David Maidment

This second volume on the LNER 4-4-0 locomotives describes the design, construction, history, operation and performance of the North Eastern, North British, Great North of Scotland and Gresley LNER built examples, classified by the LNER at the Grouping as classes, D17 - D24, D25 - D36, D38 - D48 and D49 respectively. It covers from their emergence in the late nineteenth century to their demise in the mid or late 1950s and early 1960s with their performance at their peak operation times, mainly in the inter-war years of LNER ownership.

The three main constituent companies of the Southern Railway had different policies for tank engine design. The London & South Western built tank engines for suburban, branch and heavy goods work, the London, Brighton and South Coast had many designs for express passenger, mixed traffic and goods work as their main routes were short enough to be resourced by tank engines with limited water capacity and the South Eastern and Chatham ventured into a similar policy in its last days with the ‘River’ class only for the Southern Railway to be dissuaded from further development following the disastrous Sevenoaks accident in 1927. Unlike the other three post-Grouping railways, the Southern made no further effort to adopt the tank engine design for passenger or mixed traffic purposes apart from Maunsells ‘W’ and ‘Z’ for freight and shunting until Bulleid’s revolutionary (and unsuccessful) ‘Leader’ class. This book describes the design, construction, operation and performance of all these pre- and post-Grouping classes and the final adoption of the LMS and BR Standard 2-6-4 and 2-6-2 tank engines to fill the void in the Southern Region’s locomotive fleet.

This book contains a selection of mainly unpublished photographs from the vast collection of railway photos and slides held in the archives of the Manchester Locomotive Society, founded in 1935, and based at their clubrooms on Stockport station. Many were taken by the original members of the club during the 1930s and in the post-war period of the early 1950s. Their locations range from Stafford in the south to Shap in the north and Shrewsbury/Llandudno in the west to Peak Forest in the east and their dates range from the Victorian era to the present day. Most of the photos are of locomotives and trains of the London & North Western and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways and the successor LMS Company, but the range includes some Midland and Great Western subjects.The book will be of interest to railway historians and modellers of the period and timescales portrayed and to those just fascinated by the railways of the industrial north-west and the magnificent scenery of the locations in North Wales, the Peak and Lake Districts.

The British Atlantic locomotive flourished in the first decade of the nineteenth century especially on the relatively level stretches of the East Coast mainline. This book describes the design, construction, history, operation and performance of the Great Northern, Great Central, North Eastern and North British Atlantics and the London Brighton & South Coast engines that were developed from the GN design. More unusual were the Lancashire & Yorkshire ‘Highflyers’ which were some of the earliest and also included are the most powerful of all, Churchward’s Great Western Atlantics (converted to 4-6-0s later) and his three French Compounds. Most had been replaced by 4-6-0 and 4-6-2 designs by the 1920s and were withdrawn before the Second World War, though a few lingered to the post-war period and just reached the era of British Railways, though only the Brighton Atlantics survived longer. The last of all, 32424 Beachy Head, was withdrawn in 1958 and has been recreated for the Heritage industry. The book concludes with a brief look for comparative purposes at some of the most influential Atlantics on the rest of the world’s railways.