The 1948 Locomotive Exchange Trials
Soon after the railways were nationalised in 1948, the then newly formed British Railways Board (BRB) undertook a review of the locomotive stock which had been inherited from the ‘Big Four’ independent railway companies. What soon became clear was that the whole stable of steam locomotives made up from hundreds of different class types, great numbers of which were getting close to retirement or in some cases, were already life-expired. Immediately after starting the government-owned organisation needed to reduce costs as quickly and as practical as possible. Not an easy task with a railway almost bankrupted by war. However, efforts began in earnest almost immediately and during its first 12 months, the BRB had enlisted the services of the renowned locomotive engineer Robert A Riddles, previously of the LMS, to assume responsibility for the Mechanical & Electrical Engineering department. Riddles was given the task of developing a new small range of new steam locomotive designs, which would eventually replace the older pre-nationalised classes.
Riddles’ eventual course of action was to utilies the best pre-nationalisation designs and incorporate the finest qualities of each into his new designs, thus amalgamating the best of the engineering feats from all of the former railway companies. His first move towards producing new designs were the ‘Locomotive Exchange Trials’. Riddles started his quest by selecting a number of express type locomotives from each of the newly-formed Regions and utilising them on ‘foreign’ territory. For example, LMS locomotives were run over the Southern Region where there were no water troughs. To compensate for this they were married together with four-axled ex-War Department tenders with larger water tanks. These were specifically given LMS lettering for the occasion. In a similar way, ex-Southern Region locomotives used elsewhere were paired with ex-LMS tenders with water scoops. This gave the design team some important information on how suitable particular locomotive classes were to certain stretches of line.
Having completed the Locomotive Exchange Trials, Riddles’ Chief Draftsmen went back to the drawing board and began to formulate the first of the then new ‘standardised’ steam locomotives. Officially, these trials were intended to establish the best aspects of the four different approaches to locomotive design so that they could be used in the new BR standard designs. However, the testing lacked any real scientific value, and taking his background into account and other political influences, it was almost predictable that LMS practice was largely followed by the new standard designs regardless, and it is therefore hardly surprising that nearly all of Riddles’ final products would closely resemble the designs pioneered by the LMS, in particular those locomotives which were products of Stanier and Ivatt.
However, the trials were useful publicity for BR to show the unity of the new British Railways. By 1950 the first of the new express locomotive designs had been finalised at Derby and later that same year, the British Transport Commission placed an order with Crewe Works for the building of twenty-four of the type. What came forth from Crewe on 2nd January 1951 was a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive looking bearing a significant resemblance to the Coronation class of engines designed by William Stanier, also previously with the LMS. The imposing engine, finished in a plain black scheme with no lining, was scheduled for a test run between its birthplace and Carlisle on 11th January 1951, a dynamometer carriage being one of the consists of the train it was to haul. After the run, which proved to be a promising start for the type, the locomotive, numbered 70000, was repainted into the much more familiar lined BR Brunswick Green and delivered to Marylebone station on the penultimate day of January to be named. No. 70000 was appropriately called ‘Britannia’, after the female personification of the British Empire, and it marked a very promising step forward for BR.
To mark the Sixtieth Anniversary of the 1948 Locomotive Exchange Trials, in 2008 Hornby Railways produced a Limited Edition Model of a 4-6-2 West Country Class Locomotive ‘Bude’ No 34006. This model, represents the classic pairing of a Southern Region Bulleid Pacific with a Stanier Tender. For the collectors out there, the Hornby R2685 West Country Class ‘Bude’ with Stanier Tender was only produced in a limited run of 2008 and each of the model trains came with a numbered Certificate of Authentication.
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