Great Western 4-6-0s
These magnificent green engines of the King, Manor, Castle, Hall and Modified Hall classes always created excitement as they passed through my local station at West Bromwich, only occasionally scheduled to stop there. Any opportunity to examine them more closely was always taken, for example at Snow Hill, Paddington or other main stations on the Western Region.
The King class locomotives were truly the royalty of the Western Region passenger locomotives. Introduced in 1927 they hauled most of the premier expresses of the Great Western Railway and then the Western Region of British Railways until being replaced by new diesels in 1962. They passed through West Bromwich hourly in the early sixties on Paddington to Wolverhampton and Birkenhead trains, but their reign ended when new Western class diesels replaced them on the route in 1962. |
The first named locomotive I remember seeing as a little boy at West Bromwich station was 7818 "Granville Manor". In 1959 we went on a school trip by train to Rhyl and the locomotive which pulled into West Bromwich with our train was 7801 "Anthony Manor". Since then I've had an affinity with this class of locomotive, several of which have happily been preserved. |
Second only to the Kings in the Great Western motive power hierarchy, the Castles, with their lower weight, were able to roam far more widely than their regal brethren. |
The Hall class and their modified versions were ubiquitous across the Western Region network and everyday sights in the West Midlands. In particular the standby locomotive stationed daily at Birmingham Snow Hill station was often a member of one of these classes. Often I remember seeing Tyseley's 7918 "Rhose Wood Hall" on this duty. |