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拍品專文
The Prototype
The 'Royal Scot' Class 4-6-0s of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) had a more than interesting history, being subject to what amounted to a total mid-life reincarnation of which the model here offered represents the first example to be so treated. The original design was introduced in 1927 and no fewer than 50 were built 'straight off the drawing board' by the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow during that year. They were large parallel boiler three-cylinder machines intended mainly to handle the heaviest trains between London (Euston) and Glasgow along the 400 plus miles of what was and still is known as the West Coast Main Line (WCML).
The locomotives were an instant operational success and completely revolutionised services on the WCML during their first few years, performing prodigious feats of haulage, probably unequalled by any other British design of comparable size, especially when train loads and frequency were taken into account. They were also put to good use on the other principal LMS main line services between Euston and, inter alia, Carlisle, Holyhead, Liverpool and Manchester. So successful were they that only three years after their introduction, the LMS saw fit to build 20 additional examples in its own workshops at Derby.
Unfortunately, after their first few successful years, their coal consumption began to rise alarmingly and their general maintenance started to become more excessive (and expensive) than would be expected for such a new design. This was broadly coincidental with the arrival on the LMS in 1932 of a new Chief Mechanical Engineer, William Stanier, who came from Swindon (GWR) and had been much involved with locomotive developments at that establishment from the time of the famous G.J. Churchward onwards. Stanier therefore knew more than a little about the reasons behind the success of GWR types (that was, after all, why the LMS had appointed him) and soon began to make his mark on LMS locomotive matters by way of a whole range of brand new designs, most of which replaced less efficient older types which were now becoming life-expired anyway.
However, the Royal Scots were by no means life-expired; indeed, some of them were hardly old enough to be past their first heavy overhaul, while their boilers (albeit old-fashioned by Stanier standards) had many years of life left in them. But they were still essential to run the traffic, so Stanier began to address their loss of efficiency with some urgency and soon realised that most of it stemmed from less-than-perfect design detail in the first place. Over the next few years, numerous detail changes, many of them quite small and most of them Swindon-inspired, were applied to the Scots and by the later 1930's, now paired with larger Stanier design tenders, they were fully 'on song' again.
By the early 1940's, however, their parallel boilers began to fall due for renewal (for this type of boiler, a life of some 15-20 years was about par for the course unlike the Swindon type which usually lasted much longer), so Stanier then addressed this problem. During the early war years, heavy-duty 4-6-0 power was still very much needed, despite the new 4-6-2s which Stanier had built. He also felt that he could make the Scots even better, if given a reasonably free hand, and thereby managed to persuade LMS management to agree to their complete rebuilding, using his own, Swindon-inspired, taper boiler and trapezoidal firebox in replacement of the life-expired parallel boilers. This went along with many other detailed refinements (not least the internal steam passages) and apart from the re-use of wheels, chassis, motion components and, strangely, the original 1927 style cab, there was not too much left of the original locomotive part when they came back into service from 1943 onwards. They also retained their replacement Stanier tenders and though not exactly brand new machines, they were not far off, the LMS coyly and officially referring to them as "converted" rather than "rebuilt".
Whatever, though not emerging until after Stanier had been seconded from the LMS by the Government for other wartime duties, they were his final design and some would say his finest. Taking as their basis a modified version of the boiler designed for Stanier's first Class 6P 4-6-0 No. 6170 British Legion (rebuilt in 1935 from the unsuccessful experimental high pressure 4-6-0 Fury), the conversion of the main batch of Royal Scots was an unqualified success and resulted in arguably the most powerful and efficient express passenger 4-6-0 ever to run in Britain in terms of general horsepower. They competed on level terms in the 1948 Locomotive Exchanges alongside the GWR 'King' class 4-6-0s and three different 4-6-2 designs from other British companies (all of which were nominally regarded as one power class higher than the Scots) and probably performed better all round than any others tested in the Express Passenger category.
The first 'proper' converted Scot was the example represented by this handsome model. It came out in June 1943 in utility wartime livery, but the model is offered in the painting style adopted by the LMS for all the class once conditions had returned to something like normality in 1946. The conversion of the whole class ran on well into BR days and in their later days, all of them carried smoke deflector shields, the latter not being fitted to No. 6103 until the BR period. From 1951 onwards, BR classified them 7P rather than the LMS 6P and 6103 (now 46103) was withdrawn from service in December 1962.
The 'Royal Scot' Class 4-6-0s of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) had a more than interesting history, being subject to what amounted to a total mid-life reincarnation of which the model here offered represents the first example to be so treated. The original design was introduced in 1927 and no fewer than 50 were built 'straight off the drawing board' by the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow during that year. They were large parallel boiler three-cylinder machines intended mainly to handle the heaviest trains between London (Euston) and Glasgow along the 400 plus miles of what was and still is known as the West Coast Main Line (WCML).
The locomotives were an instant operational success and completely revolutionised services on the WCML during their first few years, performing prodigious feats of haulage, probably unequalled by any other British design of comparable size, especially when train loads and frequency were taken into account. They were also put to good use on the other principal LMS main line services between Euston and, inter alia, Carlisle, Holyhead, Liverpool and Manchester. So successful were they that only three years after their introduction, the LMS saw fit to build 20 additional examples in its own workshops at Derby.
Unfortunately, after their first few successful years, their coal consumption began to rise alarmingly and their general maintenance started to become more excessive (and expensive) than would be expected for such a new design. This was broadly coincidental with the arrival on the LMS in 1932 of a new Chief Mechanical Engineer, William Stanier, who came from Swindon (GWR) and had been much involved with locomotive developments at that establishment from the time of the famous G.J. Churchward onwards. Stanier therefore knew more than a little about the reasons behind the success of GWR types (that was, after all, why the LMS had appointed him) and soon began to make his mark on LMS locomotive matters by way of a whole range of brand new designs, most of which replaced less efficient older types which were now becoming life-expired anyway.
However, the Royal Scots were by no means life-expired; indeed, some of them were hardly old enough to be past their first heavy overhaul, while their boilers (albeit old-fashioned by Stanier standards) had many years of life left in them. But they were still essential to run the traffic, so Stanier began to address their loss of efficiency with some urgency and soon realised that most of it stemmed from less-than-perfect design detail in the first place. Over the next few years, numerous detail changes, many of them quite small and most of them Swindon-inspired, were applied to the Scots and by the later 1930's, now paired with larger Stanier design tenders, they were fully 'on song' again.
By the early 1940's, however, their parallel boilers began to fall due for renewal (for this type of boiler, a life of some 15-20 years was about par for the course unlike the Swindon type which usually lasted much longer), so Stanier then addressed this problem. During the early war years, heavy-duty 4-6-0 power was still very much needed, despite the new 4-6-2s which Stanier had built. He also felt that he could make the Scots even better, if given a reasonably free hand, and thereby managed to persuade LMS management to agree to their complete rebuilding, using his own, Swindon-inspired, taper boiler and trapezoidal firebox in replacement of the life-expired parallel boilers. This went along with many other detailed refinements (not least the internal steam passages) and apart from the re-use of wheels, chassis, motion components and, strangely, the original 1927 style cab, there was not too much left of the original locomotive part when they came back into service from 1943 onwards. They also retained their replacement Stanier tenders and though not exactly brand new machines, they were not far off, the LMS coyly and officially referring to them as "converted" rather than "rebuilt".
Whatever, though not emerging until after Stanier had been seconded from the LMS by the Government for other wartime duties, they were his final design and some would say his finest. Taking as their basis a modified version of the boiler designed for Stanier's first Class 6P 4-6-0 No. 6170 British Legion (rebuilt in 1935 from the unsuccessful experimental high pressure 4-6-0 Fury), the conversion of the main batch of Royal Scots was an unqualified success and resulted in arguably the most powerful and efficient express passenger 4-6-0 ever to run in Britain in terms of general horsepower. They competed on level terms in the 1948 Locomotive Exchanges alongside the GWR 'King' class 4-6-0s and three different 4-6-2 designs from other British companies (all of which were nominally regarded as one power class higher than the Scots) and probably performed better all round than any others tested in the Express Passenger category.
The first 'proper' converted Scot was the example represented by this handsome model. It came out in June 1943 in utility wartime livery, but the model is offered in the painting style adopted by the LMS for all the class once conditions had returned to something like normality in 1946. The conversion of the whole class ran on well into BR days and in their later days, all of them carried smoke deflector shields, the latter not being fitted to No. 6103 until the BR period. From 1951 onwards, BR classified them 7P rather than the LMS 6P and 6103 (now 46103) was withdrawn from service in December 1962.