GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill - British Railways Period Locomotives: gwrbsh40

Ex-GWR 4-6-0 Hall class No 4941 'Llangedwyn Hall' is seen standing at Platform 6 on a down Class A express service to Wolverhampton circa 1958. Built at Swindon works in July 1929 No 4941 was first allocated to Newton Abbot shed and was later to be recorded allocated to Ebbw Junction shed in Newport in August 1950 followed by Llanelly shed in March 1959 and finally Westbury shed where it was withdrawn in October 1962 to be scrapped by J Cashmore of Newport.

John Lewis writes, 'The above photograph is a curiosity as here we have an express complete with class A head lamps - and the leading coach is a non-corridor suburban third! Would you be criticised for this on your model railway? Adrian Vaughan replied, 'The use of inappropriate passenger rolling stock has a distinguished history. On 26th November 1995 Pat Garland told me that before the Second World War he had seen GWR Auto coach No W1 formed in Saturday relief trains at Snow Hill. In 1938 the GWR had a severe shortage of passenger stock relative to the number of people wishing to travel. On 19th August 1938 Sir James Milne reported to the Director that on summer Saturdays any coach might be pressed into service on long distance express trains.

In his report he stated that 'on two recent Saturdays the number of non-corridor coaches used in long distance expresses leaving Paddington was respectively 110 and 80' (he did not say which Saturdays). Some of these 80 and 110 coaches were four-wheeled workmens' carriages with wooden slatted seats. He went on to say that these trains were packed to the doors leaving Paddington and invited the Directors to imagine what happened further down the line - and begged for the money to build more proper carriages. He concluded, 'These circumstances are deplorable and must inevitably result in passengers abandoning rail travel for the motor coach or private car. Railway travel has got to be made more attractive if it is to hold its own against the roads.'

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