R30404 Hornby Saint 4-6-0 Steam Locomotive 2999 Lady of Legend

After the Great Western Railway converted the last of its broad-gauge lines to standard-gauge in 1892, it set about a period of modernisation and, in the first decade of the 20th century, its Chief Mechanical Engineer, George Jackson Churchward, was tasked with designing a new range of standardised locomotives for its ‘new’ railway. To help him do this he designed or acquired a number of experimental locomotives of varying wheel arrangements and boiler designs and the first of these was a two-cylinder 4-6-0, designed in 1901 while he was still Chief Assistant to his predecessor William Dean, who retired in 1902.

Between 1902 and 1905, Churchward built and tested three prototype locomotives before settling on the third of these, No. 171, as the basis of his new production series. In total, 77 of the two-cylinder 4-6-0s were produced at Swindon, though 13 of these were initially built as 4-4-2s as Churchward was still unsure of the relative merits of the 4-4-2 and 4-6-0 wheel arrangements, having spent some time evaluating a French de Glehn 4-4-2 compound engine acquired as part of his ‘experimentation’. These 4-4-2s were converted to 4-6-0s in 1912/13 as Churchward was persuaded by the superior adhesion provided by the 4-6-0. The new locomotives proved highly successful, so much so that they established the design principles for GWR 4-6-0s for the next 50 years and, influenced the design of similar 4-6-0s with other British railway companies.
Of the first 19 locomotives, numbered 172-190, 12 were named after characters in the Walter Scott novels, with Directors of the GWR using up the remaining names. A second batch of similar locomotives was named after historical, mythological or poetic ‘Ladies’, while a third series of 20, built in 1907, were all named after ‘Saints’. A final batch of 20 produced between 1911 and 1913 was named after famous ‘Courts’.
Despite differences between the various batches built at Swindon, all 77 locomotives were grouped together as the GWR’s ‘2900’ Class and were collectively referred to as ‘Saints’. However, none of the class survived, the last being withdrawn in 1953, though an example has been recreated by back-converting an example of the subsequent development of the ‘Saint’ – the ‘Hall’ Class – into No. 2999 ‘Lady of Legend’.

As none of the original ‘Saint’ Class survived into preservation, the last being withdrawn in 1953, the Great Western Society purchased GWR ‘Hall’ Class No. 4942 ‘Maindy Hall’ from Barry scrapyard in 1974 with the intention of rebuilding it as a ‘Saint’. The ‘Hall’ was a direct development of the ‘Saint’, No. 2925 ‘Saint Martin’ being used as the prototype for the ‘Hall’ in 1924 by Charles B. Collett, Churchward’s successor as Chief Mechanical Engineer at the GWR. Work on the conversion finally got underway in 1995 and in April 2019, No. 2999 ‘Lady of Legend’ made its first moves in steam at Didcot Railway Centre