GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill - British Railways Period Locomotives: gwrbsh1255

An ex-Great Western 4-6-0 49xx 'Hall' class locomotive No 5955 'Garth Hall' standing at the end of platform 7 with the 3 45 Swansea train in June 1957. The journey will be through the Snow Hill tunnel and via Stratford-upon-Avon and Gloucester. No 5955 ‘Garth Hall’ was built at Swindon Works in December 1935, as part of the sixth batch of this class of engines (Lot 297). The Halls were designed as multi-purpose engines to replace the 2-6-0 43xx class Mogul locomotives. They proved to be a very successful design capable of handling both heavy freight and express passenger duties and the class eventually numbered 330 locomotives (including 71 modified Halls, some of which were built by British Railways after nationalisation).

No 5955 was withdrawn from Bristol Barrow Road shed (82E) in April 1965 and scrapped in August 1965 at Birds, Risca. The first coach in the train is No W6104W, which was one of four 57 foot, bow-ended, ganged composite coaches (diagram E136) completed on 27th April 1929 (Lot 1398). This coach was built to operate in one of a pair of six coach sets, which each comprised; two composites, two full thirds and two brake thirds. These sets were the first Great Western Railway coaches to have their windows flush with the panelling (instead of recessed) producing a cleaner external appearance. The coach number was given the W prefix and suffix after nationalisation. The photograph shows the corridor side of the coach. Most bow-ended coaches were withdrawn in the early 1960s.

Robert Ferris

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