Although many steam locomotives were designed for both passenger and freight traffic, few had the success of the Great Western’s ‘43XX’ class, a design that was to be the company’s maid of all work for more than half a century. EVAN GREEN-HUGHES explains all.
Above: GWR ‘43XX’ 2-6-0 6319 departs Exeter St Davids with a down slow for Newton Abbot formed of a Maunsell Van C and Bulleid corridor stock on August 13 1956. Bob Tuck/Rail Archive Stephenson.
IN STEAM DAYS, wherever you went on the Great Western Railway (GWR) system, you were sure to come across one of the useful and powerful ‘43XX’ 2-6-0s. At home on anything from a pick-up freight to a fast passenger train, these free running machines were liked by railwaymen and maintenance staff alike. Whether it was a lengthy goods train carrying produce from the docks of Southampton to the west or a wandering secondary passenger working between Barnstaple and Taunton, these engines could be relied on to get the job done, efficiently and without fuss.
When the GWR’s Chief Mechanical Engineer George Jackson Churchward set about designing his range of standard engines in the early years of the 20th century, one of his tasks was to develop a machine suitable…
