LMS Route: Trent Valley Line

Bulkington Station: lnwr_bulk1128

Ex-LNER A4 No 60034 'Lord Farrington' is seen passing Bulkington signal box on the up Perth express during the locomotive exchanges sometime between 17th May and the 7th June 1948. Built as No 4903 'Peregrine' at Doncaster Plant in July 1938 No 60034 was renamed and renumbered by British Railways and remained in service until August 1966 when it was withdrawn from Ferryhill shed in Aberdeen to be scrapped in July 1967 by Hughes Bolckow of North Blyth.

In 1948, shortly after the formation of British Railways, the decision was taken to test locomotives from all of the former 'Big Four' companies to find the best attributes of speed, power and efficiency with coal and water. There were two ways of testing and comparing locomotives: either at the Rugby Locomotive testing plant, which wasn't ready until late 1948, or by testing in the field itself. The results of these trials would be used to help design the British Railways Standard design of locomotives.

The express passenger locomotive designs which would be compared were: London Midland Region (former LMS) Princess Coronation class, Eastern Region (former LNER) Class A4, Southern Region (former Southern) Merchant Navy class and Western Region (former GWR) 6000 Class or King class. Three Gresley A4 locomotives were chosen to represent the Eastern Region: E22 Mallard, No 60033 Seagull and No 60034 Lord Farringdon. All of the A4 locomotives had the Kylchap double blastpipe chimney arrangement and were fresh from Doncaster works. Courtesy of 'Wikipedia'.

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