GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill - Pre-grouping locomotives: gwrbsh1198

GWR 4-2-2 'Dean Single' No 3035 'Beaufort' is seen with steam escaping from is safety valves as it stands at the head of a down express to Wolverhampton. Originally built carrying the name 'Bellerophon' No 3035 was renamed in December 1895. The class was originally built for working the West of England expresses between London and Newton Abbot via Bristol and for several years they practically monopolised this route. Unfortunately as train loads began to increase from the turn of the century and more 4-4-0 locomotives were produced, their usefulness relegated them to occasional turn of this traffic until a larger turntable was installed at Wolverhampton Stafford Road shed and the class began working to Birmingham and Wolverhampton from Paddington. In addition, other routes given over to the 4-2-2s included Worcester to Oxford and Bristol to Taunton.

This was the period when George Churchward was experimenting with various boiler and firebox designs. The first alteration concerned the clackboxes that feed water to the boiler. A complete absence of clackboxes favoured by Dean on the initial engines was soon replaced by enormous brass mountings on the side of the barrel. In turn, these were superseded in 1898 by a much smaller mounting with a vertical feed pipe which gave way to a hidden feed to the bottom of the barrel. In the same year, in common with many classes, thicker tyres were introduced increasing the wheel diameters to 4 feet 1½ inches bogie, 7 feet 9 inches driver and 4 feet 7½ inches trailing.

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