This book is a comprehensive history of all twenty-six classes of four coupled tank engines commissioned by the Great Western Railway or built at their Wolverhampton and Swindon Works, from the Broad Gauge 2-4-0 and 4-4-0 tanks of the 1840s and 1850s to the well known Collett 0-4-2 branch line engines of classes 48XX (later renumbered 14XX) and 58XX of the 1930s. As well as the Broad Gauge engines, the strange looking ‘Covertibles’ of William Dean, a number of experimental ‘one-off’ designs, the numerous Wolverhampton 0-4-2Ts of the ‘517’ class and the Swindon built ‘2-4-0 ‘Metro Tanks’ are described with – where known – their allocation and operation. The book includes twenty weight diagrams and nearly 300 photographs, over 50 in color. The four-coupled tank engines absorbed by the Great Western from other companies at or before 1923 will be featured in a separate volume to follow.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Engineers
  • Sir Daniel Gooch
  • Joseph Armstrong
  • George Armstrong
  • William Dean
  • G.J. Churchward
  • C.B. Collett
• Chapter 2 The Broad Gauge Locomotives
• Chapter 3 Standard Gauge Locomotives built by the GWR before 1923
  • Wolverhampton designed classes
  • Swindon designed classes
  • Experimental locomotives
• Chapter 4 Locomotives built by the GWR after 1923
• Chapter 5 Preservation
• Colour Section
• Appendix
• Bibliography