GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Small Heath and Sparkbrook Station: gwrsh3158

The Great Western Railway Goods Department regularly issued Circulars containing General Instructions to their staff. The amount of content and frequency of these circulars varied depending upon requirements, but generally they appeared fortnightly. They were used to detail; rate changes, changes to addressing of delivery documentation and invoices, searches for missing wagons, highlighting issues, changes to station facilities, etc.

The first two pages of Circular No. R.1534/75, dated 28th February 1923 are attached here and include as item 7, details about bringing into use a new 20 ton capacity electrically-powered travelling gantry crane at Small Heath down goods yard. This gantry crane can be seen in 'gwrsh1326b'. At Hockley (their main goods depot in Birmingham) the Great Western Railway already had a 25 ton capacity steam-powered travelling gantry crane (see 'gwrhd2617'), which was later converted to electric power, while at the Queens Head Yard, near Handsworth, a 10 ton capacity electrically-powered travelling gantry crane was installed in 1926 (see 'gwrqhy2642').

Robert Ferris

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