GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1758

Great Western Railway 40xx (Star) class 4-6-0 No 4039 ‘Queen Matilda’ moves on to the turntable at the north end of Snow Hill in 1932. The single red head lamp on the left buffer beam lamp bracket indicated a class G (light engine). No 4039 was built at Swindon Works in February 1911 as part of lot 180 and the ten locomotives in this lot were all given the names of English Queens. These four cylinder express passenger locomotives were designed by Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) George Churchward, who incorporated the French De Glehn cylinder arrangement as a simple with two sets of valve gear. As such they were the forerunners of the ‘Castle’ and ‘King’ classes and handled the elite expresses of their day. In a dynamometer-car trial in November 1911, No 4039 with a 13 coach express weighing 400 tons reached speeds of over 75mph and averaged 62.8mph even with two signal stops. No 4039 was built with a 14 / 84 superheater arrangement (14 tubes / 84 elements) in a fully coned standard No 1 boiler (type D4), which operating at a pressure of 225 lbs produced a tractive effort at 85% of 25,090 lb. This classified the locomotives in power group D, while their maximum axle weight of 18 tons, 12 cwt restricted them to main lines and some branch lines (colour code Red).

Shortly after construction top-feed apparatus became standard. This extended boiler life by removing impurities from the boiler water by spraying the cold feed water into the steam space over a removable sloped tray. One additional safety feature was the provision of brakes on all wheels including the bogies, but these bogie brakes were complicated to maintain and as their application was deemed to provide little extra braking benefit they were removed from November 1923. Outside elbow steam pipes were fitted to No. 4039 in December 1948. When out-shopped the Star class locomotives were provided with the new long fendered 3,500 gallon tenders. In 1934 No 4039 was paired with Churchward pattern 3,500 gallon tender No 1739 from lot A75 built in 1907 and this is probably the one in the photograph. From 1938 the ‘Star’ class were generally paired with 4,000 gallon tenders. No 4039 was originally allocated to Newton Abbot shed (NA). In January 1921, the locomotive was known to have been allocated to Exeter shed (EXE). In January 1934, the locomotive was known to have been allocated to Bath Road shed, Bristol (BRD). In January 1938 No 4039 was allocated to Landore shed, Swansea (LDR) and was there prior to nationalisation in December 1947. No 4039 was withdrawn from Landore shed (87E) in November 1950.

Robert Ferris

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