charles Benjamin Collett was appointed new CME at Swindon. He carried on Churchward’s work and developed the Hall class in 1928, a 4-6-0 mixed traffic engine that could work passenger and freight traffic over the GWR network. William Stanier, who was assistant to Collett, was headhunted by the London Midland & Scottish (LMS) Railway in 1931 to become their CME and took a number of Swindon ideas with him. His early experience with the 4-6-0 Jubilee class, a three cylinder passenger locomotive for the LMS, found that high superheat was more appropriate than the low superheat utilised by the GWR. Stanier's next development CAMELOT – A HISTORY RMT member and secretary of the 73082 Camelot Locomotive Society Stephen Loeber tells the story of a steam engine Steve Loeber in the cab