GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1783

Great Western Railway '111' class 2-4-0 No 1010 stands at the end of the up side bay platforms next to the original timber framed Birmingham North Signal Box, prior to April 1897. These locomotives worked suburban passenger traffic mostly from Chester and Wolverhampton, although No 1010 and several others of the class moved to Hereford for their final years. No 1010 was built in September 1866 at Wolverhampton Works as part of lot A. The locomotive was designed by Joseph Armstrong with double plate frames, wheel springs on the gently curving platforms and outside bearing to all wheels. The coupled wheels were six foot diameter and the leading pair four foot diameter. Built originally with a standard Wolverhampton parallel boiler (type W3) and tall brass dome, these were the first class of locomotives to be fitted with copper capped chimneys. Modifications included cabs, closed wheel splashers and larger (seventeen inch) cylinders. The later style flush firebox, parallel boiler (W3 rebuild type) in the photograph is believed to have been fitted in October 1883 during a subsequent rebuild at Wolverhampton. A parallel boiler with a raised firebox (type R3) was fitted in April 1897. No 1010 was withdrawn in March 1903.

Robert Ferris

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