The Great Western Railway in Warwickshire

The history of the Great Western Railway in Warwickshire was, like the London Midland Railway, a story of competing independent railway companies which over time became the GWR. Robert Ferris traces the origins of the company from the early days of railways in the county to its last days of independence when on 31st December 1947 it became the Western Division of British Railways.

To navigate within the history of the Great Western Railway in Warwickshire click the following links.

1930’s - Depression and Resurgence

As the new decade started Britain was in the midst of a World Economic Depression. Trade and Industry slumped, companies failed and unemployment rose. Without goods to move, the railways also suffered, resulting in services being slowed to conserve fuel and engines scrapped or mothballed. In 1929 the Government introduced the Development (Loan Guarantees and Grants) Act to restimulate the economy and create employment. This was targeted at national infrastructure regeneration and the Great Western Railway identified a programme of works costing £8M over five years. This included several major schemes in Warwickshire:

• Banbury Hump Yard with accommodation for 1,600 wagons, opened on 27th July 1931 at this major interchange point with the LNER. The four reception sidings and nineteen sidings in the yard allowed 38 trains to be dealt with each day, a single train of 60 wagons could be disposed of, over the hump in 12 minutes.
• Quadrupling 9.5 miles of Main Line between Olton and Lapworth Stations including five station rebuilds, was completed 28th May 1933. This extended the quadrupled section of track from Birmingham Moor Street through to Lapworth Station and allowed a more intensive suburban service (see gwrwm430). As part of the work a skewed open lattice girder bridge with a 152 foot span was required over the Warwick Road at Olton.
• Semi automatic signalling installed between Acocks Green and Solihull using two aspect motor-driven semaphore signals, together with trickle charged d.c. resistance-fed track circuits.
• Extension of Automatic Train Control from 372 miles by the addition of a further 1758 miles at a cost of £208k was authorised in 1930 and completed in 1938. This included installing ATC ramps on both the High Wycombe to Wolverhampton via Bicester Line and Birmingham to Gloucester via Stratford-upon-Avon Line in addition to equipping 3,000 locomotives (see gwrhj100a).
• Construction of 5,000 20ton steel coal wagons for hire by colliery companies at a reduced cost, includes 1,000 constructed by the Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Co. Ltd.

New Goods Traffic Facilities at:

• Bordesley – New substantial four stored warehouse built of reinforce concrete frame and brick panelling was opened in 1931. The upper floors of this building were 190 foot long and varied in width between 67 feet and 85 feet. It had two electric lifts and four one ton hoists to all floors.
• Soho and Winson Green – New goods yard with accommodation for 290 wagons, plus a four stored reinforced concrete and brick panelled warehouse (300 foot long by 75 foot wide) with 65,000 sq ft of storage space and four three ton electric lifts was constructed in 1933
• Hockley – An extension to existing warehouse with steel framed, brick panelled structure (92 foot long by 117 foot wide) was completed in 1933. Again with an electric lift and one ton hoist.
• Knowle – New Goods yard with steel framed corrugated steel covered shed (120 foot long by 40 foot wide), incorporating a one ton travelling crane. In addition a loading platform for 14 horse-boxes was constructed on the up main platform for the Knowle Racecourse traffic.
• Solihull – New goods yard with steel framed corrugated steel covered shed similar to that at Knowle (see gwrs1017a).
• Permanent Way Improvements including rerailing main running lines with 60 foot lengths of 95lb/yard bull-head rail resting in 46lb cast iron chairs on creosoted Oregon pine sleepers. Improved drainage was provide both in cuttings and by way of six inch stoneware pipes laid in the six foot through the stations. Lineside fencing was replaced with Concrete posts and steel wire fencing.
• Replacement of oil lighting at many stations with Electric Lamps where electricity was available, or alternatively with Paraffin vapour ‘Tilley’ Lamps. ·
• Reconstruction of Leamington Spa Station. Complete reconstruction of this principle station, details of which can be found at gwr/leamington-station.

The introduction of ‘Tote’ (Totalisator) betting in 1929, lead to resurgence in racecourse popularity despite the recession and in that year, Stratford Racecourse authorised a new grandstand at their steeple chase course. As this was adjacent to the Great Western Railway a new halt was proposed to facilitate excursion trains and the austere, but functional Stratford Racecourse Halt opened on 6th May 1933 (see gwr_src1455). New railway stock for horses, grooms, owners and spectators were introduced and special trains containing this stock could often be seen on Warwickshire’s railways heading for ‘Race Meets’. In 1930 the Great Western Railway carried 20,657 horses. All types of excursion trains had become an increasingly important source of railway revenue at this time with excursions from major cities laid on to special events, including; the Stratford Mop Fair, Football Match Specials and in May 1937, the coronation of George VI.

Throughout each Summer, Saturday Seaside Holiday Excursions were run to locations in the West Country and South Wales. These were especially popular with Birmingham and Black Country folks who thronged the platforms of Snow Hill to get away from the smoke and grime of industry. Although the Holidays with Pay Act (1938) ensured that every worker was entitled to a week’s paid holiday from this date, the summer holiday trend had started long before; with around one million of the nation’s employees having a week’s paid leave in 1920, four million in 1937 and after the act, eleven million in 1939. Such was the increase in excursion trains, sometimes running in several parts (relief trains), that the Great Western Railway introduced a new system of train identification in 1934 in order to assist Signalmen and Station Staff to recognise trains at a distance. This involved the use of large three figure plates on the front of the locomotive’s smokebox door. The first number indicated the train’s origin; for the first two years Wolverhampton and Birmingham trains used ‘3’, but this was change to ‘7’ in 1936. For the ordinary timetabled express passenger train the last number would be either a 0 or 5, but if one (or more) relief trains were required this number would be incremented.

As well as seaside holidays the depression had increased the popularity of cheaper holiday pursuits such as camping and hiking, especially with the younger generation, and the Great Western Railway introduced schemes to attract this market (see gwr/shakespeare_ramble). For ordinary passenger traffic the Great Western Railway experimented with stream lined Diesel Railcars. These provided a twice daily Birmingham to Cardiff express service via Stratford upon Avon from 9th July 1934 with catering and lavatory facilities for the passengers (see gwrsa1491). These railcars proved a success and were also used for semi-express traffic on the North Warwickshire Line between Birmingham and Stratford upon Avon (see gwrsr1115). On the North Warwickshire line the prospect of new suburban housing resulted in two new halts being built; The Lakes Halt on 3rd June 1935 and Whitlocks End Halt on 6th July 1936. While the following year, on 6th Sept 1937, a third halt was constructed south of Long Marston at Pebworth, near the site of the Broad Marston Halt which had closed as a wartime economy in 1916.

As train numbers increased on the Honeybourne line the single track section of line between Bearley and Hatton became a bottle neck to this traffic and the doubling of this line was completed in July 1939 with the intermediate station at Claverdon rebuilt at the same time (see gwrc909). Further major modernisation work was carried out at Hockley Goods yard with the old Outwards and Transfer sheds being replaced with the huge combined ‘Top Shed’, although this was not completed until 1943 during World War Two (see gwrhd711). New offices and an amenity block were also built at this time. Finally with the recession over, the later period of the decade saw the introduction of larger replacement locomotives for suburban passenger traffic and new types of specialist rolling stock designed to further improve efficiency and customer service:

• 2-6-2T 5101class Prairie Tank engines (see gwrls204)
• New suburban coach sets
• Dining car coaches on most express services
• Large windowed excursion coaches with corridors
• Conflat wagons for carrying containers which eliminated transhipment requirements
• 3,000 gallon milk tankers removed the need to man handle churns (see gwrbsh47)
• Parto Vans and Shock Absorbing wagons to provide better protection of goods

Robert Ferris