The Final Years of London Midland Region Steam: A Pictorial Tribute

By David Mather

Extensively illustrated with photos, a history of the many locomotives that became part of this British Railways region.

This book investigates the vast number of locomotives that came to the London Midland Region in 1948 upon the nationalization of the four largest railway companies in the UK. It is a class-by-class survey with over two hundred illustrations, covering all the top link and freight classes and also looking at the smaller types of locomotive, operating on branch lines and doing more humble tasks.

The author explores what happened to them, and also looks at those that eventually made their way into preservation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526770226

David Mather

DAVID MATHER, originally from Bolton, Lancashire, where his early interests in railways centred on his home shed, coded 26C later 9 K and the nearby West Coast Main Line, which he documented until the end of steam in 1968.The author relocated to the Midlands and later to York which rekindled his interest in railways and steam traction, the digital era allowing his work to be made available to a wider audience.Now a photographer and railway author, his most recent book being Exploring the Lake District with the Furness Railway Tours, which has a foreward by Eric Robson, broadcaster and chairman of the Wainwright Society.The Railways of York was shortlisted for the Ian Allan railway book of the year award, Ian Allan writing the foreward for the authors first book, Running Out of Steam.Other Titles include, Riding the Settle and Carlisle, East Lancashire Railway Recollections, Keighley & Worth Valley Railway Recollections and Great Britain’s Heritage Railways.

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1. Background

The London Midland Region (LMR) of British Railways, was born out of the post Second World War nationalisation of the exhausted ‘Big Four’ companies which had operated the railway system since the Grouping of 1923. It was one of six Regions created to breathe new life into a network which had been devastated by the ravages of war and the enforced neglect resulting from it. From 1 January 1948, the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSR), London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), Great Western Railway (GWR) and the Southern Railway (SR) were reorganised into the London Midland Region, Eastern Region, North Eastern Region, Scottish Region, Western Region and Southern Region of British Railways (see map), at which time control of the network passed to the newly instituted British Transport Commission and the Railway Executive – the second tier of the management structure composed of the men who had really got to do the job of running the railways. Overnight, Company Chairmen and Boards of Directors disappeared, while from the outset it became abundantly clear that LMS influence would be strong, as its Vice President Robert ‘Robin’ Riddles, was appointed Member of the Railway Executive for Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. His two principal assistants, Roland C. Bond (appointed Chief Officer, Locomotive Construction and Maintenance) and E.S. Cox (Executive Officer, Design) were also former LMS men, reflecting the widely held view that the LMS Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Department was unquestionably the most soundly based of the former ‘Big Four’, as a result of the leadership and organisational skills of Sir William Stanier FRS, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of that company from 1932 until 1944.

These were the origins of the London Midland Region (LM) of British Railways. (Map author: Igel B TyMaHe)

The Region was initially managed from buildings next to London’s Euston Station and later from Stanier House in Birmingham. It would be a major player in the English railway system until the 1980s, when it ceased to be an operating unit in its own right and was finally wound up at the end of 1992 in preparation for the privatisation of the railway network the following year.

British Railways was the business name of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission and, conscious of the unprofitable nature of the dense network, immediately undertook a programme of closures. Nevertheless, the financial position of BR became gradually worse and an operating loss was recorded in 1955, by which time the Railway Executive had been abolished and direct control transferred back to the parent Commission. During this period, BR had introduced its first ‘corporate logo’ in the form of the ‘lion on wheel’ emblem, which was used on its locomotives between 1950 and early 1956, to be replaced by its second, the ‘ferret and dartboard’ crest later that year.

The LMR had inherited a ‘rag-bag’ of steam locomotives from the constituent companies which had made up the LMS, and as that company had been the largest of the ‘Big Four’, having itself been formed from such diverse ancestry as the London & North Western (LNWR), Midland (MR), Lancashire & Yorkshire (L&Y), North Staffordshire (NSR), Furness (FR), Caledonian (CR), Glasgow & South Western (G&SWR) and the Highland (HR), not to mention their numerous subsidiary companies, the acquired stock was therefore vast and varied. In fact, in 1948 the LMR inherited well over 6,000 locos from the LMS, working out of depots spread across England from London to Carlisle and from Bristol to the Humber and representing 183 classes. About 60 per cent of these were from classes built during the regimes of names now famous in the annals of LMS steam – Hughes, Fowler, Stanier, Fairburn and Ivatt, and whose origins could be traced back to Midland Railway designs such as the ‘Compound’ 4-4-0s and ‘4F’ 0-6-0s. As time had passed and more powerful locos were needed, the versatile but ungainly Hughes 2-6-0s had appeared, unkindly nicknamed the ‘Horwich Crabs’. Later, Fowler’s contribution in the late 1920s had included the ‘Royal Scot’ and ‘Patriot’ classes, as well as the massive ‘Garratts’ and capable 2-6-4 Tanks. But it was undoubtedly the influence of Stanier which transformed the LMS and whose designs are most remembered today. His ambitious programme of standardisation resulted in the appearance of over 4,500 new locos but in only twenty-nine classes, reflecting his policy of ‘scrap and build’ – discarding the old designs inherited in 1923 and aiming to replace them with a much smaller number of standard designs, which was almost completely achieved throughout the range of locomotive operation from the workaday 0-6-0 tanks to the prestigious and powerful Pacifics. His excellent ‘Princess’ and ‘Duchess’ Pacifics, ‘Jubilees’ and ‘Black 5s’, the impressive work-horse 8F 2-8-0 freight locos and not forgetting his powerful little 4P 2-6-4 Tanks, between them transformed the steam scene on the LMS. Stanier’s successor, Fairburn, continued the construction of Class 5 4-6-0s and added a slightly modified version of the 2-6-4 Tank. Finally, Ivatt, who was appointed CME of the LMS in 1946 after the sudden death of Charles Fairburn, introduced further new classes in the shape of 2MT and 4MT 2-6-0 Moguls and 2MT 2-6-2 Tanks around the time of nationalisation. These would provide the bulk of the immediate requirements of British Railways and would constitute a sound range of locos appropriate to the varied needs of the LMR. It was this inheritance of a large number of modern designs, primarily the result of Stanier’s twelve-year term of office, that sounded the death knell for many of the older designs. This was especially the case with his Class 5 4-6-0 mixed traffic engine, the ‘Black 5’, of which almost 850 were built from 1934. A similar situation arose with heavy freight from the following year, when Stanier introduced his successful taper-boiler 8F 2-8-0 design, which would soon number well over 650 and would displace the older 0-8-0s surviving from LNWR days. Added to these were a large number of 0-6-0T shunting locos, of which the 3Fs were the most numerous. Generally known as ‘Jinties’, most sheds in the LMR would have at least one and the larger depots with extensive shunting yards might have quite a fleet.

BR’s ‘lion on wheel’ emblem. (Hugh Llewelyn) Opposite, its successor. (Michael Ely) The ‘ferret and dartboard’ logo was used on locomotives until it was in turn replaced by the introduction of the ‘corporate blue’ livery and ‘double arrow’ logo. British Railways traded as ‘British Rail’ from 1965 until the gradual privatisation of the network was introduced in stages between 1994 and 1997.

The LMR also operated a considerable number of 2-6-2 and 2-6-4 tank locomotives as the mainstay of local passenger services, represented by designs by Fowler, Stanier and Fairburn. From 1946, the introduction by Ivatt of the 2MT 2-6-0 and his new version of the 2-6-2 tank accelerated the process of replacing many of the pre-Grouping designs still operating on branch and cross-country services, where weight restrictions ruled out the use of heavier locos. The new engines, with their modern more comfortable cabs, were immediately welcomed by crews who had put up with the spartan conditions of their predecessors for years and their success proved instrumental in their adoption as the basis for the Standard designs which were to follow.

Added to this impressive inheritance of what might be termed LMS Standard types, the LMR acquired over 2,000 locos from pre-Grouping companies, mainly freight tender engines and Tanks and, though their numbers would diminish steadily after 1948, some survived well into the 1960s, mainly working in the Midlands and the North of the Region. The ‘small engine policy’ of the Midland Railway had resulted in large numbers of locos being made available to BR, including a fleet of 4Fs whose numbers had been swelled by the addition of a post-Grouping development introduced from 1924, and the 4-4-0 Compounds which had been the Midland Railway’s principal passenger loco.

Finally, BR purchased a large number of locos from the War Department which had been in service on the railways of Great Britain or elsewhere during the Second World War. These included forty-two Stanier 8Fs which were added to the existing Class to make a total of 666 of the 2-8-0 locos. 553 ‘Austerity’ 2-8-0s were purchased in 1948 and numbered 90000-90552. The 180 surviving ex-LNER Class 07s were later added and renumbered into the same Class as 90553-90732. Twenty-five WD Austerity 8F 2-10-0s were also added in 1948 (BR numbers 90750-74) along with five survivors from the eight LMS Fowler 3F 0-6-0Ts exported to France, repatriated in 1948 and numbered 47589, 607, 611, 659 and 660.

The need to rationalise the numbering of this diverse inheritance had been obvious from the start, and very shortly after its formation this was achieved simply by adding 40000 to the former numbers, thereby giving LMR locos numbers in the series 4xxxx-5xxxx, with some very elderly locos being renumbered in the 58xxx series to allow for the incorporation of new engines to existing LMS designs, which continued for some time. LMS influence was also to the fore when it came to adopting a common power classification system for all locomotives. The new system, a slightly modified version of the LMS scheme (itself based on that of the earlier Midland Railway) allotted each loco a number from zero to nine which signified its power, with zero being the least and nine the most powerful. A suffix ‘F’ for freight and ‘P’ for passenger was added, with freight powers ranging from zero to nine and passenger from zero to eight. As many locos were used for both roles, these were allocated two power class numbers, with the ‘P’ rating first, for example 6P5F. When the passenger and freight ratings were identical, the locos were classified as ‘MT’, meaning ‘Mixed Traffic’. So for example, the LMS Class 5s (‘Black 5s’) were rated 5P5F, while the later BR Class 5s became 5MT. Mixed Traffic locos had power classes in the range two to six.

The duties of Riddles, Bond and Cox effectively covered the old post of CME, so that they oversaw the design and introduction of the locomotives needed to restock and revitalise the nation’s railway system, including a series of new designs which would replace many of the survivors from pre-Grouping days. The workshops at Crewe, Derby and Horwich would produce large numbers of these ‘BR Standard’ types to operate out of LMR depots from the early 1950s and these, together with the large wartime fleet of ‘Austerity’ heavy freight locos, would be a sight commonplace throughout the LMR until the end of steam on 11 August 1968. It was the last of the BR Regions to completely eliminate steam traction under the 1955 Modernisation Plan, with the closure of the three surviving steam sheds of Rose Grove near Burnley, Lostock Hall near Preston and of course Carnforth, which would live on initially as ‘Steamtown’ railway museum and latterly as the operational base of the train operating company, West Coast Railways. Riddles’ reign at BR saw the introduction of twelve new classes of locomotive which would use standardised interchangeable parts, thereby reducing maintenance costs and increasing efficiency. Notable amongst these were the ‘Britannia’ Class 7P6F 4-6-2s which were designed at Derby and appeared in 1951, the Class 4 and Class 5 4-6-0s and the Class 4 2-6-0 Tanks.

By 1954, all twelve of the new classes had been introduced, culminating in the heavy freight Class 9F 2-10-0s, which many regarded as the high point of British steam locomotive design. Construction of new steam locos continued until 18 March 1960 when the last example (and the 999th Standard locomotive) emerged from Swindon Works in the shape of 9F 2-10-0 number 92220, Evening Star. Just over eight years later, the last standard gauge steam engines were withdrawn from service by BR, when many of