GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Budbrook and Warwick Cold Store: gwrw1339

View of GWR 2-8-2T No 7238 after running in to a Luftwaffe bomb crater at Budbrook near Hatton on 17th May 1941. The incident occurred at 2 30am during the movement of a night freight train. The locomotive was damaged and both the driver and guard were injured. It was reported that the running lines were blocked until the engine was removed and track repaired with normal running being restored at 6 30pm on the same day. No. 7238 was rebuilt from 2-8-0T No 5273 in February 1936. The original engine had been built in April 1926 as part of the 42XX class (Lot 233) which was specifically designed to handle the heavy coal traffic over the short distance between the South Wales pits and the local docks.

Unfortunately strikes and the depression decimated the coal trade, and the limited bunker size on the 42XX class engines meant that there was limited other work to which they could be redeployed. As a result the last twenty engines Nos. 5255 - 5574 were placed in storage. In 1934 the final batch of 42XX class engines were instead built as 2-8-2T with a larger bunker and back tanks which allowed them to carry an additional 2 tons of coal and 700 gallons of water and thus increased their range of operation. These became the 72XX class and after their construction, the twenty engines in storage were also converted to 2-8-2T engines and renumbered.

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