LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Nuneaton

Water Orton Station: mrwo1044

Ex-LMS 8P 4-6-2 No 46239 'City of Chester' leaves the Leicester line whilst heading a parcels service on 3rd May 1964. The train had been diverted due to the electrification work being carried out on the Trent Valley line. The Coronation Class was a designed by William Stanier as an enlarged version of the LMS Princess Royal Class. Initially examples of the class were built in streamlined form due to the success of Gresley's A4 class, though this was later removed. The non-streamlined locomotives were often referred to as Duchesses, though to enginemen they were often known as Big Lizzies. They were considered by many as the most powerful passenger steam locomotives ever to be built for the British railway network, estimated at 3300 horsepower and making them far more powerful than the diesel engines that replaced them. By 1964 however they were reduced to working parcels services etc and when the lines went live south of Crewe in August 1964, they were banned and very quickly scrapped.

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