GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Bentley Heath Crossing: gwrbh1619

Great Western Railway ‘Flower’ class 4-4-0 No 4105 ‘Camellia’ with an express headcode speeds past the up distant signal at Bentley Heath with the 11:15 am ex Snow Hill train on 27th September 1910. No 4105 was built at Swindon Works in May 1908 as part of Lot 176. This lot comprised twenty straight double framed, inside cylinder locomotives with 6 foot 8.5 inch wheels, all named after flowers. These locomotives were the favorites of the Chief Mechanical Engineer ‘George Churchward’ who was an expert horticulturist and it is said the names came from the most cherished flowers in his own garden. This class incorporated the lessons learned from their predecessors in the ‘Badminton’ and ‘Atbara’ classes and were all built with deeper frames and the standard No 2 boiler, which had a belpaire firebox and a domeless, long coned boiler (type D3). They were also given a large diameter copper capped chimney, which became a feature of Great Western Railway locomotives. A 12/72 superheater was fitted to the boiler of No 4105 in July 1910 and this increased the steam temperature, which removed condensation from the cylinders and made the boiler more efficient.

A new design of leading bogie frame based on the French De Glehn 4-4-2 locomotives was successfully incorporated becoming the standard for all future Great Western Railway locomotives with leading bogies. In December 1912 No 4105 was renumbered No 4153 as part of a general renumbering scheme designed to group locomotives with similar capabilities together. The ‘Flower’ class was classified in the A power group, while their 18 ton axle weight limited the class to the main Red routes. Although within a few years of their construction, 4-6-0 locomotives had already usurped the 4-4-0 locomotives from the West Country expresses and the other principle express links were operated by 4-4-0 ‘City’ and ‘County’ class locomotive, several of the ‘Flower’ class locomotives were used on the prestige Ocean Mail expresses. These expresses were operated to tempt passengers from the inbound transatlantic liners to travel to London from Fishguard in luxury instead of waiting another day and travelling from Liverpool. Most of the class however, were engaged on cross country express duties. By the grouping in 1921, these locomotives had been relegated to secondary duties and could even be seen hauling freight traffic . No 4153 was known to be allocated to Oxford Shed (OXF) in January 1921 and was still there in May 1922. No 4153 was finally withdrawn from Cardiff Shed (CDF) in July 1927.

Robert Ferris

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