GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1756

Great Western Railway 60xx (King) class 4-6-0 No 6011 ‘King James’ in Platform No 6 with a down express from London in 1947. Note the stencilled shed name SRD (Stafford Road, Wolverhampton) adjacent to the buffer beam. Also the locomotive has a speed recorder on the rear coupled wheel (fitted circa 1937) and the framework for the three digit train indicator codes on the smokebox door. No 6011 was built at Swindon Works in April 1928 as part of lot 243. This lot was the first batch of King class locomotives built, the first one being introduced in June 1927. The King class were designed by the Great Western Railway’s Chief Mechanical Engineer Charles Collett to be the most powerful passenger locomotives in Great Britain and they certainly performed well over the stiff gradients of the West Country main line with heavily laden summer holiday expresses. Fitted with the massive No 12 standard boiler with a 250 lb pressure, the tractive effort at 85% was 40,300 lb, but no power group letter was allocated to these locomotives. The maximum axle weight was 22 tons, 10 cwt, which required a new route classification of hatched red to be introduced on the engine route maps and this was indicated on the locomotive by two red discs on the cab sides. The initial hatched red routes were between Paddington and Plymouth and Paddington and Wolverhampton. Previously the maximum axle weight allowed on any route was 20.5 tons and several bridges had to be replaced on these hatched red routes (see Widney Manor Station). Excepting some modifications to the bogie and trailing coupled wheel springs to improve riding, there were no major changes to the King class before 1947, when a four row super-heater and mechanical lubricator were trailed and subsequently introduced to the entire class shortly after nationalisation. Inferior coal and increased labour costs required further modifications and the blast-pipe and chimney were redesigned to improve draughting. Self cleaning smoke-boxes were also introduced, as were larger radius steam pipes. In March 1956, No 6011 received a double chimney, a modification which had been found to further improved performance. No 6011 was initially allocated to Old Oak Common shed in London. On 3rd February 1939 the locomotive was moved to Bath Road shed, but was transferred back to Old Oak Common shed in June 1943. On 17th January 1947 No 6011 was allocated to Stafford Road Wolverhampton shed, from where the locomotive was withdrawn on 18th December 1962. No 6011 was cut up at Swindon on 25th January 1964. The locomotive’s final mileage was 1,718,295 miles.

Robert Ferris

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