The North Star - The first Great Western steam engine

The North Star - The first and last Broad Gauge engine

The North Star was ordered as the first engine for Brunel's new Great Western Railway. Arriving before the rails she would run on had been laid, she would have a productive life in service until the death of broad gauge. Then she was preserved in a museum with the later engine "Lord of the Isles" until 1906, when both were scrapped, making her both the first and last of the original broad gauge engines.

The original broad gauge engine design was one of Brunel's few mistakes. He had limited the piston stroke and made other restrictions. When the two prototype engines, Vulcan and Thunderer were delivered, they performed poorly.

Daniel Gooch, the chief locomotive engineer, suggested buying two engines that he knew were available - the North Star and Morning Star - and rebuilding them for Broad Gauge. It was not entirely chance that he suggested them, as despite his youth, Gooch was an experience locomotive engineer who had worked for the company which built them. Some sources suggest he may even have been involved in their design and construction.

When they arrived there were immediate issues. The boilers were undersized, and the locomotives could scarcely pull sixteen tons at forty miles per hour. Work obviously needed to be done by the engineers, and the North Star, stuck in a shed until the full Great Western Line it would run on had been laid, became their prototype.

Gooch and Brunel pulled the engine apart, improving pistons, boilers and working on fuel efficiency. When they had finished she could pull forty tons and forty miles an hour, using less than half the coal she had used for her original runs.

In 1838 the North Star pulled the Great Western's inaugural train.

The changes made to North Star were promptly made to Morning Star, and eventually a total of twelve engines were built to this design. Called the Star Class, they were the first engines to run on the Great Western. Using the knowledge gained from working on the North Star, Daniel Gooch created first the Firefly class, which would be the workhorse of the Great Western and then the Iron Duke class, even faster and capable of pulling the fastest express train in the world.

In 1892 the gauge wars came to an end. Broad gauge, Brunel's revolutionary solution, lost to narrow gauge. With the rails they ran on removed, the scrappers' yards were full of broad gauge engines which could not be adapted to narrow gauge.

The North Star and one other engine "Lord of the Isles", an Iron Duke class, were preserved. Stored and displayed at Swindon Railworks, they were exhibits that toured the country raising awareness of the railways. Despite the affection held for them by the public and their place in history, this proved to be only a reprieve.

In 1905, in a message that has become notorious, the manager of the Swindon Railworks announced that both engines would be scrapped because they "were occupying valuable space". Allegedly the message was sent by George Jackson Churchward, who would use the name "North Star" and the "Star class" for his own narrow gauge engines less than two years later. Despite public opinion in their favour, both engines were destroyed in 1906.

The North Star had been the first and longest-lived of the broad gauge engines. Out-living her creators, and the railway she had been built for, she gave stirling service for over fifty years and had become an icon. Like the Great Western Railway itself, she was destroyed by shortsightedness, rather than economics or lack of demand.

In 1925, a replica was constructed for the exhibition. Although the funds were not available to make it run, (and when filmed it was pushed by another engine), parts from the North Star were used wherever possible.

Today the replica sits in pride of place in the York Railway Museum in pride of place, and one imagines that they would have some harsh words for anyone who called it a "waste of space".

Further reading:
About the Great Western Railway

Resources
L.T.C.Rolt's Biography
A trip to the Railway museum