Castle Class

When G. J. Churchward retired from the Great Western Railway in 1921, he left a stud of locomotives which were among the finest in Britain.

His successor C. B. Collett had been brought up in the Churchward tradition, and in 1923 he produced the first of his 'Castle' class 4-6-Os, the engines which kept the G.W.R. in the forefront of locomotive performance until the outbreak of war.

Basically an enlargement of the ' Star ' class, No. 4073 ' Caerphilly Castle ' was a large 4-cylinder express locomotive with 6 ft. 8 in. wheels and, on the basis of tractive effort, a claim to be the most powerful passenger engine in Britain.

Further engines quickly followed, for such exacting duties as the ' Cornish Riviera' and ' Cheltenham Flyer ' expresses, and in the mid-1920s two of them figured in trials on the L.N.E. and L.M.S. railways which had far-reaching results on the motive power policies of both.

A number of ' Stars' were rebuilt to the ' Castle ' design, and construction of the new engines continued in batches until 171 were running on all parts of the Great Western system.

The majority were named after castles and abbeys in G.W.R. territory, but in the early days of the war twelve were re-named after famous aircraft of the period; one of these, No. 5072 ' Hurricane,' is seen here on a South Wales express.

The last of the class, and the last Great Western passenger engine built at Swindon Works, was appropriately named ' Swindon.'

With the widespread dieselisation on the Western Region, their numbers diminished rapidly and by 1966 all had disappeared. Fortunately ' Caerphilly Castle ' has been found a place in the Science Museum at South Kensington and one or two others were preserved also.