LMS Route: Grand Junction Railway
LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Lichfield
LMS Route: Birmingham-Soho-Perry Barr-Birmingham

Aston Shed: lnwra18

LMS 6P 4-6-0 Royal Scot class No 6164 'The Artists Rifleman' stands adjacent to the main lines on 2nd July 1938. Built at Derby to Lot 73 in September 1930 No 6164 remained in service until December 1962 when it was withdrawn from Darnall shed in Sheffield prior to being stored and finally scrapped by Crewe works. Allocated to Crewe North shed at the time the photograph was taken, No 6164 is in its original parallel boiler form. All of this class were to be rebuilt or 'converted' to carry Stanier's tapered 2A boiler when their boilers and cylinders were life-expired. Another advantage of the new design was that the original locomotives had smokeboxes which were difficult to keep airtight. Between 1943 and 1955 the whole class was rebuilt although the term rebuild was more an accounting term enabling the total costs to be written off against revenue which was far more tax efficient than being added to capital expenditure which would write off the cost over many years. The new 'Rebuilt Scot' design was carried out under the auspices of William Stanier, who was then engaged on war work, and so was actually undertaken by George Ivatt and ES Cox.

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