The 1948 Locomotive Exchanges The express classes
Almost 73 years ago Britain was an austere, grey and war-ravaged country teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, with the Labour government of Clem Attlee undertaking a radical policy of nationalization. On 1 January 1948 the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission came into being (British Railways as such did not appear until 1949), and within weeks it was announced that there was to be a comparative interchange of express, mixed traffic and freight locomotives between the new regions that had replaced the private companies. At this news, railwaymen, enthusiasts and newspapers became very interested in the events about to unfold.
Of course such trials were not new. The Rainhill Trials of 1829 were notable for proving the efficacy of the Stephenson smoke-tube boiler. The North Eastern Railway tested Simple and Compound versions of the same basic design, and also one of its Compound Atlantics against a Midland Compound. Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway and Great Northern Railway 4-4-0s were pitted against each other. However, it was the trials arranged between 1908 and 1910 that proved more long-lasting on future developments – 1909 saw the London & North Western Railway comparing its ‘Precursor’ 4-4-0 class against a GNR ‘Large’ Ivatt Atlantic, and later a London, Brighton & South Coast Railway Marsh ‘I3’ superheated 4-4-2T, with the latter ‘I3’ conclusively proving the advantages of superheating. An ‘Experiment’ 4-6-0 was also trialled against the Caledonian Railway’s 4-6-0 Cardean and a North British Railway Reid Atlantic, and then 1910 saw the vindication of Churchward’s ‘Star’ class when still saturated as Polar Star proved its prowess between London (Euston) and Crewe.
More momentous were the events of 1925 and 1926 when ‘Castle’ class 4-6-0s proved Swindon’s technological advances over the LNER and LMS – Nos 4074 Caldicot Castle and 4079 Pendennis Castle were tested against Gresley’s ‘A1’ Pacifics and showed the advantages of long-travel valve gear, the outcome being the almost universal adoption of this feature, and GWR No 5000 Launceston Castle was loaned to the LMS in the autumn of 1926 and paved the way for the abandonment of Fowler’s Compound Pacific in favour of the ‘Royal Scot’ class 4-6-0s.
The 1948 trials were to be in a different league to those that had preceded them. Express, mixed traffic and freight types were to be compared and the testing would take place over a period of five months, from mid-April to the end of August, as only three dynamometer cars were available. This meant that the Euston to Carlisle, King’s Cross to Leeds, and Paddington to Plymouth trials could run between 19 April and 28 May, with the Waterloo to Exeter tests run between 31 May and 25 June. Those locomotives running on ‘foreign’ lines would work a down train on Tuesdays and Thursdays and up trains on Wednesdays and Fridays to give their crews a chance to get to know the routes, with the test running proper the following week. The test trains were to be normal timetabled services (see Table One) but with the addition of a dynamometer car.
It was arranged that all the locomotives would have run between 15,000 and 25,000 miles since their last general repair and be taken straight out of traffic for the tests. They were to use the same coal, South Kirkby ‘Barnsley Hards’, which would disadvantage the Western Region locomotives as they were designed to burn Welsh steam coal. The trains would be made up to agreed weights and be manned by their normal crews. Little or no instructions were given to the crews or pilotmen on how they should fire or drive their locomotives, particularly
