LMS, 8F Class, 2-8-0, 48035 - Era 3

By 1939, 126 locomotives had been built for the LMS and, impressed by the wide routing availability and ability to negotiate curves of just 4½ chains, the War Department selected the 8F as its first standard design for overseas service, eventually ordering or requisitioning 228 locomotives which served in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Israel, Palestine and Turkey, as well as the United Kingdom. Once hostilities ceased, these locomotives were either sold to the incumbent state railways or repatriated to the UK and absorbed into British Railways.

On the home front, the Ministry of War Transport had also selected the 8F as the standard wartime freight locomotive, with the result that a further 450 locomotives were built; 205 for the LMS at Crewe, Horwich and North British and 245 by the other three regions, at Ashford, Brighton and Eastleigh, Darlington and Doncaster, and Swindon. The LNER even went as far as constructing a further sixty eight as Class O6, these being transferred back to the LMS in a ‘swap’ for War Department 2-8-0 locomotives.

By the time that the final engine was built in October 1946, 852 8F locomotives had been constructed, of which 666 made it onto the British Railways stockbook, with 150 still being in service in January 1968. The 8F had become the largest class of Stanier locomotive, the fourth largest class of British locomotive and at the end of British Rail steam in August 1968, represented more than half the total of steam locomotives still in service. It is also the only British locomotive type to have been constructed by all of the rail companies, this taking place in eight different workshops, as well as at three different contractors.

Locomotive 8035 was built at the Vulcan Foundry Works as Works No.4712 and entered traffic in August 1936, avoiding the War Department ‘draft’. Post-war, the locomotive operated across the Midland region, operating from ten different sheds, the longest allocation being at Rugby between June 16, 1957 and January 9, 1965. Renumbered to 48035 in June 1948, the locomotive was withdrawn from service at Tyseley in March 1967.

Maximum curve  Hornby 2nd radius + / 438mm+