GWR 2-6-0 5322No 5322 is one of twenty GWR 2-6-0s which were built at Swindon Works in 1917 and sent when new to France. This was in response to a call from the army in the summer of 1917 for the British railways to supply a further 160 locomotives to help with transporting supplies from the Channel ports to the front line. Frank Potter, General Manager of the GWR, reported at the time to his board of directors that these locomotives, "should as far as practicable be of one type, i.e. 0-8-0, and of high power, and arrangements were therefore made for them to be supplied by as few Companies as possible, these Companies in turn being allocated engines from the stock of other Railway Companies. In the case of the Great Western Railway, we have no engines of the 0-8-0 type, and it was impossible to release any of the 2-8-0 class as they are employed exclusively on the Admiralty coal traffic." It was therefore decided that the GWR would supply 2-6-0s, which Frank Potter explained: "The Great Western type of 2-6-0 engines is in point of power and efficiency practically equal to other Companies 0-8-0 engines." Nevertheless, the GWR drove a hard bargain, as Frank Potter continued: "The whole of our stock is, however, badly needed for traffic work in this country, and it was, therefore, stipulated that the materials should be supplied by the Government to enable new engines of the class to be built, an output of five per month being aimed at." A serving officer with the ROD, C E R Sherrington OBE MC, recalled an encounter with 5322 in France in 1918. "It was a dark, clear, star-lit night: the moon had not yet risen. My quickest route to the RE HQ Mess was via the Nord main line from Calais to Hazebrouck, thus avoiding the shunting yards in the sprawling depot, the biggest of its kind in France, with 91 miles of track and a stud of 19 ROD locomotives. Scrambling onto the main line embankment near to my office – a wooden hut shared with French railway staff – the going became rough on the Nord's closely spaced hardwood sleepers and large size rough ballast. However, one was accustomed to it at all hours of the day and night and a generous piste, used by French railwaymen on their bicycles, gave adequate refuge from oncoming trains: French locomotive headlights gave more warning than did the ROD's oil lamps on the buffer beam. That night nearing the level crossing at Pont des Briques, where one turned off for the Mess, an eastbound train was rapidly overtaking me. A glance at my watch led me to hope that it was RCL 21 running on time from Calais (Riviere Neuve) to St Omer, Hazebrouck and one or more railheads. There was no mistaking the type of locomotive – by the beat of its exhaust – a GWR Mogul, thus confirming that it was, almost certainly, one of the 53s doing such splendid work on those supply trains for the II Army.
She overtook me at the Pont des Briques crossing, with its metal rolling gates, and it was easy to see her number in large white letters on the tender – ROD 5322. Behind her were the customary 44 or so wagons, the supplies for two divisions. The gross load was some 770 tons: the wagons were not vacuum fitted, but, of course, had the French screw couplings. The Great Western Moguls were admirable locomotives for this work: their predecessors on it, the Beyer Peacock 4-6-4 tanks, which were built for the Netherlands but never got there, were splendid machines but had inadequate brake power, being designed for suburban passenger trains. The LNWR class 27 0-8-0s, though fine pullers, had small diameter wheels for this work, and were more suited to heavier, slower, trains."
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C E R Sherrington served in France with the Oxfordshire Light Infantry and the Railway Transport Establishment of the British Expeditionary Force from 1916 to 1919. He was lecturer in Economics and Transportation at Cornell University, USA, from 1922 to 1924. From 1924 until 1962 he was Secretary of the Railway Research Service. This organisation was formed at the grouping of the railways in 1923 to supply the four British railway companies with information on world-wide railway practice. In 1944 he was appointed Railway Technical Adviser, Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force and was honoured by the French Railway Resistance in 1945. He wrote this article in 1973, about an encounter with 5322 in France in 1917 or 1918, for the Great Western Society’s magazine Great Western Echo. He died soon after the article was written. 5322 is preserved by the Great Western Society at the Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire. |
