Background

In 1936 the London Midland and Scottish Railway decided to introduce a new train between London and Glasgow consisting of nine coaches (292 tons) to a timing of 6.5 hours, even though a test train had done this in under 6 hours. It was decided to call the train ‘Coronation Scot’ named to celebrate the coronation of King George VI in 1937. A decision was made to build a new Pacific locomotive for this service, which was derived from the earlier Princess Royals built 1933/5.

Coronation's nameplate
taken from the illustration

From an early stage a decision was taken, probably by the publicity department, to streamline the engines to show that the LMS was a ‘modern’ railway like its rival the LNER. The Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LMS, William Stanier, was away in India when the detail design work was carried out so this was done by his chief draftsman Tom Coleman, Stanier's personal assistant Robert Riddles and Crewe Works Manager Roland Bond.

The ‘Coronations’ differed from their predecessors, by having a bigger boiler with increased superheating. The driving wheels were 3 inches larger at 6ft 9in and the cylinder diameter was fractionally enlarged to maintain the 40,000lb of tractive effort. The inside valves were operated by rocking levers so avoiding the inconvenience of having inside valve gear. This all led to the production of the most powerful express passenger locomotive built in Britain.

Coronation and her sister
locomotives outside Crew
just after being built

The Record Run

The LMS put on a press special to publicise the ‘Coronation Scot’ on 29th June 1937 (W700) pulled by 6220 Coronation from London Euston to Crewe (158.1 miles in 135 minutes an average speed of 70.2mph). The driver was TJ. Clarke and the fireman C. Lewis, also on the footplate were Robert Riddles and Inspector S. Miller. It was an open secret that the LMS were out to capture the British railway speed record, which was held by the LNER at 113mph, and the section of line between Norton Bridge and Crewe had been fettled up and the maximum speed of 90mph had been lifted.

The trip was unspectacularly until after the 60mph restriction at Norton Bridge, even then the train was not accelerated as fast as it could have been and it topped Whitmore summit at no more than 85mph (later records showed that these locomotives could achieve 95mph here). The speed then increased but it got perilously close to Crewe before the LNER record was approached.

The entry to platform number three at Crewe was over three successive crossovers and the train was braking hard when it reached them and lurched over these sending crockery everywhere. The fact that everything stayed on the track was testament to the design team especially in respect of the leading bogie (brought to the LMS by Stanier from the GWR which George Jackson Churchward had in-turn copied from the French de Glehn compound Atlantics he had acquired for comparison with his own designs)

The maximum speed recorded by the famous railway timers; OS, Nock, Cecil J Allen, DSM Barrie and SPW Corbett was a maximum of 112.5mph but the LMS claimed a peak of 114mph recorded on the chart taken from the speed-recorder on the locomotive. The overall time was 129.75 minutes at an average speed of 73.1mph. The last 1.1 miles to the stop at Crewe was achieved in 1 minute 19 seconds!

The return trip to Euston was probably more interesting as it showed the sustained high speed potential of the ‘Coronation’ class locomotives. The time taken for the journey being 119 minutes at an average of 79.7mph, this included observing speed restrictions of 30mph at Stafford and 40mph at Rugby. The highlight of the run was the 69.9 miles from Walton to Willesden Junction, which was covered in 47 minutes 1 second at an average of 89.3mph, with a maximum speed of 100mph at Castlethorpe water troughs. All this meant the LMS could claim the fastest start-to-stop runs of over 100 and 150 miles.

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