Steam Trains and Engines

Fowler's ' Royal Scots ' filled an urgent need for passenger engines on the L.M.S. main lines, and for some years after their introduction they reigned supreme among L.M.S. locomotives. Trains were becoming steadily heavier, however, and in 1933, soon after Stanier's arrival from Swindon, there appeared the first of his Pacific designs for working the heaviest expresses to new accelerated schedules. No. 6200 was a 4-cylinder 4-6-2 with 6 ft. 6 in. coupled wheels named ' Princess Royal,' and with her sister engine ' Princess Elizabeth ' was responsible for some startling highspeed test runs between London and Glasgow. The third engine, No. 6202, appeared in 1935 as a turbine-driven locomotive, followed by a further ten ' Princess Royals.'

Then in 1938 Stanier decided to challenge Sir Nigel Gresley on his own ground; on the L.N.E.R. Gresley's ' A4s ' were regularly achieving three-figure speeds on the ' Silver Jubilee ' and ' Coronation ' trains, and to haul the new L.M.S. ' Coronation Scot' Stanier produced an enlarged and streamlined Pacific with four 161 in* 28 in. cylinders, a larger boiler and 6 ft. 9 in. wheels. Named ' Coronation,' No. 6220 was a most impressive machine and was soon joined by nine streamlined sisters named after Duchesses. Construction continued during the war, later engines being unstreamlined and the earlier ones losing their casings to simplify maintenance, until by 1948 a total of thirty-eight were in service. Until the advent of diesel traction the' Duchess ' engines handled the heaviest West Coast expresses with great distinction, and our picture shows ' Duchess of Devonshire' ready for the ' Royal Scot' in the summer of 1961. The last of the class was withdrawn in September, 1964.