Locomotives of the London and North Western Railway. The London and North Western Railway (LNWR) Locomotive Department was headquartered at Crewe from 1862. The Crewe Works had been built in 1840–43 by the Grand Junction Railway (GJR).
Locomotives inherited from constituent companies
The LNWR was formed in 1846 with the merger of the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway (M&BR).
The GJR and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (LMR) initially had their workshops at Edge Hill. The London and Birmingham workshops were at Wolverton. The Grand Junction built a new works at Crewe Works which opened in 1843, while the Manchester and Birmingham's works was at Longsight.
While the GJR and M&BR locos were mainly by Robert Stephenson and Sharp Brothers, the L&B's were mostly "Bury" types – indeed Edward Bury was its locomotive superintendent. On the GJR, breakages of the inside-cylinder engines' crank axles led to the redesign of several with outside cylinders under locomotive superintendent Francis Trevithick. These later became known as the "Old Crewe" types.
After the creation of the LNWR in 1846, Crewe and Wolverton became headquarters of the Northern and Southern Divisions respectively, with Longsight as the headquarters of the North Eastern Division.
In 1922, the LNWR merged with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR) and the North London Railway (NLR) to form a larger company still called the LNWR.
See: Locomotives of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Locomotives of the North London Railway
LNWR Northern Division
The first Northern Division Locomotive Superintendent (at Crewe Works) was Francis Trevithick, son of Richard Trevithick, who continued to build the basic 2-2-2 and 2-4-0 designs. Alexander Allan was Works Manager at Crewe from 1843 to 1853.
4-2-2 Cornwall (1847)
In 1857, the North Eastern Division locomotive department, with headquarters at Longsight, was absorbed into that of the Northern Division. Trevithick was dismissed and returned to Cornwall with an honorarium, and was replaced at Crewe by John Ramsbottom as Northern Division Superintendent. Ramsbottom began to standardise and modernise the locomotive stock, initially replacing the 2-4-0 goods engines with his "DX" 0-6-0, of which over 900 were built at Crewe from 1858 to 1872.
All LNWR locomotives were painted black from 1873; for many years the goods engines were plain black, but passenger engines were given red, white and blue-grey lining, and most goods engines were similarly lined from the 1890s. Before 1873 locomotives had been green with black lines, and this seems to have been the normal livery from London & Birmingham and Grand Junction times.
John Ramsbottom (1857–1871)
Francis Webb (1871–1903)
George Whale (1903–1909)
Charles John Bowen Cooke (1909–1920) With a reasonably comprehensive fleet, Bowen Cooke arranged exchanges with other railways in 1909 and 1910 to assess the scope for improvements, among which was superheating.
H. P. M. Beames (1920–1922)
George Hughes (1922) In 1922, the LNWR merged with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) to form a larger company still called the LNWR. George Hughes, formerly CME of the L&YR became CME of the LNWR. A year later the enlarged company was grouped into the LMS, and Hughes became CME of the new railway.
LNWR Southern Division
The first Southern Division Locomotive Superintendent was Edward Bury who had been in charge of the London and Birmingham Railway locomotive department at Wolverton since before that railway opened. He resigned in 1847 and later became General Manager of the Great Northern Railway. His successor at Wolverton was James McConnell who had previously worked for the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway at their Bromsgrove works. Among the classes built under his superintendence were the very successful 2-2-2 "Bloomers", developed from a Bury design, and the Wolverton Express Goods 0-6-0 class, built from 1854 to 1863. The Southern Division's trains were longer and heavier, and 0-6-0 locos had been introduced as early as 1845.