Pre grouping locos

I'm reading an old book by O S Nock about locos of the 20th century up to 1930. If I read it right the LNWR had 474 4-6-0s in that period to the GWRs 138. It struck me that such a major railway has little preserved for us to see.
Hopefully in time a few replicas from this era will redress the balance, we don't really need anymore from the closing decades of steam, even though those are the ones people remember fondly.

 

and they didn't all look the same.

 

Although there are lots of preserved GWR 4-6-0s, they are nearly all post-grouping (and some of them post nationalisation). There aren't very many preserved locos from any of the other pre-grouping companies either. Granted the LNWR was a big company that is badly represented in preservation, but is it much worse than any other company?

 

No, I'm not advocating exclusively LNWR replicas! (Oh and LNWR locos did have a strong family likeness )

 

I make it just 20 Pre group GWR locomotives (not including absorbed), including two new builds, one dismantled for spares, three museum display unlikely ever to be steamed, one major rebuild, 4 scrapyard condition and one controversial inclusion! Of those no less than 13 are 8 coupled! Only one genuine pre grouping GWR 4-6-0 survives, and will not be steamed, but of course were she steamed she would be able to pull two of their bloody things backwards [grin]

Code:

4003    4-6-0    Lode Star             Conserved/Restored/Non operational
3217    4-4-0    Earl of Berkeley  Rebuild/Conserved/Out Of service
4247    2-8-0T                      Currently Serviceable
4248    2-8-0T                     Conserved/Unrestored
4253    2-8-0T                     Under Active Restoration/Never Steamed since BR
4270    2-8-0T                     Under Active Restoration/Never Steamed since BR
4277    2-8-0T                     Currently Serviceable
1363    0-6-0T                     Out Of Service/Under repair
5322    2-6-0                       Currently Serviceable
3440    4-4-0     City of Truro    Conserved/Out Of service
4709    2-8-0                       Rebuild/Under Active Restoration/Never Steamed since BR
2807    2-8-0                       Currently Serviceable
2818    2-8-0                       Conserved/Restored/Non operational
2857    2-8-0                       Currently Serviceable
2859    2-8-0                       Unconserved/Unrestored
2861    2-8-0                       Reduced to spares
2873    2-8-0                       Unconserved/Unrestored
2874    2-8-0                       Unconserved/Unrestored
2999    4-6-0    Lady of Legend   Rebuild/Under Active Restoration/Never Steamed since BR

 

But remember that many of these LNWR locos were among those that were quickly replaced by the new Stanier designs - especially the mixed traffic Class 5s - hence few survived to even become part of BR in 1948 whereas the GWR policy of standardisation saw many achieve that distinction even to the point of Castles being built by BR !

 

Whilst bemoaning the LNWR, how about the L&Y.. Because it didn't serve London it missed almost all the Whitehall preservation radar.

 

It's a fascinating book, the sheer detail on some many fine locos...literally hundreds of classes which would prove fine subjects for a replica....I'd even forgo a GWR replica to see some of them!

 

Which book is it?

In terms of loco numbers, it was only really the Southern that kept running the older locos and only then because they were spending the money on electrification. They would have scrapped them soon enough! I think the smaller business units had a better eye on the botom line...

 

I think the LNWR has come off quite poorly in preservation. How many standard gauge locos are there? Four, I think, of which two are ancient (Columbine and Cornwall(.

By contrast, the much smaller LBSCR has 13 (mostly Stroudley from the 1870s / 1880s); the SER/SECR have nine if you include the SECR-designed but SR-built N class (mostly Wainwright designs from the Edwardian era) and the LSWR has ten, spanning fifty years from the 1870s to the 1920s and four designers - Beattie, Adams, Drummond, Urie.

I guess most of the front-line LNWR locos were scrapped in the 1920s/30s and replaced with more modern designs. But what happened to the smaller branch locos? Why did so few end up in preservation?

Tom

 

LBSCR is a bad example given that 10 of them are Terriers and some fantastic machines existed....Bessborough or Remberance for instance..

 

Yes, though if you were an LNWR fan, I suspect you'd take ten from one class over zero! Incidentally, I got my number wrong - it is thirteen, plus a new build. (Ten A1 / A1x, one E1, one E4, one B1, one H2 new build).

Would agree with you about Bessborough and Remembrance - they are on my Euromillions list...

Tom

 

The Great Central is another example of a railway with magnificent huge express locos and just Butler Henderson and the 2-8-0 to represent them.

 

Hardwicke, Coal Tank, Super D and an 0-4-0ST (1439). Not to mention the 'Bloomer' replica. Thats 6 or 7 depending on how you count them.

The real shame, I think (and with apologies if I'm wrong), is the lack of any group trying to put together a train of LNWR carriages. There are enough examples around in need of help and if one of the LNWR-based heritage lines were to do it, successfully, they could probably then put together a good case for getting Hardwicke back into steam to run with them. How about it, Battlefield, Nene Valley or Northampton & Lamport?

 

The LSWR seemed to do quite well though:

1 x T3
1 x T9
1 x 0415 Radial Tank
2 x M7
1 x O2
2 x B4
2 x 0298 Well tank
2 x S15's

Not to mention the other surviving S15's plus 777 whilst built when the railways were grouped derived from the LSWR.

 

Its ironic to wonder how much of our preserved steam wouldn't have survived if mainline steam had lasted another ten years... The [G]WR was retiring pre WW1 locomotives right through the 50s, and of my list above only 4003, 3217, 2807, 2818 and 3440 predate 1917, and three of those were preserved in the 1950s or before.

 

Not forgetting the North London Tank on the Bluebell - part of the LNWR for some of it's life.

Steve B

 

Depending on how some look at it this could be included in that list: http://lnwrgeorgevtrust.org.uk/

 

"if one of the LNWR-based heritage lines were to do it, successfully, they could probably then put together a good case for getting Hardwicke back into steam to run with them. How about it, Battlefield, Nene Valley or Northampton & Lamport?"
In 1976 I paid my first visit to the NVR and the British coaching stock was in a pseudo LNWR livery. I was told "We are attempting to recreate a typical LNWR branch line here.
Earlier in 1976 I was on a double headed excursion along part of the Cumbrian Coast. For half the journey, the pilot loco was "Hardwicke". Such a shame it appears to have been mothballed since then.
As for more LBSCR than LNWR in preservation; could it be that people living in the South are financially better off than their Northen bretheren and thus more able to fund their hobby?

 

Not if you look at the house price difference they aren't! (in fact it was due to the Terriers being a manageable size for the embryonic railways of those times