GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Hall Green Station: gwrhg2324

Ex-Great Western Railway 56xx class 0-6-2T No 5605 leaves Hall Green Goods Yard with a local goods on Friday 9th April 1965. The train comprises several empty steel open mineral wagons and is heading in the direction of Bordesley Sidings. The single lamp on the right of the locomotive's buffer beam designates a class K (9) headcode indicating a freight, mineral or ballast train stopping at intermediate stations. Several of the sidings at Hall Green's Goods Yard had been removed in February 1964, with the last survivors remaining until August 1969. The semaphore stop signal prevented trains on the main line from approaching the switch that provided a trailing connection from the Down main to the Goods Yard. Two disc signals (one of which can be seen between the semaphore signal and the switch) indicated to the train drivers when the route was set to and from the goods yard.

Locomotive No 5605 was built in January 1925 at Swindon Works as part of lot 228. Following the Grouping in 1923, the Great Western Railway needed to build replacement locomotives for the Welsh constituent companies and decided to retain the existing popular 0-6-2T wheel arrangement for the new class. The 56xx class had a standard No 2 boiler operating at 200lb, which developed a tractive effort at 85% of 25,800lb (Power Group - D). The maximum axle weight was 18tons, 17cwt, which restricted the locomotives to main lines and a few branch lines (Route Classification – Red). The water capacity of the side tanks was 1,900 gallons and the bunker could hold 3tons, 15cwt of coal.

Like most of the 56xx class locomotive No 5605 was mainly to be found operating mineral trains in the valleys of South Wales. The locomotive was initially allocated to Barry shed (BRY) and was also known to be there in January 1934. No 5605 was allocated to other South Wales sheds and could be found at; Newport shed (NPT) in January 1938, Cathays shed (CYS) prior to nationalisation in December 1947, Rhymney shed (88D) between 1949 and January 1961, Merthyr shed (88D) between January 1961 and May 1964, Abercynon shed (88E) between May 1964 and October 1964, and finally at Rhymney shed (88D) between October 1964 and early April 1965 when the shed shut. Official Western Region records post 1963 have not survived, but Mike Morant helped to identify that No 5605 moved to Tyseley (2A) just before this photograph was taken and then to Croes Newydd (6C) in January 1966, from where No 5605 was withdrawn in May 1966.

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