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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton
Bentley Heath Crossing: gwrbh26
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Great Western Railway 4-6-0 29xx or Saint class
No 2949 Stanford Court on an Up express passing Bentley Heath Level
Crossing in 1932-33. The two new additional tracks had been laid on either side
of the original main line, but have yet to be ballasted. This train is believed
to be the 09:45am Paddington to Snow Hill (Birmingham). This train started as a
semi-fast train travelling via Didcot to Oxford with seven coaches, but two
coaches were detached at Oxford, where it left at 11:21am and operated as an
express stopping only at Banbury, Leamington and Warwick stations. No 2949 was
built at Swindon works in May 1912 as part of Lot 189 and as built was fitted
with a Standard No 1 fully tapered boiler (version D4), top feed and was
superheated. Designed as a two cylinder express locomotive it had a C power
classification and was limited to Red routes. No 2949 had outside steam pipes
fitted in December 1935 and a speedometer was fitted in the late 1930's. No
2949 was known to have been allocated to Taunton shed (TN) in January 1921.
In January 1934 was allocated to Bath Road shed in Bristol
(BRD) and in January 1938 allocated to Newport Ebbw shed (NPT). At
nationalisation, in December 1947, No 2949 was allocated to Swindon shed (SDN).
No 2949 was finally withdrawn in January 1952. The leading carriage is a 56
foot long clerestory dining car (diagram H2), originally built as a first class
dining car at the turn of the century, but in 1903 this coach was converted to
a composite dining car with seating for 16 first class and 18 other class
passengers in addition to the kitchen and pantry. Several of the H2 diagram
dining cars were used in ambulance trains during the First World War, but
reverted to their original use after. Most were declared surplus to
requirements following the construction of a series of modern restaurant
coaches between 1929 and 1931 and in early 1932 two H2 dining cars (nos. 9502
and 9516) were converted to Cafe Cars, as an experiment, with a 12
foot long buffet counter. From 5th July 1932 one of these Cafe cars was used on
this Paddington to Birmingham service. The experiment was considered to be
success and lead to the introduction of Quick-lunch bar cars in
1934.
Robert Ferris
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