1975

For 1975 IMLEC returned to Newcastle with the Tyneside SME hosting the competition for the second time.

The winner this time was a 3 1/2 in. GWR "King" built and driven by Laurie Joyce. D. E. Lawrence gives us the details for the winning run:

"Run No. 6 This was commenced by Laurie Joyce's 3 1/2in. gauge King, but apparently the dynamometer car was misbehaving itself and the run was cancelled. Laurie was given another run at the end of the day. A call went out for some Birmingham members to attend to the dynamometer car and we kept our fingers crossed that it was nothing serious. I went to lunch and gave Martin Evans my notebook just in case the next run started before I got back. The programme was re-shuffled as the locomotive scheduled next had to drop its fire to avoid being penalised by an enforced delay.

The last Run No. 16. Laurie Joyce's locomotive is a 3 1/2 in. gauge Great Western Railway King 4-6-0, bearing the No. 6029 and name King Edward VIII. It is very nicely made and finished and won a bronze medal at an M.E. Exhibition a few years ago. It has now been running four years and is being re-painted, which accounts for the different shades of green on engine and tender. The engine has four 1 in. bore by 1 in. stroke cylinders with piston valves of 5/16 in. total travel. Laurie said that he had recently changed the valves and had now fitted new ones made of Fluorosint. The valve gear is Walschaerts inside the frames and driving the outside valves by the familiar GWR arrangement of rockers. The boiler is to his own design and has a two element radiant super- heater. There is a brick arch made from stainless steel filled with fireclay in the firebox and the grate has equal bars to air spaces; dampers are fitted front and rear. At the front end the chimney liner is slightly tapered outwards and the blast pipe has a convergent/divergent taper with a 3/16 in. diameter orifice. There are two Wakefield type two ram lubricators fitted. Boiler feed is by twin axle pumps and injector. I have driven this locomotive before and made comparisons with my own 3 1/2 in gauge King; I had found it a game little locomotive and a willing worker when pulling hard.

Load for the run was driver, observer plus 5 adult passengers which was a heavy enough load in these circumstances. The start was careful with little detectable slip and as soon as the train was moving, the King accelerated quickly up to about 8 m.p.h. and kept this up for 6 laps. During this time the safety valve lifted for part of each lap. There followed two laps at a little less speed, around 7 m.p.h., then speed
rose to around 8 m.p.h. again, at which it stayed. Laurie made small adjustments to the controls at nearly the same points on the track at each lap and also fired regularly. He had evidently got the firing rate exactly right. At half time there was no slackening of pace and performance and we thought we would be seeing a good run. Indeed this was the case; the King bowled along in confident style knocking off the laps as regular as clockwork; the first 29 laps took 28 minutes. A good deal of encouragement came from the still substantial crowd. There was some calling between driver and officials round about the end of the run when most of us thought it was finished. However, the train came to a stand on the west curve, where it remained for a few minutes while Laurie fired more coal. It was obvious that the run by then was over and the passengers dismounted, but the "King" had to raise enough steam to crawl back into the station where the run terminated properly. The excitement was quite acute at this stage. It' had been a really first class run, about the best I have ever seen for a 31 in. gauge engine and a fitting end to the long day. But in what place was the "King" to come?

In the caravan office we awaited the necessary data to be brought along for the result to be worked out. Suddenly there was a p.a. call for the judges to meet in the caravan where they gathered to discuss a matter to do with the application of the Rule relating to the time of the run. It was almost like an objection being lodged in the Derby! I very nearly put my foot in it at this point; I asked if I could say something which I thought pertinent and the judges kindly agreed, but I suddenly realised I might have known something they did not, so I said some- thing of little consequence and did some fast thinking. The judges decided that all the time must count in accordance with the Rules, and of course, they were quite right in this. The further coal Laurie used to get back to the station was "just his luck". While the judges were having their fairly brief discussion. I mulled over things in my own mind. The weighed bags of coal were in 2 lb lots; I had not seen Laurie take on any more coal during his run and he still had coal left at the finish! I had all the results of the previous runs in front of me and there had come upon me a very strong feeling that the "King's" run was very very good indeed. I could barely wait for Bob Kaye and Max Lewitt, the
official calculators, to produce the answers - Bob was most forbearingly patient with me. When the figures were put on the board, King Edward VIII was in first place, to Laurie Joyce's great delight. As I said at the beginning of this report, what a turn up for the book. How did a 3 1/2 in. gauge engine manage to beat the
5 in. gauge engines?"