The

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

(GWR) 9400 Class is a class of

0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...

pannier tank A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locom ...

steam locomotive, used for shunting and

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

duties. The first ten 9400s were the last steam engines built by the GWR. After

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948, another 200 were built by private contractors for

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

(BR). Most had very short working lives as the duties for which they were designed disappeared through changes in working practices or were taken over by

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

s. Two locomotives survived into preservation, with the oldest of the class, 9400 as part of the

National Collection The UK National Collection is a collection of around 280 historic rolling stock, rail vehicles (predominantly of British origin). The majority of the collection is kept at four national museums: * National Railway Museum, York * National Railwa ...

Design

The 9400 class was the final development in a long lineage of

tank locomotives A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locomot ...

that can be directly traced to the 645 Class of 1872. Over the decades details altered, the most significant being the adoption of

Belpaire firebox The Belpaire firebox is a type of firebox used on steam locomotives. It was invented by Alfred Belpaire of Belgium in 1864. Today it generally refers to the shape of the outer shell of the firebox which is approximately flat at the top and sq ...

es necessitating pannier tanks. The 9400 resembled a pannier tank version of the 2251 class, and indeed shared the same boiler and cylinders as the 2251, but was in fact a taper-

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central h ...

ed development of the 8750 subgroup of the 5700 class. The advantage was a useful increase in boiler power, but there was a significant weight penalty that restricted route availability. The 10 GWR-built locomotives had

superheater A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into superheated steam or dry steam. Superheated steam is used in steam turbines for electricity generation, steam engines, and in processes such as steam reforming. There ar ...

s but the remainder did not. The first ten 9400s were built by the Great Western and were the last steam engines built by the company. After the nationalisation of Britain's railways in 1948, private contractors built another 200 for

. The 9400s were numbered 9400–9499, 8400–8499 and 3400–3409. BR gave them the power classification 4F.

Build details

No. 3409 was the last locomotive built for British mainline use by private contractors, as well as the last steam locomotive built for British Railways to a pre-nationalisation design. It was ordered by GWR in December 1947 and delivered by Yorkshire Engine Company in October 1956.

Operations

Old Oak Common Yard geograph-2574255-by-Ben-Brooksbank

The 9400 class migrated to most parts of the former GWR, with many based in South Wales and at Old Oak Common. Here they were used on

Paddington Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...

empty stock work right up to the end of steam on the

Western Region of British Railways The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex- Great ...

. A familiar sight at the

buffer stop A buffer stop, bumper, bumping post, bumper block or stopblock (US), is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track. The design of the buffer stop is dependent, in part, on the kind of couplings ...

s at departure side in 1964–1965 was a filthy 9400 class locomotive devoid of number plates simmering at the head of a rake of British Railways Mark 1 coaches. Numbers 8400 to 8406 served as bank engines on the

Lickey Incline The Lickey Incline, south of Birmingham, is the steepest sustained main-line railway incline in Great Britain. The climb is a gradient of 1 in 37.7 (2.65% or 26.5‰ or 1.52°) for a continuous distance of two miles (3.2 km). Constructed ...

after its transferral to the Western Region.

Preservation

Two have been preserved:

References

Sources

* * *

External links

The Great Western Archive

{{GWR Locomotives 0-6-0PT locomotives 9400 YEC locomotives Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns locomotives Bagnall locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1947 Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Shunting locomotives