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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Bentley Heath Crossing: gwrbh26

Great Western Railway 4-6-0 29xx or ‘Saint’ class No 2949 ‘Stanford Court’ on an Up express passing Bentley Heath Level Crossing

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 No 2949 was finally withdrawn in January 1952.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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