GWR 2800 Class 2-8-0 No 2807 & the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway Part 1 At the start of the 20th Century, George Jackson Churchill was appointed as Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Western Railway. He quickly realised that there was an immediate need for a heavy freight engine and, equally important, there was the need to standardise on the range of locomotives to minimise cost. One of the first of these “new” standard designs was the 2800 Class of 2-8-0 tender engines and between 1903 and 1938 a total of 84 of these locomotives left Swindon Works, numbered 2800-2883. Later, under Collett, this Class was extended with the addition of 2884-2899 and 3800-3886. The first batch of 28XX were subsequently fitted with new boilers and superheaters. These engines were notable for being the first 2-8-0s in the country and, so successful were they that, in the first 50 years of their lives, apart from minor modifications, the only major change was the fitting of superheaters. Throughout the working life so good were they that they became known as the best heavy freight engines in the country – quite remarkable when it is considered that they were built to a new design and not a variation on a well tried and trusted design. Indeed, in J H Russell’s book A Pictorial record of Great Western Engines, the author relates the story of a trip in February 1906, where although the load for the Class was 60 wagons, a test train from Severn Tunnel Junction with No 2806 with 54 wagons and a dynamometer car behind the engine; at Stoke Gifford the load was increased to 65 wagons and at Swindon, it was increased again to 100 wagons, which she trundles quite happily all the way to Southall. So, according to the author was born the ability of the “twenty-eighters” to cope with 100 loaded wagons; he went on to relate that during his time on the Great Western, a train left Banbury at 8.10am every weekday with coal for Southall and loaded to the limit of 10. 28XX class 2-8-0 No 97 (2800) as-built, painted black, with low-pitch boiler (RCTS)
28XX Class 2-8-0 No 2819, Superheate and with short cone boiler (RCTS)
28XX Class 2-2-0 No 2811 with long cone boiler (RCTS)
The first member of the Class, No 97, later 2800, left the works in June 1903 in black livery lined out in red and with a small diameter chimney. The cladding of the barrel was in five sections, but the later ones were made with four, A further difference was the pitch of the boiler was only 7ft 5½in whereas the subsequent ones were pitched at 8ft 2in. Looking at the Churchward locomotives, they were as follows: Engine No Swindon Lot Date Works Nos Nos Built 2800 (97) 1901 139 1903 2801-2810 2096-2105 153 1905 2811-2820 2115-2124 155 1905 2821-2830 2158-2167 160 1907 2831-2835 2390-2394 181 1911 2836-2845 2436-2445* 186 1912 2846-2855 2486-2495* 190 1912-13 2856-2883 2762-2789* 210 1918-19 *Numbers not originally carried on locos. Nos 2801-2820 came out in 1905 and were fitted with 4,000-gallon tenders, almost identical externally with the more usual 3,500-gallon type. As time went on, Nos 97 and 2801-2820 were fitted with a larger pattern chimney. The next most notable changes came after 1934, when the early engines were retrofitted with outside steam pipes and curved dropends and top feed. In 1930-31, Automatic Train Control was fitted to the whole class.
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GREAT WESTERN STAR MAGAZINE
Spring 2021
