The 1948 Locomotive Exchange Trials
Shortly after nationalisation in 1948, the then recently formed British Railways Board (BRB) undertook a review of the locomotive stock it had just inherited from the ‘Big Four’ independent railway companies. What soon became clear was that the entire locomotive fleet was constituted of hundreds of different class types, large numbers of which were getting close to retirement or in some cases, were already life-expired. From the outset the government-owned organisation had to cut costs as soon and as practical as possible. No mean undertaking with a railway almost bankrupted by war. However, efforts began in earnest almost immediately and during its first year, the BRB had enlisted the services of the renowned locomotive engineer Robert A Riddles, formerly of the LMS, to assume responsibility for the Mechanical & Electrical Engineering department. Riddles was given the task of developing a small range of new steam locomortive designs, which would eventually replace the older pre-nationalised classes.
Riddles’ eventual course of action was to utilies the best pre-nationalisation designs and incorporate the finest qualities of each into his new designs, thus procuring the greatest engineering feats from all of the former railway companies. The first step towards creating the new designs were the ‘Locomotive Exchange Trials’. Riddles initiated his proceedings by selecting a quantityof express type locomotives from each of the newly-formed Regions and employing them on ‘foreign’ territory. As an example, LMS engines operated over the Southern Region where there were no water troughs. To compensate for this they were married together with four-axled ex-War Department tenders with larger water tanks. These were specifically given LMS lettering for the occasion. In a similar way, ex-Southern Region locomotives used elsewhere were paired with ex-LMS tenders with water scoops. This gave the design team some important information on how suitable particular locomotive classes were to certain stretches of line.
Having completed the Locomotive Exchange Trials, Riddles’ Chief Draftsmen went back to the drawing board and began to shape the first of the then new ‘standardised’ steam locomotives. Officially, these comparisons were intended to establish the best qualities of the four varying schools of thought of locomotive design in order to incorporate them in the new BR standard designs. However, the testing had little scientific rigour, and taking his background into account and other political influences, it meant that LMS practice was largely followed by the new standard designs regardless, and it is therefore hardly surprising that virtually all of Riddles’ final products would bear much resemblance to the designs pioneered by the LMS, particularly those locomotives which were products of Stanier and Ivatt.
However, the trials were useful publicity for BR to show the unity of the new British Railways. By 1950 the first of the new express locomotive designs had been finalised at Derby and in the same year, the British Transport Commission placed an order with Crewe Works for the construction of twenty-four of the type. What emerged from Crewe on 2nd January 1951 was a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive looking bearing a significant resemblance to the Coronation class of locomotives designed by William Stanier, also previously with the LMS. The imposing engine, finished in a plain black scheme with no lining, was scheduled for a test run between Crewe and Carlisle on 11th January 1951, a dynamometer carriage being one of the carriages it was to haul. After the run, which proved to be a promising start for the class, the locomotive, numbered 70000, was repainted into the much more familiar lined BR Brunswick Green and delivered to Marylebone station on the last but one day of January to be named. No. 70000 was appropriately called ‘Britannia’, after the female personification of the British Empire, and it marked a very promising step forward for BR.
To commemorate the Sixtieth Anniversary of the 1948 Locomotive Exchange Trials, in 2008 Hornby Railways produced a Limited Edition Model of a 4-6-2 West Country Class Locomotive ‘Bude’ No 34006. This model, represents the classic pairing of a Southern Region Bulleid Pacific with a Stanier Tender. For the collectors out there, the Hornby R2685 West Country Class ‘Bude’ with Stanier Tender was only produced in a limited run of 2008 and each of the model trains came with a numbered Certificate of Authentication.
