GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1679

The sector table at the south end of bay platforms Nos 3 and 4 at Snow Hill Station with Great Western Railway class 39xx 2-6-2T No 3907 posed for the photograph on the centre road of the sector table. An electric motor fixed underneath the sector table wound ropes to pull the table in to line with either of two approach tracks. Gaps underneath the adjacent platforms allowed the unoccupied roads of the sector table to move under them. The electric motor was operated by the lever on the left, which was released by the North Signal Box. It was designed to handle locomotives with axle weights up to twenty tons and tested for a total weight of 170 tons. By 1929, the sector table was disused and it was removed in 1938.

Locomotive No 3907 was rebuilt at Swindon works between October and November 1907 from Dean Goods 0-6-0 tender locomotive No 2508, which had originally been built in November 1896. Twenty surplus 2301 class Dean Goods locomotives were converted to prairie tank 39xx class locomotives as lot 167. This was as a result of the development of passenger traffic in the Birmingham area, created by the opening of the North Warwickshire line, which required more powerful suburban tank engines. These locomotives had a ‘Group B’ power class and their axle weight restricted them to Blue and Red routes. Most of the 39xx class were subsequently fitted with top feed and in August 1915 No 3907 was superheated. In January 1921 No 3907 was known to have been allocated to Gloucester Shed (GLO) and was still there in 1922. By 1929, many of the 39xx class locomotives had been displaced to secondary freight duties in South Wales, replaced by the more powerful and faster 2-6-2T locomotives of the 51xx class. No 3907 was fitted with Automatic Train Control in 1930, but was withdrawn from Barry Shed (BRY) in September 1934.

Robert Ferris

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