4F 0-6-0s on the GWR

43949 at speed with a freight train running through Dixton Cutting, just north of Gotherington. David Aldred  

Our news item announcing the forthcoming arrival of the prototype LMS version of the Fowler 4F class 0-6-0 no. 44027, owned by the National Railway Museum and reference to the occasional appearance of the class on the Cheltenham to Stratford line, prompted website viewer David Aldred of Bishops Cleeve to dig in his photo album.  There he found what he was looking for: this rather nice picture of no. 43949 at speed with a freight train running through Dixton Cutting, just north of Gotherington.

David writes:  "I think I must have been on a bike outing and so far as I can remember I was at the top of the cutting (near the three-arch bridge). It was a freight as by then there were only DMUs on the long distance passenger trains and steam on the Saturday holiday trains. I think the camera was my father's Voigtlander bellows 8 on 620 film but its slow shutter speed meant unless I panned I couldn't stop the motion."  The picture was taken on 31st July 1963, the photographer being watched by the driver!

This engine was built in 1921 by Armstrong Whitworth for the Midland Railway (known then as 3835 class) and was latterly allocated to Saltley (2E) in Birmingham.  It was withdrawn from service in 1965 and broken up by Cashmores of Great Bridge.  However, its BR numberplate survives - it sold at auction in 2002 for £480.

One survivor of this most numerous class (772 were built from 1911) will be visiting the GWR for the Cotswold Festival of Steam: no. 44422 which is currently based at the Llangollen Railway and owned by the 44422 Locomotive Fund.  It was built by the LMS at Derby in 1927. The engine was a familiar sight on the Somerset & Dorset Railway while based at Bath Green Park and after that line closed, it moved to Gloucester from where it was withdrawn and subsequently moved to the infamous Barry Scrapyard in South Wales. It was restored at Cheddleton (Churnet Valley Railway) and steamed once again in 1990.  After its '10 year' boiler ticket expired it was overhauled at Crewe in 2005.

So it may well be that if David Aldred still has his father's old Voigtlander hidden in the loft he could almost replicate that picture he took all those years ago!