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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Moor Street Station: gwrms1719

Three Great Western Railway designed locomotives running light past Moor Street Station on the down main line to Snow Hill

Three Great Western Railway designed locomotives running light past Moor Street Station on the down main line to Snow Hill station in 1959. The line through Snow Hill tunnel was a 1 in 45 incline and 59 yards south of the tunnel, catch points were provided on the down line to divert any break-away vehicles into a specially constructed sand drag. This prevented the break-away vehicles from rolling back any further along the main line. The sand drag can be seen in the photograph, it was 180 yards long and comprised a pair of narrow troughs, in each of which was a normal rail covered by about four inches of sand. Leading the trio, tender first is a 2 cylinder 4-6-0, 68xx (Grange) class, mixed traffic locomotive, followed by a 0-6-0PT 57xx class, pannier tank engine and in the rear nearest the camera is 2-6-2T 51xx class, large prairie locomotive No 4173. Locomotive No 4173 was built after nationalisation in October 1949 at the Swindon works as part of lot 369, so never carried GWR livery, but was turned out in lined black. Designed for suburban passenger services, the prototype of the class (No 99) was introduced in 1903 by Great Western Railway CME Jackson Churchward.

The basic design remained the unchanged, but over the years incremental design improvements were incorporated, including; larger coal and water capacity, curved front end and struts, increased boiler pressure, superheating and outside steam pipes. A total of 306 locomotives of this design were built, with lot 369 being the last batch. The original Great Western Railway classification was; power – D / route limitation - Red, but following a weight redistribution, the locomotives were reclassified to also travel on the lighter Blue routes. The British Railways power class was - 4MT. Locomotive No 4173 was known to have been allocated to Stourbridge shed (84F) in August 1950 and March 1959. After a relatively short service the class were displaced by the introduction of diesel multiple units (DMUs) with No 4173 being withdrawn from Stourbridge shed in December 1964 and scrapped at J. Cashmore, Great Bridge in April 1965.

Robert Ferris

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