A number of different numbering and classification schemes were used for the locomotives owned by the
London, Midland and Scottish Railway
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...
(LMS) and its constituent companies; this page explains the principal systems that were used.
The following abbreviations for the constituent companies are used on this page:
* ''Principal Constituents''
Caledonian Railway
The Caledonian Railway (CR) was a major Scottish railway company. It was formed in the early 19th century with the objective of forming a link between English railways and Glasgow. It progressively extended its network and reached Edinburgh an ...
(CR),
Furness Railway
The Furness Railway (Furness) was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England.
History
Formation
In the early 1840s, the owners of iron ore mines in the Furness district of Lancashire became interested i ...
(FR),
Glasgow and South Western Railway (GSWR),
Highland Railway
The Highland Railway (HR) was one of the smaller United Kingdom, British railways before the Railways Act 1921, operating north of Perth railway station, Scotland, Perth railway station in Scotland and serving the farthest north of Britain. Base ...
(HR),
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) was a major British railway company before the 1923 Grouping. It was incorporated in 1847 from an amalgamation of several existing railways. It was the third-largest railway system based in northern ...
(LYR),
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom.
In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...
(LNWR),
Maryport and Carlisle Railway
The Maryport & Carlisle Railway (M&CR) was an English railway company formed in 1836 which built and operated a small but eventually highly profitable railway to connect Maryport and Carlisle in Cumbria, England. There were many small collieries ...
(MCR),
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...
(MR),
North London Railway
The North London Railway (NLR) company had lines connecting the northern suburbs of London with the East and West India Docks further east. The main east to west route is now part of London Overground's North London Line. Other NLR lines fell ...
(NLR) and
North Staffordshire Railway
The North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) was a British railway company formed in 1845 to promote a number of lines in the Staffordshire Potteries and surrounding areas in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire.
The company was based i ...
(NSR)
* ''Minor Companies''
Cleator and Workington Junction Railway
The Cleator & Workington Junction Railway (C&WJR) was located in West Cumberland in Northern England, serving the towns of Cleator Moor and Workington and intermediate villages. It was mainly used for coal, limestone and iron ore traffic for t ...
(C&WJR),
Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway
The Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway was the section of railway line between Glasgow Bridge Street railway station and Paisley, in the west of Scotland. It was constructed and operated jointly by two competing railway companies as the stem of ...
(G&PJR),
Knott End Railway (KER),
Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway
Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
(S&MJR), and
Wirral Railway
The Wirral Railway was a railway network in the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula, England. Its route was from Birkenhead Park in the east of the Wirral to West Kirby in the west. A branch off this line at Bidston went north to Secombe and ...
(WR)
* ''Later Additions''
Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway
The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, also known as the S&D, SDJR or S&DJR, was an English railway line connecting Bath (in north-east Somerset) and Bournemouth (now in south-east Dorset but then in Hampshire), with a branch from Evercreec ...
(S&DJR) - absorbed October 1936
For information about individual classes and locomotives, see:
Locomotives of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the us ...
Numbering
Constituent Companies
London and North Western Railway
The LNWR inherited its numbering system from one of its constituents, the
Grand Junction Railway
The Grand Junction Railway (GJR) was an early railway company in the United Kingdom, which existed between 1833 and 1846 when it was amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Western Railway. The line built by the company w ...
. In short, locomotives were numbered in a series commencing at 1. No gaps were allowed in the series, so a new locomotive would either be numbered at the end of the series or would reuse the number of an older locomotive.
Older locomotives would then be either withdrawn or renumbered into the 'duplicate list' series used for those no longer in capital stock but which not yet completely life expired. These engines were numbered in various series over time: initially they took an 'A' suffix to the original number, then from 1862 they were renumbered above 1100, from 1870 above 1800, and from 1886 in the 3xxx series.
The GJR and LNWR also named their passenger tender locomotives (indeed, all locomotives were named until 1858), and often the same name and number combinations would be applied to new locomotives as they replaced older ones. The removal of names attached to freight engines after 1863 allowed them to be re-applied to the increasing stock of passenger engines, including those running on the former
London and Birmingham Railway
The London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR).
The railway line which the company opened in 1838, betw ...
area of the LNWR, where locomotives had not been named.
Midland Railway
The MR undertook a wholesale renumbering of its locomotive stock in 1907 based on usage, wheel arrangement, power classification (see classification section below), and age, with locomotives of the same class numbered together. The least powerful and oldest classes took the lowest numbers and locomotives were renumbered in order of age.
When the
London, Tilbury and Southend Railway
The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR), was a British railway company, whose network connected Fenchurch Street railway station, Fenchurch Street station, in central London, with destinations in east London and Essex, including , , , T ...
(LTSR) was absorbed by the MR in 1912, its locomotives were renumbered into this scheme. It had only two tender engines, both 0-6-0 types, and these became 2898 and 2899. The rest were tank locomotives of varying wheel arrangements, which required the adoption of new number ranges at the end of the tank engine series. In all, the number ranges used by the MR were as follows:
Note: While the majority of ex-MR locomotives were left unrenumbered by the LMS at Grouping in 1923, the ex-LTSR locomotives were subject to several renumberings to clear space for new stock, which changed the number ranges set out above.
Post-Grouping Numbering
Shortly after the LMS was formed in 1923, it developed a new numbering scheme for all the locomotives that it had inherited. The scheme dealt with two key problems faced by the new company:
* There were many locomotives with the same number, as each of the constituent companies had used a series starting at number 1
* Many of the constituent companies had numbered their locomotives in a somewhat random way, and the renumbering allowed for all locomotives in the same class to be given consecutive numbers and similar classes to be numbered in blocks
These advantages more than overcame the disadvantage of the effort involved in renumbering almost every locomotive and giving them a number that usually bore no relation to its pre-Grouping identity, except for the
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...
locomotives that had been renumbered along similar lines in 1907 and mostly retained their numbers.
The system comprised four groups of numbers into which locomotives from a set of railways were numbered:
Within each group, locomotives were numbered in blocks which ran (low to high numbers) as set out below. Within each block, the least powerful locomotives took the lowest numbers.
When the
Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway
The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, also known as the S&D, SDJR or S&DJR, was an English railway line connecting Bath (in north-east Somerset) and Bournemouth (now in south-east Dorset but then in Hampshire), with a branch from Evercreec ...
locomotives were absorbed in 1930, they were mostly allocated numbers in the Midland Railway series (appropriate, since the SDJR had been jointly owned by the Midland Railway and many MR designs had been used on the SDJR), though some took numbers in the former LNWR series.
New Locomotives
New-build LMS locomotives were not allocated any particular numbers, but were fitted into the most appropriate division. The unallocated 13xxx series of numbers were also used for new build LMS types.
1932 Renumbering
In 1932, as older locomotives had been withdrawn and new standard LMS designs were becoming more common, it was decided that modifications should be made to the numbering system. In short, all LMS-built locomotives were to have numbers in the 1-9999 series, with pre-Grouping locomotives being renumbered out of that series as required to accommodate them.
The introduction of this scheme involved renumbering both new and old locomotives to put them in the appropriate sequences. During the remainder of the 1930s, numbers were cleared for new locomotives by simply adding 20000 to the numbers of old locomotives.
Diesel shunters, which started to appear from the early 1930s onwards, were numbered in the same series as steam locomotives. Originally a series commencing at 7400 was planned, but it was soon evident that this would not provide sufficient space and it was replaced by a series commencing at 7050. The
prototype mainline diesel locomotives, the first of which was introduced at the end of 1947 just prior to
Nationalisation
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
were given the 'significant numbers' 10000 and 10001.
Application by British Railways
New engines built by
British Railways
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
to ex-LMS designs after
Nationalisation
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
in 1948 continued to use this numbering system, albeit with 40000 added to the numbers to avoid number conflicts with other absorbed engines (see
BR locomotive and multiple unit numbering and classification). There were some minor amendments made by BR, however:
* Former LMS diesel locomotives were numbered in the 10xxx series (mainline locomotives) and 12xxx series (shunters).
* Locomotives numbered above 20000 by the LMS were renumbered into the 58xxx series.
Classification
LMS System
The
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...
introduced a system of locomotive classification based on the power output represented by a locomotive's
tractive effort
As used in mechanical engineering, the term tractive force can either refer to the total traction a vehicle exerts on a surface, or the amount of the total traction that is parallel to the direction of motion.
In railway engineering, the term tr ...
at 50 mph (passenger locomotives) or 25 mph (goods locomotives). This is the
continuous tractive effort
As used in mechanical engineering, the term tractive force can either refer to the total traction a vehicle exerts on a surface, or the amount of the total traction that is parallel to the direction of motion.
In railway engineering, the term tr ...
and is much lower than the
starting tractive effort which is the figure usually quoted in technical publications.
This system was adopted by the LMS and also, from 1948 the nationalised
British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
ways. The classification was made up of a number (representing the power output - 0 being low power and 9 high power) and a letter (representing the type of work the locomotive was intended for), e.g. 4F. Over the years there were some modifications to the system, but the basics remained the same.
The principal downside with this method of classification was that it did not distinguish between particular classes of locomotive, so many very different types would have been classified '4F' for instance.
The tables below provide definitions for the numbers and letters used:
F : Freight (from 1928)
G : Goods (until 1928)
MT: Mixed Traffic (Freight & Passenger)
P : Passenger
XP: Enhanced Passenger (higher end of power range)
A single number without a suffix letter was originally used by the LMS on locomotives that were not of Midland Railway origin until 1928. Thereafter, it was used to indicate a mixed traffic locomotive. Where a mixed traffic locomotive fell into different power ranges, dual classification was used, e.g. 5P4F. From 1953 until 1957 (but remaining painted on locomotives until much later), the suffixes 'FA' and 'FB' were sometimes used to distinguish between freight locos with different load limits due to their braking characteristics on unfitted goods trains.
{{British railway rolling stock numbering and classification
London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Locomotive classification systems