GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1787

An unidentified Great Western Railway 2-6-0 43xx class locomotive with class B headcode (denoting an ordinary passenger train) waiting at platform No 5 in the early 1920s. The 43xx class proved to very versatile locomotives and they were equally at home hauling freight traffic or standing in on express passenger duties. Eventually 342 locomotives of this class were built, but there were variations which can be used to aid identification. For example, the locomotive in this photograph has a rain strip on the cab roof, a short lived addition introduced on locomotives after No 5340. It has the early type large radius motion bar cross frame plate, which was subsequently modified with a flange on locomotives after No 5384. The right hand side elongated centre wheel splasher disappeared at about the same time. The locomotive also has no superheater damper on the smokebox, a feature only found on locomotives constructed prior to No 5350, but removed from all the locomotives by 1925. These variations point to this locomotive being from either lot 208 or 209 (Nos 5350 to 5383). All these thirty three locomotives were built at Swindon Works between 9th July 1918 and 10th July 1920.

From the start the 43xx locomotives had all the recognisable Great Western Railway tender locomotive features; a coned domeless boiler (with belpaire firebox, brass safety valve and drumhead smoke box), superheating, top-feed apparatus and curved drop frame ends. The boiler was a standard No 4 operating at a pressure of 200 lbs, which in 1938 was increased to 225 lbs. At 200 lbs this gave a tractive effort at 85% of 25,670 lbs, which placed the locomotive in power group D. The maximum axle weight was 17 tons, 13 cwt, which restricted the locomotive to main lines and some branch lines (Route Colour – Blue). The locomotives suffered from excessive flange wear when working lines with sharp curves and the majority of the locomotives in lots 208 and 209 were modified in 1928 by inserting an 11.5 inch thick casting behind the buffer beam. The modified locomotives we renumbered into the 83xx series but the increased weight resulted in these locomotives being restricted to Red routes. To increase their operational versatility these casting were removed from the locomotives in 1944 and their original number and route colour was restored. Most of the lot 208 and 209 locomotives survived into British Railways ownership and typically had completed over 1,200,000 miles when withdrawn.

Robert Ferris

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