19th February 2024: Swindon Works – The Collett Years, by RCTS President Canon Bryan Arman

Although billed as The Hawksworth era, following on from last year’s talk on the Collett Years, Canon Bryan retold the story of Collett’s time at Swindon as CME. The tale was as fresh as ever, and no one minded a rerun!

Charles Collett, born in 1871, began his engineering career in London with a firm in marine engineering, but then joined the GWR in 1893 in their drawing office in Swindon. His organisational abilities were soon recognised, and he rapidly rose through the ranks becoming CME in 1922 on Churchward’s retirement. His name will be forever linked to the Kings and Castles built in his time, but his true abilities lay in the bigger picture of reorganising the inherited complex of GWR Works, resulting in arguably the most efficiently run works of the big four.

Faced with a huge number of varying types of locos from the Companies that became the Great Western on Grouping, all of which were war weary, many locomotives needed scrapping, rebuilding, or replacement with new designs. He set about organising their paths through the works, so that the locos, new and refurbished, entered traffic and became revenue earning in the shortest time. He introduced the practice of differing grades of overhaul, light, intermediate and heavy, again reducing unnecessary time spent in the workshops.

Bryan reminded the audience that not only was Collett responsible for the vast Swindon Works, but all the other works from pre grouping, Oswestry, Wolverhampton etc. He must have put a good management structure in place to oversee this empire, ensuring it ran to maximum efficiency. He improved the Churchward designs, employing the now legendary practice of a few standard boilers, ensuring that as many parts as possible were interchangeable between loco types. However, he still managed to attend to the detailed design of such classics as the Kings, Castles, Halls, Granges, not forgetting the pannier 56xxs, perfect for the Welsh valleys, and heavy freight engines, including the big 47xxs, built for power and speed.

Bryan finished the talk by recounting an engineman’s tale of competition between a Warship on the Torbay Express and a relief on the same run which was timed to run a few minutes ahead pulled by a 47xx. The story goes that on return to Old Oak Common, the Warship driver told the steam driver, that, from Paddington to Cogload Jct, [158miles], he never had a yellow warning, indicating that the 47xx had kept well ahead all the way.

Collett retired in 1941 aged 70. Bryan postulated that he should have retired aged 65, as some later decisions were perhaps not his best, but I suppose like most people who have had a long career at the top, there is always the temptation “…just to see that last job through…”.?!.

Again a very good afternoon and we look forward to the Hawksworth era on Bryan’s next visit in 2025!

Richard Deacon

Chairman/Secretary