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The Great Western Railway in Warwickshire
The history of the Great Western Railway in Warwickshire
was, like the London Midland Railway, a story of competing independent railway
companies which over time became the GWR. Robert Ferris traces the origins of
the company from the early days of railways in the county to its last days of
independence when on 31st December 1947 it became the Western Division of
British Railways.
To navigate within the history of the Great Western Railway
in Warwickshire click the following links.
1930s - Depression and Resurgence
As the new decade started Britain was in the midst of a
World Economic Depression. Trade and Industry slumped, companies failed and
unemployment rose. Without goods to move, the railways also suffered, resulting
in services being slowed to conserve fuel and engines scrapped or mothballed.
In 1929 the Government introduced the Development (Loan Guarantees and Grants)
Act to restimulate the economy and create employment. This was targeted at
national infrastructure regeneration and the Great Western Railway identified a
programme of works costing £8M over five years. This included several
major schemes in Warwickshire:
- Banbury Hump Yard with accommodation for 1,600 wagons,
opened on 27th July 1931 at this major interchange point with the LNER. The
four reception sidings and nineteen sidings in the yard allowed 38 trains to be
dealt with each day, a single train of 60 wagons could be disposed of, over the
hump in 12 minutes.
- Quadrupling 9.5 miles of Main Line between Olton and
Lapworth Stations including five station rebuilds, was completed 28th May 1933.
This extended the quadrupled section of track from Birmingham Moor Street
through to Lapworth Station and allowed a more intensive suburban service (see
gwrwm430). As part of the work a skewed open lattice
girder bridge with a 152 foot span was required over the Warwick Road at
Olton.
- Semi automatic signalling installed between Acocks Green
and Solihull using two aspect motor-driven semaphore signals, together with
trickle charged d.c. resistance-fed track circuits.
- Extension of Automatic Train Control from 372 miles by
the addition of a further 1758 miles at a cost of £208k was authorised in
1930 and completed in 1938. This included installing ATC ramps on both the High
Wycombe to Wolverhampton via Bicester Line and Birmingham to Gloucester via
Stratford-upon-Avon Line in addition to equipping 3,000 locomotives (see
gwrhj100a).
- Construction of 5,000 20ton steel coal wagons for hire by
colliery companies at a reduced cost, includes 1,000 constructed by the
Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Co. Ltd.
New Goods Traffic Facilities at:
- Bordesley New substantial four stored warehouse
built of reinforce concrete frame and brick panelling was opened in 1931. The
upper floors of this building were 190 foot long and varied in width between 67
feet and 85 feet. It had two electric lifts and four one ton hoists to all
floors.
- Soho and Winson Green New goods yard with
accommodation for 290 wagons, plus a four stored reinforced concrete and brick
panelled warehouse (300 foot long by 75 foot wide) with 65,000 sq ft of storage
space and four three ton electric lifts was constructed in 1933
- Hockley An extension to existing warehouse with
steel framed, brick panelled structure (92 foot long by 117 foot wide) was
completed in 1933. Again with an electric lift and one ton hoist.
- Knowle New Goods yard with steel framed
corrugated steel covered shed (120 foot long by 40 foot wide), incorporating a
one ton travelling crane. In addition a loading platform for 14 horse-boxes was
constructed on the up main platform for the Knowle Racecourse traffic.
- Solihull New goods yard with steel framed
corrugated steel covered shed similar to that at Knowle (see
gwrs1017a).
- Permanent Way Improvements including rerailing main
running lines with 60 foot lengths of 95lb/yard bull-head rail resting in 46lb
cast iron chairs on creosoted Oregon pine sleepers. Improved drainage was
provide both in cuttings and by way of six inch stoneware pipes laid in the six
foot through the stations. Lineside fencing was replaced with Concrete posts
and steel wire fencing.
- Replacement of oil lighting at many stations with
Electric Lamps where electricity was available, or alternatively with Paraffin
vapour Tilley Lamps. ·
- Reconstruction of Leamington Spa Station. Complete
reconstruction of this principle station, details of which can be found at
gwr/leamington-station.
The introduction of Tote (Totalisator) betting
in 1929, lead to resurgence in racecourse popularity despite the recession and
in that year, Stratford Racecourse authorised a new grandstand at their steeple
chase course. As this was adjacent to the Great Western Railway a new halt was
proposed to facilitate excursion trains and the austere, but functional
Stratford Racecourse Halt opened on 6th May 1933 (see gwr_src1455). New railway stock for horses, grooms,
owners and spectators were introduced and special trains containing this stock
could often be seen on Warwickshires railways heading for Race
Meets. In 1930 the Great Western Railway carried 20,657 horses. All types
of excursion trains had become an increasingly important source of railway
revenue at this time with excursions from major cities laid on to special
events, including; the Stratford Mop Fair, Football Match Specials and in May
1937, the coronation of George VI.
Throughout each Summer, Saturday Seaside Holiday Excursions
were run to locations in the West Country and South Wales. These were
especially popular with Birmingham and Black Country folks who thronged the
platforms of Snow Hill to get away from the smoke and grime of industry.
Although the Holidays with Pay Act (1938) ensured that every worker was
entitled to a weeks paid holiday from this date, the summer holiday trend
had started long before; with around one million of the nations employees
having a weeks paid leave in 1920, four million in 1937 and after the
act, eleven million in 1939. Such was the increase in excursion trains,
sometimes running in several parts (relief trains), that the Great Western
Railway introduced a new system of train identification in 1934 in order to
assist Signalmen and Station Staff to recognise trains at a distance. This
involved the use of large three figure plates on the front of the
locomotives smokebox door. The first number indicated the trains
origin; for the first two years Wolverhampton and Birmingham trains used
3, but this was change to 7 in 1936. For the ordinary
timetabled express passenger train the last number would be either a 0 or 5,
but if one (or more) relief trains were required this number would be
incremented.
As well as seaside holidays the depression had increased the
popularity of cheaper holiday pursuits such as camping and hiking, especially
with the younger generation, and the Great Western Railway introduced schemes
to attract this market (see gwr/shakespeare_ramble). For ordinary
passenger traffic the Great Western Railway experimented with stream lined
Diesel Railcars. These provided a twice daily Birmingham to Cardiff express
service via Stratford upon Avon from 9th July 1934 with catering and lavatory
facilities for the passengers (see gwrsa1491).
These railcars proved a success and were also used for semi-express traffic on
the North Warwickshire Line between Birmingham and Stratford upon Avon (see
gwrsr1115). On the North Warwickshire line the
prospect of new suburban housing resulted in two new halts being built; The
Lakes Halt on 3rd June 1935 and Whitlocks End Halt on 6th July 1936. While the
following year, on 6th Sept 1937, a third halt was constructed south of Long
Marston at Pebworth, near the site of the Broad Marston Halt which had closed
as a wartime economy in 1916.
As train numbers increased on the Honeybourne line the
single track section of line between Bearley and Hatton became a bottle neck to
this traffic and the doubling of this line was completed in July 1939 with the
intermediate station at Claverdon rebuilt at the same time (see
gwrc909). Further major modernisation work was
carried out at Hockley Goods yard with the old Outwards and Transfer sheds
being replaced with the huge combined Top Shed, although this was
not completed until 1943 during World War Two (see gwrhd711). New offices and an amenity block were also
built at this time. Finally with the recession over, the later period of the
decade saw the introduction of larger replacement locomotives for suburban
passenger traffic and new types of specialist rolling stock designed to further
improve efficiency and customer service:
- 2-6-2T 5101class Prairie Tank engines (see
gwrls204)
- New suburban coach sets
- Dining car coaches on most express services
- Large windowed excursion coaches with corridors
- Conflat wagons for carrying containers which eliminated
transhipment requirements
- 3,000 gallon milk tankers removed the need to man handle
churns (see gwrbsh47)
- Parto Vans and Shock Absorbing wagons to provide better
protection of goods
Robert Ferris
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