Great Western – the Hawksworth Years 1941-1947

We welcomed Society President, Canon Brian Arman on Thursday 21^st December with the next instalment of his presentation about the Great Western Railway. This episode, The Hawksworth Years 1941-1947 described work undertaken at Swindon Works in support of the war effort, balancing that with the need to maintain railway rolling stock. Alongside shells for the Royal Artillery, large munitions for the Royal Air Force, and landing craft used by the Royal Navy in support of the D-Day landings, Frederick Hawksworth worked to strengthen the GWR’s portfolio of locomotives, the 6959 class of ‘Modified’ Halls with three-row superheaters aimed at improving coal and water consumption; the 8400 and 9400 ‘pocket rocket’ Pannier Tanks – very heavy for a six-coupled tank locomotive but incredibly powerful for their size; the 1500 ’24 hour’ pannier tanks, so called because they were capable of operating continuously for 24 hours without visiting a shed for servicing. War Department specified locomotives were constructed during the war years and, after nationalisation in 1947, Stanier 2-8-0s, Ivatt 2-6-0s and ultimately Riddles Standard design locomotives were constructed to GWR’s exacting standards. Even LNER V2 2-6-2s were sent to Swindon “to be put right”! Mr Hawksworth’s tenure was interrupted by Nationalisation in 1947. His impact on the Great Western was significant despite the short period of time.