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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton
GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line
Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1766
Great Western Railway 39xx class 2-6-2T No 3920 blows off
steam in the up centre road at the south end of Snow Hill, circa 1925. The
locomotive is carrying a D class headcode (red lamp on smoke box and second on
left hand side of the buffer beam) indicating an empty coaching stock train.
The first of the coaches is a four wheeled, unganged, carriage. No 3920 was
built as Dean Goods 0-6-0 tender locomotive No 2502 in October 1896 and
converted to a tender locomotive in January 1910. At this time there was a
demand for more powerful suburban locomotives especially in Birmingham
following the opening of the North Warwickshire Line. With the Swindon Works
machine shops operating at full capacity, these rebuilds used all the principle
parts of twenty surplus Dean Goods locomotives on new frames with a Churchward
standard No 5 boiler and two 750 gallon side tanks to produce these unusual
looking prairie tank conversions.
The locomotive had inside cylinders and the large unsightly
hole in the side tank gave access to the motion for oiling. The boiler operated
at a pressure of 200 lbs producing a tractive effort at 85% of 20,155 lb and
these locomotives were classified in power group B. The maximum axle weight was
17 tons 4 cwt restricting the locomotives to main lines and some branch lines
(colour code Blue). All the conversions were built without superheaters,
but No 3920 had one fitted in July 1917. This and top-feed apparatus are
visible in the photograph. Around 1920 the rear bunker was enlarged to increase
coal capacity. These locomotives were designed for the Birmingham suburban
traffic and No 3920 was known to have been allocated to Tyseley shed (TYS) in
both January 1921 and May 1922. By 1929 most had been displaced by the new
2-6-2T locomotives and No 3920 was withdrawn from Hereford shed (HFD) in
February 1931.
Robert Ferris
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