16th April 2019 · GWR to the end of Steam

Presenter: Brian Benford

Brian Benford made a welcome return to our Branch for our April meeting, this time with a very comprehensive selection of slides of GWR locomotives from the various pre-grouping companies, the GWR of 1923 and the Western region of BR after 1948.We saw just about everything from a broad gauge working in the 19th century to Kings and Castles in the early 1960’s.

Tank engines of the Taff Vale Railway and Cardiff Railway featured and we also saw a locomotive with M&GN branding which we learned formerly belonged to a GWR constituent company before being sold. Many of the slides we saw were taken in the 1930’s and were black and white but the images were superb and some of the trains consisted of an eclectic mix of coaches.What was equally enjoyable was that Brian was able to give us snippets of information about the subject locos such as the reasons for detail differences and whether they made any difference to the engines performance.

We learned that the GW was the first company to experiment with streamlining and we saw a few shots of streamlined Kings and Castles. The colour slides that were featured were also of great interest as they showed the livery details to very good effect some of ex-works pictures were really pleasing. To finish with, Brian showed a picture of the last locomotive ordered by the GWR, gas turbine 18000 which was not delivered until after nationalisation and the cost would have paid for several Castles.

This was a lovely show and was enhanced by Brian’s research on the subject and humorous comments on some of the images.