1930s Britain was a place in which luxury, glamour and boundary pushing were all revered and admired, none more so than within the railway industry. There was strong competition between the London Midland & Scottish Railway and the London & North Eastern Railway, both operating main lines on different sides of the country and wanting to dominate the lucrative London to Scotland traffic.
In 1933 Nigel Gresley, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNER, visited Germany and saw the high-speed streamlined ‘Flying Hamburger’ which the LNER were considering buying but Gresley decided that these diesel locomotives would not be powerful enough for the anticipated passenger capacity. Following trials of his A3 Pacifics, when locomotive No. 2750 ‘Papyrus’ recorded a new maximum speed of 108 mph (173.8 km/h) and completed the London to Scotland journey in under four hours, the LNER authorised Gresley to begin development of a streamlined version of the A3 designed purely for high-speed passenger services.
The resulting 4-6-2 A4 Class three cylinder locomotive had a boiler pressure of 250 psi, vacuum brakes, a fuel capacity of 8 tons and a water capacity of 5,000 imperial gallons. The locomotive and tender had a combined weight of just over 167 tons and regularly achieved a speed of 90 mph in normal service. The innovative streamlined casing was both elegant and practical as it contributed to a more fuel and water efficient locomotive and incidentally created an updraught to lift smoke away from the driver’s vision, which had been a problem with the earlier A3 locomotives.
Following the commercial success of the Silver Jubilee train, other streamlined services were introduced: the Coronation (London-Edinburgh, July 1937) and the West Riding Limited (Bradford & Leeds-London & return, November 1937) for which more A4s were specially built.
My father served an apprenticeship in the Crewe engine works during the 1930s and helped to build some of these superb locomotives. I long for a return of the days of steam hauled trains, the nostalgia of a young trainspotter who spent hours watching these great locos haul passengers and freight through his home station of Rugby on their way from London to Glasgow and other stops in between.
All we have now are our 'Heritage' lines like the Bluebell and Lavender lines in Sussex where it is still possible to enjoy watching these superb feats of engineering in action.
And I have a display case at home to house these detailed models to wonder over.....
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