GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill - Grouping Period Locomotives: gwrbsh1185

GWR 4-4-0 Badmington class No 3294 'Blenheim' is seen at the head of a down express at Platform 6 during the rebuilding of Snow Hill station. Built at Wolverhampton works in May 1898 No 3294 was renumbered in 1912 as No 4102 and remained in service until September 1928 when it was withdrawn from Tyseley shed to be scrapped circa 1928 by Swindon works. The Badminton class were introduced in 1897 as a development from the earlier Duke class. The name Badminton having been chosen after the celebrated Hunt. Further modifications to the design resulted in the Atbara Class entering service in 1900, the names for these locomotives generally being taken from contemporary military engagements or senior army commanders.

Later engines were named after cities of the British Empire. The final batch of locomotives were named after varieties of garden plant and in consequence were known as the Flower Class. These three types were later standardised and treated as a single class, so are listed together here. This class were subject to the 1912 renumbering of GWR 4-4-0 locomotives, which saw the Bulldog Class gathered together in the series 3300-3455, and other types renumbered out of that series. This class took numbers 4100-4172 (of which numbers 4101-4120 had previously been used by Flower Class locomotives).

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