LMS Period Locomotives: lnwrbns_lms520

An evocative photograph of an unidentified LMS 2-6-0 'Horwich Crab' standing at the East end of Platform 1 on a semi-fast up express circa 1928. On the left of the photograph are the South Staffordshire bays which were used by both Coventry and Walsall local passenger services, the latter via the old Grand Junction route through Aston. Paul Elkin writes, 'The man with in a suit with a cap and a coat or tool-bag on his shoulder is my father William Elkin who was born in 1907 in Wolverhampton. He worked for Gibbons the art metal and locksmith firm and was at the time that photograph was taken was probably fitting new bank grills/ staircase handrails etc. to one of the various businesses and banks that Gibons fitted out at that time. The picture with my father in it is purely coincidental; I first spotted it in Whitehouse and Thomas's LMS 150 page 69. It is unmistakably my father partly because he always stood slightly on the right leg as he had broken his left leg as a boy and, after developing osteomyelitis, his leg was only saved by years of pioneering bone-grafting surgery just after the end of WW1. Although he retained the use of his left leg it was always a bit gammy and gave him that very characteristic stance that I would recognise anywhere.'

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