GWR ‘43XX’ 2-6-0
Before the war: Harold Holcroft saw the potential of a 2-6-0 for the GWR when on a fact-finding mission to North America in the mid-1900s. The result was a ‘Mogul’ with
5ft 8in-diameter driving wheels and the Standard No. 4 boiler that became the perfect mixed traffic locomotive. Happy on everything from heavy freight to fast passenger duties, 100 had been built by the time the ROD started to requisition locomotives.
Call-up: The GWR was building a fresh batch of ‘43XXs’ and prepared 11 new locomotives in the spring and summer of 1917: Nos. 5319-26 and Nos. 5328-30.
Theatre of operations: Based at Calais and Audruicq in France for working troop and ambulance trains, as well as the nightly Divisional Supply Trains from Calais to St Omer and Hazebrouck, which could involve putting 800 tons on the drawbar.
Demobilisation: The ‘43XXs’ returned to the GWR between April and May 1919 where they joined rank-and-file ‘43XXs’. Swindon would go on to build 342 ‘43XXs’, aided by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns, up to 1932, the final 20 receiving modified dampers and Collett cabs.
Despite 80 ‘43XXs’ being withdrawn in the late 1930s to provide components for the new ‘Manor’ and ‘Grange’ 4-6-0s, withdrawal on a large scale didn’t start until 1948. The ‘43XXs’ were some of the last GWR steam locomotives in action, the last ones being condemned in 1964.
Survivors: No. 5322 returned to traffic in ROD condition in 2008, after a heavy rebuild, in the khaki of the First World War period. After four years in this livery it was repainted into BR black
but withdrawn in 2014 with boiler problems and is currently on static display at Didcot Railway Centre. Later example No. 7325 resides at the Severn Valley Railway.