The Duchesses

Yesterday I was wondering if Norman could guess what my all-time favourite West Coast Main Line motive power would be and of course this is it - the 'Duchess' Pacifics built in the 1930's by Willian Stanier. The West Coast route from London to Scotland used to pose some real operational problems because between Lancaster and Penrith trains had to climb up to Shap summit. This was nothing too impressive by North American standards but it still caused problems for heavy expresses in the days of steam and the weather over the fells could be pretty arctic too.

Stanier's Pacifics were purpose built with this need for extra power in mind - big four cylinder engines with enormous fire-boxes - and in Britain of course hand-fired by a sweating fireman armed with a shovel who might expect to shift five tons of coal between London and the locomotive change at Carlisle.

Though they were designed for power they could be exceedingly fast too. I used to love to grice on the platform at Penrith where expresses coming down the bank with an open throttle would usually pass by up around the 'ton'. For a short time one of the class even held the world speed record - I'll write about that another day.

They had a weird collection of names for such lovely engines - an assortment of royalty, gentry and various cities served by the LMS. WIth my local connections I guess I have to say my favourite was 46243 'City of Lancaster'!

Here's 46242 'City of Glasgow' at Easter 1961 and just how I remember them! She's on an up express at Wreay, near Penrith and building up a fair head of speed and steam for the big bank a few minutes ahead. You would have heard and smelled her a mile away!

The photo is courtesy of the Roundhouse book "LM Pacifics: A Pictorial Tribute". Long out of print but you can find a second-hand copy here