A Shop Gallery

2-8-0 locomotives under construction in AE shop, 1943

In this image, War Department 2-8-0 locomotives are shown under construction in AE shop at Swindon Works in May 1943. In order to meet the demand for locomotives for war work, the War Department placed an order in 1942 for the GWR to build 80 LMS 8F Class Stanier 2-8-0 freight locomotives, for use both at home and overseas. The short supply of raw materials meant that the building of these locomotives took longer than expected, and this image shows a number of the first batch of 27 engines under construction, over a year after the first order was placed

Tanks under construction in A Erecting Shop, Swindon Works. 1941

One of the earliest tasks contracted to the GWR by the Ministry of Supply was the erection of tanks for supply overseas. Thousands of tank components were being made by all the British railway companies during the initial years of the war, and this image of A Erecting shop at Swindon Works taken in June 1941 shows some of those components being brought together to form the body of 25-27 ton tanks. The tanks under construction are Infantry Tank Mark II, or Matilda II, as they were commonly known. They were difficult and complex tanks to build and required a skilled workforce with specialist machinery to correctly manufacture this model