GWR Duke class 4-4-0 No 3295 Mount Edgecumbe at Old Oak Common shed

Peter Kerslake says "Duke" class 3295 "Mount Edgecumbe" was named after the estate overlooking the River Tamar on the Cornish side of the river where it narrows into Devonport dockyard and is recorded here at Old Oak Common in company with an equally clean "Hall" and a "King", the strange exhaust from the "King's" chimney reflecting that this photograph was secured using a slow shutter speed as film emulsions would have been slow in the 1930's.
Introduced in 1895 the "Dukes" constructed between 1895 and 1897 totalled forty, but in 1898 "Bulldog" emerged from Swindon works with a larger boiler thus heralding the way for what became the "Bulldog" class.
Both the members of the original "Duke" class and the later varients in the form of the "Bulldogs" were primarily intended for use to and within the West country but in their later years the "Dukes" were displaced by the "Bulldogs" and they in turn gave way to the "Halls" on principal passenger rosters although the "Dukes" and "Bulldogs" were then regularly deployed on piloting duties over the South Devon banks west of Newton Abbot."

Photo: W.V. Wiseman/Rail Archive Stephenson