GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Harbury Cutting and Tunnel: gwrhc1484

Great Western Railway 4-6-0 60xx ‘King’ class No 6007 ‘King William III’ with a twelve coach southbound express train in Whitnash Cutting, south of Leamington in 1935. Ten coaches have destination roof boards and two additional strengtheners or swingers (without destination roof boards) have been added to the train behind the tender. With each coach having an approximate tare weight of 34 tons the total loaded weight of this train would be in the region of 435 tons. Built at Swindon Works in March 1928 No 6007 was one of the first twenty ‘King’ class locomotives to Lot 243. In January 1934, No 6007 was known to have been allocated to Old Oak Common shed (PDN). At 5:24 am on 15th January 1936, while hauling nine coaches with 100 passengers aboard, the 9:00 pm Penzance to Paddington Express, No 6007 collided at almost 60 m.p.h. with five loaded coal wagons and a brake van. These had broken away from a mineral train and come to a halt on the main line near Shrivenham Station. One lady passenger and the driver of No 6007, Mr. EA Starr, were fatally injured and ten other passengers were seriously injured in the resulting collision.

The accident report identified that the new Great Western Railway coach design had contributed to the comparatively low incidence of casualties. It was found that several rules had been broken by company staff; the guard had failed to protect the detached portion of his mineral train with detonators, and two signalmen had given the express permission to proceed, because they had failed to notice that the mineral train had passed their boxes without the required tail lights (an indication that the train had parted). During the incident the locomotive had overturned on the debris of the wagons and their loads and sustained serious damage to its frames, valve and reversing motions, cab, bogies and brake gear. It was decided that No 6007 was uneconomic to repair and the engine was condemned on 5th March 1936 at Swindon Works. A new locomotive was built as a replacement to Lot 309 and given the same name and number on 24th March 1936.

Robert Ferris

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