LMS Route: Nuneaton to Leamington

Kenilworth Station: lnwrk150a

Close up of image 'lnwrk150' showing the immaculate unidentified LNWR 2-4-0 Improved Precedent class locomotive as it passes through Kenilworth station's down platform. The engine has plenty of steam to spare as is witnessed by the steam rising from the Ramsbottom safety valves. The tender clearly is fully coaled so the locomotive has not travelled far, probably Milverton shed, although it may not have been a Milverton locomotive. Peter Ellis of the LNWR Society writes 'The two trucks immediately behind the engine are "Motor Car Trucks" as shown in "LNWR Coaches" Jenkinson plate 230. They are usually classified as Non-Passenger Coaching Stock rather than goods wagons so it is not strictly a mixed train. Rather it is a first cousin to the Covered Combination Truck to D445A design, although the design is not to be found in the final Carriage Diagram Book.

In general they are associated with the latter days of the Company. Ted Talbot's "LNWR Miscellany I", plate 162, shows an identical vehicle in a train of empty stock in company with two D445 and one D445A, Covered Combination Trucks, on 7th September 1923'. RDB of the LNWR Society writes 'Incidentally this isn't a mixed train at all (as originally described): it carries the usual express passenger head code. The five vehicles heading the train are NPCS, all with vacuum brakes or through pipes so that the passenger carriages following are still properly braked. The two horse boxes and covered combination truck (to D445, built from c.1908) are usual LNWR stock, but the two leading vans are foreign, and look to me to be private owner (belonging to one of the early Coventry motor vehicle manufacturers?). It's a pity that the writing on the side of the leading van is illegible'.

back