The U.K.’s "Most Powerful" 4-6-0’s Head to Head. 850 Lord Nelson vs 6024 King Edward 1

Описание: The L&S.W.R., (later the Southern Railway) and the Great Western Railway had a history of fierce competition epitomised by the “Ocean Express Races” between Plymouth and London at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1923 the G.W.R. announced their new 4 cylinder Castle Class as the "Most Powerful" passenger locomotive in the U.K. based on Tractive Effort. The L&S.W.R., needing a more powerful locomotive to haul heavier Continental Boat trains to Dover designed their own 4 cylinder 4-6-0 but restricted by severe axle load limits came up with the following solutions: As with G.W.R. designs they divided the drive axles with the inside cylinders driving the front axle and the outside cylinders driving the middle axle for better load distribution but to further reduce “hammer blow” and reduce the chance of wheel-spin decided to set the crank angles at 135deg rather than the usual 90deg and fit four sets of valve gear rather than the usual two resulting in 8 exhaust beats per rev rather than the usual four. The class was launched in Aug. 1926 and as Tractive Effort exceeded that of the Castle Class, this new “Lord Nelson” Class claimed the “Most Powerful” title. This did not sit easy with the G.W.R. board who tasked their Chief Mechanical Engineer to come up with an even more powerful 4-6-0 and to cut a long story short, the King Class with a Tractive Effort of 40,300lbs was introduced in June 1927 and remained the most powerful 4-6-0 until the end of B.R. steam.

Looking back through my unpublished SD archives I found the perfect footage to compare these two classes as both 850 Lord Nelson and 6024 King Edward I appeared together at the W.S.R. Autumn Gala on 8th October 2006. This allows comparisons of start-off from Williton Station and on-board footage of the climb out of Stogumber Station. I also managed to find line-side footage of both passing Woodrow Barton with 850 hauling the Southern Sunset tour on 8th July 2007 and 6024 in failing light hauling the season's final Torbay Express on 3rd Sept. 2006.

This is not about which one is “best”, it’s just an interesting comparison of two quite different but equally impressive passenger locomotives.

I personally love them both………. but one, maybe just a little bit more!