The aborted LMS Pacific
In his fascinating book, Locomotives That Never Were (1985), Robin Barnes depicted many locomotive designs that various railway companies had envisaged but for various reasons never brought to fruition. One such design was a for a four-cylinder compound 4-6-2 that would have provided a much-needed boost for the LMS’ motive power from around 1927. Construction of a prototype actually began, only for the LMS board to cancel the project and seek a cheaper alternative.
Chief Mechanical Engineer George Hughes did the preliminary work on the aborted design but retired in 1925, leaving his successor Sir Henry Fowler to continue the work. Some 30 years before Robin Barnes painted his iteration of the unfulfilled locomotive, the Ian Allan Trains Annual of 1958 speculated on how it might have looked. Common to both interpretations is the high running plate and cylinder arrangements favoured by Hughes on his other designs, while the long parallel boiler is a Fowler hallmark. However, whereas Barnes believed that the design would have a Belpaire firebox, the Trains Annual artist has equipped the design with a wide firebox of Belgian inspiration. Hughes is known to have contemplated a similar arrangement for an unfulfilled design of a coal-hauling 2-10-0 for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway. That design was inspired by Hughes’ pre-1914 visit to Belgian State Railways.
Eventually, a later CME would provide the LMS with an exceptionally fine stud of Pacific locomotives, but in 1927 the company’s board baulked at the cost of developing the type. It sought a lower-cost compromise by liaising with the North British Locomotive Co., which offered a design of 3-cylinder simple expansion locomotives that were influenced by the Southern Railway’s Lord Nelson 4-6-0s. These emerged as the Royal Scot Class.
The aborted LMS Pacific
In his fascinating book, Locomotives That Never Were (1985), Robin Barnes depicted many locomotive designs that various railway companies had envisaged but for various reasons never brought to fruition. One such design was a for a four-cylinder compound 4-6-2 that would have provided a much-needed boost for the LMS’ motive power from around 1927. Construction of a prototype actually began, only for the LMS board to cancel the project and seek a cheaper alternative.
Chief Mechanical Engineer George Hughes did the preliminary work on the aborted design but retired in 1925, leaving his successor Sir Henry Fowler to continue the work. Some 30 years before Robin Barnes painted his iteration of the unfulfilled locomotive, the Ian Allan Trains Annual of 1958 speculated on how it might have looked. Common to both interpretations is the high running plate and cylinder arrangements favoured by Hughes on his other designs, while the long parallel boiler is a Fowler hallmark. However, whereas Barnes believed that the design would have a Belpaire firebox, the Trains Annual artist has equipped the design with a wide firebox of Belgian inspiration. Hughes is known to have contemplated a similar arrangement for an unfulfilled design of a coal-hauling 2-10-0 for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway. That design was inspired by Hughes’ pre-1914 visit to Belgian State Railways.
Eventually, a later CME would provide the LMS with an exceptionally fine stud of Pacific locomotives, but in 1927 the company’s board baulked at the cost of developing the type. It sought a lower-cost compromise by liaising with the North British Locomotive Co., which offered a design of 3-cylinder simple expansion locomotives that were influenced by the Southern Railway’s Lord Nelson 4-6-0s. These emerged as the Royal Scot Class.