Stanier ‘Jubilee’ class 4-6-0 No.45698 Mars, named after the Roman god of war, was a Bank Hall engine in 1955, so unlikely to be seen around my home town of Coventry. In fact, I saw it only once, at Carlisle when I was en route to my first teenage shed-bash of Scotland in August 1955. Mars is the inspiration for some thoughts on military connections with British steam engines and follows my thoughts on the RAF and Bulleid ‘Battle of Britain’ 4-6-2s (Steam World August 2016).
Apart from the Bulleid ‘Pacifics’, the foremost link between steam and the military is found on the former LMSR whose ‘Royal Scot’, ‘Patriot’ and ‘Jubilee’ 4-6-0s all carried names reflecting the country’s military history. Indeed, even the four named ‘Black was a rebuilt ‘Claughton’, which had been named by the LNWR in 1920 as their First World War memorial locomotive. The remainder of the ‘Patriot’ class carried a real mixture of names but included two First World War heroes in and Both served in the Northumberland Fusiliers, Private Sykes winning his VC at the Battle of Arras on April 9 1917 and Private Wood at Vittoria Veneto on October 28 1918; Private Wood later returned to his railway job as a fireman and later driver and supervisor. Another ‘Patriot’ carried the name of the Home Guard of which Private Sykes became a member. Sykes has a commemorative blue plaque on Mossley Station and Wood has a pub named after him in Hazel Grove.
