BR steam liveries

Yes, it was an LNWR shed, but right bang in L&YR territory, and later came under Newton Heath. They were not good friends.

 

Yes, it was 26E. Bury(26D) also had some Austins but they were replaced very early on by WDs. Nearly half of the class was withdrawn in 1949

 

When Stewarts and Lloyds opened the large steelworks at Corby in the mid 1930s, a number of D s were reallocated to 15B Kettering to work trains to and from there in the mid 1930s. Austin 7s were already there to work iron ore trains .Both classes were sent away when plenty of 8FS became available ,Ds just after WW2 finished ,and Austin 7s about 1950.There were a couple of D workings right up to the mid/late 1950s,one was a Sats only Nuneaton to Kettering furnaces coal train, a 2B Nuneaton working ,another was a South Wales to Corby slack train. That was a 1E Bletchley working. Both loco's going on Kettering shed later. Right at the end of steam when 8F/9Fs had taken over ,Evening Star worked straight thro from South Wales on one of the Corby slack trains .Loco change was normally at Swanbourne ,west of Bletchley.

 

In "Platform Souls" Nicolas Whittaker writes that as GWR locos only had four digits, if you were bunking round a shed and writing down numbers, you spent 20% less time doing so.

 

You’ve just reminded me of that! Might have to dig out my copy and have a re-read later.

 

I dont know about 20 % at sheds ,but you had to be a bit smartish wrighting down numbers when passing the bigger sheds on a train.I had a number of short cuts ,one thing that has never recovered is that I still do a number 3 like a letter c backwards.A nother anoying thing was that if some lads had briought along a girl friend , they would started shouting out the numbers trying to be helpfull ,but they were imeditaly told to shut up.

 

My Dad introduced me to collecting numbers. He could memorise them as we rode past Camden and then write them down. And yes, the numbers that we jotted down at the time would omit the leading "4". (I think there were few if any non-LMS ones at Camden.) After we got home I would duly tick them off in my Ian Allen book in red ink with an old-fashioned pen. I have recently come across the bottle of red ink. He didn't have an Ian Allen book but a notebook in which he had carefully written out all the numbers in each class by hand.

But by the time I was grown up, although I continued to be interested in railways (obviously, or I wouldn't be here) I had minimal interest in collecting numbers.

 

I still have my Dad's ABCs, and a hand-written notebook from 1947-48, presumably when he started collecting numbers at 10 years old. Nice memories to have and keep.

Richard.

 

Another Midland allocation was to Market Harborough where a G2a was based for banking duties on the Market Harborough - Northampton line; I recall seeing 49447 there in the early 1960s when I cycled over from Corby as the shed was on the LNWR section of the station goods yard adjacent to the Rugby - Peterborough line.

The "Corby slack" was the daily Ebbw Vale - Corby service that travelled via Bletchley, Northampton and Wellingborough to Corby. Whilst it often had a 1E Bletchley locomotive when it arrived at Corby, the empty wagons returned as the Corby Sidings - Hinksey working with the engine resting at Kettering between trains. I well recall the service arriving behind a G2a + Stanier 8F one day when the G2a could be heard wheezing from Miles away !! In later years as electrification worked its way down the WCML the service became a regular source of Class 40 traction but when the Northampton - Wellingborough - Peterborough line closed the train was diverted via Birmingham, Leicester and Oakham. Its other claim to fame was it being the service that 31.150 was working when the runaway wagons flattenned the cab and killed the driver instantly at the Gretton end of Corby Tunnel.

 

I think the only non LMS loco I ever saw at Camden was 71000. 70045 is in one of my notebooks that has survived but I can’t say if that was seen at Willesden or Camden.

 

Question on liveries. Did any LNWR engines regain LNWR lined livery, i e BR lined black after nationalisation?

Not that many LNWR types reached BR in any numbers for any length of time, the main ones were Super Ds, which as a freight engine would not have had lining. The only obvious candidates were the 5 foot 6 2-4-2 tanks, I think that about 40 or so reached BR and the last withdrawal was in 1955.

Midland and L & Y 2-4-2 and 0-4-4 tanks of similar age did get lined black, but every photo I have seen of these LNWR engines in BR days has them in plain black.

Did any get the lining?

 

The very few postwar colour images of sometime 'top link' ex-LNW locos I've ever seen show decidedly tired pre-war LMS crimson. I'm not even sure the handful which reached nationalisation any actually carried their allocated BR number, let alone enjoyed a repaint.

 

None of the handful of LNWR passenger tender engines which reached BR (3 Georges, 4 Princes and a Claughton) were renumbered.

The passenger 2-4-2 tanks were, the numbers were in the 46601 series.

 

Oh good .... that's the number of tender locos I arrived at too! Though the LNW is hardly familiar territory to me, for reasons I've never been able adequately to explain, I find the Claughtons endlessly fascinating.

 

46666 is one that definitely carried its B.R. number but in an LMS script which appears painted over its old number and had no visible crest (or LMS) on the tanks. The last Watford tank carried its B.R. number 46900 in B.R. Gill Sans with the 'cycling lion' crest. Photos in Casserley's Steam Locos of B.R.
Ray.

 

A look through a variety of LNWR survivors in BR days photographs shows them in a fairly begrimed condition. The new number has usually been applied over old paintwork with often the LMS lettering still present or no identification at all.

Presumably if a particular class had qualified for British Railways full lining it would have been applied in works at the time of an overhaul. Most of the LNWR survivors would not have been considered worth the cost of major works particularly with new Standard designs being built and other designs from Grouping days cascading down. Furthermore Crewe had a paint shop that would have been busy most of the time with new and more modern designs so older types would be down the pecking order for an up to date livery.

The great survivors were the Super D's and they were in a basic black in the photos I have seen ( that is presuming under all the muck there is some paint somewhere...)

It is tempting to think however if the last Claughton had survived to turn up in the 1950's for overhaul Crewe would have given it the full works!