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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](bentleyheath/gwrbh1619.jpg) |
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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