GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Widney Manor Station: gwrwm1936

Ex-Great Western Railway 61xx class 2-6-2T large prairie No 6105 arriving at a rural Widney Manor station with the 6:25pm Knowle and Dorridge to Birmingham Moor Street suburban passenger service on Tuesday 18th August 1959. The train is on the down relief line, where both platforms had been reduced by 78 yards (to a platform length 138 yards), to allow the smoothing of the up relief line curve at the south end of the station. The locomotive has a Tyseley shed plate (84E) on the smoke box door.

Locomotive No 6105 was built in May 1931 at Swindon Works as part of lot 269. The 61xx class locomotives were similar to the 5101 class, but with a higher boiler pressure of 225 lbs. This was achieved by using boiler plates of the same dimensions, but manufactured from higher-tensile nickel steel. The increased pressure resulted in a tractive effort at 80% of 27,340 lb, placing the locomotive in power classification D. The maximum axle weight was 17 tons, 10 cwt restricting the locomotives to main lines and some branch lines (route colour Blue). These were powerful locomotives with rapid acceleration and were predominately allocated to the London Division for use on the suburban commuter services. They replaced the 2-4-0T Metro tanks, which had operated over the capital's electrified lines and when fitted with Automatic Train Control (No 6105 had ATC fitted in late 1932), the ATC contact shoe was designed to clip up automatically on entering an electrified section of track.

Locomotive No 6105 was initially allocated to Slough shed (SLO) and was known to have been allocated there in January 1938 and prior nationalisation in December 1947. In August 1950 No 6105 was known to have been allocated at Reading shed (81D). Reorganisation of the London suburban timetables in 1955 resulted in several 61xx class locomotives being transferred to other Divisions but the introduction of DMUs in the 1960s resulted in their mass withdrawal. No 6105 was an early casualty, being withdrawn from Old Oak Common shed (81A) in March 1960.

Robert Ferris

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