GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Hall Green Station: gwrhg464a

Close up of image 'gwrhg464' showing the Great Western Railway Steam Rail Car entering Hall Green station shortly after the North Warwickshire Railway line was opened. The station's platform appears to comprise paved slabs to the platform edge and paths to the building entrances with gravel elsewhere. Note the white painted area on the bridge's left hand abutment behind the signal arm. This feature can be seen in a number of locations on this line where structures were close to signals and increased the problem of visibility.

One of the London and South Western Railway's Steam Rail Cars, from the Southsea Railway, was borrowed for trials on the Golden Valley Line at Stroud. This proved successful and two GWR Steam Rail Cars, designed by George Jackson Churchward, entered service on the same route on 12th October 1903. A further 44 were built during 1904 and 1905, and when production finished in 1908 the fleet numbered 99 carriage units. All of the fleet were built with four-wheel vertical-boiler power units and a four-wheel trailing bogie under the carriage. There were 112 power units which could be exchanged between carriages to suit maintenance needs.

The Steam Rail Cars could not only stimulate traffic on branch lines, where small and cheap platforms could be built to serve small traffic sources, but also in towns where they operated frequent services in an attempt to fight off competition from new electric tramways. On some services they proved so successful that they could not cope with the number of Cars could not cope with pulling trailers on hilly lines. Most Steam Rail Cars were converted into autocoaches and the power units were scrapped. Autotrains offered most of the benefits of rail motors but because they were operated by locomotives were much more flexible in operation and easier to maintain. The first Steam Rail Car was withdrawn in 1914 but 65 survived in 1922 and the last was not withdrawn until 1935.

back