LMS Route: Birmingham West Suburban Railway

Bournville Shed: mrb675

LMS 3MT 2-6-2T No 168 seen stabled at the back of Bournville shed on Sunday 4th July 1948. It may have been awaiting a works visit as two months after the photograph was taken, in September 1948, it was renumbered as British Railways No 40168. It obviously returned to Bournville as it was still on their allocation in 1950. But in the late fifties only one stored example of the class was to be found there. Built in December 1937 at the Derby works of the LMSR, No 168 entered service as a member of a Stanier designed standard class eventually totaling 139 engines. These were all withdrawn from service in the period 1959 to 1962, being early victims of modernisation. No 40168 ended up at Kirkby-in-Ashfield shed in Nottinghamshire. It was withdrawn from service there in October 1961, but stored there until 1963, when it was sent for scrap to Albert Looms Breakers in Derbyshire.

John Dews

back