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Location Category ID: 3480 Added to Database: 22 March 2011 Last Edited: 22 March 2011 Address: Middlemore Industrial Estate, Middlemore Road, Smethwick, West Midlands B66 Telephone: Email: Opening Times: Official Website: Other Links: Wikipedia Black Country Bugle Media Archives Video YouTube Churchill Tank Message Board Latitude, Longitude: 52.50534238 , -1.95927858 Location Accuracy: 7 Tanks Previously Here: Models of tank built here: 1: A10 Cruiser Mark II Tank (Primary manufacturer) 2: A10 Cruiser Mark IIA Tank (Primary manufacturer) 3: A10 Cruiser Mark IIA CS Tank (Primary manufacturer) 4: A27M Cromwell Tank - Cromwell I (Manufacturer of pilot model) 5: A30 Challenger Tank (Design parent and sole manufacturer) 6: Valentine Tank - Mark I (Probable additional manufacturer) 7: Valentine Tank - Mark II (Probable additional manufacturer) 8: Valentine Tank - Mark III (Probable additional manufacturer) 9: Valentine Tank - Mark IV (Probable additional manufacturer) 10: Valentine Tank - Mark V (Probable additional manufacturer) 11: Valentine Tank - Mark VIII (Probable additional manufacturer) 12: Valentine Tank - Mark IX (Probable additional manufacturer) 13: Valentine Tank - Mark X (Probable additional manufacturer) 14: Valentine Tank - Mark XI (Probable additional manufacturer) 15: Valentine Tank - Unidentified Model (Probable additional manufacturer) The Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company (BRCW) was a railway locomotive and carriage builder founded in Birmingham in 1854. Its factory was located on Middlemore Road in Smethwick, straddling the boundary with Handsworth. BRCW made not only huge numbers of carriages and wagons, but a range of vehicles, from aeroplanes and military gliders to buses, trolleybuses and tanks. It supplied vehicles to all four of the pre-nationalisation ‘big four’ railway companies (LMS, SR, LNER and GWR), British Rail, Pullman and Wagons-Lits, plus railways as diverse as those in Egypt, India, South Africa, Iraq, Malaya and Nigeria. The company built hospital trains during the Second Boer War, Handley Page bombers and Airco DH10s in 1914-1918, and tanks (including the A10 Cruiser, Churchill tank, Cromwell tank and Challenger), plus Hamilcar gliders in 1939-1945. In the years running up to 1963 the company had built an extensive number of locomotives, multiple units, and Underground cars, but then rapidly got into financial difficulties, and the business closed down. (Source: Wikipedia). During the Second World War Churchill tanks were built by BRCW with WD numbers in the ranges T31821-995 and T67868-990 (source: C. Shillito/Churchill TMB).

Location Images - Photographs and NavPix (click to expand or browse)

1962 1: “Diesel locomotives under construction at the Birmingham... Taken: 1962 Contributor: CRFU Location Photo ID: 447 Added: 22 March 2011 Views: 138 Has Priority: 0
1925 2: “The BRC&W wood mill”, photo from Black Country Bugle Taken: 1925 (Estimated) Contributor: CRFU Location Photo ID: 446 Added: 22 March 2011 Views: 133 Has Priority: 0

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