THE London & North Western Railway is very poorly represented in preservation for such a large company, but it could nearly have been so different. For no fewer than four classes of LNWR express passenger locomotive survived into the British Railways era, only to be summarily disposed of. Their importance was recognised by 8R in the form of official photographs at Crewe Works before the axemen were set to work, yet despite appreciating the significance represented by the ending of an express passenger era, no attempt was made to retain even one of the locomotives for preservation and they were all broken up in the late 1940s - surely one of the most short-sighted blunders in locomotive history. The four types in question were: Bowen-Cooke 'Sir Gilbert Claughton' class 4-6-0. Of these. No. 6004 (formerly Princess Louise) survived in original condition due to the Second World War and was the only such example from 1941 to 1949. It was in LMS red livery when withdrawn and never received its BR number, which would have been 46004.
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