Churchward’s Masterpiece—Lode Star In-Depth Tour | Curator with a Camera

Get a Lode (Star) of this!

Join Anthony Coulls for this instalment of Curator with a Camera, as he looks at Lode Star, the sensational steam engine designed by George Jackson Churchward.

"This is an incredibly precise and complex machine."

Built in the 1907, Lode Star was one of the first GWR 4000 Class to be created—and today it's the last to survive.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:22 The modernisation of the railway
01:05 Churchward’s experimentation
02:23 Lode Star
02:59 Piston rods and valve gear
04:08 What a corker!
05:21 A maintenance nightmare…
05:56 ...but an effective loco
07:03 The Star Classes
08:11 Edwardian elegance
09:20 Cab tour
16:14 Legacy of Lode Star
16:48 Like and subscribe!

#gwr #steamengine #lodestar

[ScreamingLordStokes]

Despite being a Doncastrian, and growing up just two miles from Gresley's office, hearing the Plant works former air raid siren signalling lunch time for the staff, i couldn't help being drawn to the clean lines and powerful looks of this GWR family of engines. Simple from the outside, ingenious and beautifully engineered inside they have a masterful stately prescence about them. Thank you for a wonderful description of this fabulous machine.

[JaKaJaEm]

My son met Anthony at locomotion last week. His passion for the project was clearly on show and loves that people are watching these videos and then being inspired to visit all their sites. Highly recommend anyone who hasnt been, to visit all their museum sites and see these engines in person AND maybe stumble across all the hosts of these videos and share your appreciation for them in person!

[NickRatnieks]

Churchward's Saint Class was described by OS Nock as the "keystone in the arch" and was arguably the most important engine built in Britain as it was such a huge leap forward in loco development. Churchward was interested in "balance" and the avoidance of "hammer blow" to avoid track damage that a two cylinder engine like the Saint might cause and that was also why he was interested in those four cylinder French locos that were bought. Churchward's engines were considered ugly when introduced and they were beautified by Holcroft- with the curves instead of the previous drop ends and these curves debuted on the Star. Both the Saint and the Star had the same boiler which had very high pressure and very high degree of ( for the time) superheating- and that was revolutionary in Britain back then. Arguably, the Star was complicated and maybe developing the Saint further would have made sense. Clearly, the Star was the start of a family of successful engines that also extended to the LMS when Stanier left the GWR for that railway. During World War One the brass beading was removed from the splashers and for some reason this was not replaced when the engine was restored for display- although the later "elbow" steam pipes were removed as they were a later addition. The Saint really was the engine that brought the Great Western into the 20th century- not the Star and Stanier's Black 5 class- a very close but mixed traffic derivative of the Saint hauled Britain's last steam train in August 1968 which sums up the reality of the importance of the Saint class.

[althejazzman]

Steam locos are so fascinatingly complicated to operate, and vary so much.

[PeterMullinger]

I was initially raised in Kingskerswell between Newton Abbot and Torquay alongside the Torbay line. I loved the GWR house style. Imagine my shock when we moved to Poole when I was 10 years old and was confronted by the mess of loco styles that defined the Southern!

[roygardiner]

Beautiful engineering. Truly beautiful to behold.

[hmsjr]

It would be great to see a view of the running gear from an inspection pit!

[GreatWestern]

The GWR 4-6-0's from Stars to Castles and Kings were arguably the MGM of British locomotives.

[DavidWilliams-xxql]

Anthony, I'm a relative newcomer to this series but the work that you and your colleagues do in putting together the videos is superb. Educative and hugely watchable, there can scarcely be a better combination. Sincere thanks.

[williamkennedy]

I visited the museum in April with my family, a really good day out and i do remember Load Star,
Many thanks, Sisaket Thailand.

[iansmith]

Excellent tutorial, Doctor Coulls. As a slight aside, the engineer Harold Holcroft was the man responsible for the GWR 'house' style. He later went on to work with Sir Nigel Gresley in developing the valve gear for locomotives, such as Flying Scotsman & Mallard.

[adrianbruce]

I'd never realised what the condenser in the cab roof did for the displacement lubricator. I'd made a wild guess that it was for heating - which made zero sense with the firebox in front! Thank you for that..

[DavidJones-mnie]

The GWR French compounds were built in 1903 and 1905, not 1906.
1906 was the year that the first Star, North Star, was built, using some of the ideas embodied in the compounds.
The LNWR 4-6-0 that could be built cheaper than a Star wasn't the Claughton class illustrated, but the much simpler 2 cylinder Experiment class. In 1910 a locomotive exchange between the Star and Experiment classes was carried out on the 2 railways, with the Star completely justifying its higher price. The LNWR brought out the 4 cylinder Claughtons in 1913, as an equivalent to the Star, but they had missed out several of the details that made the Stars so good. The Claughton's performance was still inferior to the Star's.

[mykeready]

Another fantastic video that is incredibly well presented. I know road steam isn’t what the national rail museum is about but it would be interesting to see the difference between the relative simplicity of say a Burrell traction engine and the complex rail locos done in the curator with a camera series.

[SaturnCanuck]

The layout of the cab is so clean and organized -- unlike many that you have shown in the past. Anthony is the best curator BTW, more of him

[timu]

I really appreciate this top drawer tour of the Star class. Thanks so very much.

[marmion]

Imagine if the chronology had been slightly different....if Churchward had taken charge slightly later. Suppose that he had got the GWR to buy deGlehn / du Bousquet 4-6-0s instead of Atlantics. Compounds that could climb Dainton with a decent load. Could have totally changed the direction of British locomotive development.

[alanhindmarch]

Thanks Anthony for another great video

[richardswiderski]

Great insight into a great engine.Thank you for these videos.

[roberthocking]

A wonderful engine and video, well done team