LMS Route: Nuneaton to Coventry

Foleshill Station: lnwrf1476

Another view of Stanier's 8F No 48686 in charge of the train of oil tank wagons with the first four being fitted with a pair of bogies on 24th June 1961. A total of 852 were built between 1935 and 1946, although not all were built to LMS order, and they can be described as a 2-8-0 freight version of William Stanier's successful 4-6-0 Black Five design. The 8F design incorporated the two-cylinder arrangement of the Black Fives. Whilst the boiler looked similar to the 4-6-0 design it was not interchangeable, a major surprise given that the GWR, where Stanier had spent most of his working life, pursued the full interchangeability of parts to the 'nth' degree. The 2-8-0 locomotives were initially classified as being 7F, but this was later changed to the more familiar 8F power rating. On the outbreak of the Second World War, the design was chosen to become the country's standard freight design, reprising the role the GCR 8K Class had in the First World War. The War Department had 208 8Fs built by Beyer Peacock and the North British Locomotive Company and requisitioned a further 51 from the LMS. Production of the class continued until 1943, when the cheaper WD Austerity 2-8-0 designed by Riddles, once an underling to Stanier, was introduced.

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