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| GWR No.4277 ‘Hercules’ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 GWR 2-8-0T Class 42xx No. 4277 Hercules at Paignton Station on the Dartmouth Steam Railway. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Great Western Railway (GWR) 4200 Class No. 4277 is a preserved British steam locomotive. In preservation it has carried the name Hercules.
No. 4277 was built at the GWR's Swindon Works in 1920, on Lot No. 213, Works No. 2857. [1] It was painted in unlined green livery with "Great Western" on the tank sides. From 1934 a round GWR logo replaced the lettering, and this in turn was replaced in 1942 by the letters "G W R". In 1948 the locomotive passed into British Railways (BR) ownership and was given the power classification 7F. In BR ownership the livery was unlined black. It spent most of its working life in South Wales on freight trains and was withdrawn in 1964 from Aberbeeg Shed (BR shed code 86H) after 44 years of service.
4277 was moved to Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, Glamorgan shortly after withdrawal and remained there for 20 years until 1986 when it was privately purchased.
In 2008 it was sold to the Dartmouth Steam Railway. The locomotive was then painted in lined GWR Brunswick Green livery. On 1 August 2008 it was named Hercules, the nameplates being located on the smokebox. The nameplates are historically inauthentic for this locomotive. After being withdrawn in February 2018 due to expiry of its boiler ticket, it was reintroduced on service in 2022 with unlined BR black livery.
The name Hercules was carried by three GWR locomotives, a broad gauge locomotive of the Hercules Class, the later 3031 Class No. 3043 and No. 16, one of the GWR 0-6-4 crane tanks.
The steam locomotives of British Railways were used by British Railways over the period 1948–1968. The vast majority of these were inherited from its four constituent companies, the "Big Four".
The BR Standard Class 3 2-6-2T was a class of steam locomotive designed by Robert Riddles for British Railways. It was essentially a hybrid design, the chassis being closely based on and sharing a number of parts with the LMS Ivatt Class 4, and having a boiler derived from a GWR No.2 boiler as fitted to the GWR Large Prairie 2-6-2T and 5600 Class 0-6-2T tank engines.
The Great Western Railway 3200 Class was a design of 4-4-0 steam locomotive for passenger train work. The nickname for this class, almost universally used at the time these engines were in service was Dukedog since the locomotives were composed of former Duke Class boilers on Bulldog Class frames. As such they were one of the last standard gauge steam locomotive classes to retain outside frames.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 4200 Class is a class of 2-8-0T steam locomotives.
The GWR 5700 Class is a class of 0-6-0 pannier tank steam locomotive built by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and British Railways (BR) between 1929 and 1950. With 863 built, they were the most prolific class of the GWR, and one of the most numerous classes of British steam locomotive.
The GWR 5101 Class or 'Large Prairie' is a class of 2-6-2T steam locomotives of the Great Western Railway.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 5205 Class is a class of 2-8-0T steam locomotives.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 6959 or Modified Hall Class is a class of 4-6-0 steam locomotive. They were a development by Frederick Hawksworth of Charles Collett's earlier Hall Class named after English and Welsh country houses.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 1500 Class is a class of 0-6-0 pannier tank steam locomotive. Despite being a GWR Hawksworth design, all ten were completed under the administration of the Western Region of British Railways in 1949, just after Nationalisation.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 1600 Class is a class of 0-6-0 pannier tank steam locomotive designed for light branch lines, short-distance freight transfers and shunting duties.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 7200 Class is a class of 2-8-2T steam locomotive. They were the only 2-8-2Ts built and used by a British railway, and the largest tank engines to run on the Great Western Railway.
The GWR 5600 Class is a class of 0-6-2T steam locomotive built between 1924 and 1928. They were designed by Charles Collett for the Great Western Railway (GWR), and were introduced into traffic in 1924. After the 1923 grouping, Swindon inherited a large and variable collection of locomotives from historic Welsh railway companies, which did not fit into their standardisation programme. GWR boiler inspectors arrived en masse and either condemned the original locomotives or had them rebuilt. The systematic destruction of many examples of locomotives, most still in serviceable condition, followed, but various were worked alongside 5600 Class.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 6400 Class is a class of 0-6-0 pannier tank steam locomotive introduced by Charles Collett in 1932. All 40 examples were 'auto-fitted' – equipped with the remote-control equipment needed for working autotrains.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 4500 Class or Small Prairie is a class of 2-6-2T steam locomotives.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 2301 Class or Dean Goods Class is a class of British 0-6-0 steam locomotives.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 3600 Class was a class of 2-4-2T side tank steam locomotive, designed by William Dean and built at Swindon in three lots in 1900-1903:
Great Western Railway 7800 Class No. 7827 Lydham Manor is a preserved British steam locomotive. It is currently owned by and based on the Dartmouth Steam Railway.
La France, number 102, was a locomotive of the Great Western Railway. It was bought by G.J. Churchward to evaluate French locomotive practice, and particularly the effect of compounding.
The GWR Class 850 was an extensive class of small 0-6-0ST locomotives designed by George Armstrong and built at the Wolverhampton railway works of the Great Western Railway between 1874 and 1895. Aptly described as the GWR equivalent of the LB&SCR "Terrier" Class of William Stroudley, their wide availability and lively performance gave them long lives, and eventually they were replaced from 1949 by what were in essence very similar locomotives, the short-lived 1600 Class of Frederick Hawksworth, which in the headlong abandonment of steam outlived them by a mere seven years or so.
The GWR Rheidol Tanks are a fleet of 2-6-2T steam locomotives of the Great Western Railway design built between 1923 and 1924. They were designed by the railway's Chief Mechanical Engineer, Charles Collett, for working services on the Vale of Rheidol Railway between Aberystwyth and Devil's Bridge.
