GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Henley in Arden - Old Station: gwrha669a

Close up of image 'gwrha669' showing GWR- half cab No 3556 0-4-4T derailed at Henley in Arden Old Station. The engine is one of the Dean double-framed tank engines which were originally built as 0-4-2Ts for work on the London suburban lines (3521 et seq.). The first three were fitted with condensing gear but all of them proved excessively prone to falling off the rails when it was least convenient and as a result were converted to 0-4-4T and banished to the "boondocks". They didn't work very well like that, either, and by the 1900s they'd been converted to 4-4-0 tender engines (3521 class) which lasted until the middle 1920s.

There were two batches constructed, the 3521-40 and 3541-60 class. The former were originally 0-4-2Ts, rebuilt to 0-4-4Ts in 1891/2, and later rebuilt as 4-4-0 tender engines. Numbers 3541-60 were 0-4-4 'convertibles' built for 7' work at the end of the broad gauge era, and most were rebuilt as 4-4-0s, a process commencing in 1900. These 0-4-4Ts had a reputation for instability. 3548 and 3521 were involved in the Doublebois accident of 1895.

Originally built 1887. The trailing wheels had chain-hung spring gear in their original form. From Ahrons: Some of the beasts (3541-3559 originally) began as convertable broad-gauge 0-4-2Ts. The last of them came out as a broad-gauge 0-4-4T (3560). They were all prone to "wagging their tails". The bogie under 3560 (which was the only broad gauge side tank engine) had wooden-centred wheels. All of these engines were converted to standard gauge in 1892.

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