LMS Route: Birmingham - Soho - Perry Barr - Birmingham

Hansdworth Wood Station: lnwr_hw1523

An unidentified LNWR 2-4-0 'Jumbo' locomotive heads a train out of the tunnel and en-route to New Street circa 1900. The Improved Precedent Class or 'Jumbo' class was a 2-4-0 locomotive originally designed by FW Webb for express passenger work. The one hundred and sixty-six class members were built in batches at Crewe works between 1887-1897 with two further additions in 1898 and 1901 respectively. They were officially rebuilds of ninety-six Newton Class and eighty Precedent Class, though in reality they were paper rebuilds, that is they were recorded in the asset register as rebuilds for accountancy purposes, even though they were entirely new locomotives with little if anything remaining of the original locomotive. When they were rebuilt they kept the same numbers and names of the locomotives they were replacing and as a result the LNWR numbering system which did not allocate a set series of numbers to a class continued to be completely haphazard.

Withdrawals of the class started relatively soon after their introduction commencing in December 1905. The LMS acquired eighty upon the grouping of 1923, and gave them the power classification 1P. The LMS assigned these locomotives a series of numbers 5000 to 5079, each locomotive carrying a number in order of its build date, though not all received them as withdrawals continued apace. By the end of 1933, only No 5001 'Snowdon' survived and in April 1934 it was renumbered as No 25001 as part of releasing the 5000 series for Stanier's Class 5 4-6-0 locomotives. However it was withdrawn in October that year prior to carrying the number. One of the class, No 790 'Hardwicke', which was built in 1892 and carried the LMS No 5031, had been withdrawn in 1932 and subsequently preserved as part of the National Railway Collection

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