GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Wood End Platform: gwrwe2847

GWR 2-6-2T 3901 class No 3912 leaves Wood End tunnel on a Birmingham to Stratford local passenger service. Twenty 2301 class 0-6-0 Dean Goods were converted to 2-6-2T locomotives by Swindon Works under Lot 104 between February 1907 and January 1910 - No 3901 to No 3920, previously Dean Goods No 2491 to No 2502. The aim was to provide a more powerful suburban tank for the Birmingham Area without adversely impacting the extensive new engine build programme at the Works which was occurring at that time. Existing cylinders, rods, motion and coupled wheels were reused to avoid the principle bottle necks in the production programme, but it still took three years to complete the twenty engines in the class. The class received superheaters between 1914 and 1917, but the engine in the picture does not have this. The majority of the engines in the class operated in the Birmingham Area until 1923, when some movement to South Wales and West Country occurred. By 1929 they had been displaced from their Birmingham duties by the new 2-6-2T large prairie tank locomotives. Withdrawals started in 1931 and the whole class had gone by November 1934 the last engine to be withdrawn was the locomotive (seen in image 'gwrt2388'), No 3916 - previously Dean Goods No 2494.

Photographer Henry L Salmon

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