The London Midland Region took over the English lines of the London Midland and Scottish Railway on 1 January 1948, everything the LMS had worked south of the Scottish border. Its headquarters was at Euston, and it adopted maroon, the crimson lake long associated with the Midland Railway, as its region colour. In 1960 it was the largest of the six regions by route mileage and traffic, running the West Coast Main Line as its principal artery while the first main-line diesels were only beginning to appear alongside a still overwhelmingly steam-worked fleet.
Territory
The region’s spine was the West Coast Main Line from Euston north through Rugby, Crewe, and Preston to Carlisle, where it met the Scottish Region for the run to Glasgow. From St Pancras ran the Midland Main Line towards the East Midlands and Sheffield, and from the smaller terminus at Broad Street the North London suburban services. Beyond the trunk routes the region worked the North Wales Coast line to Holyhead, the Cumbrian lines around the Lake District coast, and the dense commuter networks radiating from Manchester and Liverpool. Its three London termini, Euston, St Pancras, and Broad Street, reflected the separate pre-Grouping companies the LMS had brought together.
Inherited constituents
The London Midland Region inherited the English portion of a company that had itself been a large amalgamation. The principal constituents were the London and North Western Railway and the Midland Railway, the two largest partners in the 1923 formation of the LMS, together with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, the Furness Railway, and the North Staffordshire Railway. The rivalry between the old London and North Western and Midland traditions, expressed in everything from signalling practice to the choice of London terminus, persisted well into British Railways days.
Motive power in 1960
The heaviest West Coast expresses were still worked by the Stanier Coronation, or Duchess, Pacifics, with the Royal Scots and Jubilees on secondary expresses and a large number of Class 5 Black Fives and 8F 2-8-0s handling mixed-traffic and freight duties across the whole region. By 1960 the first English Electric Type 4 diesels, later classified as Class 40, had entered main-line service, an early sign of the change to come, though steam remained dominant on almost every duty. Allocations for 1960 are recorded in the Ian Allan ABC of British Railways Locomotives, Combined Volume.
Electrification of the West Coast Main Line at 25kV AC was beginning in this period, with the earliest work concentrated in the Manchester area. In 1960 it was still an early and localised programme rather than a completed scheme, and the full electric service between Euston and the North West lay some years ahead.
Regional livery
The region’s coaching stock was turned out in maroon, the crimson lake shade carried over from the Midland Railway and adopted across the London Midland Region as its regional carriage colour. Station signs and other lineside fittings followed the same maroon scheme. See the BR maroon livery feature for the shade and its application.
Beeching and after
The London Midland Region lost a substantial part of its branch and secondary mileage under the Reshaping Report, with closures spread through the 1960s across rural Wales, the Peak District, and the many duplicate routes the LMS had inherited from competing pre-Grouping companies. The two trunk routes, the West Coast Main Line and the Midland Main Line, survived as the backbone of the region and remain principal routes today. The wider context is set out in the closures section, and the other regions are compared in the regions overview.
- Awdry, C. (1990) Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies, PSL, London Midland and Scottish section.
- Ian Allan ABC of British Railways Locomotives, Combined Volume, for the 1960 allocation snapshot.
- RCTS Locomotives of the London Midland and Scottish Railway series, for class histories.