WWW No.166 (Updated to 14 November 2018)

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Interim update - This picture of Negative No. 22163, was published on page 147, May/June 2013 Journal with an initial answer published on page 184 of the July/August 2013 Journal. However, it is now known the original answer was incorrect as to location and a further update is below.

This picture was also reproduced in the October 2015 edition of Backtrack magazine.  The caption therein gave the location as Nottingham Midland station, whereas Stockport was stated the Journal (July/August 2013).  The Stockport answer is now fully disproved. The Backtrack caption further stated that the 0-6-0 North Staffordshire Railway locomotive is piloting a LNWR 2-4-0 on a Yarmouth - Liverpool Lime Street through train, c1928.  The 0-6-0 was withdrawn by the LMS at the end of 1928.  

As stated with the published picture the identity of the leading locomotive was clear, North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) 0-6-0 No. 67. This can be amplified as follows - this locomotive was one of thirty NSR Class E locomotives built between 1871-1877. Originally numbered 67 the locomotive became LMS 2340 in 1923 when LMS numbers were allocated and in 1928 the surviving engines of the class were renumbered 8650-8664 to make way for the new Fowler 2-6-4Ts. This locomotive being renumbered 8662. The first of the class was withdrawn before 1923 and the last in 1934.

A central lamp iron on the buffer plank of the pilot engine would set the earliest date in the mid-1890s. The name on the train engine is not readable but it is identified as a Webb ‘Improved Precedent’ (Big Jumbo) as running from 1887 until displaced from principal trains shortly after the turn of the century. The reason for a pilot engine is unclear. A possibiliy is that the 0-6-0 is being worked (accompanied) back to its home shed.

A member (Mike Fell) has advised the following which is now assumed to be definitive: -

The image has recently been discussed by the North Staffordshire Railway Study Group of which I am also a member. This arose following the purchase of a hard copy postcard of the same image. The reverse of the postcard had the comment: NSR 0-6-0 67 plus LNWR 2-4-0 on Yarmouth - Liverpool (Lime Street) at Nottingham (Midland), Platform 5, circa 1928.
The train would be the ‘Eastern Counties Express’. A train with that title was introduced by the LMS in the summer of 1923. It ran from Manchester and Liverpool to the East Anglian holiday resorts of Cromer, Yarmouth and Lowestoft and included a restaurant car. Initially the train ran in two portions, one from Liverpool (including the restaurant car) and the other from Manchester. The two portions were joined at Stoke-on-Trent, the former headquarters of the North Staffordshire Railway. This pattern continued until the summer of 1927, when the service ran on three days only, Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, when the Manchester portion of the train ran via the Churnet Valley line, stopping at Leek by request, joining with the Liverpool part at Uttoxeter. There were later variations but the service was discontinued during the Second World War and was not resumed.
NSR No. 67, built at Stoke in 1875, was renumbered 2340 under the LMS 1923 scheme at some unknown date and again as 8662 in March 1928. The locomotive was withdrawn in December 1928. I would suggest that the date of the photograph was nearer to 1923 than the suggested date of circa 1928.
More information about the ‘Eastern Counties Express’ can be found in The North Staffordshire Railway in LMS Days, Volume 2, by Basil Jeuda, Lightmoor Press 2012.

The photograph is from the W.A. Camwell collection.

Final update (From Sept/Oct Journal 2018)

The photograph (Neg. No. 22163) for WWW 166 was published at page 147 of the May/June 2013 Journal. The photograph shows a North Staffordshire Railway 0-6-0 No. 67 and an LNWR Webb ‘Improved Precedent’ 2-4-0. Details about the locomotive and associated train operations were included in the Answer published at page 185 of the subsequent July/August Journal. The location was incorrectly stated to be Stockport station.

The Journal for January/February 2016, page 31, included a paragraph wherein the location was queried as the photograph had been published in the October 2015 edition of Backtrack magazine, wherein Nottingham, Midland station was the stated location.

In response to the Journal request for members to comment upon the location and any other elements the May/June 2018 Journal included the comprehensive information supplied by Mike Fell. Notwithstanding, Harry Jack has pointed out that this photograph has been included in a book by Basil Jeuda about the NSR in LMS days with its attribution listed as T. Gordon Hepburn - he was SLS member No 368. He joined early in 1925 and lived in Nottingham, but previously had lived in Edinburgh.
The location is given as Nottingham, date 1924. The renumbering of the NSR loco No 67 is said to have been in 1923, but Bertram Baxter’s NSR loco list (page 244) says that this is “not certain”. So, Basil Jeuda’s “1924” date is certainly possible. Harry has also advised that the LNWR locomotive was named Balmoral.

Information supplied by Mike Fell, Harry Jack, Mike Wheelwright and R. Wood is also acknowledged with thanks.