Former LNWR premium apprentice Robert Riddles was Stanier's principal assistant on the LMS and moved at the outbreak of war to the Ministry of Supply, where he designed the WD class 2-8-0 and 2-10-0 locomotives. In 1947, he was apppointed by the Railway Executive as chief mechanical engineer of British Railways and went on to give BR a fleet of modern, simple and robust steam locomotives intended to tide it over until such time as widespread electrification of the main line network could be justified.
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