One of the third and final series of rebuilds from the original " 5205 " smaller and lighter freight locomotives , 7249 is seen here at Severn Tunnel Junction , my old shedbook showing her to have been allocated to 87B ., which was Duffryn Yard , in January of 1956 , a few years earlier than the date of this view.
The 54 heavy freight locomotives of this class were rebuilds of the 1923 series of " 5205 " engines which had been stored out of use almost from their outset due to the unfortunate diminishing coal traffic within South Wales in the ' thirties , the duties for which they had originally been designed and introduced , and it fell to C.B.Collett , then the Great Western's Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1934 to begin a series of three rebuilding programmes which eventually produced these fine heavy freight locomotives which saw service up until 1965 when the last four of the class were condemned.