BR Period Locomotives: lnwrbns_br1821

Built by British Railways Horwich Works in November 1949, Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 No 43049 is wearing a Saltley shedplate in this view of it at New Street Station. The train is standing at Platform 7, the additional through line in front of it being spotlighted by the sun shining through the glass roof of the Midland Railway built train shed. Despite its shabby external condition No. 43049 was a relatively modern mixed traffic engine and it survived until steam's final year, being withdrawn from far away Carlisle Kingmoor shed in August 1967. It met its breaker in December 1967 at the Inshaw works of the Motherwell Machinery & Scrap Company in Scotland.

Dirty looking locomotives were a common sight. During the war there had been a severe shortage of labour, so cleaning engines was not a priority. Unfortunately after the war ended there was not much improvement and by the 1950s it had become worse as privately owned factories competing for labour offered better pay and more sociable working hours than the nationalized railway, particularly in the Midlands and the South. Biographies of railwaymen describe their work with steam locomotives after the war as hard, dirty and poorly paid.

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