Locomotives of The London and North Western Railway - Locomotives Inherited From Constituent Companies

Locomotives Inherited From Constituent Companies

The LNWR was formed in 1846 with the merger of the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway.

The GJR and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway initially had their workshops at Edge Hill. The London & Birmingham workshops were at Wolverton. The Grand Junction built a new works at Crewe 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 Bros, 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 and the North London Railway to form a larger company still called the LNWR.

See:

• Locomotives of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
• locomotives of the North London Railway