GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Shirley Station: gwrsh2958

Great Western Railway 2-6-0 26xx (Aberdare) class No 2646 shunting on the down main line with two covered wagons circa 1930. Beyond the Goods Shed are several loaded open wagons on the goods line head shunt, which connected with the down refuge siding. In both the Summer 1929 and Winter 1930 Service Time Tables three goods trains can be identified as stopping at Shirley:

Down class J Local Goods Train arrives 11:15am, departs 12:15am. This train departed Bordesley at 10:25am, stopped at Tyseley, Hall Green, Shirley, Earlswood Lakes, Danzey and terminated at Henley-in-Arden at 1:50pm.
Up class F Express Goods Train arrives 9:09am, departs 9:19am. This train had departed Pontypool Rd at 1:20am and arrived at Bordesley at 9:36am.
Up class K Ordinary Goods Train arrives 9:47pm, departs 10:06pm. This train probably started at Worcester, departed Honeybourne at 5:00pm, Stratford-on-Avon at 7:15pm and reached Tyseley at 10:27pm.

Locomotive No 2646 was built in November 1901 at Swindon Works as part of lot 133. When built the substantial straight double frames supported a Standard No 2 domeless parallel boiler and raised Belpaire firebox, but this was changed in January 1903 to a larger Standard No 4 tapered boiler with a Belpaire firebox. At the same time the boiler operating pressure was raised from 180lb to 200lb which increased the tractive effort at 85% from 23,222lbs to 25,800lbs and placed the locomotives in power group D. After the alteration the maximum axle weight was 17 tons, 10 cwt, which limited the class to main lines and some branch lines (Route colour – Blue). This became the standard arrangement for the Aberdare class and for more details of the Great Western Route and Power classification system see 'Engine Map'. In May 1911, No 2646 was fitted with a Swindon two row 14 flue, 84 element superheater and about the same time was also fitted with top-feed apparatus. In November 1927, the slide valves were replaced with improved piston valves.

The Aberdare class had been designed as freight locomotives for the South Wales Coal traffic and although relatively few in number, proved to be a successful and long-lived class. Many worked mineral trains between South Wales and Northern Divisions of the Great Western with a strong allocation at Newport and Oxley sheds. No 2646 was initially allocated to Tyseley Shed (TYS) and was withdrawn from Cardiff Canton shed (CDF) in October 1934.

Robert Ferris

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