GWR Joseph Armstrong locomotives (Wolverhampton)

Between 1854 when the Shrewsbury and Chester and Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railways were absorbed by the Great Western Railway, and 1864 when he moved south to Swindon Works, Joseph Armstrong occupied the post of the GWR's Locomotive Superintendent, Northern Division, at Wolverhampton Works. For ten years the task of providing new locomotives for the GWR's newly acquired standard gauge lines fell jointly to Armstrong and to his superior Daniel Gooch, the railway's principal Locomotive Superintendent who was based at Paddington.

This article deals with the new locomotives designed by Armstrong during his Wolverhampton years. For his later, Swindon locomotives, see the individual articles as listed in the table of GWR Locomotives at the foot of the article.

The locomotives

At the start of his GWR career (1854-8), Armstrong was concerned principally with keeping the motley collection of S&CR and S&BR locomotives in working order, and with enlarging Wolverhampton (Stafford Road) Works. He eventually began new construction there in 1858/9. These were the four classes of locomotive newly built at Wolverhampton during the Joseph Armstrong years:

The 7, 30 and 110 Classes

These were three differing types of 2-2-2 engine (initially of the Jenny Lind type), though they are recorded as a single class in the GWR diagrams. Nos. 7 and 8 (6 ft 3 in or 1,905 mm driving wheels) were built in 1859, No. 30 (6 ft 6 in or 1,981 mm wheels) in 1860, and the fourth, No.