The Bullet Nose Steam Locomotive
Postcard From The Past: The No.6014 King Henry VII locomotive #
GWR King Class 4-6-0 No. 6014 King Henry VII in experimental streamlined form (March 1935 Swindon Depot). From an original Real Photographs Co. (Liverpool) print in the Vintage Buses Collection. - Click image to enlarge
Video created by British Pathé #
History #
- 1928: Built at GWR Swindon Works (Lot 243) as part of the initial batch of twenty 6000 King Class 4-6-0 locomotives. Enters service allocated to Newton Abbot shed.
- 1935: Selected by GWR Chief Mechanical Engineer Charles Collett for experimental aerodynamic streamlining. Swindon fits a bullet nose over the smokebox door, cylinder fairings, buffer beam cowlings, safety valve shrouding, and a distinctive V-shaped front cab window.
- 1936 to 1937: Finding the bulbous nose casing and front cowlings restrictive for depot maintenance and cleaning, GWR staff progressively remove the front streamlined casing while retaining the V shaped cab.
- 1943: Final remnants of the front fairings are completely stripped during overhaul, leaving only the V-shaped cab front as a trace of the 1935 experiment.
- 1950: Reassigned to London’s Old Oak Common (81A) shed.
- 1954: Fitted with Alfloc water treatment equipment to reduce boiler scaling.
- 1957: Fitted with a double blast pipe and double chimney at Swindon to improve draughting, performance, and coal efficiency.
- 1959: Transferred to its final shed allocation at Wolverhampton Stafford Road.
- 1962: Officially withdrawn from service by British Railways after accumulating 1,830,386 operational miles.
- 1963: Sold to metal merchants Cox & Danks and broken up for scrap at their yard in Langley Green, Oldbury.