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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Bentley Heath Crossing: gwrbh1613

Great Western Railway 2-4-2T 36xx class No 3604 with a class B headcode denoting a local suburban passenger service

Great Western Railway 2-4-2T 36xx class No 3604 with a class B headcode denoting a local suburban passenger service. This train is the 11:20 a.m. all stations from Snow Hill to Leamington Spa, photographed at Bentley Heath on 24th September 1910. The train is made up of eight, non-corridor, four wheel, close coupled coaches, with the first seven in crimson lake livery. At each end of this seven coach rake is a brake / third class carriage with a luggage compartment, lookout for the guard and two third class passenger compartments. The second coach has five compartments, so is likely to be an entirely third class carriage, while the next two have only four compartments each, so are probably first / second composite carriages. The final coach is painted chocolate and cream livery. No 3604 was built at Swindon Works as part of Lot 134 in March 1902 and was initially allocated to Chester shed, where several of these engines were used on the Chester and Birkenhead suburban services.

Designed for fast suburban passenger traffic, most of the 36xx class were allocated to the Birmingham Division, until increased carriage stock weights required them to be replaced in the 1930's by the more powerful 51xx class 2-6-2T prairie locomotives. Prior to coming to the Midlands however, No 3604 was known to have been allocated to a Devon shed. These 36xx class locomotives had Blue route availability, but were only designated a Group A power catagory. When built, this No 3604 had a parallel boiler design (type D0), as seen in this photograph, but in March 1913 a short cone boiler (type D2) was fitted and subsequently in July 1917 a superheated long coned boiler (type D3) was fitted. The locomotives were all fitted with Automatic Train Control (ATC) between 1928 and 1931. In January 1921 No 3604 was known to have been allocated to Leamington shed, but by January 1934 had moved north again and was allocated to Chester shed, from where it was withdrawn in November 1934.

Robert Ferris

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