LMS Route: Stratford Midland Junction - The Shakespeare Route

Stratford on Avon Station: smjsa237

British Railways built L1 2-6-4T No 67740 with three brake vans in tow pauses at Stratford Old Town on 25th April 1960. This was a special train for the ex-LNER men learning the SMJ route from Broom to to Woodford Halse. Built by the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow in November 1948, No 67740 was to remain in service until July 1961 when it was withdrawn from 2F Woodford Halse shed. When first built No 67740 was equipped with a steam brake with vacuum ejector. Thirty of L1 locomotives were authorised by the LNER in April 1944, and the first locomotive (LNER No 9000) was completed in May 1945. This was the only tank engine built by the LNER that was painted in lined apple-green livery. The LNER's 1945 Modernisation Plan included a total of 110 locomotives, including No 9000 and despite the first order being placed in 1944, No 9000 would remain the only L1 in service until Nationalisation in 1948. In 1948, Darlington built the remaining twenty-nine locomotives from the original order of thirty. The plan for one-hundred and ten was eventually reduced to one hundred, with the remaining seventy being built between 1948 and 1950 by the North British Locomotive Company and Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn.

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