The Book of the Stanier 2-6-0s
When William Stanier, C.B. Collett’s Principal Assistant at Swindon on the GWR, walked out of the Traveller’s Club after a good lunch with Sir Harold Hartley of the LMS, one day in the autumn of 1931, he was looking forward to taking over as CME on the LMS first thing in the new year. At that moment he could hardly have thought that the first design on which he could bring his notions to bear would be a modest and destined-to-be anonymous 2-6-0.
Freight power on the LMS was not nearly as good as Stanier had a right to expect. The Midland 4F 0 6 0 had been widely perpetuated; a good machine, it could have been much better if the axle box bearing surfaces had been man enough for the job. The same failing prematurely terminated the careers of the Fowler 7F 0-8-0s, all the more regrettable for the boiler being an excellent steamer. Similar woes afflicted the Garratts, leaving only the curious Hughes ‘Crab’ 2-6-0s to shine, relatively, on freight working. In the Stanier revolution that was coming, the hordes of 8F 2-8-0s and Class 5 4-6-0s would alter this picture beyond recognition, but it was destined to start in a small way. One of them, ‘The Mighty Mogul’, is prominent in preservation today.
Hardback, 100 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good/Very Good with slight tanning to extreme edges of pages
ISBN: 9781903266809
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