WWW No.166

Update -    This picture of Negative No. 22163, was published on page 147, May/June 2013 Journal and the answer at page 184, July/August 2013 Journal.

This picture has been reproduced in the October 2015 edition of Backtrack magazine.  The caption therein gives the location as Nottingham Midland station, whereas Stockport was stated the Journal (July/August 2013).  The caption further states that the 0-6-0 North Staffordshire Railway locomotive is piloting a LNWR 2-4-0 on a Yarmouth - Liverpool Lime Street through train, c1928.  The 0-6-0 was withdrawn by the LMS at the end of 1928.  Members are invited to comment in respect of the stated locations, the departure and destinations associated with the two sets of information so that we might remove any doubts about the answer.

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Answer to 166

Page 147 May/June 2013 ‘Journal’, Negative 22163A.

As stated with the published picture the identity of the leading locomotive was clear, North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) 0-6-0 No. 67. This can be amplified as follows - this locomotive was one of thirty NSR Class E locomotives built between 1871-1877. Originally numbered 67 the locomotive became LMS 2340 in 1923 when LMS numbers were allocated and in 1928 the surviving engines of the class were renumbered 8650-8664 to make way for the new Fowler 2-6-4Ts. This locomotive being renumbered 8662. The first of the class was withdrawn before 1923 and the last in 1934.

The LNWR ran trains between Manchester London Road and Euston via the NSR route through Macclesfield and Stoke to Colwich. The lamp code and combination of NSR and LNWR engines places the train as one of these.

A central lamp iron on the buffer plank of the pilot engine would set the earliest date in the mid-1890s. The name on the train engine is not readable but it is identified as a Webb ‘Improved Precedent’ (Big Jumbo) as running from 1887 until displaced from principal trains shortly after the turn of the century. The reason for a pilot engine is unclear. Gradients on the North Stafford road around Macclesfield are distinctly sharper than the 1 in 300 or so of the majority of the route to Euston so perhaps the NSR engine had been provided to assist a train made up more heavily than usual. Other possibilities are that the 0-6-0 is being worked (accompanied) back to its home shed.

The roof of the station shows its ownership to be North Western so that the train is on the LNWR section from Manchester to Macclesfield. The train is stationary so it is probably at Stockport.

In conclusion therefore it is a LNWR Euston-Manchester London Road express at Stockport station around the turn of the century hauled by an Improved Precedent piloted by NSR No. 67. The photograph is from the W.A. Camwell collection.

Information supplied by Mike Wheelwright and R. Wood is acknowledged with thanks.