# Talk:BR Standard Class 8

Another nice article in this well-researched series. Here are my comments:

"Remarkably, the locomotive survived into preservation ...". Why is it remarkable? Because it's unusual for prototypes to be preserved?
" ... turning in stirring performances" is POV
"However, these proposals were rejected by the Railway Executive on the grounds of cost in attempting to develop a form of steam motive power that was not necessarily required for use on Britain's railways." Not sure what that means. Why wasn't it necesarily required for use on Britain's railways?
"... The Turbomotive, 46202 Princess Anne, was destroyed in the Harrow and Wealdstone rail disaster of 1952.[2] A gap now existed in the roster for locomotives with 8P power classification ..." How could the destruction of one locomotive leave a gap for locomotives with 8P power classification?
"At first, Riddles' design incorporated an enlarged version of his Standard Class 7 Britannias ..." Does that mean that the design was based on the Britannias?
"... 71000 remained the solitary member of a stillborn class of Standard 8P locomotives" "Stillborn" is a little flowery for an encyclopedia.
"it became immediately obvious that the boiler was now producing steam at a furious rate" Similarly, "furious" is a bit flowery too.
"... the locomotive was failed at Penrith with leaking tubes" Does that mean that it broke down?
"The engine has since been withdrawn for overhaul before a projected return to service later in 2007 to early 2008." We're pretty late in 2007 now. Has it been returned to service yet?
That's pretty much it I think. I look forward to seeing the article again when this little bit of work's been done.
--Malleus Fatuarum 18:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


### Follow up
"Remarkably, due to the fact that she was almost scrapped at the wrong scrapyard, the locomotive survived into preservation" That doesn't make it any clearer to me. What does "the wrong scrapyard" mean?
--Malleus Fatuarum 00:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

---The Duke was purchased for scrap out of service by Woodham Brothers of Barry, S Wales but was mistakenly delivered to Cashmore's Scrapyard in Newport, South Wales. Woodham Brothers were at that time concentrating on scrapping wagons and the steam locos it purchased were stored. Cashmores had no such policy and it was usual for a loco to arrive and be scrapped within a very few weeks or so.
The mistaken deivery was spotted by the local postman, Maurice Sheperd, who saw the Duke in the scrapline at Cashmore's and went to have a closer look. It was he who saw that the delivery label on the loco stated 'Woodham Brothers', and so the Duke was pulled out of the scrapping line and 'redelivered' to Woodhams - hence it's survival. Hope this clarifies? Andywebby (talk) 14:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Can I also clarify your question in point 1 -  '"Remarkably, the locomotive survived into preservation ...". Why is it remarkable? Because it's unusual for prototypes to be preserved? '
The Duke was originally on a list of locomotives that would be considered for preservation as part of the National Collection, but in the end it was decided that, as Class 7 Pacific 'Oliver Cromwell' had already been chosen, there was no need to preserve another BR Standard Pacific. Another reason for not choosing the Duke was that it was the Caprotti valve gear that made the engine remarkable (remember it didn't have a very good service history as a locomotive due to errors in its construction) and subsequently, only the cab controls, and one outside cylinder and part of the valve gear were preserved (initially in the Science Museum, London). The other outside cylinder was cut off in order to balance the weight of the loco for travel to the scrapyard - so the Duke arrived for scrapping with both outside cylinders, outside valve gear and cab fittings already removed, and also lost its tender - so when finally rescued it was little more than a boiler on wheels. I would say that its rescue was quite remarkable as most preservation groups at the time were concentrating on saving the more complete locos that were available at Barry Scrapyard. And don't forget there was no Heritage Lottery Fund to apply to in those days - a number of restoration groups were fundraising largely through appeals in the railway press and competing for a very limited source of funds - it was a remarkably brave group of people that took this restoration on at the time they did. Much of the foregoing information is available on the 71000 Trust's website Andywebby (talk) 15:34, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Also you asked '"However, these proposals were rejected by the Railway Executive on the grounds of cost in attempting to develop a form of steam motive power that was not necessarily required for use on Britain's railways." Not sure what that means. Why wasn't it necesarily required for use on Britain's railways? '
Remember that the background against which the Duke was competing was a railway that was about to embark on a major modernisation plan (1955) which would see widespread electrification of the major routes - which would have included those routes the Duke was designed to travel.Andywebby (talk) 15:41, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Oooooo! PLEASE find a reference for this! ...as if its story wasn't remarkable enough already!
EdJogg (talk) 12:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


### Conclusion
Once again, congratulations on producing such an informative and well researched article. I'm not a particular train buff, but your series of articles did intrigue me to find out more about the post-war history of steam. I've got no hesitation now in listing this article as a GA. --Malleus Fatuarum 03:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

One thing that this article lacks is the date the Duke returned to work - sometime between 2002 and 2004 from what I found out. Can someone confirm what happened and when?
Soarhead77 (talk) 10:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
It returned to service in 2004.  I'll have to reference that, though. --Bulleid Pacific (talk) 00:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this edit - I'm suspicious of this, because generally speaking, the pony truck pivot would be part of the sub-frame, and thus a problem solved during the designing of that sub-frame, whereas the presence of the ashpan is an obstacle found in the design of many loco classes, often causing a problem requiring a compromise solution. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Having studied the frame GA and other drawings further I've improved the description of the rear spring bracket arrangements. Sorry if it previously caused some confusion. 7severn7 (talk) 07:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
OK, but do you have a reference? Otherwise it looks like unconfirmed speculation, or, worse, WP:OR. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
May I refer you to the reply I made in the BR Standard Class 6 section. 7severn7 (talk) 18:59, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

May I refer you to WP:V - each article needs its own set of references, and cannot direct the reader to another article to look up the sources. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:25, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
I've put the newly-added information inside <ref></ref> tags because really it belongs as a footnote, not part of the text. I still think it's borderline WP:OR though, so shall open it up to the floor. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"resulting in one of the most efficient and powerful locomotives ever to run in Britain"
This statement seems highly misleading. There is no limit to "steam locomotives", and no implication of such. Practically every newer train in the UK has more power and higher tractive effort. For instance, the Class 90's have a tractive effort of 58,000 lbf, considerably greater than the Class 8. Even the old Deltics outperformed it, pulling 50,000 lbf from a park.
My concern here is that one can always contrive some set of requirements that makes anything a "record". Perhaps the Class 8 was the most powerful prototype stream locomotive to run within 25 km of London on a Tuesday when it was raining? Unless the record compares to some sort of wider group, it's not worthy of recording it as a record. That is especially true of the first or last of anything - the Wright Flier flew the longest distance of any airplane, but that's not something one would consider a "record" when their were no other aircraft. In this case we're discussing the last of something, and that is equally unsurprising, the linked reference states that for most of steam's history "the rest had merely been increases in size". That applies here.
The claim links to a reference page, but the page in question does not make any direct statements to this effect. If such information is located on a sub-page, I can't find it. 
Unless these statements can be backed up with real comparisons, and those appear noteworthy, they should be removed. 
Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:58, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The crucial word "steam" was missing from the sentence, which I have now inserted. That aside, it is a fallacy to measure a locomotive's power in terms of tractive effort. TE represents a calculated theoretical maximum force which may be applied at the wheel rims, under ideal conditions. For a steam locomotive it is determined by the boiler pressure, number of cylinders, cylinder diameter, piston stroke and driving wheel diameter - and nothing else. It does not take into account such factors as the degree of superheat, constrictions in the steam circuit (in the dome, at the regulator, in steam chests and at the blastpipe), valve events (travel, lap, lead, port area), number of coupled axles, adhesion weight or friction between wheel and rail. Above all, it does not take into account H.A. Ivatt's dictum "The measure of a locomotive's success is its capacity to boil water". All of these can significantly affect performance, power output and efficiency. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:58, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
The concern isn't the measure, its that any measure represents some sort of record that's worth mentioning. As I said, the last of anything is likely to be the biggest, fastest, slowest, or somethingest, by default. The record here is not that it had some sort of power measurement that was in excess of some other, the only record here is that it was the last. That was already mentioned. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

"The opportunity to create an entire batch of locomotives within the 8P category was declined by the Railway Executive. This was because the design process had been highly expensive and complex, so that when the locomotive emerged from Crewe Works in 1954 such thoughts had to be precluded, especially with the advent of the 1955 Modernisation Plan." This does not make sense, but I don't have sources to put it right. If a the design was expensive then it would be better if it were spread over a large class, so that is not a plausible reason. Globbet (talk) 10:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The RCTS histories of the standard classes, particularly that on the Pacifics, is relevant. The big problem was that the 8s over-ran so badly they were over-taken by the diesel plans of '55. Past over-runs had also reduced confidence that further work wouldn't be even worse. Rather than amortising the over-runs over a large class (and thus reducing their cost per-loco) the obvious concern was that the over-runs in building and in-service would be just as bad as they had been in design. Given the poor performance of DoG until the draughting was fixed, 30(?) years later, they might have had a point too.  In hindsight of course, the big diesels failed to materialise too, until the Deltics. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

< a reluctant reversion to the three-cylinder layout ensued.[2] This reluctance was born from experience with the Gresley Pacifics, whose conjugated valve gear was difficult to maintain due to the location of the middle cylinder between the frames.[1] >
This text is bizarre. Why would a design team familiar with LMS three-cylinder locomotives be hesitant to build yet another because of an Gresley feature that they would not have used?! (Furthermore, the position of the conjugation in front of the cylinders (except on the D49s) meant that it was comparatively easy to maintain, I would have thought). 
Besides, the Gresley conjugation was, in effect, obsolete by the time that the BR Class 8 was being thought about: the Peppercorn A1s were in service in numbers by this time, and they had three sets of valve gear.
According to Cox in 'British Standard Steam Locomotives', the original plan for the Class 8 was that it should have four cylinders!  86.184.154.98 (talk) 21:32, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Surely this can be reworded in the lead, as it seems rather clumsily worded. Was the locomotive a prototype, or just a design for a one-off locomotive? I’m not proposing renaming the article or anything, just changing this one piece of the first sentence to read better… perhaps “The British Rail Standard Class 8 is a one-off 4-6-2 locomotive…” or something similar? Danners430 (talk) 10:37, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for correcting my tense issues earlier, I've added this change as per your request, let me know if you think it'd be better another way. Thanks! MelonLost (talk) 12:26, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
Both, really. The Britannia class had always been envisaged as a second-level express locomotive, with the most important expresses continuing to be handled by e.g. the ex-LNER A4, A3 and A1 classes; the ex-LMS Pacifics; the ex-GWR Kings and ex-SR Merchant Navies. Several of these were quite new; at a time when locomotives were designed for a life of 30-40 years, only the older ex-LNER A3s would be coming up for replacement, and then not really until the late 1950s. So there wasn't an immediate need for anything more powerful than a Britannia; but then in October 1952 came the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash, in which no. 46202 Princess Anne, only three months old, was wrecked and written off.
A replacement for this solitary locomotive could be justified (hence, a one-off), and would also give Riddles the opportunity to try out new ideas, so that when locomotives of this size became needed later in the decade, a new design could then be prepared that incorporated features that had already been tried and tested (hence, a prototype). Indeed, the minutes of the works and equipment committee, dated 2 June 1954, states: Construction of new BR Std Cl 8 locomotive as a prototype ... to replace engine no 46202 extensively damaged in accident --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:36, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
Should we perhaps reword it to read “prototype locomotive” and include the above clarification text? Danners430 (talk) 13:19, 4 May 2025 (UTC)