This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which the GWR South Wales Main Line has changed and developed over the last century.

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which the GWR line in North and West Wales has changed and developed over the last century.

After tackling the GW pannier tanks in his ‘Locomotive Portfolios’ for Pen & Sword, author David Maidment seeks out descriptions and photographs of the GW 0-6-2 tank engines, the majority of which were built by the Rhymney, Taff Vale, Barry and other Welsh railways from the last decade or so of the nineteenth century onwards. The engines of eight different companies, absorbed by the GWR in 1922, are described and illustrated, and the way in which many were modernised and rebuilt at Swindon or Caerphilly Works in the 1920s. Charles Collett was, however, faced with a motive power crisis in the mining valleys at the Grouping, as many of the companies had economised on essential maintenance as the GW’s take-over drew near, and he had to hurriedly design a standard 0-6-2T to complement and bolster their work as the powerful GW 2-8-0Ts were too heavy and wide for many of the Cardiff valleys. These engines, the 56XX & 66XX classes, became part of the South Wales scene between 1925 and 1964, mainly running the coal traffic between pits and docks, although they dominated Cardiff Valley passenger services until the influx of BR 3MT 2-6-2Ts and GW 41XX 2-6-2Ts in 1954/5. The book has nearly 40,000 words of text and around 300 black & white photographs.

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This book is a comprehensive history of all twenty-six classes of four coupled tank engines commissioned by the Great Western Railway or built at their Wolverhampton and Swindon Works, from the Broad Gauge 2-4-0 and 4-4-0 tanks of the 1840s and 1850s to the well known Collett 0-4-2 branch line engines of classes 48XX (later renumbered 14XX) and 58XX of the 1930s. As well as the Broad Gauge engines, the strange looking ‘Covertibles’ of William Dean, a number of experimental ‘one-off’ designs, the numerous Wolverhampton 0-4-2Ts of the ‘517’ class and the Swindon built ‘2-4-0 ‘Metro Tanks’ are described with – where known – their allocation and operation. The book includes twenty weight diagrams and nearly 300 photographs, over 50 in color. The four-coupled tank engines absorbed by the Great Western from other companies at or before 1923 will be featured in a separate volume to follow.