RAILWAYANA

ECML LNER Pacifics head the parade of Stoneleigh nameplates

IT was game and set, if not match, to the LNER at Great Central’s auction at Stoneleigh on June 1, when Great Central from A1 No. 60156 and Falcon from A4 No. 60025 outsold nameplates from any of the other Big Four with respective realisations of £28,500 and £20,000.

With the former having been built by BR at Doncaster in October 1949, the year after Nationalisation, some may claim the glory isn’t the LNER’s, but the Pacific was designed by that company’s chief mechanical engineer Arthur Peppercorn and doubtless its name was already set in stone – if not already cast in brass – when Nationalisation came knocking at the door. The nameplate incorporated its original hand-painted GCR coat-of-arms.

Unlike the A1 nameplate, even the most diehard perfectionist wouldn’t gainsay the LNER lineage of Falcon, for this fellow East Coast Main Line thoroughbred, the product of Nigel Gresley’s design skills, entered traffic in January 1937.

The LMS prevented the LNER from claiming all three podium places when from Royal Scot No. 46161 sold under Mike Soden’s hammer for £12,000, while the final five-figure realisation was £10,500 for from GWR Hawksworthdesigned No.