GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill - Pre-grouping locomotives: gwrbsh59

GWR 4-4-0 No 3800 'County of Middlesex' is seen standing at Platform 7 on an up express train probably to Paddington in April 1914. Built as GWR No 3473 by Swindon Works in May 1904 it was renumbered as 3800 in 1912 and remained in service until March 1931 when it was withdrawn from Weston-super-Mare shed to be scrapped in March 1931 by Swindon works. Introduced in 1904 with an initial batch of ten locomotives, two more batches followed in 1906 and 1912 with minor differences. The biggest change was cosmetic with the straight footplate of the first thirty replaced with a graceful curved drop to each end, necessitating deeper cab sides, on the last ten in 1912.

The class were the last new GWR 4-4-0 design and by far the most modern, with inside frames and outside cylinders. They were designed as a part of Churchward's standardisation plan, but were found to have a front end too powerful for the wheel arrangement and all were withdrawn by the early 1930's. They were designed, in part, for the Hereford to Shrewsbury LNWR line over which the GWR had running powers, but on which they were expressly forbidden to use 4-6-0 locomotives. The 4-4-0 Counties were in effect a shortened GWR 2900 Class, providing engines powerful enough for the trains but with the requisite four coupled wheels. Courtesy Wikipedia.

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