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About the Iron Duke class
Once the successful Firefly class had been created, the Iron Duke was created as an prototype for improvement. Initially the only change was to increase the diameter of the driving wheels, but after an accident it was rebuilt in a 4-2-2 set up, with four wheels in front of the driving wheels. This proved successful and the class was built to this design.
Contents
- About the GWR "Iron Duke" Class
- The Flying Dutchman - the world's fastest express
- The end of the Iron Duke class
- Images of Iron Duke class engines
- A working replica
- The Iron Duke on Thomas the Tank engine
- Other Great Western Engines
- About the Great Western Railway
- Leave your comments
- About the Lensmaster
About the GWR "Iron Duke" Class
One of the earliest Broad gauge engines
Broad Gauge Express Engine from Bristol and Exeter Railway
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It looked very similar to the Firefly, the main external difference visible in images being the two wheels in front of the main motive driving wheel rather than one.
Other differences, such as the larger driving wheel, can be hard to make out in the pictures of the time without a direct comparison.
It pulled the Flying Dutchman, for some decades the world's fastest express. As this ran across the country, from London Paddington to Penzance in Cornwall, the Iron Duke engines became instantly recogniseable and iconic. Speeds of sixty miles an hour were common, but the Iron Duke was known to reach eighty.
Don Breckons Great Western Railway
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The Flying Dutchman - the world's fastest express
The Iron Duke's most famous run
Racehorse Competes with a Steam Engine
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Pulled by the Iron Duke class of locomotives, the Flying Dutchman was for several decades one of the fastest trains in the world. The train between Paddington and Exeter, it could make the entire route in less than 5 hours, and did this twice a day. It was named after a racehorse of the time, who in turn was named after the ship.
It was also the last train to run on Broad gauge in 1892 before the switchover. The next day a narrow gauge engine ran the route, taking longer, and the train was simply the 9:15.
More about the Flying Dutchman from Wikipedia.
The Flying Dutchman was a named passenger train service from London Paddington to Exeter. It ran from 1849 until 1892, originally over the Great Western Railway (GWR) and then the Bristol and Exeter Railway. As the GWR expanded, the destination of the train changed to Plymouth and briefly to Penzance.
The end of the Iron Duke class
The Iron Duke class of Railway engines
The Iron Duke class, like most broad gauge engines, could not be converted to narrow gauge. When broad gauge was removed, the engines had no purpose, and the scrappers' yards were full of them.
Lord of the Isles
The last Iron Duke engine:
Drawn when new:
LOCO LORD OF THE ISLES - Media Storehouse
On display in photographs:
Lord of the Isles - Broad Gauge - Locomotives - Media Storehouse
The decision was condemned as short sighted at the time, and history has proved that point. Within twenty years a replica of the North Star had been built, and a more recent replica of the Iron Duke has been created.
Details from Wikipedia
The Great Western Railway Iron Duke Class 4-2-2 was a class of broad gauge steam locomotives for express passenger train work.
Images of Iron Duke class engines
Unfortunately, the DVD can only be viewed in the UK and Europe as it is Region 2 Pal.
More Images
Commercially available images from across the web.
- Lord of the Isles
- Media Storehouse has a full shot of the last Iron Duke class engine.
A working replica
The Iron Duke
In 1985 a replica of the Iron Duke was constructed. Although it is fully working, and in fact ran on some of the few Broad gauge stretches at Didcot Railway Centre, it is currently not able to run due to expiry of the boiler certificate.
It is usually housed at the National Railway Museum in York. As well as Didcot, its other famous excursion was to the SS Great Britain in Bristol, where it was displayed alongside the historic Iron Ship for Brunel's jubilee.
Few images of the originals are available (consider when they were built and eventually scrapped). However, the replica that was constructed is available for public viewing and some photographers have kindly made their images available online through flickr.
Iron Duke
Iron Duke
Iron Duke
Iron Duke
The Iron Duke on Thomas the Tank engine
A TV appearance for the replica
Thomas and the
Great Railway Show
The book is available through Amazon.com at a high price, but can be had from .co.uk at around $2, which makes it cheaper even with postage.
Thomas and the Great Railway Show
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Other Great Western Engines
The original broad gauge engine
The Star Class were the first engines to run on the Great Western, quickly joined by the Firefly, Sir Daniel Gooch's design specifically for Broad Gauge.-
Firefly - the Great Western steam engines
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The Firefly class of locomotives were designed to run on Brunel's Great Western Railway. Broad gauge was designed for speed of transit, and the Firefly - the first engine built specifically for it - was no exception. Capable of speeds of over sixty m...
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Star Class Steam Engines
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The first engines for the Great Western Railway, the North Star and Morning Star, gave rise to the Star Class broad gauge engines. Created from converted narrow gauge engines, these bore the brunt of work on the GWR until the specifically designed Fi...
About the Great Western Railway
More about Brunel's Broad Gauge rail
The Great Western Railway, the unique Broad gauge railway designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, has its own lens. The covers in brief, its history, the guage wars, the roling stock and its eventual end after the second world war.-
Brunel's Great Western Railway
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Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Great Western Railway was designed to be one of the fastest of its time. The railway was built on a wide gauge of 7 feet known as "broad gauge", designed to increase speed and passenger comfort, and it was jo...
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- Treasures-By-Brenda Treasures-By-Brenda May 12, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
- Nicely done lens; blessed by a SquidAngel.
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