GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1767

Great Western Railway 40xx (Star) class 4-6-0 No 4023 'King George' with a class 'A' (express passenger train) headlamp code, indicated by the two red lamps at either end of the buffer beam, waits alongside the No 4 bay platform on 9th July 1912. This locomotive underwent several name changes. When the new King class locomotives were introduced No 4023 was renamed 'The Danish Monarch' (July 1927), but this was subsequently shortened three months later to 'Danish Monarch'. In the Second World War, several months after the Germans occupied Denmark, the nameplate was removed altogether in November 1940 and the words ‘Star Class’ painted on the splashers.

Locomotive No 4023 was built at Swindon Works in June 1909 as part of lot 178. Unlike the previous 'Star' locomotives this batch had the inside cylinder casting modified with concave curves to improve the locomotive’s appearance. These four cylinder locomotives were designed to handle the crack passenger expresses, including the Two Hour Paddington to Birmingham expresses on the new direct route, which opened in 1910. They were fitted with a Churchward Standard No 1 coned boiler with a belpaire firebox, which operated at 225 lb pressure producing a tractive effort at 85% of 25,000 lbs and the locomotive was classified in power group D. The maximum axle weight was 18 tons, 4 cwt, which restricted the locomotive to main lines and a few branch lines (route colour – red). When built No 4023 had a fully coned saturated boiler (type D4), but in September 1912, a 14 tube / 84 element superheated fully coned boiler with topfeed was fitted. At about the same time the cylinders were increased to fifteen inch diameter, which increased the tractive effort at 85% to 27,800 lbs, but there was no change to the power group. In August 1915, this boiler was exchanged for a superheated refurbished secondhand half coned boiler (type D2) and only several years after the end of the war, in June 1920, was another superheated fully coned boiler (type D4) fitted. The bogie brake gear seen in the photograph was found to be more trouble than it was worth and removed prior to 1924. While other brake modifications included the introduction by 1919 of four cone ejectors, which allowed the vacuum brake on long trains to be released quickly. All the 'Star' class locomotives were fitted with Automatic Train Control (ATC) before 1927 and most including No 4023 had speed recorders by 1937.

No 4023 was originally paired with 3,500 gallon Churchward pattern tender and in 1934, No 4023 was recorded as paired with No 1771 (from lot A78 and built 1908), which is this design of tender. In January 1921 No 4023 was known to have been allocated to Old Oak Common shed (PDN) and was also there in May 1922, but following the introduction of the more powerful 'Castle' class locomotives, the 'Star' class were gradually redeployed on to secondary express routes. In January 1934 No 4023 was known to have been allocated to Bath Road shed (BRD) in Bristol and in January 1938, was known to have been allocated to Landore shed (LDR) north of Swansea. No 4023 was also allocated there prior to nationalisation, in December 1947 and was withdrawn from the same shed in July 1952.

Robert Ferris

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