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GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line
Hall Green Station: gwrhg464a
Close up of image 'gwrhg464' showing the Great Western
Railway Steam Rail Car entering Hall Green station shortly after the North
Warwickshire Railway line was opened. The station's platform appears to
comprise paved slabs to the platform edge and paths to the building entrances
with gravel elsewhere. Note the white painted area on the bridge's left hand
abutment behind the signal arm. This feature can be seen in a number of
locations on this line where structures were close to signals and increased the
problem of visibility.
One of the London and South Western Railway's Steam Rail
Cars, from the Southsea Railway, was borrowed for trials on the Golden Valley
Line at Stroud. This proved successful and two GWR Steam Rail Cars, designed by
George Jackson Churchward, entered service on the same route on 12th October
1903. A further 44 were built during 1904 and 1905, and when production
finished in 1908 the fleet numbered 99 carriage units. All of the fleet were
built with four-wheel vertical-boiler power units and a four-wheel trailing
bogie under the carriage. There were 112 power units which could be exchanged
between carriages to suit maintenance needs.
The Steam Rail Cars could not only stimulate traffic on
branch lines, where small and cheap platforms could be built to serve small
traffic sources, but also in towns where they operated frequent services in an
attempt to fight off competition from new electric tramways. On some services
they proved so successful that they could not cope with the number of Cars
could not cope with pulling trailers on hilly lines. Most Steam Rail Cars were
converted into autocoaches and the power units were scrapped. Autotrains
offered most of the benefits of rail motors but because they were operated by
locomotives were much more flexible in operation and easier to maintain. The
first Steam Rail Car was withdrawn in 1914 but 65 survived in 1922 and the last
was not withdrawn until 1935.
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