Great Western – The Collett Years

It was a great pleasure to welcome Society President, Revd Canon Brian Arman on 19^th January with his presentation “Great Western, The Collett Years”. Charles B Collett assumed the role of Chief Mechanical Engineer for the Great Western in 1922, taking over from his mentor George J Churchward, and set about continuing Churchward’s plan to design locomotives to replace earlier standard gauge models which were becoming a bit underpowered for the sort of trains the Great Western needed to be running. He took a number of Churchward designs and built more – some with modifications. The numerous Hall class locomotives (born from the Churchward Saint class) started life under Mr Collett, as did the mighty Castle class (a development of the Star class), and the even mightier King class locomotives (who needs trailing pony trucks under the cab!?). For lighter weight secondary lines which saw some longer passenger trains the Manor class and Grange class locomotives were provided. Heavier freight services were accounted for with more powerful 8 coupled locomotives. The ubiquitous Pannier tanks in their many guises from branch line passenger to goods trains over challenging tracks were constructed in great numbers. The locomotive exchanges of 1925 certainly prompted the CME of another railway to modify his design in light of seeing the Collett locomotive at work on his patch. Result!