Broad gauge in the Black Country
Bugle reader ANDY SIMPSON’S view of the pioneering days of the railways in our region – Part One
WOLVERHAMPTON’S railway history began with the opening of the Grand Junction line from Warrington (where it joined the pioneering Liverpool–manchester route) to Birmingham (junction with London and Birmingham Railway) on 4 July, 1837, with the station for Wolverhampton 1¼ miles out from the town centre at Heath Town, known as Wednesfield Heath from November 1852.
Older readers will be aware that until 1972 Wolverhampton town centre was served by two adjacent railway stations – ‘High Level’ serving the former LNWR/LMS lines to Stafford, Crewe and beyond from 1851, and south via the Stour Valley line to Birmingham New Street which opened to passengers from 1 July 1852; and the ‘Low Level’ station serving the former GWR lines north to Shrewsbury and Chester and south to Birmingham Snow Hill and eventually to London Paddington, with local services to Dudley via Priestfield until the 1960s.
This article is mainly concerned with the Great Western Railway’s ‘Broad Gauge’ – track with a width of 7 feet ¼ inches (1435mm) adapted by its Chief Engineer, the renowned Isambard Kingdom Brunel rather than the standard gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches favoured by George Stephenson adopted by most other main line railways.
First used between Paddington and Maidenhead in June 1838 and gradually spreading north and west, Broad Gauge tracks were a feature of the Wolverhampton railway scene for just 15 years from 1844 to 1869.
Mixed
The GWR originally entered Wolverhampton via running powers over the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway – due to its unreliability popularly known as the ‘Old Worse and Worse’ – from the south at Priestfield, opening for goods in April 1854 using newly installed mixed broad and standard gauge track using one common rail, and on the opposite side an inner standard gauge rail and an outer Broad gauge rail. The line ran from Dudley via Priestfield and hence two miles northwards to the future site of Shrewsbury Junction, later known as Cannock Road Junc
tion via the new Joint (Low Level) station, which though incomplete opened to passengers also on Saturday, 1 July, 1854, and was shared by the OWWR, GWR, and Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railways.
A single two-coach broad gauge train, headed by Gooch Firefly Class 2-2-2 Arrow, travelled the whole line, from Oxford to Wolverhampton and back, on Thursday, 13 April, 1854, to prove the usability of the route to Worcester and beyond for Broad Gauge trains, which was a legal requirement. Otherwise as far as is known, despite having a third rail to permit broad gauge operation, the line south of Priestfield was only ever operated as a standard gauge line only and the virtually unused outer broad gauge track was removed in 1858-59.
On Tuesday, 14 November, 1854, the GWR extended from Birmingham Snow Hill (which had opened to passengers on 1 October, 1852, when the GWR mixed gauge line from Banbury and Oxford opened) the 12 miles via Wednesbury and Priestfield and reached Wolverhampton Low Level, and beyond to Cannock Road Junction, Stafford Road Junction (where it met the standard gauge Shrewsbury and Birmingham line opened from
through from Shrewsbury on 12 November, 1849) and Stafford Road loco shed whose Broad Gauge lower yard to the south of the Stafford Road opened in late 1857, and the half-mile goods branch south from Stafford Road Junction to Victoria canal Basin (Herbert Street)
This was all on mixed gauge tracks, which eventually reached as far as the far north side of Oxley viaduct from 1859, the 12-arch viaduct having been completed in 1847 for the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway.
Oxley sidings was the most northerly point reached by the broad gauge in the UK. The
mixed gauge track over the viaduct served as shunting spur for Broad Gauge freight trains back into the goods station at Victoria Basin, with possibly early mixed gauge sidings immediately north of the viaduct.
Beyond there ‘narrow gauge’ tracks served Wellington and Shrewsbury. South of Wolverhampton, Broad Gauge trains could now run through to London Paddington, which received mixed gauge tracks in 1861 when Broad Gauge expresses ceased to run from Wolverhampton to Paddington as of 1 October, 1861.
Maintenance
Stafford Road Works originally opened under Shrewbury and Birmingham Railway auspices in 1849 as a standard gauge locomotive depot and repair shops. It undertook maintenance work on several broad gauge engines in the 1858-1861 period. From September 1859 to April 1908 the works actually built a total of 794 narrow gauge 0-4-0, 0-6-0 and 0-4-2 tank plus 2-2-2 and 2-4-0 tender engines for the GWR, and heavily rebuilt virtually as new 102 others, including 0-6-0 tender engines, along with building railmotor engines plus some locomotive tenders between 1859 and 1905, the last of which was cut up in 1934. Stafford Road Works also broke up a fairly small number of engines between 1879 and 1963.
Under brothers Joseph and George Armstrong, between roughly 1866 and 1902 Wolver
hampton Stafford Road Works built engines of the GWR Northern Division sported at various times their own distinctive livery of blue-green upper works and ‘Purple Brown’ frames (possibly based on the former OW&WR livery), tall, narrow rolled copper-top chimney pattern, long threering boilers, a tall brass painted dome, narrow polished brass safety valve cover, H-section spoke pattern wheels, rear bunker spectacle backplates and bunker design, smokebox wing plates, flat-faced smokebox door, and, up to 1908, Wolverhampton lettering on the cast works and number plates. Swindon took over overall control in 1897 when George retired, and Wolverhampton’s locomotive styling independence ended.
As a major centre for locomotive heavy repairs and maintenance, Stafford Road outshopped its last overhauled locomotive under BR control on 11th February 1964 - ( 28xx 2-8-0 2859 now privately preserved in Cheshire and undergoing restoration from Barry scrapyard condition) and officially closed on 1 June 1964.
Virtually its last job was to overhaul a spare boiler for preserved GWR 2-6-2 tank 4555 – sister to the last Wolverhampton built loco in 1908, original number 2180.
Built in May 1907 as GWR number 2168 as one of a batch of 20, renumbered 4507 in 1912, the last Wolverhampton built engine in BR service, ‘45XX’ 2-6-2T 4507, was withdrawn on 10 October, 1963, from Yeovil shed. Although it was suggested in the Wolverhampton local press that a preservation fund to buy her should be set up, nothing came of the proposal and it was sold to Birds at Risca for scrap on 3 June, 1964, arrived at their yard 15 July, 1964, and had been cut up by 4 August, 1964.
Broken up
The following month, the last Wolverhampton built loco of all was broken up – by the National Coal Board! ‘2021’ class 0-6-0 Pannier tank 2092, built at Wolverhampton in April 1901 as a saddle tank, rebuilt as a pannier tank in October 1930 and withdrawn by BR from Birkenhead shed
in August 1955 and sold to the NCB December 1955. It had been used at Bargoed Colliery near Caerphilly in South Wales. One of its later standard GWR cast numberplates survives as part of the Great Western Society collection at Didcot Railway Centre.
The NCB had broken up its other late surviving Wolverhampton built loco in March 1964 – fellow 2021 class member 2034, built at Stafford Road in November 1897 and withdrawn and sold to the NCB in September 1955, which also spent time at Bargoed and latterly Hafodyrynys and Blaenavon collieries. The other Wolverhampton-built ‘2021 class’ loco in latter day industrial service was 2053, built November 1898, withdrawn April 1954 and sold by BR to Imperal Smelting Avonmouth as their No 4 in September 1954 and scrapped circa March 1961.
Pre-nationalsation, the GWR had sold a dozen Wolverhampton-built 0-6-0 645, 655 , 850 and 2021 class tanks to various industrial concerns, mostly collieries, the last being scrapped in April 1961.