A mere ten years after the Broad Gauge had succumbed, the transition through which the reins at Swindon were passed by Dean to Churchward was perfectly timed. Railways in the United Kingdom were on the cusp of their apogee with burgeoning traffic levels and high expectations for exciting years ahead. It was an exhilarating period and locomotive engineers responded in a variety of ways to meet the demands of greater loads, faster journeys, and enhanced efficiency.

The Edwardian years witnessed probably the most creative decade in the British locomotive story. A wide the diversity of fresh ideas were enacted, often with chequered results that frustrated hopes and plans. Only the Great Western sure-footedly navigated these upheavals with unqualified success to deliver within a few years, a range of standardised designs that coped competently with current needs and placed the company’s fleet 15-20 years ahead of the other railways. Many of these ideas and features were still prevalent among the most modern locomotives introduced half a century later. In the van of this revolution the 4-6-0 Saint Class was the first modern express passenger type in Britain. The design principles which the class embraced were applied with equal success to descendant mixed traffic classes on the GWR, and on other railways.

The work commences with evaluation of the challenges implicit in introduction of larger locomotives followed by description of how the project commenced through its three famous prototypes. Detailed descriptions chart how the design’s key features were developed, stimulated by Churchward’s studies of contemporary French and American practice. There are details of differences applied to individual engines through the years and a review of specific experimental rebuilding projects that involved particular class members. There is a guide to the multi-facetted renamings that affected a significant number of the seventy-seven ‘Saints’. A photographic album describes the various tenders that worked with the class, as well as the obligatory scenes of them at work and in decline. Appropriately, in conclusion there is homage to the type’s resuscitation in recent years through the efforts of the preservation community.

The WT ‘Specials’ series commenced in 2023 by furnishing a memento the most important British railway event of that year, celebration of the Castle Class’s centenary. This issue addresses no particular historic event but recognises in the broadest sense one of the most significant of all British steam types.