No model of the quintessential Great Western branch line would be complete without one of that company’s little 0-4-2Ts and matching autocoach. EVAN GREEN-HUGHES traces the origins of this attractive tank engine back to the mid-19th century.
Above: GWR ‘14XX’ 1451 pauses at Hemyock with the 1.42pm branch train from Tiverton Junction on August 8 1962. Milk tankers were often included in these branch line trains where a single tanker needed moving from one location to another. Mike Fox/Rail Archve Stephenson.
DURING THE FIRST FEW decades of the railway age, the economic benefits of being connected by rail were recognised by those in authority in every town and city in the country. Politicians and local councils clamoured for a service to be provided in their particular area, but this was a wish that could only be accommodated by the construction of hundreds of small feeder and branch lines.
The Great Western Railway had many such routes. Its territory covered much of the sparsely-populated West of England as well as most of rural Wales and, as a result, it required a large number of small locomotives. From its early days, the company specified tank engines with four coupled wheels for such work and amon…
