English: Worcester Locomotive Depot.
View SW, from convenient path just above the direct line ('Birmingham Loop') between Tunnel Junction and Rainbow Hill Junction - an ideal train-watching spot. The Depot had two separate Sheds: the centre one was the 'Passenger Shed', with Shrub Hill Station beyond, and the 'Goods Shed' was on the right. The lines from Tunnel Junction (off to the left), Droitwich Spa, Kidderminster, Birmingham (Snow Hill and New Street) etc. is curving behind the primitive ash plant and beyond it is the small GW Locomotive Works and the GW Goods Depot; the lines between Shrub Hill and Foregate Street Stations, thence to Malvern and Hereford were in the murk on the right. The whole complex was Great Western: ex-Midland trains, which diverted through Worcester off the main Birmingham - Gloucester - Bristol line at Stoke Works Junction and rejoined it at Abbots Wood Junction, did so 'on suffrance' but there were quite a number of them and LMS/LMR locomotives always featured in scenes such as this, their locomotives being serviced at the GW Depot. The triangle of main lines and the two GW sheds were totally inadequate for the efficient handling of all the locomotives allocated. Worcester (coded 85A by BR) was the principal Depot of the BR (WR) Worcester District and had an allocation in 1954 of 85 steam locomotives, comprising:- 21 4-6-0s, 4 2-8-0s, 11 2-6-0s (9 GW, 2 BR), 16 0-6-0s, 8 2-6-2Ts, 20 0-6-0Ts and 5 0-4-2Ts, also 5 GW Diesel railcars. The Depot was closed to steam in 12/65, but remained a Diesel Depot until 1985. The number of engines visible in this weekday photograph is far less than would be seen on a Sunday; prominent are:- Stanier 8F 2-8-0 No. 48450 running in on the left and No. 48420 below behind 2-6-0 No. 6382 and 0-6-0T No. 9429. (The 8Fs were two of the many allocated to the Western Region during World War Two and for about 15 years afterwards).