LMS Route: Grand Junction Railway

Hamstead and Great Barr Station: lnwrgb4461

Ex-LNWR 4-4-0 No 1915 Renown Class 'Implacable' passes through Great Barr on an up passenger service circa 1923. The Renown Class were rebuilds of FW Webb's 4-cylinder compounds of the Jubilee and Alfred the Great classes. Rebuilt as 2-cylinder simple engines by George Whale the programme was continued by Charles Bowen-Cooke. The first to be rebuilt was No 1918 'Renown' in 1908 and as with other rebuilt members of the class, retained their original numbers. Unusually for the LNWR, the parent classes also had logical number series. Thus the Renowns were all numbered in the 1901–1940 series for LNWR ex-Jubilee Class locomotives and 1941–1980 for the locomotives derived from the Benbow class. In 1920, locomotive No 1914 'Invincible' was renumbered as No 1257 as the number 1914 was then taken by the Claughton Class war memorial engine No 1914 'Patriot'. In 1923 the London, Midland and Scottish Railway acquired all 56 members of the rebuilt Renown Class then built. The LMS allocated these locomotives the numbers in the 5131–5186 series, listed according to date of rebuilding, though not all numbers were applied before withdrawals started in 1928. Meanwhile, the LMS renumbered the existing compounds into the 5110–5129 series (though again some were withdrawn before numbers could be allocated, and others were allocated numbers but not applied), and converted another 14 of these, which retained their numbers, thus taking the total for the class up to 70. All were gone by 1931 and none was preserved.

Photographer HL Salmon courtesy of John Alsop.

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