Big Four survivors

In 1960 the fastest and heaviest trains on most main lines were still worked by locomotives designed and built before nationalisation, by the Great Western, the London Midland and Scottish, the London and North Eastern, and the Southern. These were the machines of the Big Four express fleets, many barely fifteen years old and at the height of their working lives. Within eight years almost all would be gone. This sub-hub gathers the classes that survived in front-line service into the 1960s.

By company

London Midland and Scottish

The Stanier Coronation (Duchess) Pacifics on the West Coast expresses, the Royal Scots and Jubilees on secondary duties, and above all the Black Five mixed-traffic 4-6-0 and the 8F freight 2-8-0, built in their hundreds and worked everywhere.

London and North Eastern

The Gresley and Peppercorn Pacifics of the East Coast Main Line, the A4 streamlined class among them, with the V2 2-6-2 on fast mixed traffic and the B1 4-6-0 as the standard general-purpose engine. Numbering and history are recorded in Yeadon’s Register of LNER Locomotives.

Great Western

The four-cylinder Kings on the heaviest Paddington trains and the Castles on secondary expresses, with the Hall, Grange, and Manor 4-6-0s on mixed-traffic work, all carrying the copper-capped chimneys and brass fittings of Swindon practice.

Southern

Oliver Bulleid’s air-smoothed Pacifics: the heavy Merchant Navy class on the principal expresses and the lighter West Country and Battle of Britain Pacifics on the West of England main line, many later rebuilt in more conventional form.

Individual class pages are published in stages. The LMS Black Five page is complete.