THIS column rarely visits the scenic Cumbrian Coast Line from Carlisle to Carnforth viaWhitehaven and Barrow-in-Furness but Sandy Smeaton has sent details of a run behind LMS 5MT 4-6-0 No. 44932 on September 24, 2022, which I have compared with a run with sister engine No. 44871 on the same line – which, by chance, I timed almost exactly 50 years before on September 23, 1972. I would like to believe that the use of No. 44932 on the near-50th anniversary of the 1972 event was no coincidence but showed that those at Carnforth had deliberately planned it as 44932 had also been used on September 23, 1972 (see image).
No. 44932 was built at Horwich in September 1945 and withdrawn from Rose Grove in August 1968, though it was in store at Carlisle Kingmoor for the previous nine months. It has therefore spent far more years in preservation than in
