Operations
The seventh of the first lot of 10 Castles built in 1923/4, No.4079 "Pendennis Castle" was completed at Swindon Works on 4 March 1924. She was allocated to Old Oak Common locomotive depot.
The locomotive became famous in 1925 when the GWR lent her to the LNER as part of trials against the LNER's then new A1 Pacific Class, a famous example being LNER 4472 Flying Scotsman. Running from King's Cross to Grantham, and King's Cross to Doncaster, she made the ascent from King's Cross to Finsbury Park regularly in less than six minutes, a feat that the Pacifics were unable to match. Pendennis Castle was also shown to be more economical in both coal and water on the test runs, her superiority in burning unfamiliar Yorkshire coal being measured at 3.7lb per mile.
Before returning to the GWR, the locomotive attended the second Wembley Exhibition between May and October 1925, displayed next to Flying Scotsman, with a notice proclaiming it to be the most powerful passenger express locomotive in Britain.
Back at Old Oak Common, she continued to run the routes to South Wales and the West Country until after the GWR was nationalised post-World War II to become part of British Railways. In August 1950 she was allocated to Gloucester shed, in March 1959 to Bristol (Bath Road), and her last shed allocation was Bristol (Saint Philip's Marsh). She was withdrawn in May 1964.
Read more about this topic: GWR 4073 Class 4079 Pendennis Castle
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)