GWR 4100 Class

GWR 4100 Class

In 1897 the Great Western Railway (GWR) introduced the Badminton class express passenger 4-4-0 steam locomotives as a development from the earlier Duke class. The name Badminton was chosen after the Duke of Beaufort's Badminton estate, through which the GWR was building a new line to South Wales at the time.

Further modifications to the design resulted in the Atbara Class entering service in 1900, the names for these locomotives generally being taken from contemporary military engagements or senior army commanders. Later engines were named after cities of the British Empire.

The final batch of locomotives were named after varieties of garden plant and in consequence were known as the Flower Class.

These three types were later standardised and treated as a single class, so are listed together here. Four other prototype 4-4-0s, originally built in 1894 as the Armstrong Class, were also later rebuilt as Badmintons (see below).

This class were subject to the 1912 renumbering of GWR 4-4-0 locomotives, which saw the Bulldog Class gathered together in the series 3300-3455, and other types renumbered out of that series. This class took numbers 4100-4172 (of which numbers 4101-4120 had previously been used by Flower Class locomotives).