The dank, moist climate of Britain in the first half of the 20th century seemed eminently suited to the steam locomotive, with its voracious appetite for water. During the steam age, columns, tanks, towers, troughs and hoses were to be found everywhere that there were lines. Engines could take water once they had brought their trains to a stand at the hydraulic buffers of King's Cross. Many smaller stations had water columns at the end of the platform--a nightmare during the coldest days of winter when coal-fired braziers had to be kept alight by the side of the columns in order to stop the water supply freezing up.
Here are two short anecdotes about locomotives and water--excesses of water, in fact. The first is culled from page 84 of Patrick Whitehouse's and David St John Thomas's
LNER 150, while the second comes from Volume 2 of Richard Hardy's reminiscences,
Railways in the Blood, page 15.
The renowned Leslie Preston Parker was Divisional Manager of the former GER lines (the Eastern Section) of the LNER during the interwar years and he continued under BR until his retirement in 1953. This formidable man, who never raised his voice but still succeeded in terrorising the workforce, was seldom to be seen in the running shed. However, one day in the 1930s he was making his way in bowler hat and spats, furled brolly in hand, across the Jubilee Shed front at Stratford while one of the depot's hundreds of tank engines (an 'N7', perhaps) was having its side-tanks filled with water. Suddenly, the water cascaded over the side, the motion, the axle-boxes and the tracks. The fireman dashed away from his tea-making to spin the stopcock shut. Parker cast his reptilian eye over the hapless footplateman and said "Tell me, fireman, when you are at home, do you allow your bath to overflow?" The reply, in broadest East-End Cockney, must have been one of the few that got the better of that formidable railway administrator: "Barf, Guv, barf? I ain't got a bleedin' barf!"
In the second instance, an 8A Edge Hill crew were working one of the London to Merseyside expresses one evening with a 'Princess Royal' Pacific, perhaps no. 46201, 46204, 46207 or 46208, all of which were Edge Hill engines. At a set of water troughs on the West Coast main line the fireman let down the scoop but could not wind it out in time. Cascades of water washed lumps of coal across the footplate. Sheets of spray soaked everything, including the driver. He turned around and, with incomparable Scouse irony and timing asked "Did we gerrany?"
Stories also abound of the effect on the first coach of a passenger train when the fireman misjudged the water intake from a set of troughs. It was not an uncommon event and often it washed the grime off the front of the first coach. Passengers were treated to the sight of a small waterfall down the windows. However, the effects were decidedly different on warm days when the windows were open. The filler cap, invariably at the train end of the tender, would fly open and fountains of water would cascade out. If the first coach was a van that housed the guard he would know he had to shut the windows in time, but it was a different matter if it were a passenger coach. The first compartment could fill up and soaked passengers would stagger out into the corridor on a tidal wave of water, waving soggy newspapers and cursing the railway. It is remarkable what passengers put up with during the steam age. They protested, but they seldom demanded compensation and rarely if ever sued. Moreover, sympathy was rationed among the poorly-paid front-line staff of the railways who had to deal with the luckless travellers.
Perhaps the worst such case occurred on the Great Western Railway and involved the company's only Pacific, no.111
Great Bear. Its tender, like the loco larger than life, was a ramshackle contraption of unpredictable gait. Over a set of troughs it directed a jet of water at the first passenger vehicle with such murderous force that it blew a hole in the coachwork and half filled the carriage with water. No doubt the aftermath involved more than a "please explain" notice. Churchward must have had his bad feelings about the
Great Bear confirmed by the incident. When Gresley's first 'A1' 4-6-2, no. 1470
Great Northern, was outshopped, Churchward is reputed to have said "What did that young man want to build a Pacific for? We could have sold him ours."
