Charles Benjamin Collett

1922.

1952.

1923. Caerphilly Castle.

1923. Caerphilly Castle for the GWR line.

1927. Locomotive for the Great Western Railway.

Charles Benjamin Collett (1871-1952) was chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway from 1922 to 1941. He designed (amongst others) the GWR's 4-6-0 Castle and King Class express passenger locomotives.

1871 September 10th. Born

In the 19th and early 20th century, railway companies were fiercely competitive - and engineering was speed, and that was revenue. The brilliant engineer George Churchward had delivered to the GWR from Swindon a series of class leading and innovative locomotives, and arguably by the early 1920s the Great Western‘s 2-cylinder and 4-cylinder 4-6-0 designs were substantially superior to the locomotives of the other railway groupings. Churchward preferred locomotive‘s without trailing wheels to increase maximise adhesion on the South Devon banks of Dainton, Rattery and Hemerdon on the West of England mainline to Plymouth, then the Great Western‘s most important route. Due to the weight and dimensional restrictions required to pass over all the GWR's lines, he designed narrow fireboxes, but with good circulation. Combining high boiler pressures with superheat made efficient use of the high calorific-value steam coal from the mines in South Wales, and reduced mechanical and boiler wear.

In 1922 Churchward retired, and Charles Benjamin Collett inherited a legacy of excellent standardised designs. But, with costs rising and revenues falling, there was a need to both rationalise the number of pre-grouping designs, as well as develop more powerful locomotives. Collett was not the brilliant engineer that Churchward was, but he was a practical development engineer, and so he took Churchward's designs and simply developed them - the Hall from the Saint class, and the Castle from the Stars.

"...C. B. Collett, who became chief mechanical engineer in January, 1922, was against this, as he felt the limit of safety had been reached as regards buffer locking on sharp curves. He thought It better to reduce the length of new coaches to less than 70ft, and this was agreed to..."

The ultimate expression of this development theory was the King class - something that was so big, it was restricted to the main GWR routes. In 1926, something bigger was required to haul heavy expresses at an average speed of 60mph. Great Western's General Manager Sir Felix Pole told Collett to proceed with the design and construction of a Super-Castle. The 4-6-0 design which emerged from Swindon works in June 1927, had dimensions never previously seen, and represented the ultimate development of Churchward's four cylinder concept. They were the heaviest (136 tons), and had the highest tractive effort (40,300 lbs.) of any 4-6-0 locomotive ever to run in the United Kingdom.

1952 April 5th. Died

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