A Great Western Sunday: Wonderful "Witherslack Hall"...

"Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot". Today of course marks the 417th anniversary of Guy Fawkes night, celebrating the deliverance of King James I of England. The celebration commemorates the thwarting of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot following its discovery beneath London's parliament house. In a stark contrast to last Saturday night's turn aboard No73156 on the "Charnwood Forester" diner, this afternoon's outing on the footplate of the Modified Hall at the Great Central took place in fantastic Autumnal weather. I arrived in good time for my 12:30 book on, ready to work turn BL4 with driver John. I wasn't disappointed to learn that our charge for this 'one trip wonder' was none other than the 1948-built Great Western Modified Hall No6990 "Witherslack Hall", now returned to her own identity following a few weeks posing as scrapped sister No6988. Soon enough, the engine returned with her previous passenger working and we duly swapped crews at the water column...

It was a crisp November afternoon in sunny but chilly conditions. Due to a points failure at Loughborough, today's passenger service had to be shunt released by the Class 08 diesel shunter. Below, the Hall waits for the platform two up starter signal to be pulled off for us, once the diesel had propelled the stock into platform one. The chimney shows a tinge of smoke as some fresh coal starts to take...

With 15 minutes to go until our 14:00 'one trip wonder', I coupled the Hall up before grabbing this quick snap of her in the gloom of Great Central Road bridge...

The Guard confirmed the weight of our six-coach train before we blew up to create a brake. Driver John kindly offered me the regulator for this trip whilst he supervised a third man doing the firing. I was of course very grateful for this opportunity, particularly aboard a Great Western engine, which is my region of choice. Right on time, the "right away" from the Guard came and we departed Loughborough's platform one in a cloud of condensate from the cylinder drains. Once underway I wound the engine back and we set into the 1 in 176 steady pull towards Quorn in full pilot valve. It was a pleasure to sit in the seat and listen to the ticking vacuum pump as we chugged along through Woodthorpe and on towards Quorn. I think the last big GWR engine I drove was actually sister Modified Hall No6989 at a place that shall not be named. That was a good engine as well, just like No6990. The six-coach train was no issue to "Witherslack" as we made our way towards a leafy Leicester North.

At the terminus, we ran the engine around and then awaited departure back towards Loughborough, calling at all stations. After a brisk couple up we still had a good 10 minutes before departure, leaving time to snap the 4-6-0...

Now for a bit of Modified Hall history, although a lot of this will have been repeated several times before on this blog (sorry!). The Modified Hall is a Hawksworth enhancement over the 258-strong 4900 Class Halls, which began being produced at Swindon under Collett in 1924. (The Halls were of course developed from Churchward's earlier Saints). Hawksworth's 6959 Modified Hall class would eventually number 71 engines, with the biggest difference being the use of plate frames and also cylinders which were cast independently of the smokebox saddle. Hawksworth also modified the Swindon No1 boiler to include three row superheating and a larger regulator, in an effort to counteract the declining quality of coal. Though they provided a very similar outward appearance to the 4900 and the same tractive effort, the change in the superheater provided better performance when burning poorer coal and the Modified Halls were reported as being very free steaming machines.

Fourteen of the class survived until the end of Western region steam on BR and six have been preserved, with three currently operational at the time of writing. The cab layout (shown below) is typical GWR and most of you will be able to pick out the crucial controls. In the firebox can be seen a substantial 'Western wedge', which was later raked forward as we crossed Swithland on our final return trip...

The return trip on the regulator of No6990 was most enjoyable and I must thank John once again for the opportunity. It was fantastic to be back in the saddle as it were, particularly on a fine GWR machine! Throughout my years in this hobby I've heard a lot of Western bashing and, I must confess, in my youth I was guilty of it as well, purely through lack of understanding I might add (and bad teaching). I've since found that most people who dislike Great Western have either read the wrong books or don't understand why they don't like them. No, they haven't got the same mod cons as a BR Standard, but neither have the earlier LMS or SR designs. Yes, they found a design and stuck with it but nobody could argue that it is a design that worked and Swindon's engineering standards and standardisation policy were second to none. 

My years at Tyseley around their absolutely beautiful Castles cemented the Great Western as my favourite region and I don't think anything will ever change that now. Everything is nice in its own way of course, but GWR is just fabulous in my book and it wouldn't bother me taking No6990 on every turn. Here, the engine simmers quietly on No2 shed road having been screwed down ready for disposal...

Following the above snap the fire was raked through, the smokebox emptied and the boiler topped up before the necessary fittings were isolated for the night. What a pleasure to be back out on the freshly overhauled Modified Hall again, particularly after a cracking morning out on it the other week with Rob and Batesy. Thanks again to John for a pleasant few hours this afternoon. Cheers all, Sam...

Please note any views or opinions expressed in this blog are merely personal and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person, group or organisation.