I have heard that a King did once reach Swansea, but I have never seen photographic proof. The reason that both 6023 and 6024 survive is that they were sold to a Bridgend scrap dealer, but the Western Region Civil Engineer would not allow them west of Cardiff. They were diverted to Woodhams of Barry. I thought that the climb out of Swansea to Cockett was 1 in 50. It was never 1 in 30. Even Dainton was "only" 1 in 36, and that must surely be the steepest incline worked by the Kings.

@@andrewtaylor5984 The gradient west of Cockett tunnel was a little steeper I think because there wasn't the sharp curve like the one coming out of Swansea High St, station. I do remember a Castle blasting its way up round Landore loop west with an enormous train in the summer hols of the early 60s. It didn't slip even though the day had been drizzly and once through the tunnel the gallop down to the Loughor bridge was very exciting. I was about 9 or 10 yrs old so it was around '61 or '62. I was returning home to Llanelly (as it was spelled in those days) with my grandparents after a week in Cornwall in Trebarwith Strand. We started off from Camelford station on the Southern region, changed to the Western at Exeter, changed again a Temple Meads if I remember rightly and rode behind REAL locomotives all the way home. A very memorable experience for a little boy who loved steam engines. We were home around 5:15 pm after an 8:30 start. My parents came home by car and didn't get back until the early hours of he following day ! No motorways in those days and the Severn Bridge hadn't been opened so it was the old ferry service. A great way to cross the great river but a bit slow.

You should see the video of N&W 611 with five coaches on Saluda Grade, which is a 1 in 22 gradient (4.7% grade).

If any 6 coupled loco could do it, it would have to be a King.

I have always wanted to ask..does a loco hold its steam for ?? Minutes or does it require constant feeding.

It depends entirely on how hard the engine is working. If it is drifting, splashing a bit of coal round the box from time to time will do. If it is working hard, the boiler and firebox are not steam receptacles so much as steam generators. The fire becomes hungry and has to be kept fed. If it is not kept fed, the suction of the blast will tear holes in the fire, the firebars will be exposed, cold air will rush in from below and steam pressure will rapidly drop. Harold Gasson's books are enlightening. This was a man who did the job and describes it well. A lot depends on boiler design. Some engines with quite large boilers generated less steam than their size would suggest. Some smaller boilers had a steam generation capacity greater than their size would suggest. Good valve events so the steam is used efficiently and good smokebox and blast pipe design to ensure a proper draught on the fire are also important. GWR Saints, Stars, Castles and Kings all qualified well on all counts, as did LMS Princesses (once their boilers had been redesigned), Duchesses, LNER pacifics and of course the Bulleid pacifics, especially in rebuilt form.@@robinnicholson4009

I tamprered with the engine?!

@@6024ke1 Sorry it was a joke. Great video.

Thank you Kelly!

You saw I could you saw I could you saw I could you saw I could you saw I could you saw I could you saw I could you saw I could . . . . .

no one else noticed lol

Perhaps the interior of the tunnel was drier, and hence less slippage???

Unlikely. The interior of tunnels are normally wetter than outside.@@dennisyoung4631

The train was certainly moving a lot quicker coming out of the tunnel, so if there was a complete halt then there was also quite an acceleration.

It was nothing to do with the number of coaches. Within the permitted load for a King. Due to the really heavy rain the railhead conditions were so bad there was little to no grip even with the sanders on.

Kings took trains of that size up Dainton, Rattery, and Hemerdon banks in Devon, all of which are steeper than Cockett.

Cockett is in Swansea, its on the Llanelli line.

I certainly don't think it was raining in the tunnel... OK, there is condensation. But the rails were certainly dryer than under the heavy rain!

+Tahititoutou From working on a narrow gauge railway (I know it's not identical) the loco drivers tell me that condensation and drizzle is actually way worse than heavy rail as rather than wash the rain off the tracks the water can pool on them

So the comments of both 6024KE1 and ExoVyper (who seem to know what thet are talking about) leave me with a constatation and a question. The constatation is that it stalled when the loco was deep into the tunnel. And the question is how comes the loco could hardly move in the rain and came gloriously out of the tunnel? Did the engineer suddenly remember he had sand?

+Tahititoutou it's entirely possible they had a malfunction with the sanders. Sorry to quote the drivers i know of again but they used to tell me that if they're steam sanders you usually get one good shot with them before the water in the steam clogs them up. If not that then there was an instance on the loco (was riding behind it) where she ground to a ferocious halt and was slipping backwards down the gradient, when i talked to the driver at the next station it turns out the sanders were working fine until he got to that hill and the nozzles moved causing the sand to fall onto the sleepers and miss the rail

ExoVyper Thanks for those info ExoVyper. Although they are somewhat surprising! Not the fact that wet sand can clog the sanders. But that nozzles moved??? Maybe that loco was just out of sand on that gradient during a rainy day... LOL!

Says a person who is obviously an expert! It may have been bad coal but piss poor crew?! We have never ever had a bad crew on the footplate, and if you watched throughout, the loco emerges from the tunnel in fine style. No banker was necessary. It was a foul day and poor coal and a soaked railhead all contributed.

@@6024ke1 actually yeah i am an expert through my dad because he was involved with KING GEORGE V association and was involved with the railways and knew a lot of people to do with the railways so shut up idiot

@@benconway9010 Incorrect. You are the idiot. Just showing yourself up.

Ben Conway o

ROFLMAO. Yeah. Because any locomotive with a "rear bogie" would be otherwise completely identical. They just put rear bogies on for shits and giggles. And to take weight off the drivers, of course. If that pile of shit had more weight on the drivers it wouldn't have to creep up that little hill to avoid slip in the first place. You might want to check KZfaq a little more carefully there are tons of videos showing those supposedly superior British locomotives slip sliding all over the place with little trains on tiny hills. Try putting some steel and iron into those POS "replicas" and build a few instead of building a shitload of lightweight jokes.

while the comment is quite correct, its a case of Horses for Courses, A King is designed with Steep, severley curved hills in mind, because that is the type of hill they faced in the West of England, Duchess's and Lizzies were designed to tackle long steady drags with minimal drop off in speed, because that is what hills such as Shap and Beatock were like, and the LNER pacifics were designed for long spells of high speed running because that is what the Geography of the East Coast is like, so yes a 4-6-2 probably would have stuck there, partly because of the weight transference issue, partly because the extra wheel set may result in a lower axle load. There weren't many locos with higher Axle loads than a King, not in the UK at least, so the comment about "If it had more weight on the drivers, would mean it wouldn't be permitted anywhere in the UK. Given that a King is also physically as big as will fit on the UK loading guage, I'm not sure how you could really add more weight!

The difference in tractive effort between a King and a Light Pacific was latterly some 13000 pounds. The 110 West Country and Battle of Britain Pacifics originally had a 31000lb tractive effort, but their boiler pressure was reduced from 280 to 250 p.s.i., hence the lower figure, which was c28000 p.s.i.. The Merchant Navy Pacifics also had their boiler pressure similarly reduced. I always thought that it was extremely rare for GW locos to slip.

Swansea High Street station was a terminus, so Britannia Pacifics would not normally have worked west of Swansea, except possibly on Fishguard boat trains routed over the Swansea District Lines or the third side of the Landore triangle. Even then, a Castle was probably more common.

True, a pacific in those conditions would be slipping like crazy. Kings were built for this type of work in those conditions

Yes, a pacific is a 12 wheeler. The extra 2 you will find under the firebox which will be small to allow a bigger grate area and at the same time perform some stability for the locomotive. You can even get 4-6-4 arrangement which would be for a even bigger grate area/firebox I assume.

But why put on 12 coaches when the gradient is extreme?

@@davidmichaels8934 better ask the organisers that one David, i havent a clue!