GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1760

Great Western Railway 33xx (Bulldog) class 4-4-0 No 3327 ‘Marco Polo’ partly on the turntable adjacent to the New Yard Sidings at Snow Hill in 1932. This locomotive was built as No 3339 in January 1900 at Swindon Works as part of lot 118, but the number was changed in December 1912 as part of the general renumbering scheme designed to group locomotives of a similar power together. This was the first batch of Bulldog class locomotives and can be readily identified by their curved frames and combined oval name and number plates on the cabside, this later feature retained even after the renumbering. The locomotive was built with a Churchward Standard No 2 parallel domeless boiler with a belpaire firebox (type D0). This was changed to a superheated (12/72 type) Standard No 2 fully coned domeless boiler (type D3) in July 1910. Topfeed apparatus appeared a few years later. Along with these physical improvements to the design, the boiler pressure was also gradually increased, until it was standardised at 200 lbs. This gave a tractive effort at 85% of 21,060 lbs and placed these locomotives in Power Group B. The design changes had also increased the overall weight and the maximum axle weight was 17 tons, 12 cwt, which restricted these locomotives to the main lines and some branch lines (Blue routes).

This locomotive was original allocated to Landore shed (LDR) for fast secondary passenger duties, but in January 1905 the locomotive was known to have been allocated to Paddington (PDN). Five years later in March 1910, the locomotive was known to have been allocated to Hereford shed (HFD), while in January 1920 and January 1921 No 3327 had moved to the other side of the Malvern Hills to be found allocated to Worcester shed (WOS) and then in January 1934 at Chester shed (CHR). In 1934 this locomotive was paired with 3,000 gallon tender No 1610 (lot A62), which had been built in 1905. By this time the 4-6-0 mixed traffic ‘Hall’ class locomotives were displacing the ‘Bulldog’ class locomotives from their traditional role and they were being used for all kinds of subsidiary roles, but their blue route availability meant that a number continued to be usefully employed on the ex-Cambrian lines. No 3327 was withdrawn from Croes Newydd shed (CNYD) at Wrexham in March 1936.

Robert Ferris

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