GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1757

Great Western Railway 37xx (City) class 4-4-0 No 3402 ‘Halifax’ with a class ‘B’ local passenger train on the down centre road at Snow Hill on 9th July 1912. No 3402 was built at Swindon Works in August 1901 as part of lot 126. The locomotive was originally an ‘Atbara’ class locomotive with a standard No 2 boiler, but in December 1908 the locomotive was rebuilt in to a ‘City’ class by replacing the boiler with the larger standard No 4 version. These rebuilds were designed to create locomotives for hauling the crack Ocean Mail Express services between Paddington and Plymouth. The standard No 4 boiler operating at a pressure of 200 lb produced a tractive effort at 85% of 17,700 lbs and the locomotives were classified in power group A. The maximum axle weight was 18 tons 10 cwt restricting the locomotives to main lines and some branches (route colour – red). In August 1909, No 3402 double-headed the first ‘Mauretania Liner Special’ together with No 4108 ‘Gardenia’ from Fishguard to Cardiff with a load of ten coaches (310 tons). The journey took 131 minutes, arriving in Cardiff eleven minutes early, with a maximum speed of 82mph recorded.

No 3402 was the first of the class to be superheated in June 1910. The arrangement was a two row 14/84 type (14 tubes and 84 elements). The following year top feed was introduced. In December 1912, as part of a general renumbering scheme aimed at grouping locomotives with similar characteristics together No 3402 was renumbered No 3702. Following the introduction of the County class locomotives, the City class locomotives were displaced from the principle express routes, but were retained for short distance expresses and secondary services, until these duties were subsequently taken over by the new 4-6-0 locomotives in the late 1920s. No 3402 was originally allocated to Oxford shed (OXF) and the locomotive was known to have been allocated there in January 1921. No 3702 was withdrawn from Leamington Spa shed (LMTN) in April 1929.

Robert Ferris

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