27th January 2020 · ‘The L & Y in LMS Days’

Presenter: Noel Coates

For our first evening meeting of the year on Monday, 27th January, we welcomed back Noel Coates from Burnley with his talk – the L & Y in LMS days – Developments in the Central Division during the LMS era. Noel broke his talk down to three main categories – Rebadging, Renumbering and Reliverying.

We saw locos in dark grey and LMS red, coaling plants, signal boxes, wagons etc. Also Rail Motors (where the fireman was on the footplate and the driver at the end of the carriage!), one of which survived into BR although it never received a number.

The 3 Rail Buses were also shown in 1934 before they moved to Scotland in 1947.

It was interesting to learn how old large letters and numerals were used up, which in some cases didn’t give an aesthetic effect!

We saw Liverpool Overhead Rly, Hughes 4-6-T Dreadnoughts (so named because of their size) including 11114 on show at Wembley in 1925 and 11112 at the Stockton and Darlington Centenary of the same year.

The General Strike of 1926 showed the police presence at Agecroft Shed which caused locos to be converted to oil burning. Also at Agecroft we saw two 0-8-2 tanks testing the new 70ft turntable.

Accidents were not overlooked either, with the Lytham accident of 1924 when loco 1105 was derailed due to a tyre failure, 15 people losing their lives.

We finished with Horwich Works assembling the USA S160, class 2-8-0s which were brought over during 1944.

An excellent show!