GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Knowle & Dorridge Station: gwrkd1602

Great Western Railway 2-4-0 ‘3206’ or ‘Barnum’ class No 3212 seen waiting at the starting signal with an up local passenger train at Knowle and Dorridge Station circa 1910. The wooden lap slatted building behind the locomotive is the original broad gauge goods shed. No 3212 was built at Swindon Works as part of Lot 75 in June 1889. The class comprised only nineteen locomotives, but were considered to be C.M.E. William Dean’s most successful 2-4-0 locomotive design and were used as express mixed traffic locomotives. The Barnum locomotives were almost the last type to be built with outside sandwich frames by the Great Western Railway. The class underwent many modifications including; the repositioning of the leading wheel springs to a position above the frame by 1897, an increase in boiler pressure from 150 lb to 160 lb, and a lengthening of the cylinder stoke from 24 to 26 inches between 1905 and 1913.

No 3212 was originally built with round dome less boiler, but in October 1908 a belpaire domed boiler (type BR4) was fitted (as seen above). The belpaire arrangement increased the efficiency of the boiler by increasing the volume around the firebox. In February 1911 a second type of belpaire boiler which was flush with the boiler barrel (type B4) was fitted. In October 1920 No 3212 was superheated. These locomotives were classified power group A and had a Yellow route code allowing them to operate over most lines. In January 1921 No 3212 was known to have been allocated to Westbury shed, but as larger more powerful locomotives, such as the 4-6-0 Hall class, were introduced at the end of that decade, the Barnum class locomotives were moved firstly north to the Wolverhampton division and then west to the lighter constructed Cambrian lines. No 3212 was eventually withdrawn in April 1929.

Robert Ferris

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