Example of detailed content available to Friends of Pendon
A local passenger train of matching clerestory-roofed corridor coaches
This train is an example of one of the many semi-fast and stopping services that worked on the GWR main lines, calling at intermediate stations where the faster express services did not stop. It is also an example of one of several trains in the Vale Scene that are modelled directly from an original photograph and which therefore replicate, more or less precisely, a real train of the period.
The famous lineside cameraman, Maurice Earley, photographed the train on the 27thMarch 1927 as it drifted towards Twyford.
According to Earley’s own caption for his photograph, the train was the 11.00am Paddington to Didcot stopping service, and he commented particularly on the remarkable set of corridor Clerestory stock that comprised the train.
Engine: GWR 4-4-0 "Badminton" class No. 4100 “Badminton"
The engine, GWR 4-4-0 No. 4100 “Badminton”, was the first member of the “Badminton” class of engines that were introduced in 1897. Although nominally designed by William Dean, who was still the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the GWR at the time, in practice the engine bears many of the hallmarks of Dean’s great successor as CME, G.J. Churchward. Although the Badmintons retained the rather elegant curved running plate that Dean had first used on his “Duke of Cornwall” class engines of 1895, much of the arrangement of the engine above the running plate was pure Churchward. These were the first engines to be fitted with Belpaire fireboxes (which were later to become the standard firebox for the GWR) and although initially fitted with a domed, parallel boiler, they were subsequently fitted with tapered boilers with standard GWR top feeds and safety valve bonnets, as seen in Earley’s photograph. With 6’ 8½” driving wheels these engines were fast runners, capable of regularly recording speeds in excess of 80mph at a time when such performances were very much the exception.
The coaches are all Clerestory vehicles of what is termed the “Period III” design that the GWR produced during the final decade of the 19thcentury. At that time these would have been considered as prestige stock for express workings, but subsequent development of new and improved designs of coaches in the early decades of the 20thcentury led to the relegation of many Clerestory coaches into secondary services of the type depicted in Earley’s photograph.
| Description | Diagram | Livery |
|---|---|---|
| GWR 56’ Clerestory Period III Van Third | D40 | Garter |
| GWR 55’ Clerestory Period III Composite | E73 | Garter |
| GWR 56’ Clerestory Period III Open Third | C18 | Garter |
| GWR 56’ Clerestory Period III Third | C21 | Garter |
| GWR 56’ Clerestory Period III Van Third | D29 | Garter |