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Women war workers of Birmingham

Mark Tooze said:
Here is a puzzle - the captions all say "Great Central Railway Birmingham" - but the Great Central came nowhere near Birmingham from what I can research - Rugby or Leicester were about as close as it got according to this map from Wikipedia:- View attachment 189255
The only thing I can think of is that the locomotive was being serviced in Birmingham (you can see Great Central on one of the tenders, and also a building in the background that looks like it cound be Tyseley works) - I suppose in wartime they would have had to service anything they could - any thoughts anyone?

Anyway the photos are a damn good set and who am I to argue with the Imperial War Museum - so here we go - all dated 1918:-
View attachment 189256
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Click to expand...
I might have nailed the location - this very similar postcard from the Midland Railway site is labelled 1918 and would pinpoint the location as Saltley Shed:-
1738581969303.png
 
What a fantastic photo Mark. The women look quite young to me and it shows how vast engines could be. There's at least 10 women cleaning it, welcome work for them I expect. But expect their jobs went back to male workers soon after this photo.
 
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