Swindon Works.The Hawksworth Years 1941 until closure.

On 13 March Society President,Canon Reverend Brian Arman presented Swindon Works-The Hawksworth Years until closure. Frederick Hawksworth succeeded Charles Collett as CME at Swindon Works in 1941 until 1949 and started to develop his own locomotive designs as well as improving existing stock.

Preserved Modified Hall 6990 Witherslack Hall approaches Rolpey on the GCR Gala 30 January 2016.

During the war years the works was engaged in supporting the war effort but reverted to its core activity owing to the deteriorating reliability of the rolling stock fleets. A batch of the successful Stanier LMS 2-8-0s were constructed and new classes such as Modified Halls and the County Class together with three new Pannier Tank classes introduced although some of these had a limited working life. Some existing designs were subject to tests both on the road hauling loads of nearly 800 tons and on the works static test plant to improve their performance.

Preserved Gas Turbine 18000 at Didicot Railway Centre on 9 July 2016.

After nationalisation steam locomotives continued to be built including some BR Standards and the final loco constructed was Class 9F 92220 Evening Star in 1960. The works continued to overhaul locomotives including ex LMS classes and cut up others including ex LNER class V2s.The GWR also experimented with two gas turbine powered prototypes to increase passenger speeds but trial results were mixed so the project was cancelled. Unfortunately we ran out of time so Brian will hopefully return soon to complete the task.