Francis Webb’s 4′ 6″ 2-4-2T radial tanks were a natural development of his famous 2-4-0T ‘Chopper’ tanks with an additional trailing radial axle supporting a larger capacity bunker. Indeed in the final order for 2-4-0Ts, a single 2-4-2T was built, and eventually 40 out of the 50 Chopper tanks were ‘renewed’ by being given an extended bunker with a trailing radial axle, and absorbed into the 2-4-2T class.
As with the Chopper Tanks, some batches of the 2-4-2Ts were fitted with condensing gear for work in the suburban districts of both Birmingham and London. Batch numbers E110, E33 and E36 of 1882, 1889 and 1890 respectively were chosen, and thus the locos working in the London area on the Outer Circle from Broad Street to Mansion House were quickly bestowed with their soubriquet.
Locos from batch E110 were fitted with full condensing equipment, but batches E33 and E36 were given a modified form of gear in what can be loosely described as semi-condensing, whereby exhaust steam was diverted from the blast pipe by a valve in the usual manner through a pipe on the side of the smokebox (although in this case pipes either side of the smokebox) into tops of the side tanks above the water level. Any steam remaining, rather than being fed to the opposite tank and then back to the smokebox as usual, passed through pipes inside the cab front weatherboard, along the eaves of the roof, down the outside of the rear weatherboard and into the U shaped water tank in the bunker, where what little remained was exhausted via a tall, thin breather pipe at the rear.
I’ll be using the recently introduced Mercian kit as the basis of the model, but have not yet decided which member of the class to build. I’ve only been able to locate three photos of the condensing tanks in the London area, numbers 781 and 785 of batch E33, and number 663 of batch E36, all of which are very atmospheric, but not particularly useful when attempting to create an accurate model.
Above, No.785 calls at Addison Road c1905. I’ve been told on several occasions that the LNWR took great pride and care over the condition of all its locos, and how white cotton-gloved shed foremen regularly checked their cleanliness, even between the frames – a view I’ve long held as deluded or erroneous at best, the product of rose-tinted hand-me down stories. No small degree of satisfaction on my part then to find No.785 looking not a little work-stained around the gills…
Basilica Fields 
November 21, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Hallo Buckjumper: More than 2 weeks since you posted this and no comment from an LNW expert, so here are my witterings instead. I’ve seen this photo reproduced in several places which might confirm lack of Mansion House tank photos. One had been badly retouched, deleting the wording on the 3-doll home signal arms, and changing them to distants.
November 24, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Sorry for the delay in replying – I’ve had very little net access for the last three weeks, but thanks for commenting.
It’s very much par for the course for London suburban services in the pre-grouping period. Photographic emulsions were very expensive, and there were relatively few active railway photographers at that time, most of whom were drawn to the prestigious rather than the mundane. Allan Sibley, editor of the Great Northern Railway Society’s journal said much the same to me a couple of years ago when I began enquiries into researching the GNR’s London services, commenting on the endless photos of ‘singles’ and Atlantics on expresses, but little on humble suburban passenger and goods trains.
March 4, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Only just found this. Re LNWR locos from Webb onwards to the Great War locos were highly polished and appear so in all photos, even humble shunters, with crews specifically told not to use oily rags to polish them. However the Mansion House route was different. The coaches were brown instead of lake and white, because of the effect of smoke in tunnels, and so the locos are likely to be grubby as well.
March 23, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Thanks for your comment – sorry I’ve not replied earlier, but I’ve been largely offline.
I am aware the LNWR used white sponge cloths, not cotton waste to clean locos, as did the Midland and Great Northern railways, but I’m afraid the assertion that LNWR locos appear highly polished in all photos pre-Great War is in error – I have a number of photographs that show LNWR locos in this period in a less than clean condition.
But I’m not just talking about traffic grime. ‘Weathering’ is a bit of a misnomer as, for modelling purposes it covers the effect of the sun, wind and rain on the finish of the loco; traffic grime accumulated from running (and despite the unique ‘dustless’ permanent way the LNWR was keen to promote, photographs show that locos from expresses to shunters still suffered the effects; stains from leaks; the actions of the crew which includes clambering over the engine and wiping with rags (banned or otherwise there’s photographic evidence it happened!); the action of soot and clinker in the exhaust, and what happens when that gets rubbed into the paintwork by cloths, sponges, boots and clothes(!); and entropy which includes, among others, firebox, smokebox and smokebox door corrosion, of which there is ample evidence, even on the prestigious locos.
I have a very rough draft of an article prepared for this site which deals with all of these issues, and I will give photographic evidence alongside. Interestingly the most grimy LNWR locos of the period I’ve seen were far from London.
I’m afraid that as arrogant as it sounds, anecdotal evidence from those that were there, simply isn’t as reliable as photographic evidence, and we also need to discount the very high proportion of official photographs, most of which show locos and trains at their best.
Orthochromatic emulsions also need to be studied carefully as they can throw up some apparent discrepancies due to their attributes. Something I’ll also be dealing with.
March 23, 2011 at 2:19 pm
In the period of Basilica Fields there may well have been a number of engines which retained wood brake blocks (as against blocks of cast iron). Whereas cast iron block are likely to create a dust which, when oxidised, gives a rust colour (initially orange, then brown turning black)… the same cannot be said about wood blocks. So, which if any engines destined to work in the Basilica Fields era/area might have wood brake blocks and how would that occurrence impact on the visible appearance of wear and tear?
BTW Poplar for the blocks would seem to be highly appropriate.
regards, Graham
March 24, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Good question – not many I should think, though it’s something to investigate. There were some Terriers withdrawn in 1901 with wooden blocks, but their duties may have been downgraded to rustic climes. Watch this space.
March 31, 2011 at 10:17 pm
Just looking through random photos of LNWR 4’6″ tanks I can find no wooden brake blocks after 1911 and no metal blocks before “the 1920s”. Other classes don’t conform to this, a Ramsbottom/Webb special tank has wooden blocks in 1920, whilst a coal tank has metal in 1905
March 24, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Of course there is always photographic evidence to support a wide range of positions, but as we never know the purpose of the photograph we can never use single or occasional examples to prove or disprove generalities. It is clear that some companies were in general cleaner and some were in general grubbier. The main point is that if the coaching stock was painted differently in response to the atmospheric conditions in the tunnels we might expect that locos (which weren’t)would also be affected by these conditions. You do have to decide whether a loco has just come off shed, or from a minor maintenance, or whether it has been working all day. Since your locos will be steady state in most respects you can only really be representing one particular turn, by one particular loco, and although almost all the locos on the Mansion House run would be grubby the one that had just been outshopped after a major service and was on its first run of the day would be nice and shiny. It is the basic problem with modelling. We can either depict a particular photo of a loco, or we can go for a generalisation, so yours should generally be grubby, but mine should be generally much cleaner.
March 24, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Yep, I’d agree with that. My beef is that there is a widespread assumption that pre-Grouping locos and stock are often portrayed (historically and in modelling terms) as perpetually shiny and spotless, which is obviously not the case.
A bit of a tangent, but what is perhaps interesting is that in 1903 the LB&SCR changed its coaching stock from varnished (mahogany) to painted umber & white, including the stock that ran on the ELR under the Thames (surely a far grimier run than the Outer Circle). Likewise the Midland was determined to retain the red livery on it’s Widened Lines services. At times they must have looked filthy.
March 31, 2011 at 10:05 pm
I don’t know about other railways but at this point LNWR had high levels of carriage set redundancy so sets could spend a long time on any day out of service. After 1897 they were running ten sets of nine 28′ coaches each on the Mansion House service, but I dont know what the frequency of service was. From notes about frequencies of service on the MetDistrict line from South Ken I can’t see there being more than two an hour maximum, say thirty two a day (6 till 10)so not many journeys each.
The question is whether these down times were used for carriage cleaning or not, and that might I suppose show up if specific facilities can be identified. Unfortunately looking for allocation of carriage cleaners won’t help. “The North Western at Work” says that in 1908 there were 1,532 outdoor staff in the Carriage Department, of whom 1,208 were washers and cleaners (they were divided into outside and inside cleaners with different shift patterns.) 250 of these were employed at Euston, but annoyingly “away from principle stations Traffic Department men did the work”, which leaves us no wiser. One implication might be that sets operating out of, and particularly between principal stations were cleaned well and frequently, whereas those which operated elsewhere were not, one way or another.
Just looked at a Midland train. Close coupled set Walsall to Birmingham, mid-day 1898. The loco and cariages are sufficiently shiny to see reflections. Another pic, coming into St Pancras 1911 so a bit late, has a shiny coach, a grubby horse box and a shiny horsebox, all Midland, horse boxes same diagram.
April 6, 2011 at 8:16 pm
As I understand it, Outer Circle services (weekdays only) were half hourly throughout the day, from 1872 until 5th February 1905, when a Sunday service was introduced. LNW steam services lasted until December of that year.
Lots of useful info about LNW practice in your comments, so thanks for that.
January 4, 2017 at 5:41 pm
Ian Jan 2
I am modelling the mid 1880’s in the Kensington area. I am currently constructing one of the 1860’s block sets ans the 1885 compounded mansion house tank , no 687. In 1884 the LNWR gave up the unequal task of keeping the white upper panels on it’s mansion House stock clean and painted the carriages all over lake used on the lower pannelling. as such they would have looked like long horseboxes! I understand these lasted until the early 1890’s when new teak finished stock was introduced.