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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1761

Great Western Railway 29xx (Saint) class 4-6-0 No 2903 'Lady of Lyons' operating as the station pilot at Birmingham Snow Hill

Great Western Railway 29xx (Saint) class 4-6-0 No 2903 'Lady of Lyons' operating as the station pilot at Birmingham Snow Hill in the final years before nationalisation. No 2903 is acting as the station pilot, which was a regular duty for these locomotives. In this photograph locomotive No 2903 is attaching a six wheeled 3,000 gallon milk tank wagon to the rear of a waiting up express. The milk tank wagon is branded IMS, which stands for Independent Milk Suppliers. This company had a large dairy at Donnington, near Shrewsbury and regularly transported milk to the capital (see also gwrbsh47). No 2903 was built in May 1906 at Swindon Works as part of lot 164. As originally built the locomotive had a fully coned domeless Standard No 1 boiler with a belpaire firebox (type D4). In March 1909 a half coned domeless Standard No 1 boiler (type D2) was fitted, but the following month this was replaced with another fully coned boiler (type D4). Superheating was fitted in August 1910. In July 1920 a half coned boiler (type D2) was fitted, to be replaced with a fully coned boiler (type D4) in July 1922. With a boiler pressure of 225 lbs and eighteen and a eighth inch cylinders, the tractive effort at 85% was 23,382 lbs and the locomotive was placed in power group C. The maximum axle weight was 18 tons, 8 cwt which restricted the locomotive to main lines and a few branch lines (Route colour – Red). No 2309 was the first of the class to receive outside steam pipes in November 1930. This came as part of a general overhaul of the locomotive's front end for at the same time new curved drop ends and cylinders were fitted.

In 1934, the locomotive was known to be paired with 3,500 gallon tender No 1838 from lot A83 which had been built in December 1911. From 1937 all the class were equipped with speedometers. No 2903 was originally allocated to Pontypool Road shed (PPRD) and was known to have been allocated there in January 1921. In January 1934, the locomotive was known to have been allocated to Swindon shed (SWN) and in January 1938, allocated to Chester shed (CHR). Prior to nationalisation in December 1947, No 2903 was known to have been allocated to Tyseley shed (TYS). Note that in the photograph the shed code (TYS) is stencilled behind the buffer beam on the running plate. No 2903 was finally withdrawn from Tyseley shed (84E) in November 1949. The railway enthusiast Mr AV Goodyear recorded No 2903 on a two hour Birmingham up express shortly after the direct route opened in 1910. The train stopped at Leamington and the load was 320 tons (gross). He was particularly interested in the up hill performance and recorded the minimum speeds on all gradients. The Warwickshire portion of the record is produced below:

Distance (miles) Location Time
(Minutes / Seconds)
Minimum Speeds (m.p.h.)
0.0 Snow Hill 0 00  
3.25 Tyseley 5 20  
7.0 Solihull 9 30  
17.1 Hatton Junction 23 08 (after Signal check)
21.25 Warwick 26 32  
23.25 Leamington 28 57 (Timetabled stop)
6.0 Southam Road 9 17 48.5
11.0 Fenny Compton 14 35  
14 Milepost 92 17 47 58
19.9 Banbury 22 57  
87.1 Paddington 91 50  

Robert Ferris

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