The design of a Pacific has always been regarded as the acme of a chief mechanical engineer's career, yet the CME did little more than outline the parameters he wanted and it was his chief draughtsman and the drawing office staff who worked up the details and turned them into a locomotive. Four Pacifies never went beyond the prototype stage, Churchwards No 111 The Great Bear, Stanier s 'Turbomotive' No 6202, which was rebuilt as the hybrid 'Princess Royal'/'Coronation' No 46202 Princess Anne, Thompsons 'Al/1' No 4470 Great Northern, and Riddles' British Railways Standard No 71000 Duke of Gloucester, which replaced No 46202 after it was severely damaged at the Harrow & Wealdstone accident on 8 October 1952. Of this quartet, Great Northern has always been regarded as a pariah having for accounting purposes been regarded as a rebuild of Gresley's first GNR Pacific, No 1470 Great Northern. At the same time Thompson has been vilified for what some, who should have known better, regarded as the desecration of that locomotive, and yet Collett on the GWR received little more than raised eyebrows at his rebuilding of Churchwards iconic Pacific The Great Bear as a 'Castle' class 4-6-0.
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