LNER Route: Leicester to Marylebone

Rugby Central Station: gcrgen312

Another view of British Railways built L1 2-6-4T No 67767 and Austerity 2-8-0 No 90697 after the accident on Wednesday 28th March 1962. The station, the front of which can just be seen, is on the other side of the bridge carrying Hillmorton Road over the railway. The L1 class were unusual insofar that the prototype LNER No 9000, designed by Edward Thompson, was built in 1945, but the remaining ninety-nine members of the class were built under British Railways jurisdiction from 1948 to 1950. Thirty of these new L1 locomotives were authorised in April 1944, and the first locomotive was completed in May 1945. This was the only tank engine built by the LNER that was painted in lined apple-green livery. The LNER's 1945 Modernisation Plan included a total of 110 locomotives, including No 9000. Although the first order was placed in 1944, No 9000 would remain the only L1 in service until Nationalisation in 1948 when Darlington works built the remaining twenty nine locomotives from the original order of thirty. The plan for one hundred and ten was eventually reduced to one hundred with the remaining seventy being built between 1948 and 1950 by the North British Locomotive Company and Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn. (information courtesy of www.lner.info)

Tony Newman

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