Merchant Venturer', Metro-Vic Locomotive No 18100, 31 May 1952.

The Merchant Venturer', Metro-Vic Locomotive No 18100 at Bristol Temple Meads station on 31 May 1952. In the late 1940s the Great Western Railway ordered two experimental gas turbine locomotives for expres pasenger work, one from Metropolitan-Vickers of Manchester, the other from the Swis manufacturer Brown Boveri. They were delivered in 1949 after nationalisation and they undertook a comsiderable amount of running on test trains and regular services. Although their performance showed promise, the gas turbine principle was not ultimately adopted. Photograph by T E Williams.