|
|
GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton
GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line
Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1748
|
Ex-West Midland Railway 2-4-0 106 class No 111,
as Great Western Railway 2-4-0 Q class No 201 stopped on the track
adjacent to the tubular beam, which is part of Great Charles Street bridge and
the original Birmingham North Signal Box. This photograph was taken after 1903
and prior to the station reconstruction work in 1908. The original Birmingham
North Signal Box had sixty switch and signal levers and was opened before 1884.
It survived until 1910. A second temporary timber Birmingham North Signal Box
with twenty-five levers on a three bar frame was constructed during the Snow
Hill Station reconstruction and operated between 1908 and 1909. Both these
Signal Boxes were replaced by the Siemens power Signal Box, which opened on
31st October 1909. Below the open window at the left of the Signal Box is
hanging a round S plate, which indicated that the Signal Engineers
were required to attend. Note also the early rotating type ground signal in the
foreground. The locomotive was one of six 2-4-0 locomotives built by Beyer
Peacock & Co. (Makers No 272), which were delivered to the West Midland
Railway in 1862.
The locomotive was numbered No. 111. It originally had a
wheelbase of six foot, six inches + seven foot, ten inches and the wheel
diameters were three foot, six inches (leading) and six foot (coupled). When
the West Midland and the Great Western railways amalgamated in the following
year (on 1st August 1863) a total of 131 West Midland Railway locomotives were
absorbed into Great Western Railway stock and these were renumbered. In
February 1879 this locomotive now No. 201 was renewed at Wolverhamptons
Stafford Road Works as an express 2-4-0T side-tank engine with 1,000 gallon
capacity and condensing apparatus. The leading wheels changed to four foot and
the wheelbase lengthened to eight foot + eight foot, six inches. Two other
locomotives from the original six were similarly modified in the following two
years. In March 1884, No. 201 was returned to a tender locomotive configuration
and in November 1905 the wheel were changed again, with their diameters
increased to four foot, one-and-a-half inch (leading), and six foot, two inches
(coupled). The locomotive received a variety of different types of boilers; in
February 1895 a boiler with a raised firebox casting and centrally placed dome
(R3 type), in August 1903 a boiler with a belpaire firebox and a forward
positioned dome (B2 type) and finally in January 1910 a boiler with a belpaire
firebox and a rear positioned dome (B4 type). The locomotive was withdrawn in
May 1917.
Robert Ferris
back
|