GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1763

In the blazing sunshine of a holiday Saturday in August 1939, an unidentifiable Great Western Railway 49xx (Hall) class 4-6-0 waits to depart from down platform No 5. This is the 9:45 a.m. express to South Wales, which will arrive at Cardiff at 1:24 p.m. and on Saturdays only would journey on to Tenby and Pembroke Dock. It stopped enroute at Smethwick Junction (9:54), Old Hill (10:01), Stourbridge Junction (10:09), Hagley (10:15), Kidderminster (10:23), Droitwich (10:37), Foregate Street - Worcester (10:47) and Hereford (11:45). The 49xx class were mixed traffic locomotives developed by modifying the 29xx (Saint) class two cylinder express passenger design by the replacement of the original six foot, eight-and-a-half inch coupled wheels with smaller six foot wheels.

The first locomotive of the class was rebuilt from locomotive No 2925 ‘Saint Martin’ in December 1924. After a period of evaluation another eighty were ordered. The 49xx class locomotives had a tractive effort at 85% of 27,275 lb, which classified them in power group D and their maximum axle weight was 18 tons, 9 cwt, which limited them to main lines and some branch lines (Route code - Red). Despite the route limitation, the design proved to be extremely successful and the locomotives were found to be equally at home hauling heavy freight trains or fast express services. As a result, by August 1939 there were one hundred and eighty six 49xx locomotives distributed across the Great Western Railway.

Robert Ferris

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